The Only RainWing in the War

Traveling to a Tragedy

     Glory's POV:

     The sun must have woken up very surprised to see the odd little group that was us- a MudWing, a SeaWing, a RainWing and a NightWing traversing, in what seemed like peace, to the swamp.

     For a long time, all I saw was the sun, the sand and the sea. We were traveling on the border of the Sea Kingdom because the SeaWings were in hiding, therefore making this place abandoned and a perfect place for us to slip by undetected.

      Death and I were playfully flying by and doing flips in the air, much to the bemusement of Tsunami and Clay. I didn't understand why they seemed so confused until Tsunami questioned us about our behavior.

     "What - why are you acting like that?"

     Startled, I had paused mid-flip. Flying upside-down, I asked, "Huh?"

     "How are you so- I mean- you're assassins, you and Deathbringer!" Tsunami had a look of uncertainty on her face.

     "And you're pretty much fugitives on the run from the world." I replied as I turned back to my normal flight position.

     "Yes, but- I mean- you need to kill dragons, and fight them, and you have such a menacing life! How are you so cheerful?"

     "You're almost always off dying or getting caught," I shot back. "Yet I don't see you all in the corner crying."

     "That's... well, I mean... that's different. We have to worry about our own survival, but you guys have to worry about taking that away from others. Isn't that... horrible?"

     The SeaWing had a look in her eyes like she was looking back at a sad memory. She winced and her claws twitched, which unfortunately made me think she spoke from experience. I stared curiously at Tsunami, unaware that a quiet and guilty side of the dragonet existed.

     I looked away and thought of my life. It seemed pretty normal to me, aside from some missions.

     "Well, we have normal lives when we're not off ending the lives of soldiers." I said quietly. "We've probably killed only, like, twelve dragons this past year. Or was it thirteen? I can't really keep track, but I mean, that's not too many dragons. It leaves us a lot of free time, so we can just play around."

     Tsunami looked a little sick and I suddenly realized how bad that sounded. I forgot that Tsunami had no idea we had hundreds of targets a year usually, and twelve dragons dying was nothing compared to that. Tsunami must have been thinking I was some kind of creepy stalker/killer who murders so many dragons she forgets all of their names and faces.

     But aren't you?

     I shook my head, and then glanced at Tsunami, who was looking at me queasily.

     "That came out wrong." I told her. "Death and I are kind of assassin rebels, and we try to kill as few targets as possible. We just try to get them out of the war in different ways, like persuading them to run away or such. We only kill if necessary or they're really mean. Like this SandWing general we had to take care of a few months ago...." I rambled about the story of General Salsola to Tsunami, but part of me was slipping away to think of what the SeaWing had said.

      I had to end the lives of dragons- dragons with families, with things to do. Wasn't that- wasn't that wrong?

     I imagined a different world where Deathbringer and I had never met before, were on opposite sides of a battle. I was siding with a faceless IceWing who Deathbringer was killing. What would I do then?