The thorns and the roses

Chapter one

Flare had a mission. A very important one. This mission was from the boss himself, so to call it important would be an understatement. This mission MUST be carried out unless Flare wanted to die. She was an assassin in the burned government which was an elite group of highly trained fighters who served but one master: The boss. No one knew what the boss looked like because he had been animus touched when he was a dragonet so that no one could ever see his identity. And he was extremely hard on those who couldn't carry out their missions. Like, for example, if he sent you after a dragon and ordered you to kill them and you didn't realize they were still alive, you would be killed. Or, if he told you to take the dragon prisoner but instead you killed them, death was not far behind for you. But Flare had grown up here and had learned to do things right. And thankfully, her current mission was fairly simple. The seawing queen had recently had two eggs. But the boss had decided that it would be better if that wasn't the case. So he was sending Flare to burn holes right through them with her burning hot tail. You see, Flare was an odd hybrid. Instead of being a mix of two tribes, she was a mix of three. She was descended from the infamous Clay and Peril. When they had dragonets, they were obviously hybrids. And one of these hybrids, Flare's father Catfish, married a sandwing named Aloe, thus creating Flare. The reddish brown dragon born with no fire except for in the sandwing tail barb she had. It was an extremely useful weapon because when an enemy pinned her down, they often forgot about her tail. But anyways, this mission was extremely important. The boss had even put Flare in command of two guards who would do anything she said so long as it benefited her task. The three of them flew over the mountains and then over the ocean, until they found the seawing palace. Of course, this was the above ground one, because no one in their small party could swim. Flare had read about the seawing palaces throughout the years. There had been a total of three above ground palaces so far. She was pretty sure the first one was abandoned after an animus went mad in it and killed the seawing royal family. Then they moved to a new one, which was burned down by skywings. Then, the seawing mostly stuck to their underwater palace for a while. Then, the current seawing palace was built. It was called Atlantis and was on an island in the middle of the ocean. It was beautiful and elegant and was made of white marble. And Flare had herd that the queen kept her eggs in a little gazebo that was on the water and was swarming with guards so that the eggs couldn't be stolen. But today was special for the seawing guards. At least for the ones guarding Flare's prize. Today, the guards would all eat their midday meal as usual, and fail to notice the sleeping medicine in it. And once all of them were out, the little group of assassins would sneak in and break the eggs. Simple. And the plan worked perfectly. Every last guard was out within minutes of eating their food. So Flare walked into the gazebo and was about to break the eggs when she heard two splashes. She whipped her head around just in time to see her two accomplices plummet into the ocean. She looked for the cause of this and saw a dragon hovering over the spot where her guards were drowning. It was a female hivewing with silver wrist and ankle bands and sort of steampunk goggles. The dragon dived down towards Flare and stopped just a few feet from her. "Hello." said the dragon. "I'm going to need you to give those eggs to me." "And why should I do that?" Flare hissed. "Because I'm a trained assassin and am not afraid to slit your throat right here, right now." The strange dragon pulled a knife and brandished it at Flare with her left talon. "An assassin huh?" Flare sneered. "How scary. If only I was one two!" The hivewing looked slightly taken aback, but didn't flinch or back away. "Ok then. Let's fight for the eggs. Winner takes both eggs and is allowed to do whatever they want with them." "And the loser?" Flare asked, though she already knew the answer. The strange hivewing looked Flare right in the eye and without even a hint of doubt said, "The loser dies."