Our Planet has Crashed [COMPLETE]

seventeen - Wings of Fire

Winter's POV:

Winter squinted across the savanna, searching for the little scavengers that Swordtail had said were coming.

But there was nothing to see.

Unless you counted that tiniest bit of dust that was being kicked up, halfway across the savanna.

"You call that an attack?" Winter asked. "Seriously?"

"Uh, well, they're like, uh, like, you know . . . holding sharp things and pointing them at me, so . . ." Swordtail stuttered. "They can be dangerous! They have spears! And these small pieces of metal with pointy sides!"

"They have weapons?" Winter asked, shocked but mostly awed, forgetting about Swordtail's somewhat infuriating idiocy for just a moment.

"But we can take them!" Luna said enthusiastically. "Right?"

"I—I think we should talk to them." Moon suggested nervously. The black dragons was somehow simultaneously wringing her talons with worry, ducking her head with fear and unconsciously twining her tail with Qibli, who was grinning from ear to ear despite the "attack". 

"Well . . . what if they kill us?" Blue asked, somehow looking even more anxious and nervous and frightened than Moon was. Cricket began to wrap a wing around him, then realized that his new wings were blocking her. She frowned but immediately began smiling a smile with a wattage a thousand times more bright than Qibli's when she twined her tail with his.

"Them?" Winter asked disbelievingly and also now very irritatedly. "Kill us? Really?"

"I mean, I saw a vision, so . . ." Moon added.

"Then we should, right?" Qibli said. "Moon's visions are always right."

"Uh . . . what about us?" a SilkWing asked from the webs of Jewel Hive. "The . . . Chrysalis," he said in a hushed voice. "We can try to help."

"Um. Hey! You can... hide! In the Hive!" Kinkajou suggested. "And . . . uh . . . DANCE! Because you should TOTALLY be celebrating not have to go to battle with a bunch of scavengers!"

". . . Maybe not." The SilkWing said with a slight frown.

"Just stay out of the way of the reading—oops, the scavengers." Cricket told him. "Maybe you can also tell Lady Jewel that she should probably let her dragons know never to go close to them?"

"Sure, I'll tell Tau and Cinnabar. They work closely to Lady Jewel." he said, ducking into the Hive.

Wow. This Chrysalis was MUCH more productive (and less obnoxious) than the Talons of Peace. Winter thought he rather liked them.

"Why does no one listen to meeeeeee," Kinkajou whined.

"Can we go already?" Luna asked, impatient.

"I agree," Winter added. "But I will not whine, like some dragons."

"AHEM." Luna said. "I CAN SHOOT FIRE AT YOU."

"I have frostbreath." Winter said nonchalantly.

"Um. What?" Blue asked.

"None of your business."

"Seriously, can we go? Look how much closer they are!" Luna cried.

That was true.

The scavengers had nearly closed up the distance. Approaching the base of the Hive now—much, much faster than even the dragons could fly, somehow—Winter could make out teh tiny faces and arms and two legs he still found odd. Like Swordtail said, they were carrying pointy and sharp things, quite similar to swords and daggers. Did they really make all that?

But the size of their group was really not much larger than a one-year-old dragonet. Winter honestly still couldn't see the danger of them. 

Not until he heard faint shouts coming from the scavengers, and they just . . . did their magic. 

There was one that made fire with her hands, one that outright disappeared, one that snapped and made this oversized sword appear, and another that made water. Winter blinked. They were the magic scavengers! The ones in Moon's visions!

And they were going to attack.