Wings Of Fire Oneshots - The Guardians

Saving Peril - Kestrel

Crack. Crunch. Craaaaack. CrAcK.

Kestrel looked down at her egg, her heart fluttering with excitement. They're hatching! she thought. She was about to be a mother. 

The large egg was a crimson color, pulsing on the inside with a coppery orange. Kestrel tipped her wings protectively over the egg. She knew she was going to have twins; if the sheer size of her egg wasn't enough, the mother's instinct that throbbed in her chest screamed, There's two! TWO DRAGONETS!!

The rust red SkyWing put her talons on the egg, willing them to hatch faster. The egg was warm - too warm. Kestrel wrinkled her snout with worry. 

That doesn't make sense, she thought, it feels like it's almost made of fire. Her mother instinct throbbed a warning, but Kestrel shook it off, burying the nagging worry in the back of her brain. It couldn't be possible. Yet the egg was uncomfortably hot, hot enough that she removed her talons as quickly as if the egg housed a dragonbite viper.

Kestrel's heart did a drum solo and a backflip as a crack the length of two talons appeared along the side of the egg. A thin wisp of steam trailed from it and vanished into the mountain air. Another throbbing burst of instinct, but Kestrel shied away from that thought as she saw the steam.

No no no no no! Her mind roared furiously. There was something wrong with her dragonets. They were burning. Kestrel desperately tapped the egg, trying to weaken the eggshell.

Suddenly, the egg burst apart. A flaming hot shard smacked Kestrel's forearm and she hissed with pain. Two dragonets sat in the nest where the egg had just been; one sitting upright, the other flopped on the ground, looking exhausted. The upright dragonet had coppery orange scales Kestrel had never seen before, complete with a set of striking cobalt blue eyes. The other was a pale, pale orange-red, as if the fire had been sucked out of him, and the scales along his back were a charred black. He looked like a dying ember, compared to his sister who radiated heat and steam.

Kestrel took a step back in shock as the realization sank in. Her instinct was right. The coppery dragonet had firescales, and the other had no fire at all. It was every twin-expecting SkyWing mother's nightmare come true. 

Firescales yipped happily at the sight of her mother. She stood up and took a tentative step towards Kestrel. Her wings flapped open as she lost her balance and landed in an awkward position on her back. Flameless was still in his position half in, half out of the nest.

Kestrel walked over to her dragonets. I will still love them, she thought fiercely, and I will protect them, even if it means joining the Talons of Peace, because I WILL NOT BE FORCED TO KILL MY DRAGONETS.

She reached a claw out to her daughter, testing the heat coming off her scales. Firescales put up her talons and grabbed playfully at her mother. Kestrel couldn't bite back the shriek of pain as she came in contact with her daughter's scales. She yanked her talon away and inspected the scorched black talon-print burn on her claws.

It was no use. She couldn't even touch one of her dragonets. Kestrel looked at her son, who was still flopped pathetically on the rocky floor of the hatching cave. She scooped him up, the odd coolness of his scales a relief after the burn from his sister. Flameless managed to look less like a dying fish as he snuggled closer to his mother. 

This is what she had wanted. The love from her own dragonets, the thrill of raising them to be strong and powerful fighters in the war. Firescales would certainly be a fighter; she was already on her feet, bursting small flames out of her coppery snout. But Kestrel couldn't touch her, and that brought a sadness to her bones that she never expected from herself. She looked down at the dragonet in her arms. Flameless was never going to be able to defend himself. He had no natural weapons, and the burns on his back were too severe for him to fight. Ever.