1000 Ships, 1000 oneshots, 1000 followers

*Blicket

Cricket was obsessed with questions. Everyone knew that. She wanted to know everything, from how deep in the ground you could dig to how high you could fly in the sky. She asked questions constantly, to most people's annoyance, but Blue never found her questions annoying.

He thought it was fascinating, the way she loved to learn, the way she lit up when someone actually gave her a real, scientific answer. He only wished he was able to answer more of her questions, if only so that she'd look at him with the same happiness she gave the books and scrolls that held all the answers she wanted.

So after they'd dealt with the othermind and both continents had grown used to each other, Blue took a trip to Pyrrhia. To JMA, specifically, because one of the dragons he had talked to had mentioned that they had one of the biggest libraries on the entire continent. Cricket had been growing more and more obsessed with the new continent and all its dragons, so Blue figured he might as well read up on the place and see if he could answer some of her questions.

He spent a week in the library, reading until his eyes begged him to stop. The blind librarian never told him to leave- he just gave him more scrolls. Occasionally a brown dragon (Mudwings, Blue discovered they were called) brought him food, even though food wasn't allowed in the library. He just said to eat quietly and Starflight, the librarian, would never know. This never worked, of course, because Starflight had a sixth sense about scrolls and when they were endangered, so the brown dragon always ended up getting chased out while Starflight screamed colorful things at him.

Blue read everything about Pyrrhia. He read about animus dragons, and how Icewings had lost them. He read about the Sandwing War and the Dragonets who ran the academy. He read about lost Seawing Princesses, Skywing fighting arenas, scavengers, the Sandwing Royal family, the plants in the rainforest, the legends of the Nightwings, and the Great Ice Cliff. He read about Albatross, Darkstalker, and the three Sandwing sisters that had started a war. He read about assassins and queens, magic princes and prophecies, sloths and hidden kingdoms. He read until he was sure his brain could hold no more information, and then he went back home to Cricket.

Luna teased him for all the time Blue spent with her, but he didn't care. He liked sitting with Cricket under the stars, so that's where they went.

"I heard there's magic dragons on Pyrrhia, capable of doing anything." Cricket said. "But only certain tribes have them. Do you think the power is genetic?"

"Actually, the Nightwings used to think that animus power- that's the magic- was only given to dragons who hatched under three full moons, but then they found out that wasn't true because Icewing animuses would marry within their families to continue the power, so it is genetic, and once the Icewings stopped doing that, they lost all their animuses." Blue said. Cricket stared at him.

"How do you know that?"

"I may have read up on Pyrrhia a bit," He admitted sheepishly. Cricket's face lit up.

"What else do you know? Tell me more!"

"What do you want to know about?"

"EVERYTHING! Oh! I know! Tell me about the Queens."

"Well, according to the one Nightwing I talked to-" Starflight had been very helpful on the matter. "There's seven dragon tribes, but only six queens. The Icewing Queen is Snowfall, because her mother was Glacier, but a plague hit the Ice Kingdom and it killed her, so now Snowfall is Queen. The Rainwings used to have several queens since they didn't know who was royalty- they'd switch off every month or so, but then Glory, who's one of the Dragonets of Destiny, challenged all the queens for their throne and won, and they found out that she was actually a descendent of the old Rainwing royal line, so she became their Queen. The Nightwing Queen was Battlewinner, but she was wounded in a battle with an Icewing and her insides were frozen, so she lived in a vat of lava in order to survive and balance out the hot and the cold. But her tribe was dying where they lived, so Glory offered to take them into the rainforest and save them, but Battlewinner couldn't leave because she needed the lava, so she tried to fight Glory, but when she left the lava, the ice took over and killed her, so now Glory's the queen of the Nightwings and the Rainwings and they share the rainforest. The Skywing Queen used to be Scarlet, but she was cruel and forced her prisoners to fight to the death for her entertainment, so Glory spit venom on her face, and Scarlet's daughter Ruby took over the throne for awhile until Scarlet came back, and then they fought for the throne and Ruby won, so Ruby is the Skywing Queen. The Seawing Queen is Coral, and she's got 32 sons no one ever talks about- we met one of them, actually! Turtle is her son. The Mudwing Queen is Moorhen, and the Sandwing Queen used to be Oasis, but she was killed by a scavenger, so then there was a 20 year war between her three daughters on who would take the throne, and it ended up going not to her daughters, but to a different Sandwing named Thorn."

"WOW," Cricket said in awe. She was staring at him. Staring like he held all the answers to the universe. Blue tried not to blush at it. "Tell me more."

"What do you want to know?" He asked her again. The questions started, and he answered them all to the best of his ability.

"Why does Queen Coral not care about her sons?"

"What happened to the Sandwing Queen's daughters when they found out they wouldn't be Queen?"

"What's a Dragonbite viper?"

"Tell me more about Rainwing venom."

"How do the Nightwings feel about living in the rainforest?"

"Where did the Nightwings used to live?"

"Why didn't Clearsight ever mention Darkstalker to us?"

"Why did she never mention Pyrrhia?"

"How did the Icewings lose their magic?"

"How can an animus tell if they're losing their soul?

"Where did the word animus come from?"

"Do dragons on Pyrrhia worship anything like we worshiped Clearsight?"

"Who named the continents?"

"What do the three moons have to do with Nightwing powers?"

"Why don't the moons give any other dragons powers?"

"If a Nightwing had a dragonet with a dragon from a different tribe, how would the moons decide to give the dragonet powers or not?"

"What do you mean, there's a rumor about the Rainwing Queen and her bodyguard?"

"How would the rainwing and nightwings react to a hybrid Queen?"

"How do they feel about hybrids in Pyrrhia?"

"Are there Kings in Pyrrhia?"

He answered them all, only saying "I don't know" once. And with every answered question, Cricket thought of two more. 

"How did you learn all this stuff?"

"I read a bunch of scrolls in a library in Pyrrhia," He admitted. Cricket looked ready to explode.

"AND YOU DIDN'T TAKE ME?!!?!?"

"I knew you'd never leave!"

"Will you take me to all the libraries in Pyrrhia one day?"

"Of course."

"...Am I annoying you with all my questions?" Blue tilted his head.

"No. Never. I love your questions." Cricket paused, falling silent for once. 

"You mean that?"

"Of course. Why?"

"....No one's ever said that they liked it when I asked questions." Blue shrugged.

"I just like how you're so curious about everything. You're so eager to learn. It's.... it's wonderful to see you happy." Cricket studied him for a moment.

"I have another question."

"Okay." They stared at each other, and Cricket hesitated, more careful about asking this question, rather than bombarding Blue with them like she usually did.

"Do you love me?" 

Blue didn't have to read a scroll to know the answer to that one.

"Yes."