Wings of Fire: The Rising Colors Prophecy: Book 5: The Final Battle

Prologue - Bear

      The MudWing council bickered over the smooth stone table, unsure of how to handle their impending crisis.

      Pebble pointed his sharpened brown talon towards Bear, the only dragon who had been sitting silently, "Why don't we just magic ourselves a solution?"

      Bear groaned, Here we go again. Ever since his animus powers were discovered as a two year old dragonet, he was seen as a remarkable miracle, due to being the first known animus in MudWing history, but even though his powers were "a gift to the kingdom" no one ever seemed to notice Bear for the dragon that he was, and mostly just used him for an easy way out of tricky situations, especially Pebble.

       Queen Canyon blinked her large amber eyes, "It may be the time for that." she sighed calmly.

      Bear rolled his eyes, but no one noticed. Most of his life had been one spell thrown at his face after another.

       "I'm not sure." Princess Zinc said, "After all, we've used magic very often, we don't want our animus to lose his soul and kill everyone."

        "That's just a legend." Pebble shook his head as if the princess were a one year old dragonet trying to have a conversation with a scavenger.

     Bear, on the other talon, wasn't sure how he felt about that concept. Sure, it seemed like something a SkyWing animus dragon's mother made up to keep them from using magic to keep them out of danger, but losing his soul had been a haunting fear ever since he was very young, no one knew this because they never bothered to ask.

      Queen Canyon scanned her gaze across the table, "So it's settled then."

        Bear flared his nostrils and lashed his tail in frustration, They aren't even aknowladging me! Why am I even here?

      Bear's expression grew hard as stone, "No." he whispered.

        All eyes turned to him as the conversation grew to a hush.

    "What?" Queen Canyon asked, acctually speaking to him.

     "I said no." he repeated.

      "Bear..." Python, his sister who was also on the council for being the best silversmith in the MudWing kingdom, hissed nervously to him.

        "Python," he glared at her, "I'm not doing it."

         "Preposterous!" Pebble growled, "You not doing magic is like Python refusing to create with her talent, or me refusing to protect the Queen!"

      "Those are all things you want to do!" Bear said, "My whole life you've just been telling me what I had to do, my powers and my soul are mine!"

      "You'll be off the council." Queen Canyon told him sternly.

      Bear was infuriated, they still weren't taking him seriously.

       He swiftly opened his wings as he slammed his clenched talons on the table. Pebble grabbed his spear and jumped protectively in front of Queen Canyon who was a stiff as a statue as her niece lept to her side in startled fear, much like Python who, instead of leaping, seemed to insplode where the princess had exploded.

      "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID COUNCIL ANY MORE THAN YOU CARE ABOUT MY FEELINGS!" he roared.

      Queen Canyon blinked softly as she opened her jaws to speak, but before she could speak her mind as Bear never before had at this table, he had ran from the room.

      Bear slammed the large wooden doors open, if slamming a door open is a thing, stomping out of the palace in his fury.

     The surrounding town around him was a blur as headed straight into the forest.

     As his surroundings grew to wood and leaf Bear soon came to the stump where he kept the stones he sharpened when he was angry as if they were weapons, though he never intended to use them for anything of the sort.

      He picked up two partially sharpened rocks that were each about the size of one of his talons.

      Grinding them together he snarled in hatred of the dragons on the council, Pebble for objectifying him, Zinc for fearing him without even considering how he felt, and Queen Canyon for being the cold ringleader of it all.

     "Bear!" he brought his tormented gaze up to see the one dragon on the council who he couldn't possibly hate, his sister.

     "Oh my moons!" she gasped, "You have to go back to the council and apologize, they're saying things about losing your soul!"

       "I don't care," he snarled, looking back down at his stones, "I'm never going back to that table in my life!"

       "Ohhhhhh," Python tried desperately to find a way to make him come back, "you just can't do that, Bear!"

       Then, Bear made the worst mistake of his life, he had only meant to scare her into leaving him alone, but no. Enchant these stones to strike into that tree next to Python, he thought, loosening his grip so that the stones could do as they were told.

       Bear didn't look up until he heard his sister gasping, and then shrieking in pain.

     "Python!" He saw that the stones had accidentally sliced through the left side of her face on their way to the tree.

     "Heal her!" he cried as he ran to his wounded sister where she blead out into the grass.

      As he reached her, it seemed as if she was begging to un-bleed until she finally regained consciousness.

        "Bear?" her green eyes fluttered open, the sliced side of her face was still disfigured, there were no scales and you could see her teeth from the side of her mouth, but still bore the marks of several months healing.

     She brought her talon up to the wounded area, feeling her scars. "What did you do to me?" she gasped, backing away from her brother.

     "Wait, come back, I can fix it!" He stepped toward her.

      "Stay away from me!" she roared as she began to run.

      Bear knew the chase was hopeless, the kingdom would be against him the second that Python's word spread to the village. So, with nowhere to go, he took off into the midday sky.