The War's Prophecy

Deck the Halls and Stub Your Claws

Juniper wished a lot of things, but there was one wish that topped them all. She really

Really

REALLY wished she could be anything close to the dragon her guardians wanted her to be. And she wished that especially strongly now, as she was thrown across the training cave by her own guardian.

"DODGE LEFT! USE YOUR PLANT MAGIC!" Hawk shouted at her.

Hawk was the strongest and harshest of the dragonets' guardians. Hence the name, she was a SkyWing. Battle training with Hawk always went exactly the same: Juniper got her butt kicked, Hawk was disappointed, she felt like a failure.

"I told you, it's not magic, it's leafspeak!" Juniper shouted back, rolling right by accident. It wasn't her fault that she sometimes got her left and right mixed up when under pressure. But Hawk clearly needed some reminding of that.

"WHICH LEFT WAS THAT, USELESS?! ARE YOU DEAF?!" She shouted.

"Um... the wrong left?" Juniper tried, while her mind said, keep up that shouting and I will be deaf soon.

She scanned the cave for anything she could use to her advantage. Then she spotted a low hanging stalactite. She calculated a trail of stalactites leading close to Hawk. Without warning, she leapt up and grabbed the lowest stalactite, jumping from one to the next, until she got directly above Hawk. Then she jumped off the stalactite, landing heavily on Hawk's back. Hawk thrashed wildly in an effort to throw her off, and Juniper almost went flying off. But she hooked her claws into the small gaps in between Hawk's back spikes and scrambled toward her tail. She reached for the tip of Hawk's tail and bit down hard on it. Hawk roared in pain. She lashed her tail furiously. Juniper tried desperately to stay on, but she went flying off after an impressive thirty seconds. The world went a little hazy as she hit the wall. She staggered up only to be thrown against the other wall.

Juniper was basically nothing more than a living punchbag for Hawk.

She had once slipped some slightly toxic berries into Hawk's dinner. Big mistake, even if it was justified. Back in the present, Juniper reached her leafspeak into the ground until she found what she was looking for. A bunch of strong roots grew out of the ground and coiled themselves around Hawk's talons, trapping her in place. She chuckled.

"Not bad." She said, right before burning them up. She walked over to Juniper, as if to congratulate her, then abruptly smacked her in the chest with her tail, hard enough to shoot her into the wall. Before she could blink, Hawk had already slammed a talon into her chest, pinning her to the wall.

"How many times do I have to tell you to STAY ALERT?! How do you think you're going to defeat Queen Dragonfly if you can't even detect any surprise attacks?!" Hawk's shouting was so loud that the dragons in the world above them could probably hear her. Well, not just above them. That was good news for Juniper. The only reason she ever survived battle training was because Equinox had rescued her. Sessions always ended when someone else barged in. Equinox was the "Dragon of the sky" in the prophecy, and the second most loyal dragon under the mountain, after Juniper herself.

Back in the present, Hawk smacked her across the face.

"You're weak and useless. If we didn't know better, we'd have switched you out for a stronger, better LeafWing." She sliced a small cut into Juniper's arm. Hawk kept a tally of all the times she had failed... on her arm. But each tally was more violently sliced than the last. This one really hurt.

"I swear, if you're not strong enough to defeat Queen Dragonfly when it's time, I will save the world some time and space and kill you myse-OOOOOOWW!!"