Bloodworm Hive

Chapter 10 - Azure

I woke up in caverns of gold and bright red. My eyes couldn't adjust to the brightness for a while, actually, but when they did I could see millions of things were going on, doors opening and shutting, talons reaching out creating a blue light, and my eyes were fixed on it in curiosity. "Where am I?" I questioned wearily, reaching out into the middle of it, finding there was everything I could imagine in there. LeafWings flying, moons made of diamonds and gold, dead bodies of HiveWings littered around the area, all contorted in horror, and millions of SilkWings staring at me. Most of them were ghostly pale, with eyes as red as burning embers, but very few had eyes which glowed yellow like flamesilk lanterns. Flamesilk. I realized, looking around me. I was in a cavern of flamesilk. This matched the exact color of the silk Agrias sometimes bought to display on the eyes of her paintings. Speaking of her paintings, this looked exactly like one of Agrias's works! What was it called again? I thought it was called 'Dream' or something, maybe 'Upon' with it, hmm. I touched some of the dripping silk which looked like honey - if that honey was burning - I immediately retracted my talons, waiting for the singing sensation of a stinging fire. But . . there was none . ?

"If you're out there then tell me what's going on!" Azure shouted, hearing his echo throughout the caves. The translucent white animals hid behind fountains of flame moving as slow as honey.  He started looking down at his blue talons, and then asked "What is this place?!" rather loudly - that wasn't a good idea because it all struck back at him, making the wingless silk dragon cover his ears as aggravating noises originally coming from him attempted to infiltrate them with that wretched noise. Azure slowly emerged from his defensive position again, rubbing his neckband once again. "Argh. Why is this place so weird?" Azure muttered angrily, hooking up onto a wall so he could get a good look at the vast, golden-weaved caverns which seemed to be dripping lava or something like that. "I'll bite your head off if you don't let me out of here!" Azure threatened, scanning the place for anything that wasn't white or gold. He looked like an odd speck in this place, a blue dot against a sea of golds and whites. But what worried him was a "Don't shout .. spirits are resting." Azure's head shot up to see a LeafWing fluttering down towards him.

But this was no ordinary LeafWing. This LeafWing didn't look fully .. LeafWing? For one thing, his horns were curved in a strange way, and they were crackly-like, not like the smooth ones from the books that he had stolen from the library at times. His wings did have the general shape of a leaf, and he did have the webs, but they didn't end like they were supposed to. But then I noticed something. This LeafWing had spikes. Yes, spikes. I didn't realize the look of confusion on my face before he called it out "You seem confused. Something wrong?" "Why do you have spikes? Are you part SilkWing?" I demanded from him but he shook his head "No, I'm not." "Then are you part HiveWing?" He facepalmed. "Ok, ok. I'm not here to play guessing games!" I shot back as he rolled his eyes. Of course, my mind hadn't processed at the time that he seemed to be an extinct tribe "Fine. My name is Autumn, and I'm part SkyWing and part LeafWing. Happy?" "What's a SkyWing?" Azure demanded as Autumn sighed once again. I hated how much he was sighing, honestly. "It's a tribe of Pyrrhia." "What in Wasp Hive is Pyrrhia?!" I shrieked again, earning a more noticable deadly glare from him. He had been giving me that judgey glare since he came, and it made me uncomfortable. "Why are you glaring at me?" I ironed out my voice, and it didn't waver due to years of doing that.

He paused. "Am I?" "Yes, you are, Sir Judgey." I said sarcastically "Was I talking to your shadow?" "No. I knew you were crazy but not that crazy." Autumn responded as Azure rolled his eyes. "Back to the question. What is Pyrrhia?" Azure demanded "Another continent, obviously. What does it sound like? Another tribe? An animal species?" Autumn said. Looks like 2 can play at the sarcasm game. "Hey, what's your name?" Autumn said, raising an eyebrow before sighing "Oh, that's right, I already know it, Azure." "Why do you sigh so much?" Azure grumbled as Autumn only shook his head "I don't remember sighing." "You just sighed half a minute ago! Do you have memory problems?" "No. Quite the opposite, actually." "How is that the opposite?" "My brain just remembers the wrong things - it doesn't have time for stuff as feeble as sighing."