Wings of Fire: The Prequels

5.1

Rust was supposed to be a decoration.

Brought to Burn as an egg a mere few minutes before he was supposed to hatch, he was intended as a present. Killing him the moment he came out of the egg was the original plan. Several guards waited on the sidelines, guarding Burn as both she and Smolder watched the egg with the gifter.

Cracks forming across the red and yellow egg made everyone hyper-focus on it. A small explosion of eggshell followed soon after the cracks formed. Out stepped a small dragonet who had no clue of what he was.

Most of him was sandy yellow, marking out part of his SandWing heritage despite the wingspan and body build that named him as part SkyWing. More SkyWing showed in the form of red and orange stripes along his back and wings. The freckle-like scales that were normally brown for SandWings were bright copper instead, that SandWing detail replacing the frill. A pale red barb was also there, his rust-colored eyes staring at it curiously before they swept across the rest of the room.

"A perfectly odd specimen, as you can see!" said the SandWing who had gifted the egg, an edge of relief in his voice.

Burn stayed silent, studying the hybrid dragonet with dark eyes. When rust met obsidian, something in her eyes changed. "Lead some of my soldiers to where you found this egg. They will capture anyone who tries to return for the egg," said Burn, her statement surprising everyone but they were wise enough to stay silent.

"Escort him out. Everyone else, leave," said Burn, leveling any hesitation with a sweep of her gaze. Dragons scrambled to follow her orders, the dragonet watching carefully but not moving to join them. Her authoritative gaze didn't need words accompanying it to tell him to stay.

"Urr?" he said, staring at Burn who stepped in front of him when everyone was finally gone.

"I'll call you Rust. You're staying with me, got it?" said Burn, ordering the dragonet around like he was a soldier. It took a moment of silent blinking before he was nodding in agreement. "Good, follow me."

Tripping over his own talons for a moment, Rust obediently did as told. They walked through the stronghold, Burn's glare silencing any questions from passing guards. It took a while with a completely newborn dragonet forced to try to keep pace with a grown giant of a dragon but they got to their destination with some time.

Two guards stood by the door, allowing entry to Burn without a second thought. In the room, various odd things took precedent to observe. At the wall, a sleeping ledge became Burn's next destination.

"Come on," said Burn, laying down on the ledge while Rust gave her a confused look. An impatient tap of her talons against the stone gave him the message. Dropping into a crouch, he jumped up and barely scrambled onto the ledge.

Satisfied, she laid her wing over him to make sure he wouldn't run off. "Rest, tomorrow will be busy," she said, still staring at the dragonet.

He took that opportunity to test something. "Ru... Roost," said Rust, pointing at himself.

"Rust," Burn corrected, watching as Rust tried again and got it right. He pointed at her, asking a silent question that she understood. "Burn."

"Burn," he parroted, nodding to himself when she gave him a nod to confirm it. "Rest," said Rust, curling up a little and hiding his nose under one of his wings. Nodding again, Burn watched him as his breathing began to slow. One of her claws lightly traced designs into his shoulder, his breath slowing down at a faster rate until he was peacefully sleeping with an admirer still inspecting his scales.

Waking up to a lack of scales sliding over his, Rust looked towards the door where some commotion was. Burn stepped in a moment later, a few live lizards hanging from her talons. Motioning for him to come closer, Burn sat down and set one of the lizards down.