Wings of Fire: The LightningWing

Chapter 6 - A SkyWing

Shock's eyes fluttered open. Muddy dirt rubbed against Shock's scales, and he howled as the dragon before him pounced on his tail. "OW." Shock said, pulling his tail out of the dragon's reach. "Stop that." He had once read how to identify a female from a male, and by her behavior, she was a female. Her eyes skirted the wounds on his back as he noticed the surrounding. He was in the Sand Kingdom with a SkyWing, he presumed. She must have drug him all the way out here. "You aren't going to attack me, or . . . I don't know, tell me that I must die? I mean, you just came out of the clouds! Wait, what are you? Wha-" Shock had lifted himself up and sat on his back haunches, showing the purple scales outlining his body and the cyan undertone of his wings. Her wings flared up and down and her chest rose and fell quicker than he had imagined. "I'm a LightningWing." Shock said, scraping the sand under his talons. The wound on his back had sand in every inch of it, staining the sand red. It hurt. Now Shock knew what sand felt like. It felt like a soft grainy cloud under his feet, but hurt so bad when in contact with an open wound. It also looked like the sun spilled orange juice on it and stained the sand for the rest of eternity. The anxious SkyWing examined every inch of Shock. Then, he just realized he was bound with ropes. Nothing a little lightning couldn't fix. Shock unhinged his jaw and blasted a bunch of lightning at the ropes, the ropes sizzling into black scorch marks. The SkyWing had jumped back, revealing a dirty blond scar on her foreleg. Shock stood to match her height and spoke again. "Are you full grown?" The SkyWing hunched back and pulled her wings in. "No, I'm only 7." The SkyWing was really big for her size. By now, Shock had enough information to tell Mist about that it would take him days to write. Then he realized he had the marble, and that the marble was going to help him find the lost gem of Storm. "I need to go." Shock said, whipping around to the opposite side and stretching his wings. Immediately the SkyWing jumped before him. "I'm Maroon." She said, throwing up her wings to block him from flying. Maroon let her wings fall back down and she walked to one of Shock's sides. "I can help get the sand out of your wound. Oh! I'm so sorry, um, who are you?" Maroon stretched her neck in front of Shock's face and curiously examined his eyes. "Shock." He said, watching Maroon crane her head back over to his back. "And please, it hurts." Though Shock couldn't see her, he could feel the heat coming from her mouth, which he wasn't used to, but obviously immune to. Eventually she had relieved him of the salty sand in the wounds. "How's that?" She asked, dragging her claw down Shock's back. He had to admit, it felt good, but he didn't want to warm up to Maroon. She was just too charming, almost just to reel him in. Though he wouldn't fall for it, Shock was smarter than that. Shock watched Maroon's wings flutter, creating gusts of wind knocking at his face. "It's better." Shock said, pulling in his wings. It was really hot. The Sand Kingdom was really hot and he felt like his scales were melting into the sand. Maroon's toothy smile shown under her grim expression lit up his day. "Why did you attack me?" Her face went blank and she kneeled down to scrape the ground. Shock puffed a breath to keep his temperature. "And bring me here?" She popped her head up and laid her talon on an odd colored grain of sand. Her talons sliced through the yellow under their feet. "If you are so hot, why don't we make our way to the Kingdom of the Sea, or the Ice Kingdom? You act like you can't handle immediate heat. And, I guess, I could tell you on the way." Shock was desperate to get out of the Sand Kingdom, mainly because he couldn't handle the heat. Shock had been used to the cold, fresh air of the Lightning Kingdom, not the harsh, polluted air that he breathed in Pyrrhia. This was not what he thought Pyrrhia would be like. "Okay." Shock said, shooting his wings out and lifting himself into the air. Maroon followed him, her much larger wings almost smacking his face. Obviously, SkyWings were huge. Tired, Shock wings barely let him hover, and in the pain of the claw marks on his back made it worse. Maroon hovered under him, flying upwards to where he was sprawled across her back. She was carrying Shock to . . . Shock wanted to go to the Kingdom of the Sea and see what the clear blue liquid called water was. He beat his wings on Maroon's back and spoke. "Kingdom of the Sea." He coughed, choking on some sand he must have swallowed earlier. His wings drooped onto hers and he laid his tired head on her spiny back. Now, he could sleep and travel at the same time. His eyes drifted into a fuzzy haze, and he fell asleep on Maroon's back. Dreaming for dragons wasn't sugar plums and candy-canes. In Shock'd dream, it acted lucid, the blue transparent marble floating over a field of black. In the glass tone of the marble was the blurry image of the lost gem of Storm. He couldn't make out the surrounding, but it sure wasn't the Kingdom of the Sea. Apart from knowing that he was leaving the Sand Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Sea was the best answer so far. After all, the prophecy said to combine the tribes, and that he befriends them to fulfill the prophecy, along with who he'd imagine to be Maroon.