Wings of Fire: The Prequels

4.2

After the hang out with the brothers, Gust and Storm began to adamantly learn Aquatic, how to speak above-water, and how to read. Cyclone somehow became their sole teacher, although Fin would occasionally drop by to help out. His methods were sound enough and he could focus on them individually, making him a great teacher for the two.

When it came to speaking above-water, Cyclone mixed it with learning Aquatic. On a small sandbar close to the Deep Palace, Cyclone spoke while doing the Aquatic. They started with things that they already knew and moved on when the two understood it well enough. Like when it came to learning Aquatic at all, Gust picked it up instantly. Storm sometimes had to take a few tries but she learned quickly.

And when it came to reading, Cyclone once again mixed it with Aquatic, normal speech too at times. Switching sentences, Gust and Storm would read one of Coral's stories. If Cyclone wanted to challenge them, he would have them speak normally and Aquatic at the same time. Gust picked it up easily again but Storm struggled quite a bit.

Reading with Aquatic was the only thing Cyclone could assign as homework, so he did. Whenever he was out, Cyclone would always ask them to review the latest story they did. Gust tried to help Storm out as much as possible but she sometimes got too frustrated for it.

"I wish these stupid slates would just crumble to dust!" Storm whined, getting an understanding look from Gust. Their attention was grabbed away from each other and to the stone slates that did as Storm said and crumbled to dust. "What in the tides' temper?!"

Gust put it together quickly, gasping when he did. "Storm, you're an animus dragon!" Gust grinned at Storm, his excitement making him flash his scales a little more brightly than necessary.

"I'm a what dragon?" asked Storm, squinting at Gust in confusion.

"Oh right," said Gust, his grin turning a little sheepish as he remembered that she could barely get the Aquatic for their current part of the story. The story about what he was saying. "Here, I don't know if this will work but maybe since you're one, I'm one."

"What?"

"I enchant this dust to turn white and arrange itself on the floor in the word 'animus'," said Gust, his grin starting to hurt his face when the dust followed his orders.

"We're animus dragons!" shouted Storm, slightly slow on the word 'animus' but that didn't distract from her excitement. She grabbed his arm, making him yelp and quickly laugh along with her as they spun around. "We're animus dragons! We're animus dragons!"

"We're animus dragons! We're animus dragons!" Gust chanted with her, not caring that they were spreading around the dust with their ridiculous dancing.

The excitement lasted for a little while before they got tired from the dancing and sat down to think about the complications from being animi. "We should enchant one thing and one thing only after we clean up the dust," said Storm, glancing around at the mess they had made in slight amusement.

"I got it. I enchant the dust from the slates to return to their original state before Storm's enchantment," said Gust, watching with Storm in awe as the dust gathered and solidified into the story slates. "What should we enchant?"

"How about those matching bracelets Cyclone got us?" suggested Storm, getting a nod from her brother. They split off for a moment to get their bracelets before sitting down together again. "What should the enchantments be?"

"Maybe only we can take them off and only with our permission can they be enchanted?" Gust suggested, turning over the bracelet in his talons. It was a thin silver band with four evenly spread out dark blue sapphires, one of the sapphires surrounded by swirling engraving on either side of it. On the remaining lengths of silver, wavy lines were engraved there like waves.