1000 Ships, 1000 oneshots, 1000 followers

*Window

Pyrrhia was.....

Well it was definitely NOT what Sundew had been expecting. The two Sea dragons they had traveled with had lead her to think that the new continent was a place full of blue and green sea dragons, surrounded by lakes, rivers, and swamps. A sort of water paradise. 

She was NOT expecting a frozen wasteland. But that's what they got.

The sea dragons had left them to explain their situation to some other dragons- even their colors had confused Sundew. Three of them were black, with little silver spots under their two wings. One was blue, clearly like one of the sea dragons, but another was brown, one was a weird shade of yellow, and the last one seemed to change color every second. It was baffling and just generally overwhelming. Cricket was bouncing around, asking a thousand questions a second, the Leafwings and SilkWings were just kind of standing around in confusion, well, except for a couple of Silkwings that were hugging Luna, Blue's missing sister. Sundew stuck close to Willow, not wanting to lose her in such a strange and confusing place. Willow seemed too in awe of the place to say anything, although she was starting to shiver at the cold, so Sundew was starting to hate where they were. If it made Willow uncomfortable, then she didn't like it at all.

But before she could ask Willow what her opinion was, a black dragon and a sandy colored one with an earring came racing over to them, looking very excited.

"Hi!" The black one said cheerfully. "Um, I'm Moon, and this is Qibli." Earring dragon waved with a grin. "Turtle said you were the ones kind of leading everything, so we figured we should introduce ourselves and answer any questions you might have." She smiled again, and Sundew wasn't sure if she liked the happiness or not. This was certainly NOT a happy situation to be meeting under, after all. Half of Pantala was under mind control via evil plant. 

"I wouldn't say we're leading EVERYTHING," Willow started, her excitement matching Moon's. "But I'll take it." She looked around. "Is... Is the whole continent like this?"

"No. Oh no." Moon shook her head. "You guys are in the Ice Kingdom, so-"

"So naturally it's pretty chill here," Qibli cut in, looking ready to laugh at his poor pun. Willow smiled at him.

"There's actually six different Kingdoms here, and all of their climates are different." Moon explained. "One for each dragon tribe."

"You have SIX dragon tribes here?" Sundew questioned.

"Seven, actually. Why? How many are on Pantala?"

"Three." 

"Oh, well here we have Skywings, Mudwings, Nightwings, Icewings, Rainwings, Sandwings and Seawings. I'm a Nightwing, like Clearsight was. I was told you guys know about her. Qibli is a Sandwing. They live in the desert, and Tsunami and Turtle, who you've met, are Seawings. They live in the ocean or on islands sometimes."

"So there's a frozen ice land," Willow started. "and a desert. Do you guys not have any plants?"

"Of course they have plants, how else would they be alive?" Sundew said. Qibli scoffed.

"Well, if it's plants you're looking for, you'd probably have better luck in the rainforest than here." Sundew and Willow froze.

"Rain-forest?" Willow whispered. A forest? A real life, actual, flourishing forest? They hadn't mercilessly cut down trees here? Sundew was frozen in shock, and she thought Willow looked ready to cry at the thought. Trees were safe here.

"Yeah, the Rainwings and, more recently, Nightwings, live there." Moon said. "The Queen is here, actually, if you want to meet her. She's really awesome." 

"I'll go get her." Qibli offered, running off. Willow and Sundew exchanged a glance.

A whole rainforest.

*******

They went to the rainforest, naturally, and Willow did cry at the number of trees. True to Moon's word, Glory, the rainwing queen, was amazing, although Sundew didn't particularly like her Nightwing bodyguard. He was too smug for her liking. She was, however, thoroughly enjoying Willow's reaction to everything.

"Sundew! Look!" Willow grabbed her and pointed up at a tree, where a fuzzy, silver creature was sitting. Glory laughed.

"Those are sloths," She explained. "The Rainwings keep them as pets." As if on cue, the sloth made its way down the tree and wrapped its arms around Glory's neck, letting out a little happy noise.

"Wow," Willow whispered, taking it all in. Sundew inhaled deeply. Even the air felt better here.

"Which of the plants are dangerous?" She asked as they passed a patch of innocent looking flowers.

"Dangerous?" Glory made a face. "None that I know of. Just watch out for quicksand, and don't eat or lick any toads you come across." Another Rainwing popped out of nowhere, and Willow yelped and jumped at the sudden appearance, crashing into Sundew, who caught her easily.

"Seriously." The Rainwing said gravely. "DON'T. EAT. THE. FROGS." He vanished again, and Sundew and Willow stared at the spot where he'd been. Glory sighed.

"Jambu, we've been over the invisible guard thing, REMEMBER?" She said tiredly.

"Yes." The empty space said. Willow and Sundew exchanged a look, and Sundew suddenly felt very aware of the fact that there were probably a lot more dragons around them than she had originally thought.

They wandered around the forest with Glory and her guard for hours. Willow geeked out over everything, and Sundew watched her with a smile. There was something freeing about being in the rainforest. It was calming, she thought, to not have to worry about Hivewings popping up to kill you every five seconds, if the plants of the poison jungle didn't do that first.

They were joined at some point by a Rainwing Glory called a healer, and Sundew found herself swapping the plants from her pouches with the herbs they used for medicine in the forest. It was fascinating to learn more about them. The whole forest was alive, and it spoke to her, eager that she had arrived. The forest itself was almost as beautiful as watching Willow react to it was.

They ended up crashing in one of the hammocks in the Rainwing village, which had about a thousand things in it that Sundew was noting to include in their home back in the jungle. Glory had provided them with two hammocks, but they had voted to share, not wanting to be apart in a strange place.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Willow whispered, even though they knew every dragon nearby was fast asleep. Sundew looked over at her.

"It is." She agreed, loving the way that Willow's eyes were still lit up with awe at every little thing.

"Apparently there are all different kinds of trees all over the continent." Willow went on. "It's amazing."

"Maybe," Sundew started. "When all this stuff is over with in Pantala, we could come back here and see all the trees." Willow smiled.

"That sounds like a perfect idea." Sundew held her a little closer.

"Then we'll just have to make it happen."