As soon as they got home, Pansy was greeted by her royal guard with relieved faces. She ordered Wish to go be helpful, by which he assumed that he should expand the nursery. Upon reaching said nursery, he asked the kids to stand aside.
“Okay, who wants to see something cool?” Wish said to them. He was met with a lot of loud noises, and he had to just say the spell before his eardrums broke. “I enchant this room so that it may grow large enough to hold all the dragonets it needs to for the next year.” The room started shaking, which got the dragonets to shut up, and then one of the walls jutted out in one direction until it rammed into another tree, and the bottom vines wrapped around it for support. Then another side started growing in another direction, until the room was considerably bigger.
“WOW.” one of the kids whispered.
“Just wait, it’s gonna get better.” Wish said. After which, he pointed at the ceiling, and said, “Monkey bars!” which was greeted with pieces of wood coming from the roof in equal spacings. He pointed at the far wall, “Climbing exercise!” which had woody knobs jutting out of it now. “Flight practice!” he gestured to another wall, and a platform had come out of the floor, with one at the other side, and a net between them.
Wish twirled around in a bored fashion. “Well, my work here is done.” He left the room with a feeling of satisfaction. He had taken off, and was about to head over to Willpower’s house, but was intercepted midair by Pansy.
“Ow!”
“Oof!” As they ran into each other. “What are you doing you stupid moon-licker?!” She yelled at him. Then she noticed that it was him. “Oh, Wish. What are you doing?” She looked behind my back to see the nursery. “WHAT. THE FOURTH MOON. IS THAT.” She exclaimed. “You know I was bluffing, right? We didn’t actually need to expand it.”
“Actually, you did. My spells should keep it calm for the next year or so.” Wish said in a voice that he knew would annoy Pansy. She didn’t seem to care, though. She was staring at the nursery.
Wish didn’t notice until he looked back, too. He saw the dragonets, at the fun that they were having. He heard their joyous thoughts and playful yells. He felt accomplished, peaceful. “I did that.” Wish said out loud, almost not believing himself.
“You did that.” Pansy said. She looked at him and said, “You’re pretty cool, Wish.” She looked like she was actually happy, like queens don’t get that luxury often. “Stick around for a while? I could use your help.”
“I’d love to.” Wish replied.
* * *
Waking up with a tail on your face is one thing, that tail belonging to the queen is another. Wish got up and stretched, remembering how the previous day had gone. Himself and Pansy had gone around to the more disorganized areas of the forest, and organized them. Then they stayed up late deciding what they would do tomorrow. They had agreed that the hatchery needed more organization, because not having families is sad.
Besides, we don’t want another war with MudWings over the same reason as the last one. How about no wars with anyone, yeah, that sounds better.
“Hey, ms. sleepy pants.” Wish said to Pansy. “I’m going to go get breakfast with Marmoset now.”
The tired queen raised her head about a billionth of an inch. “Save one for meeeeeeeeee.” She whined.
Wish boped her on the nose with his tail. “No! Get your own breakfast!” He told her jokingly before heading out the door. He flew over to Marmoset’s house. The only reason he knows where it is is because he’s had to memorize the layout of the jungle in order to assist the queen.
Wish landed on the front porch and was about to knock on the door, when he was jumped.
“Boo.” Said a quiet voice from over his shoulder. It startled him into smacking the offender in the face with his wing. “Ouch, aah. That hurts.” Said the stranger. He was a tall, lean NightWing with an overall bored expression on his face. Although, he was clearly a wimp as Wish had not hit him hard at all. “By the way, my parents aren’t home, so find somewhere else to be.”
“I’m looking for Marmoset.” Wish says out loud, simultaneously screaming in his head. MARMOSEEEEEEET!! “Is she home?”
The dragon leaned in the doorway and called, loudly, “MARMOSET, COME TO THE DOOR NOW!”
Wish heard a faint, “No!” from inside.
“IT’S YOUR BOYFRIEND FROM SCHOOL.” He said, raising his eyebrows at Wish.
“No. No. Nonononono. I’m here because we planned to get breakfast together today.” Wish said, startled and confused. Although Marmoset was already at the door. She smacked his jaw with her wing.
“First off, not my boyfriend. Secondly, I had to do all the dishes, so you’re welcome for that. Thirdly, goodbye.” Marmoset said to him. Taking off, she said to Wish, “Brothers, am I right? So annoying and judgey.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Wish said. “I don’t have any siblings.” Just as a part of his brain whispered Not yet, at least.
Marmoset stiffened. “I really need to learn how to keep out of dragon’s heads.” She said.
Wish sighed. “My mother just had another egg. It’ll be my half-sibling. Different dad.” He was worried about adding the other important part about it. “Dads from different tribes, in fact.” Wish chuckled nervously. “Orange can no longer be considered my uncle, so… Yay?”
“A hybrid?” Asked Marmoset, looking around the ground for prey. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, it’s just that-” Wish took a deep breath and spoke. “I’ve known Orange as my uncle my whole life. He helped me build my house. He taught me the ABCs. And now, he’s with my mother. I don’t know how to feel about it.”
Marmoset looked at him, at the coyote that she just killed, then back at him. “From my perspective,” She started. “It’s more like; ROMANCE. LOVE. Butterflies and rainbows and all that good stuff.” She handed him a piece of her prey, probably a rib.
“See, you say that, and at the same time you are ripping apart a coyote. So it’s very hard to read the room.” Wish says to her. He started eating the meat chunk. He decided that he should bring back some fruit for Pansy, she probably wasn’t going to wake up and be productive without sugar first.
“Whaddya mean, ‘read the room’?” Marmoset asks him.
“I mean, I don’t know what kind of conversation to have now. One about food? One about gore? Secret crushes? Where do I go from that?” Wish tells her.
Marmoset swallows before responding. “Reasonable answer: you just talk about what you wanna talk about. It doesn’t matter. What I want to hear: Secret crushes because that sounds interesting.” She gives him an evil grin.
“It was an idea! I don’t have any secret crushes!” Wish exclaims. “Besides, you would already know if I did because you are a very nosy dragon.”
“I don’t know how to tune out other dragon’s brains!” Marmoset protests. “That class was very boring so I never paid any attention!”
“Well,” Wish said, his voice lowering in volume. “I could teach you.”
Marmoset looks at him angrily. “I didn't say I wanted to tune out other dragon’s brains. I just said that I don’t know how. I like being who I am. So take your fruitiness to your beloved queen and get out!”
Wish froze as the small dragonet flew away grumpily. Why would she do that? What did he do to make her want to do that? He decided that breakfast was ruined, and he just needed to take care of his queen. He was debating what kind of fruit she would like, and decided that bananas were always delicious.
He flew around for a bit trying to find a banana tree, when he came across something suspicious. It was a tail, slipping away into a hole at the base of a tree. That’s weird. He thought. Isn’t that the tunnel that leads to the Ancient NightWing Island? Wish pulled his scroll out of a pouch under his wing. One of his carefully enchanted objects, a scroll that would tell him all truths that he asked, past present and future.
“Tell me who that tail belonged to.” He demanded the scroll. Recently he learned that vague questions resulted in vivid answers, and vice versa. Letters began to spontaneously appear on the scroll’s surface. That was Onyx IV. A SandWing with a single destiny. Destroy animus magic. This mission was started by Onyx I, who was extremely jealous that she was not destined to be the SandWing Queen after the War of SandWing Succession. She had decided that the magic that deprived her of royal blood should have never existed.
That was unsettling. Apparently all four Onyx hadn’t heard of Jerboa before. Then there was another splat of text. This one is an accomplished assassin, and is coming for Wish of the NightWings. After which she will assasinate Aethia of the SeaWings. And finally dismember Sandy the Hybrid IceWing. She has a despicable hate for Hybrids, ironic in the sense that she is one.
“Okay, shut up magic scroll.” Wish snapped. It did as said. The universe decided to give him a peek into the future, which helped a little. This future had Wish, Aethia, and Sandy, all alive. And Wish even had his own dragonets, whom he loved very much. Although an unsettling thought came to mind.
Wait, DRAGONETS?! He thought in a panic. WITH WHO??!! Nevermind, I don’t want to know. I get to decide that. Focus on the task at hand. Tracking down an assassin that wants me dead.
“Tell me why Onyx the fourth is on the Ancient NightWing Island.” He ordered the scroll. She is looking for a valuable artifact, 2,748 years old. She will sell it at the Scorpion Den for who knows how much gold, and then with that gold she will buy both weapons and information. So she can track down her targets.
That was all it had to say. Wish decided that he should probably go in there and stop her before she finds what she’s looking for, and convince her that animus dragons shouldn’t all be dead. First he needed to let his friends know. He picks up a leaf. “Turn into a very small and nimble squirrel, unable to be caught by any dragon other than me.” The leaf began morphing and twisting until it looked exactly like a squirrel. “Now, take these bananas to Queen Pansy and tell her where I’m going. Afterwards, you will tell Marmoset where I’m going. Finally, tell Willpower where I’m going before returning to me.” The squirrel did a little salute before taking the bananas and it ran into the woods.
Wish braced himself. He couldn’t loiter any longer. He needed to go NOW! Wish hopped from his tree and glided into the hole. He then proceeded to run along the narrow corridors, remembering the way from the field trip he had taken so long ago, so his parents could warn him of how dangerous it was.
He burst out on the side of a cliff, overlooking a flat, wide expanse of volcanic rock. A few mosses and fungi had begun to colonize, becoming the initial rehabilitation of the Island into a nice ecosystem. It would take thousands of thousands of years, but eventually, trees would be able to grow. Animals would visit, starting with flying creatures and then semi-aquatic creatures. But he had no time to think of that, only time to find Onyx before it’s too late.
Wish was running around the volcanic plains, probably towards his death.
