Stalking Shadows

Chapter 5: Reaper or Summer?

Reaper- No, Summer- Knew herself well enough. She had done enough raids that she could easily fake having been a harmless RainWing dragonet, from a village she had attacked. No. She WAS a harmless RainWing dragonet from a village she had attacked. That was her now.

"The Reaper got to my village too. She stole my life." Summer whimpered. She curled into a ball and shed a small tear. The last part was true: The Reaper had stolen her life.

"Believe me, I'm no stranger to The Reaper. She killed my family, right in front of my eyes: When I find her, I'm going to kill her."

"Well, if she killed your whole family then couldn't I-" Summer coughed, "SHE just kill you too?"

"Nothing will stand in the way of justice."

"Revenge. Ruby, that's revenge."

"Justice. Come on Cinder, we need to head back."

"Can I come too?" Summer asked with a whimper. "I've got nowhere to go."

"Sure. Come on." They all lifted into the air, and found, that despite Cinder's fast speed, and the fact they were SkyWings, Summer still managed to fly faster.

When they finally landed, Cinder walked up to her breathless. "Where'd you learn to fly that fast?"

Now, of course Summer couldn't say, 'I'm a highly trained assassin who's known around the world,' so she settled for the next best thing. "I did? Sorry. I don't know how I fly so fast! If I did. But you said so and I seem to so-"

"I get it. I'm just impressed."

"Thanks." They headed into town and Ruby's adopted family decided that Summer could stay with them. Summer was led to a small den that Ruby said was her room. Apparently they'd be sharing it.

Summer thanked everyone for there hospitality and followed Ruby to where she was officially introducing Summer to her friends.

"Okay, this is Summer. Summer, you've already met Cinder." She gestured toward the big red dragonet. "And this is Firebreeze." She nodded to an average size SkyWing with glossy orange scales and a sweet look.

"Hi Firebreeze." Summer smiled.

"H-Hi Summer." Firebreeze had a shy grin she couldn't hide, so she buried her head in her neck. Summer smiled back, with some difficulty. Smiling in a non-cruel way was new to her. She liked it. But at the same time, she really, really hated it.

"So... Summer... what do you like to do?"

"I like laying in the sun... and uh, eating fruit?" She said it as almost a question, as she had never even been to the rainforest in the moments of her life that her brain was old enough to remember anything, other than on a couple raids. But the only bit of RainWings she had seen then was panic.

"You're lying. I can tell." Firebreeze responded.

"How-"

"You don't ask about if you like to eat something."

"Fine fine... I uh, really like flying fast. And fighting. I just got used to saying that. I didn't want the other RainWings to treat me funny. I'm not very good at fighting though."