King of The Dragons (Wings of Fire X Monster Hunter)

Part 1: Chapter 7 & 8

(3rd Pov Glory)

"NEXT!" boomed a voice from the queen's treehouse.
The first dragon ambled across the bridge, yawning, and slid through the curtain of silvery yellow flowers that hung in the doorway.

"Can I come in for your audience?" Glory asked mangrove. She wanted to know how Queen Magnificent would handle the problems of missing RainWings.
"Why?" Mangrove asked suspiciously. "I'm not letting you have my turn."

"I'll just listen," Glory promised.
"Hmmm," he said. "All right, I suppose."
She turned to the last RainWing in line and took a guess. "Are you here about the missing dragon, too?"

"A dragonet," the RainWing answered. The scarlet flickers in her ruff were reflected in the dark burgundy of her scales. "Everyone thinks I lost her while venom training, but I know it wasn't my fault." She stamped her talons on the wood platform and hissed at the skeptical look on the nearest dragons face.

"So what happened to her?" Glory asked.
The burgundy dragon flung her wings up. "I don't know. Maybe she ran off. She's a terrible student and a pain in the tail. I just want to be cleared so I can have my assignment back."

"Poor Bromeliad. If you have no assignment, that means last choice of sun-time spots and only leftovers at feeding time," the pale orange dragon explained to Glory. "It's not a lot of fun."
"You must also want to find her," Glory said to Bromeliad. "Aren't you worried?"

"She'll show up eventually," said Bromeliad, flipping her burgundy tail back and forth.
'Assuming she's still alive,' Glory thought. "If you're both here about missing dragons," she said. "wouldn't it make more sense to see the queen together?"
Bromeliad and Mangrove blinked at each other, considering.

"NEXT!" called the voice again. The first dragon emerged and flew away, and the orange dragon hauled her dragonet across the bridge into the treehouse.

"There could be totally different explanations," Mangrove said. "I'm sure something terrible happened to Orchid."
"And I'm pretty sure Kinkajou ran off to spite me," said Bromeliad.
"Still," Glory said. "I mean, it makes no difference to me. But maybe she'd listen to two dragons more than she'd listen to one."

Bromeliad glanced at the three dragons in the line between her and Mangrove. One was fast asleep, and the other two seemed to be half listening, half watching butterflies.
"NEXT!"
"Come on," Mangrove said, reaching back and hauling Bromeliad up with him. "And you, too," he said to Glory.

"Wait here," Glory called to her friends. Starflight and Stormcaller were extremely focused, each staking a tower of fruits. Sunny and Tsunami were watching. Clay looked back at her with melons stuffed in each cheek, his tail swung behind him and knocked over both fruit towers. The two NightWings looked at him with a frown. She hurried after the RainWings.

The hanging vines of yellow flowers smelled like honey and vanilla. They swished against Glory's snout as she pushed through into the sunlit room beyond.

To her surprise, there were no guards - no soldiers protesting the queen, no heralds announcing each arrival. The only dragon in the room was Queen Magnificent, curled on a sort of nest made from lacy scarlet flowers and scraps of russet monkey fur. The queen was as large as Coral, but personally Glory thought she was a lot more impressive. Instead of gaudy ropes of pearls, Magnificent wore only a few garlands of the white dragonfly-wing flowers, which set off the iridescent brightness of her shifting scales.

Settled under one of her wings was a silvery gray sloth much like the one on Glory's back. It made a welcoming "yerp!" noise, and Glory's sloth burbled in response.
The queen flicked the point of her tail and leaned forward at Glory. Her eyes were friendly and a little sleepy-looking.