A Vision of Happiness: A New Life (Book 2)

Chapter 4

BRIGHTNESS

Brightness's heart skipped a beat as she watched Tsunami confronting Visioner, angriness and frustration and impatience buzzing from her blue scales. Ear-piercing shrieks of nervousness and helplessness were screaming from Visioner. Brightness clamped her talons over her ears, not able to handle the ear-scorching pain any longer. 

"Explain yourselves. Right. Now." It didn't block out Tsunami's furious words. Visioner trembled in front of her, his purple eyes wide with terror. Brightness knew how much this was for her weak, kind, honest brother. He couldn't bear keeping secrets, and Destroyer's harsh treatment made him frightened and nervous all the time.

To her surprise, Visioner straightened up and spoke in a clear voice. "No. I'm not telling anyone. No one will know about our past, and no one can do anything about it. Just...please. Leave us alone. I promise we aren't bad."

He limped out of the cave, leaving the three startled dragons gaping after him. 

VISIONER

I can't believe I just did that, Visioner thought dizzily. Confronting the Head of School, disobeying her orders, and standing up for myself. I shouldn't've done it. That was being rude and disrespectful. What sort of punishment will I get? One- no, two weeks with no food? Or one month of knives?

Visioner decided to hide out in his cave that he shared with his clawmates. He knew he was supposed to be in history, but he felt too miserable and rude and frightened to join the class. I'm already in enough trouble, anyways, He thought.

Visioner was surprised to find a white dragonet with feathery gray patterns on her scales inside the cave, and when he accidentally knocked over the scroll rack with his tail, his IceWing friend jumped, startled. 

"Visioner!" Mink beamed up at him when she recognized him. "I thought you were Webs coming over to yell at me again. I made you a sculpture! Because I love you. Guess what it is!"

Visioner would have been more touched about the sweet IceWing's words if she hadn't said 'I love you' to everyone in her winglet, even including the grumpy SandWing, Scorpion, who shared the cave with them. Mink was funny, sweet, kind, and also the IceWing queen's youngest sister. She had managed to take over everyone's heart within the short period of five days.

He squinted at the blob of dried mud that Mink had handed to him. It kind of looked like a fox, with a long, bushy tail, but it had the huge paws of a panther. He couldn't even see if the sculpture had a face.

"Hm." Visioner tried to form a picture in his brain, afraid of hurting the IceWing dragonet's feelings. "Is that...a snow leopard?"

"No, silly!" Mink laughed. "It's a panther! See the paws and fur?"

"Ah," Visioner nodded. "I was going to say either panther or snow leopard. It looks great. Thank you, Mink." 

As Mink smiled up at him, Visioner wondered if his life of secrets and pain would make the other dragonet hate him.