A Place Where Rainbows Grow

Chapter 1 - The Edge of the Rainforest

The southern area of the rainforest was teeming with life. Birds from all reaches of the color spectrum sailed from branch to branch of the canopy high above. Below, vibrant flowers carpeted the ground, like they were the feathers of the birds themselves. Small creatures scurried across the forest floor and into the vast abundance of plants. Rodents, amphibians, reptiles; more than anyone from outside the rainforest could ever imagine. But among them, a much larger lizard, a dragon in fact, made her way through the flora.

Her colors glistened, much like the rainforest itself, and as she made her way into a slightly more open area, her full beauty was shown. She had a pallet of orange, maroon and red, with a frill behind her ear that matched her vibrant yellow and green wing membranes. She picked her way through the patches of orchids and lilies, appreciating each one as she went by.

Agouti had always had an affinity for flowers. She had always loved their complex petal structures and how many kinds of patterns they could produce. Agouti continued walking towards the rainforest's southwestern corner, where it meets the desert near the foot of Jade Mountain. She liked it down here. Sometimes she would come here when she wanted some solitude from the bustling RainWing village and neighboring NightWing complex, or when she let her curious side get the better of her and wanted to come and explore this less documented area. But no matter why she came down this way, she rarely ever saw another dragon, at least not nearby.

She sometimes saw the occasional SandWing a bit further along to where the desert begins, or maybe a group of students heading out of Jade Mountain Academy high above on a hunting excursion or a trip to the lake. But usually, it was just her. It's not that she doesn't want to encounter anyone else; she'd be happy to make friends with anyone new, it just so happens that other dragons don't come to this area all that often. Sometimes, Agouti wished she could meet other dragons on her own accord, but but more often than not, nobody else was nearby.

But one thing Agouti wished she could find is a girlfriend. She'd liked other girls for pretty much her whole life, but she'd never really openly talked about it to anyone. She didn't doubt that the rest of her tribe would be accepting of her if most of them knew; her few close friends she's told viewed her no differently, and the tribe was known as stereotypically easygoing and aloof for a reason, but that voice of "what if they see you differently if they knew?" always rang softly in the back of her head each time she debated telling anyone. So she just kept it to herself usually. She knew nothing was weird about her preference; love is love and that's what matters, but that nagging apprehension was still there.

Continuing to wander through the forest as it began to thin out approaching the desert, Agouti saw a flicker of movement and something glinting in the sunlight. It was a bright flash of gold, which surprised Agouti. There were very few things in the rainforest that would have a metallic glint, much less a gold sheen. Whatever was over there shifted again and raised it's head and Agouti could immediately tell it was a SandWing. But she looked different from any other SandWing Agouti had ever seen. Most of them, even females, were usually tall and strong, whereas this one was short. "Maybe she's just a bit younger" Agouti thought to herself. She shifted her scale color to camouflage with the rainforest and to not startle a potential new interesting friend.

Upon getting a little closer, Agouti could see some interesting traits. This SandWing, though small, appeared to be Agouti's age. She also had jewelry, the likes of which Agouti hadn't seen on a SandWing in this area before. She had a golden chain necklace with two orange and purple jewels on it, as well as two golden hoop shaped earrings and another golden ring on her left horn. However, the accessory that Agouti thought was the most unique was the headdress style thing covered in white feathers that sat on her head just in front of her horns. Even beyond her surprising jewelry, she was very unique appearance-wise. This SandWing was closer to an almost cherrywood color, rather than a sandy tan that most SandWings have. Her frill along her back was a bright tan color, much closer to that of the sand, and it was long and flowy, not rough- and segmented-looking. But out of everything Agouti noticed, perhaps the most striking feature was the dark brown freckles spattered around her eyes and down the center of either flank.

Agouti was so intent on these unique features that she hadn't noticed her own scales had slowly shifted back to their normal colors. Agouti noticed this with a bit of a jump, and the flick of her wing brought the SandWing's attention to her. For a split second before Agouti looked away, she was looking into the SandWing's dark brown eyes.

"Oh! Hi! I didn't see you there, haha," the SandWing spoke cherrily.

"Ah, that's okay," Agouti replied, walking towards her, "hope I didn't surprise you too much."

"Nah, you didn't, it's all good!" the SandWing said with a smile. She gazed around at the rainforest. "Wow, the rainforest is really full of color, isn't it? I've only ever seen it from the edge; I've never explored further in."

"You should definitely check it out sometime. There's tons of birds and flowers and lizards and so much that's so colorful; it looks like a place where rainbows could grow," recounted Agouti, "the vibrancy is great."

"Woah! I've definitely gotta go in there one day!" she said excitedly, "Really the only colors you see out in the desert are those of the sand and the sky, along with the occasional green and white. Sure it's nice and all, but it's not exactly the most exciting color combo."

As she talked, her eyes slowly tracked down and were looking over Agouti's scales.

"And speaking of color combos, I love the colors of your scales. The orange and maroon go really well together."

"Oh! Uh, th- thank you." Agouti was more flustered by this comment than she would've expected, and fought hard to conceal the pink that was trying to push its way across her scales. "I- I like your jewelry..."

"Haha, thanks!" the SandWing chuckled, "I like my jewelry a lot too. I'm not any kind of royalty or anything like that, but luckily I was able to get most of it through my friend Arroyo, who's a higher up in one of the Sand Kingdom's gold mine. They were made from the slightly lesser quality gold that wouldn't be made into coins or whatever, but it's still nice enough to be made into stuff like this! But speaking of Arroyo, I don't think I got your name."

"My name's Agouti," she said, trying not to stutter, "I'm named after this species of little rainforest animal."

"Aw, that's sweet! My name's Rhazz! I'm not exactly sure if it has a deeper meaning or anything like that but it's unique and I like it."

"That is a unique name. I've never heard another one like it."

"Thanks!" replied Rhazz, "Hey, you seem pretty cool Agouti, do you wanna maybe hang out sometime soon?"

Agouti was surprised she didn't react more visibly. Considering how she felt inside, something might as well have leapt out of her chest "Sure, I'd love to. Y- you seem pretty cool as well."

"Awesome! I think the next time I'll be down this way will be in about two days time. I can meet you here around noon then!" Agouti was very happy to see Rhazz talking as excitedly about this as Agouti herself felt.

"Great, I'll see you in about two days then. It was nice meeting you, Rhazz!"

"Ditto Agouti! I can't wait to hang out more! Anyways, I've gotta head back, my friends will be wondering where I am, haha. Alright, I'll see you later!"

"Yep, see you soon!"

Agouti turned around and walked back into the forest, glancing back over her shoulder until she saw that Rhazz had gotten over the first of the great desert's many sand dunes. Once she was out of her line of sight, Agouti finally let her scales say what they've been trying to. Vibrant whorls of colors of all kinds spattered her scales, painting out all of her emotions. She couldn't help but physically hop around as she let her emotions have their time to shine in the dappled rainforest sunlight. She was very glad to have met Rhazz. She was like no other dragon Agouti had ever met. Her humor, her accessories, her personality, her appearance, everything... Agouti spoke to herself:

"She's cute..."

"She's really cute..."

Two days couldn't come fast enough...