Wings of Fire: A Twisted Future - Broken Visions

Chapter 3

Almost all the dragonets in the centre flew right after her, abandoning their feasts, which they could eat in peace, mind you, to fight over a scavenger, mind you.
Quietkeep felt mortified — what to do, what to do?! That scavenger had almost no chance in escaping unless it magically found a hole in the mountain that only it could get to, although Permafrost would most likely shoot her frost at it anyway. Quietkeep flicked disapproving glances at the dragonets who decided to move away from their little prey and scavenge from the trophies of the better hunters. Now THOSE were proper scavengers, not poor little creatures with no wings.
Growling at his instinctive but not-following-his-personality-protocol decision, Quietkeep leapt over the fence right as a brown tail disappeared under the outcrop.
The view was like the rainforest, a flurry of colourful wings and tails, all gliding down, searching for the scavenger, when a sparkling white dragonet at the head of the cloud spun around, her tail whipping a SkyWing and a SandWing, and the dove for something tiny. Was that the scavenger?
Quietkeep decided to land on the edge of the outcrop and perch there, observing — it seemed as though it was, judging by the massacre the IceWing female made of it moments later, though something confused Quietkeep. No blood. And something hit his snout.
The NightWing wailed, clapping his talons over his nose, when a scent drifted in. Scavenger. And when he glanced down, he saw something moving, like fur just peering from under the outcrop.
Quietkeep blinked at it, and a scrambled down toward it. When his claws scraped against the stone, the furry thing darted back away from the dragonet's view, but he knew something was there. Most likely he scavenger.
Quietkeep arched his neck, glancing down, to be welcomed by a hissing scavenger, hiding in between a bunch of crooked little outcrops under the larger one, pulling his paw back to throw another stone. His eyes softened and his face went still again as he noticed Quietkeep — he must've been smart enough to distinguish the difference between a normal NightWing and a scrawny, tall NightWing with silver teardrop scales. Or maybe he underestimated scavengers just like ever other dragon that ever lived.
He tipped his head, acutely aware of the roar of anger from Permafrost way down below. She'd probably notice the black dragon peering under the outcrop against the pale blue sky soon, so he had to hide. Maybe he could take care of the scavenger? Wouldn't he learn a little more about them?
But then, what if Avalanche or Urchin eat him instead? Or more so, Avalanche would give it to Permafrost as a sacrifice because he thought of her as a goddess, or Urchin would tie it to the wall and crush it with his tail until it was dead, because he wouldn't eat anything that wasn't seafood.
Still, only hazardous outcomes came both for the scavenger and for Quietkeep if he kept it, so he chose not to. Perhaps leaving him here would he better? How would he get out, though? Wouldn't Permafrost check again soon? Would he manage to escape Jade Mountain before the next break?
Or... Quietkeep could take him to a safer place. Again, his mind and gut telling him two very different things: yes, go save this little one! — are you crazy?! Permafrost will KILL you! or worse... tie you to some weird contraption and leave you there forever on your own with no food or anything!
Well, no socialising sounded pretty good...
Growling at very terrible decisions yet again, Quietkeep reached for the little creature, bit his tongue to stay silent when the scavenger yelped and smacked his claws, curled them around its torso and pulled it in tight. The scavenger writhed, kicking at his stomach, but despite his scrawny form, the kicks of a little being wouldn't be enough for even Quietkeep to let go.
He straightened his back, spread his wings and took off from the outcrop. Dragons glanced up as his shadow passed, and they roared in anger to see the scavenger in his talons.
"He's got it!"
"He's getting away!"
"Is he seriously going to eat it alone? Ah - rude!"
"After him, you idiots!"
That was Permafrost, and he saw the silver dragonet barge past others as she swung her wings faster and harder to go up quicker. Quietkeep soon worked out her crystalline, squinted eyes against her silver face and the snarl they sliced through her snout, and he decided to flap harder and faster too. He had a lot of stamina, which was not what many dragons could say. Hopefully it would last him this dynamic chase.
Dragons appeared at the centre, calling for the dragonets just as the first gong sounded, and let out gasps and hisses to see all their students flying away, chasing after a minor NightWing and his reluctant companion.
Quietkeep tried to reach toward Permafrost's mind and see what she was planning on doing if she caught him, but the only thing that he saw was an ever more blinding wall of ice, so he stayed away from that.
The dragonet felt a claw run down his spine as he soared over his first mountain, trying hard to preserve energy and endurance as he still felt the slowly weakening smacks and slaps from the scavenger, still shivering in his talons. He couldn't blame it - imagine being traumatised in a centre full of hungry, much larger than your creatures with fire or ice and could easily kill you, that would most likely kill you any minute and could chase you down easily unless you magically found a good hiding spot, then got captured by one that was flying off with you, followed by a cloud of enraged dragonets and a little wisp of four or five teachers flapping frantically after all your them. Imagine that. It was kind of like being captured by, say, Darkstalker, and he was now taking you to who knows where without your consent.
Well, say Quietkeep and Darkstalker had good intentions in taking those little beings somewhere else, saving their lives. Those little beings didn't know that and were fighting back with all they had, but they had good intentions nonetheless.
Now Quietkeep was getting tired of all this flapping to who knows where, SkyWings slowly catching up to Permafrost, and, in fact, Cardinal, a SkyWing teacher with maroon scales and brown highlights, was already ordering dragonets back to school and had split away half the cloud. But there was another half plus a dragonet and a scavenger to take care of.
Terror splashed over Quietkeep when he felt something extremely cold tickle his tailtip, and he turned his neck to see Permafrost, much closer than he would've liked, and a red Cardinal pretty quickly gaining length. Hopefully she'd understand.
The dragonet suddenly tipped his wings, curving them in ward to decrease the air pressure against his scales and increase his speed statistically.
The scavenger screamed like never before, and Quietkeep was slightly disoriented by that noise, making him crash into a random tree growing out of the bottom half of a mountain. He flapped out of its way, quickly turning back up just as the IceWing crashed into the tree with a shriek. It didn't have as much of an impact as it did on Quietkeep, and she quickly got back to chasing the two. Seeing that the dragonets had turned, Cardinal decided to not go all the way down and cut through the gap between her and Quietkeep.
The dragonet doubled back, spreading his wings sideways to catch the air and the swung back toward Jade Mountain. Maybe he could get to his room or something before Permafrost caught up. Oooor the other dragonets who were already at the centre and took tue best places to view the chase from afar or the ones that were hovering around the entrance.
Well, that's bad.
The dragonet suddenly beat his wings when a red wall rose up into the air, and he blinked, panting. Cardinal. And her fiery eyes were currently burning, smoke piling out of her nose and curling around her horns, while Permafrost regarded the teacher and the student with an odd spark in her eye.
"We need to talk."