Wings of fire: broken worlds

5- father troubles

Gradient found himself on an island as he jumped through the portal, he was slowly walking around. Suddenly he heard something and quickly went to check what it was, Gradient quickly turned to a cave and glanced in, inside he saw a short Skywing with tired eyes, a smaller copper orange skywing dragonet said, "Dad, can we play today, you haven't played with us in days!"

The skywing, which Gradient recognize as Red said, "I'm sorry Peril," he yawned before continuing, "but I'm really tired, why don't you go play with your siblings." Peril pouted slightly but quickly ran off, Red suddenly stood up and looked towards where Gradient was and said, "I can see you, come out."

Gradient walked out, Red looked confused but then said, "What are you doing here?" Gradient then replied, "I... Um.... I was just looking for a place to stay for awhile and saw this island... Are you ok, you look dead tired." Red seemed to dissociate as he stared of blankly, he then shook his head as if finally processing the information, he said, "Um.... Yeah, I'm fine, just haven't been able to get any sleep... Had terrible nightmares." Gradient felt bad and said, "Um... I could help, you can sleep while I watch over your dragonets."

Red gazed at Gradient and said, "You look like you're barely 6, are you sure you can handle 7 energetic 2 year olds?" Gradient nodded slightly nervously, Red smiled slightly and said, "Ok, well I'll introduce you to them." Red quickly lead him to a large room with several beds and a few toys, quickly seven dragonets gathered around with curiosity in their eyes, Peril then said, "Dad, who's this? His scales are weird."

Red then said, "Oh, I forgot to ask your name, but first, I am Red, the copper dragonet is my daughter Peril, the dull orange dragonet is Sky, the icewing is Winter, the sandwing is Qibli, the rainwing is Kinda you and the seawing is Turtle, and you are?" Gradient quickly replied, "I'm Gradient." Red then said, "Ok," he then turned to his dragonets and continued, "This is Gradient, he's taking care of you all while I try to sleep."

As Red left Qibli and Winter were quick to take notice of Gradient having icewing and sandwing features, "Wow, you have a tail barb, just like me!" Qibli said excitedly, Winter then said, "Yeah and look at his scales, they are pale just like mine!" Sky then said, "Are you a sandwing born with too little sand, because I was born with too little fire and it made my scaled dull!" Moon then said, "I don't think he's a sandwing, you saw in the scrolls that their tail barbs are curved his is more pointed plus he had spike."

Kinkajou suddenly appeared in front of Gradient and said, "Oh, I think he might me a new type of dragon... Maybe a... Spikewing... No, Iciclewing!" Gradient couldn't help but laugh slightly as he said, "Good effort but I'm actually a hybrid." Most the dragonets seemed confused as Kinkajou then said, "What's a hybrid?" Moon then said, "I read about them before, apparently hybrids are children of multiple tribes." Kinkajou seemed amazed and said, "Wow, you have two parents from different tribes!?!" Gradient shook his head and said, "Sorry but I actually haven't seen my parents."

Kinkajou then said, "Don't worry, we haven't seen our real parents either!" Gradient felt like he was stabbed by this comment, he did know his original parents, just not this forms parents but that comment struck him like ice.

(Thank you to Skykid762 for the suggestion of the universe used)