The Unexpected Events (Wings of Fire Fan-fic Shorts)

The Nightrunner

As the dark navy dragoness flew weaved carefully through the trees of the Diamond Spray River, she still had in the back of her mind how dangerous this was.

A lone Rainwing trader was just ahead, as she had been told by the queen of the Night Kingdom. Her friends, the Nightwing-Sandwing hybrid, the Sandwing, the Nightwing, and the Icewing, had stayed behind.

"Don't do this," the Nightwing had told her with a frown. "You needn't risk your life in the Kingdom of Sky just to prove a point."

"I won't be in the Kingdom of Sky long," she had retorted. "I'll be just fine."

It had been a week's-long journey and she had not yet found the Rainwing trader, and it would take her longer because of the journey from the Icewing Palace. She had gone across the ocean as a 'shortcut', but that didn't really lessen the length of her trek because of the cold environment.

The reason for this was grim. Her friend, the hybrid, was falling ill, she believed, and would not tell anyone. So in that case, she remembered the words of the queen, that this Rainwing she was flying toward, had many ointments and cures, but he was difficult to reason with. "I once saved my friend with his treatments," she had said, flicking her tail dismissively to one of her subjects. "She doesn't thank me. She thinks it's all my fault it happened, but I know the truth."

"What was he called?" The Rainwing dragoness asked casually.

"I think he said it was Nightrunner," the queen replied thoughtfully. "But at any rate, whatever he gave me worked."

Nightrunner, she thought as she ducked underneath a large conifer, clinging to a large branch. Could that be his name? Suddenly up ahead, she heard a shriek of pain and immediately took to the sky again. As she flew overhead the river, she looked down and saw a dragon frantically holding onto a branch in the raging waters, so she dove down toward them, tucking her wings tightly to her sides.

"Help!" Cried the dragon in a raspy voice.

A large splash was made as the dragoness went into the water and she swam with such force, reaching the surface and grasping the dragon's neck, pulling him closer to bank of the river. When the two dragons recovered their breath on the pebble-filled bay, they looked at each other. This was another Rainwing. His scales were dark grey and red, he wore a brown, ragged scarf, and his eyes were fiery and yellow, which made her uncomfortable. "Who are you?" He hissed.

"Portal of the—" she broke off. She was not part of the Rainwing tribe anymore, nor any other. "My name is Portal."

"Really?" he asked with a suspicious look. "Why do they call you that?"

Portal turned away from him and looked for a white surface, but there were none. "I can't show you now."

"Why not?" He pressed, his scales shifting to a dark green and black, frills beginning to quiver. Portal stepped back. Could this be the Nightrunner that the queen had talked about?

"Do they call you Nightrunner?" Portal asked all of a sudden, the scales of her tail shifting to a golden color.

He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then relaxed. "They do. Some do. Some of them call me the Wanderer, or the Nightshade Giver. Some call me the Betrayer."

"Why?" Portal questioned, her face shifting to a dark purple. She might have just asked too soon.

"Because they don't trust me. No one does." He answered simply, fidgeting with his talons. "But you may call me whatever you like."

"I need you're help," Portal said, thinking of her friend, the nightwing-sandwing. When she recalled the memory of his emotionless gaze, every scale on her body shifted to a bright red, fear consuming her in the moment. "My friend, he's not doing well. He needs help, and I don't know what to do."

"You're one of those," Nightrunner flared his nostrils in annoyance. "The ones that come pleading for my aid. Absolutely not! Do you know how expensive all my things are?"

"He needs you're help!" Portal snapped angrily, her bright red scales immediately shifting to a bright pink. "I don't know what's wrong with him! Every time I look at him, it's like he sees through me. I haven't even seen him slightly become emotional in months! It's like he's gone!"

"Maybe he's depressed," Nightrunner said dismissively. "In that case, I have nothing to provide."

"Of course you do!" Portal hissed, shoving her frills forward. "You can't tell me that when the queen of the Night Kingdom said you healed her friend."

The grey and red Rainwing froze, and his gaze clouded, but Portal could not assume what he was thinking. "The queen? Was her name Opal, by chance?"

"Yes," Portal answered, calming down. Her scale colors returned to their normal dark, navy blue and orange stripes and she let out a half-prolonged sigh. "Please, Nightrunner. I need your help. You're the only one in Pyrrhia who might understand what went wrong."

Nightrunner then gave a stern, lively look, much different than the first expression he had made toward her. "Follow me."

Suddenly, the Rainwing took to the sky with immense speed and Portal had to think for a moment before she flew after him. They flew for a long while, giving Portal time to realize what had just happened. What did he plan on showing her?

After a long while, he landed in a mountain cave near the border of the Skywings and Mudwings. On the outside of the cave, it looked like a grown-up ledge and was covered in weeds, but Nightrunner pushed past them and disappeared into the mountain. Portal took a deep breath before making her way inside after him and was shocked to see how well he was at indoor decoration. It looked very homely and warm inside the cave, apart from the countless bottles that sat on reddish wooden shelves, which seemed eerie. A fireplace, centralized in the back, sat several feet away from a rather nice oak table with bowls of fruit and other sweet goods that had four chairs sitting around it. A red carpet was placed from the doorway to the fireplace, and there were many torches to light up the room. When Portal walked forth to the ongoing fire, she saw that to the side of the walls, there were more halls that led onward into the mountain.

"How interesting," Portal said aloud in surprise. "You're a lot more civil—"

"Civilized than what you expected, I know," Nightrunner interrupted, searching among the bottles on his shelves. "Anyone who I bring into this home says that."

Portal slightly chuckled and inched closer to the fire and sat down before it. "Well, you wouldn't think that a Rainwing who lives far from the forest and acts mysterious would be so well-mannered."

"Ha!" Nightrunner snorted. "You're poorly hilarious."

Then he turned away from the shelves, holding three bottles in his talons uncomfortably and set them on the table. "If you're hungry, then you may have some of the cherry tarts. I can't eat them all, there's much too many."

"I will, and thank you," Portal said with relief as she made way to the table. "I've been flying nearly nonstop this past week."

But he wasn't listening. The dark grey and red Rainwing was muttering things under his breath as he took a feather with ink and wrote on a scroll, and as he did this his scales slowly shifted into a light blue, for he was deeply thinking.

Portal let out a sigh. Why couldn't her scales shift the right color? The color that showed on her scales was always the opposite of how she felt, and not many dragons understood that. Nightrunner, however, did not seem to care. As the two sat in silence—apart from Portal's crunching and the feather's scraping noise against the paper—Portal began to wonder what was happening back in the Icewing kingdom. Were her friends all right?