Wings of Fire Winglet: Turning Tides

Prologue

 "Dear?" a male voice asked, hesitant to intrude upon the council of blue and green dragons sitting in the pools of water.

"Yes?"

"The egg is hatching!" he called.

"What?" she cried. The egg wasn't supposed to hatch for another 5 months.

"It's hatching, hurry!"

"Coming!" She excused herself from her council, and went to see her husband and the hatching egg.

She dived into the ocean, her gills pleased to be submerged in water for the first time in a week.

As she swam along the halls she thought to herself, That egg can't be hatching. I only had it a few months ago. What if my first baby doesn't make it? What if it's too early? Oh no, no, no, no.

She quickly reached the hatchery, and saw an emerald green dragon waiting for her at the end of the corridor.

"Gill, are you serious?" she asked him.

"Yes, Coral. It's hatching," he replied, a look of concern on his face.

She swam over to the dark green egg and saw it was indeed cracking and shaking violently.

She stood there, frozen, praying that her dragonet wasn't about to die.

"Are you alright? First kid together can be rough," Shark, her brother and head of the guards, smiled at her.

"Yes I'm fine," she replied shortly. Her brother had no business being here.

"What are you doing here?" Gill asked, as if reading her mind. He shot her a knowing glance.

"Well, I'm protecting you, because if some crazy Animus dragonet like Albatross were to come flying out of that egg right now, that wouldn't go too well."

"My dragonet is not an Animus, how dare you say that," Coral hissed. "She will be the greatest princess the world has ever seen." But what if she's the one who kills me to become queen? Coral thought.

As queen, she now had many reasons to fear being queen. The kingdom could turn on her, her guards could turn on her, other enemies could kill her, and, most worrying, this little dragonet hatching right here could challenge her for the throne and kill her.

Just as she had done to her mother. She still remembered that moment. Her mother's startled face, when she pounced before she had registered what Orca had said. She had slashed her gills underwater, and that was the end of that. Her mother died. I had to do it at some point. She didn't have any other heirs, and she had killed all of my sisters when they challenged her. She had it coming for her. She thought of the dragonet. Will she challenge me too? 

No, of course not. I'm being stupid.

The egg shook more violently than ever before. A talon poked out, then a whole arm. Finally, the small green dragonet popped it's head out.

She's beautiful! This thing would never challenge me.

Still, Coral was uneasy.

"Welcome to the world, little one," Coral said.

"We shall call you Orca."

Coral smiled at her dragonet. She's harmless.