Shadows of the Sand (Wings of Fire fanfic)

Chapter One

Part one: Cold Poison.

Skyfire felt very. Very. Small. She kept her wings close as she looked up at the entrance to the Jade Mountain Academy. She rubbed her wrists and took a few nervous steps into the hall. She already had her welcoming scroll and school map, so no one was there to greet her. Her mind was instantly shocked and erupted with the thoughts of every nearby dragon. She nearly cried out but kept her mouth shut and just closed her eyes tight. It quieted down after a moment and she started down the hallway. She checked the map once or twice and eventually made it to her room. There were three sleeping areas set up. One was a cold, partially frozen (probably by frost breath) stone ledge, another was a mat on top of a pile of warm sand placed beside the nook that let sunlight get it even hotter. Nearer to the back was her sleeping area, she assumed that it was hers, it was moss and ferns and pine nettles bundled together in a kind of nest. Like what she had slept in on the pine forest floor. She set her school map and welcoming scroll in the shelf beside her bed and she curled up in it. The moss and ferns were moist and cool, and that made it feel just a little better and more like how she grew up. Skyfire's golden teardrop scales glinted in the light as another dragon entered the cave. The SkyWing immediately froze then seemed to remember why she was there, "Oh, uh, hi," they said quickly, shuffling over to the warm sand pile to lay down. "Hi" Skyfire said in a quiet, nervous voice, inside she was trying her best to keep away from the other dragons thoughts but it was like her brain was saying: "LOOK AT THIS. LOOK AT ITTTTTT!!!!!!!" Thankfully it was only one dragon, she could handle one dragon, and she seemed quiet, quiet would be nice. The SkyWing hesitated for a moment. Should I like, introduce myself, or something? The SkyWing thought for a moment. "Um, I'm Akai, what's your name...?" "I'm uh..." Skyfire rubbed her wrists out of nervousness. "I'm Skyfire." She said quietly, will she hate me because I'm a NightWing? She thought frantically she doesn't seem like that kind of dragon right? There was a moment of awkward silence and Skyfire rubbed her wrists more, eyes darting around the cave do I start a conversation? What am I supposed to do? Would it be rude to start looking at a scroll instead? Skyfire worried, still trying to push back and not invade the SkyWings thoughts. Should I just like, say something? Soar said I had to keep a low profile... I can't be here long, anyways... Akai sat down on her bed. This isn't rude, right? Akai thought anxiously. Skyfire pulled out a scroll from under her wing and tucked her nose into it, apparently the conversation was over. The scroll was a story from the old NightWing library, some of it had survived the eruption and while she was trying to stay away from the other NightWings in their new rainforest home she had stumbled upon it. It was talking about the "ancient" NightWing powers. She had asked another NightWing outcast (ok not quite the right word but the tribe disliked both of them for whatever reason they had to hate the two dragonets) Moonwatcher about if she knew anything about it. She said that NightWings born under the full moons got the so called gifts, being hatched under one moon meant you only got one gift, hatched under two you got both. But if you were hatched under three moons you had both but extra powerful. Skyfire had been hatched under two moons, and the commit from the night the SandWing war had ended. She knew that was why she had golden teardrop scales and not silver ones. But she didn't know what it did, Skyfire had been trying to read every scroll she found to try and find an answer, if it gave her gold teardrop scales did that mean it effected her abilities or something else? Did it even do anything more that give her some shiny gold scales? Suddenly the thoughts of the SkyWing seemed to slap her, she had never learned to block thoughts and hadn't even told Moon yet that she too had NightWing powers so a drilling headache came with it. Then she remembered what Akai had just thought, Soar said I should keep a low profile... I can't be here long anyways... she had heard the name Soar before... or heard someone else think it. The firescales, Peril, had been talking to someone and that name had flashed though her head along with the name 'Chameleon' It was harder to hear Perils thoughts, but Skyfire had watched bits of the memories that had gone through the SkyWing's mind. What did this dragon have to do with Chameleon? Or Soar? Or whatever? Was it even Chameleon? Or did some other dragon take that enchanted identity? Skyfire's mind was like a rainstorm. Always thundering with thoughts and worries, and other dragon's thoughts hitting even harder. She tried to go back to her scroll but even so... she couldn't help wondering if Akia was as good a dragon as she seemed at first glance. Skyfire had never liked reading minds, she always ended up feeling guilty about hearing another dragons thoughts and emotions and even watching their memories, but she had never relized how hard it was to keep them away, not like she was tempted to look, but the fact that they were somehow so loud and painful that they even overwhelmed her own thoughts sometimes. It helped when a dragon was quiet but apparently SkyWings, even quiet ones, brains seemed to have the 'wonderful' idea of slamming into her head, faster than the fastest dragon that ever lived. So as she was reading the scroll, that was evidently just as unhelpful as the others, Akai's thoughts were circling around her skull like they owned the place. Skyfire eventually just stood up, she was worried that the other dragon might think she was being rude but she didn't want to listen to another dragons thoughts and memories, she was just trying to figure out how not-normal she was from her tribe and every other dragon. She walked down the hallway, keeping her wings close to her sides and trying to be small as possible until she made it to an underground lake. She laid down behind a forest of stalactites, among the shadows and moss she was happy, the mumbling of thoughts from the school were gone and the water was quiet and peaceful, she knew that other dragons probably wouldn't even see her if they came in at first, she blended among the stone and shadows behind the stalactites and with her scroll she continued to read, though it didn't seem to have any useful knowledge. After a while Skyfire started to get a little hungry. She stood up and rolled the scroll back up and tucked it under her wing, as she had predicted, it wasn't useful but it had been worth a shot. She guessed she could stop by the library at some point and see if Starflight had anything. She made her way to the prey center and even before she was in the cave she felt a sharp stab of pain in her head as if someone had thrown a spear into her skull. She whimpered but didn't want to cry out and draw attention to herself. She didn't realize she had curled up into a tight ball rocking herself while she hid in her wings shaking with pain. Someone in they prey center peeked out of the cave and saw her, it wasn't long before a crowd of dragons had gathered, some whispering to each other, while others watched with worried expressions, wondering what they should do. But the crowd was getting bigger by the second and this meant even more dragons even closer to her. Someone put a warm wing across her back, trying to steady her. The contact added another sharp pang of pain to the mix, Clay, Tsunami, and Sunny pushed through the crowd to see what was happening, Tsunami and Clay cleared the crowd of dragons back while Sunny tried to comfort Skyfire. The dragon who had spread the wing over her back helped shoulder her onto Clay's back and helped bring her to the healing center. Skyfire eventually woke up in the healing center, when she had got there one of the dragons had pricked her with one of the RainWing sleeping darts. Unluckily for her, dragons were around her little cot ready to ask questions, their thoughts spinning or sharp, she flinched this was going to be difficult. She noticed some of them were students and that Tsunami was grumpily thinking about stubborn students who wouldn't leave. Tsunami's loud thoughts didn't help. Skyfire had to sit through a long, long line of dragons asking questions that she didn't know how to answer, eventually Clay shuffled everyone out and Skyfire laid her head down, but knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep. She just closed her eyes and let her own thoughts drift until she was watching a scene. Everything was black until a flash of lightning sizzled down and cracked the ground. Dragons were swarming the sky screaming. And the wind was roaring so loud that it nearly sounded like a dragon itself. Something fluttered at the corner of her vision and she squinted to see little scraps of paper drifting slowly to the ground amidst the chaos. Looking closer she saw the pieces of paper just have been ripped off a scroll, and each of them had writing in carful letters. Then she woke up to talon steps and approaching thoughts. She opened her eyes and lifted her head to see who it was. Her clawmate Akai stood beside the bed. "S-Sorry if I woke you, I just wanted to-to make sure your ok... If you want me to go I'd totally understand... You've problem had lots of dragons asking questions" Akai said everything so fast, it was almost hard to understand her. "Oh! I-uh, I brought you a scroll on NightWings. Moon said you'd probably like it, or something... I don't really know anything about NightWings" Skyfire tilted her head at Akai, the nervous SkyWing seemed to be kind of debating something in her mind.. something about not my problem and Snowstorm wouldn't do this Skyfire tried to shy away from the other dragons thoughts "Thank you." She said quietly as Akai handed her the scroll. "I appreciate it" she said even quieter. She had never been good with talking to other dragons, and she hoped that Akai didn't think she didn't appreciate her or that she wanted her to leave. She seems nervous, too. I should probably leave... Akai thought before standing up and walking towards the door. "You probably need rest... Or something..." She said the last part more quietly. Soar's gonna kill me if he finds out I talked to another dragon, let alone gave her a gift... The other part of her mind spoke up. Flicker would've been proud of me... Right..? I wish I could see him again... Skyfire rubbed her wrists, she wondered if she should do anything, she heard Akai muttering something.. "What if I never see them again? What if they never forgive me? What if—" she seemed to realize that she was talking out loud. "Are you ok?" Skyfire ask quietly, and nervously, wondering if that was the right thing to say in the situation. "Oh... You-You, um, you heard that..." Akai started breathing heavily. How much did she hear? Snowstorm would be so disappointed in me... This is why I can't return to them...  Akai's anxious thoughts swarmed her mind. She had to leave. "I-I should- um, I should go" Akai rushed out of the cave, leaving Skyfire confused, and worried about her clawmate. The next day Skyfire was allowed to wander around, but she was still out of the classes because Sunny thought she might get overwhelmed like at the prey center or just by dragons pestering her and asking questions. The hallways were empty, every other dragon was at their classes, so Skyfire was alone in the caves until Fatespeaker rang the gong. Dragons started filtering out of caves and up and down the halls. Skyfire knew she didn't really have much time, the headache was already starting to get high on pain levels. She moved as fast as she could without drawing too much attention, and bumped into a few dragons who gave her strange looks, she whispered apologies but didn't stop. She eventually made it to one of the exits and leaped out into the sky she flew as high as she could until the panicking ceased and the thunderstorm of thoughts dimmed. She wasn't paying attention and didn't see the other dragon flying at her. The other dragon didn't stop and slammed into her, Skyfire screeched and started plummeting towards the ground at the last second she managed to catch the air with her wings and was launched back up. She scanned the sky and saw the other dragon, they had a black cloak on, which was weird, a cloak would get in the way of your flying, but she could see The wings, they were a glittering blue-tinted silver white and she caught glimpses of a pearl white underbelly and a diamond-white tail. The dragon was looking down at her when more cloaked dragons came out of nowhere and surrounded her in the sky. Skyfire twisted in the air, confused and trying to figure what in the moons was going on. The cloaked dragons started moving in, Skyfire searched around frantically for a way out, but she was out numbered by a lot and these dragons were much bigger than her. Suddenly the air was pierced with a loud scream, Akai came diving out of the sky and tackled on of the hooded dragons mid air, trying to pull down their hood. Skyfire saw Akai and didn't hesitate to help, even though they were still massively out numbered. She moved to help the SkyWing but the other cloaked dragons easily blocked her way. Her mind was buzzing like it's normal rainstorm of worries just jumped up to mega gear. She didn't have time to think too much, she nose dived down like an arrow then beat her wings to use her momentum to send herself flying to the side and evade the dragon who dived after her. She did an unintentional backflip as she tried to stop herself from crashing into a cliff face. She darted upwards and used her small size to dodge a burst of frost breath from one of the attacking dragons. Frostbreath? IceWings? Her mind wondered for a flicker of a moment. Then something heavy slammed into her side and she was sent spinning away, she recovered and tried again to make her way to Akai's aid. Out of the corner of her eyes, and from her mind reading, she could tell some of the Jade Mountain professors were flying up, and Peril, by the hot flames her mind found hard to penetrate. There was a stab of pain that shocked though her from her back and she tried to twist and see what it was. One of the attackers had thrown a sharp metal disk that had hit her in the middle of her back, blood was welling out from the slick wound already. Her moment of distraction was enough for one of the cloaked dragons to dive into her, and take them both plummeting at a cliff. Skyfire crashed into the stone and everything went black.