Wings of fire - qinter

Chapter 3

After breakfast Winter hurried along to his lessons, he carefully avoided making eye contact whith Qibli.As he went through the day several studendts that saw him while passing by sniggered, obviously remembering what has happened yesterday.

Winter ducked low as he sped through the hallway, he still couldn't screw up enough courage to face Qibli, Why on Pyrriah would a good looking,funny,popular sandwing ever want a rude,sulky, exiled prince like me? Winter was sure he would never be good enough, he was relived every time he entered a classroom, away from the stares,whispers and sniggers from other tribes that had heard about his disgrace. Why don't they just kill me now, he hissed bitterly in his head, it's like they invited me back just so that the other dragons can make fun of me and humiliate me, should run away if that's the case. Winter pushed this thought to the back of his brain, that can be a plan b, he told himself as a large group of slender-necked skywings slithered past. Winter caught a glimpse of yellow freckled scales searching through the crowd, he quickly ducked down again and headed to his art class.

Art was the last session of the day and winter had never been more grateful of that. He trooped into the cave and saw that kinkajou was already in the room, talking to moon, then he realised what kinkajou had been talking about, Moon's eyes were green, not her usual green that reminded him of sunlight filtering through the rainforest's canopy, but glowing green like venom, or acid. Winter studied her dark face intently, her eyes were literally radiating light , light that reflected off her silver scales like beacons. Then Winter heard the scrape of claws at the cave entrance and he darted towards an easel. Qibli entered followed by prince turtle, earlier that day winter would have welcomed turtle like the others, however right now he wasn't feeling it, he sulked and made sure to stare at a wall, not qibli. I wish I could tell him, winter brooded, in the ice kingdom at least we had rules to keep, a straight set of instructions on how to be amazing, but now, now at jade mountain they tell us to be ourselves, but I don't even know who I am. Winter bit his cheek, he just had to make it through this lesson, and then he could retire to his cave.

The art mistress entered the classroom around five minutes later, grinning like a smug walrus. Winter couldn't immediately tell what tribe she was from, just looking at her scales out of the corner of his eye. He turned around reluctantly, avoiding eye contact whith everyone trying to ignore Qibli acting like a sympathetic orca. "Hello! everybody!" the art mistress cried out smacking her front talons together enthusiastically, a rainwing, winter realised in his head " as you can see the art mistress last term has left and i am going to be teaching you lot for this term". She smiled warmly and looked around the classroom, " as i don't know your art levels and styles yet ,today you can paint wharever you want!" she grinned and stepped back to her chair.

Kinkajou immediately rushed forwards and she hovered over the colours, scanning them whith bright eyes, then she would find a pot of colour she liked and pounce onto it like it was prey. All the while she was busily chattering to turtle and moon ("wow! you're doing scetching?" "hey turtle how come you showed up today? i thought you were coming tomorrow" "isn't this amazing!!!?") Winter strode forwards after a while, waiting for the crowd to leave, sure this meant that he got the last picks but barely anyone touched the whites and lighter shades of blue which he meant to use.

When winter was picking his colours out he noticed qibli staring at him and also picking out the same shades as him, Winter quickly turned his head away from qibli, he did NOT want to have a talk whith that stupid little sand-snorter, although deep down he knew he didn't really mean it.

Later as they were painting winter suddenly realised that Qibli was STILL LOOKING AT HIM and it was REALLY AWKWARD. Insolent little coconut brain, Winter thought, shooting Qibli a glare, if my sister, Icicle ever caught wind of this she would tell my parents, or, He thought on miserably, or, she might hold it over me as a threat, she could use it to make me do whatever she wants me to do, SHE COULD DO ANYTHING IF SHE HAD INFORMATION THAT I HAD A CRUSH ON A SANDWING.  This sent Winter into a crazy mind freak out, focus, focus, Winter told himself, he didn't need to panic, he just was NOT allowed to have ANY relationship whith that impudent sand-snorter, because, he reasoned if he didn't have any relationship whith Qibli then Icicle would definently not have anything to threaten him whith, she was also in jail back at the ice kingdom. Which mayyyyybe made his absolute full out brain panic attack seem slightly over top, but only slightly! the rest is totally- maybe completely justified!, Winter harrumphed. Then he noticed he was looking at Qibli again, he turned around for a distraction.

The first thing that met Winter was a large quantity of blue paint, it flew straight into his face and splatted across his snout. It turned out that this unexpected paint attack was the cause of Kinkajou painting, although painting was'nt really the right word. Kinkajou's painting style consisted of a lot more throwing paint at her canvas, than using her brush, around her several dragons, including Turtle were cowering away fron the aggressive paint splatters. Not moon though she was just, staring. Her eyes were still doing that strange glowy thing. Winter hid his tiny smile and faced his work.

After a while the art mistess called out,"alright! brushes down! come and present!" Turtle went first, he had painted what he said was an orca but more than half of it was covered in small multi-coloured splatters, Kinkajou's work, obviously. Then Kinkajou presented what looked like her personality on paper, the art mistress seemed to have a lot to say about Kinkajou's one ("amazing kinkajou!" " so colourful and expressive!"), then again the art mistress was a rainwing so it might have been instinctive to back up one of her own tribe more, however winter couldn't supress his mind in whispering, favoritism. Then moon presented her artwork which contained a large spiky vine, traced whith a shade of green that matched her eyes and veins of deep red like the juice of pomagranates, Winter didn't like it the whole picture made his scales crawl, he saw Qibli behind him flinch and Winter saw a breif flash of recognition behind his obsidian black eyes. I'll ask him later.

Finally after the art mistresses many comments on their work Qibli presented his painting, That was when Winter froze like stone. Qibli had painted Winter. Qibli had even had the gall to add a HEART around his face. Wonter could see that Qibli had put lots of effort into this but behind him in the corner of his eye he could see Kinkajou giggling and gwaking. Winter's awful sense of paranoia from before rushed back into his centeral brain. 

Then before he knew what he was doing Winter punched Qibli squarely in the jaw.

A/N: hi this one took me ages and i wrte way more than i wanted to, like this one is 1242 words not including this note. anyway hope ya like it