Wings of Fire: Dragons, Steel, and Pom-Poms

XVII - An Inglorious Skirmish

>Nearby the Diamond Spray Delta, on the border between the Sky Kingdom and the Kingdom of The Sea_

"COME ON, FIGHT YOU WEAKLINGS! ARE YOU SALAMMANDERS OR SEAWINGS!?"

Greenling ducked and rolled to avoid a fire stream from a SkyWing attacking from her periphery, trying hard to ignore what felt like a forest fire raging within her lungs.

A clumsy slash with her talons, that might as well have been aimed at one of the moons for all the good it did, was all she could manage to counter the attack. The attacking dragon simply powered away on swifter wings.

Rather than being able to reorient and pursue, the defending SeaWing could only flare her wings back out and engage the air itself in a battle to remain aloft.

Once stabilized, she was able to redirect some of her attention back to the battle around her- flinging her gaze around wildly.

Dragons of Sky and Sea, of blue and green and of orange and red whirled around each other in a mad swarm. A cacophony of enraged battle roars and agonized screeches mixes with the intense beat of angry wings and whoosh of fire breath pounded her skull like undercurrents in a storm.

She managed to catch herself as her eyes began to grow unfocused. There were too many quickly moving objects to track, and it was overloading her senses.

Her eyes finally locked onto a single form, the huge dark green shape of her Attack Wing Leader, the rallier and soldier coordinator that had just called out.

The massive SeaWing had managed to close distance with a SkyWing opponent despite the latter's speed advantage and was grappling the red dragon's talons with his own, keeping them from reaching his own wings.

The SkyWing tried to rear their rear talons to pummel the larger SeaWing in the underbelly, but was thwarted when the Wing Leader convulsed his entire body to swing his entire tail into the dragon's torso.

The SkyWing was sent careening off for the ground below with a gross noise Greenling would probably have trouble unhearing for a while.

But before the huge SeaWing could so much as roar triumphantly, did a small SkyWing maneuver and dive on him, connecting with his wing with scrabbling claws like an inexperienced hunter would pounce on a rabbit.

And with that their 15-year fighting veteran Wing Leader was condemned to a short fall and hard landing with the ground.

But at this point, Greenling had been distracted far too long.

She had hardly a second to shake herself out, before she caught onto another small orange SkyWing diving hard for her right-talon wing, talons outstretched and teeth bared.

Without thinking, Greenling barely managed to pull the respective wing in close with hardly a scavenger paw's clearance before she shared in her former Wing Leader's fate.

The attacking SkyWing flared their own wings out again and easily pulled up and off, while Greenling once again fought the sky itself to regain stable flight before she met the treetops reaching up for her.

She caught herself at the last moment, straining every last flight muscle she had, pushing her wings until it felt like they'd shear off on their own to arrest her fall and slowly climb back up to the battle above.

Although, thank the moons, it didn't look like she would need to. Because at that moment, something almost imperceptible across both sides of the brawl shifted.

Both tribes of dragons maneuvered to disengage each other and gain a few wingbeats of distance from each other, and all made to dive for the ground on their own accords.