Chapter Text
It was still relatively early in the morning when Sky decided it was finally time for him to wake up. He yawned before getting up and stretching, leaving his room to maybe find some breakfast. As Sky finds his way to his kitchen, he finds Kinkajou eating some of his grapes.
“Oh? Good morning, forgot you were here, Kinkajou. Need anything besides some food?” He says, grabbing himself some berries and putting them into a bowl before continuing. “I plan on doing some personal gardening today before I mess with the local gardens later, if you ever need something to do.”
Kinkajou smiles at Sky before setting the grape
bowl down. “Sounds lovely! I know a bit about gardening, I can surely help you with your home stuff before I get back to Winter and Turtle. Is there anything particularly I can help work on? Fruits, veggies, flowers?”
Sky thought to himself for a moment before answering the rainwing. “My flowers do need watered, and I need to pull up some weeds… I think some tomatoes need to be picked, if you're up for it. If not you can always just head back to your friends.” He brought a flower from a nearby pot up to his nose and took in its floral scent.
Kinkajou smiled at the sight. If she didn't know better she'd assume Sky was a Rainwing. He's a vegetarian, very kind, a pacifist, very connected with nature, and has a love for all forms of gardening. It's like his soul was misplaced, put in the wrong tribe (especially considering how mean or angry a lot of Skywings are).
She then remembered he was expecting some sort of answer from her. She let out a friendly chuckle before finally responding to him.”Naw, I think I'll stick around for a bit, they can handle a couple moments without little ol’ me. Anyways, what did you have planned for me, again?”
Sky pulls out two pairs of gardening gloves from a drawer and hands one pair to Kinkajou. “You can work on plucking any ripe vegetables you find, preferably into separate baskets. I'll work on watering everything and dealing with weeds, sounds good?” He shakes some dirt out of his gloves before putting them on.
Kinkajou also shakes the dirt out and off of her own gloves before putting them on as well. “Yup! That's fine by me.” She looks out one of Sky's windows to see what all his garden has. “Hmmm…. Should I separate the different pepper colors too or…?” She questions him as she picks up some weaved baskets Sky had piled by the back door.
“Hmm, I don't mind if you bunch them together, though you may or may not need more than one basket for them due to the amount they add up to total.” Sky grabs a watering pot and a basket. “I'll be a moment, I need to fill this up to water the plants, think you'll be good on your own for a bit?”
“Yup! I'll be fine, only a couple minutes at most. You go on ahead, I'll start what I can.” Kinkajou waves to Sky as he leaves to fill his watering pot. The rainwing quickly heads outside to Sky's garden to start working on his crops. Once she gets a good look at everything she finds a good place to start picking and separating the plants, starting with Tomatoes.
A few short minutes go by as Kinkajou continues to pluck the vegetables in Sky's garden, being sure to separate everything from one another. Soon enough Sky arrives back at his house and starts dealing with watering all of his plants, starting with all of his flowers and eventually moving onto anything edible that he is growing.
Sky continues his activities peacefully as his pot gets slightly less heavy with each plant he accommodates too. “So, Kinkajou, I'm assuming life at Jade Mountain is nice? I've been considering joining there, but nothing official yet.” He empties the last of the water pot onto the rest of his crops, gently setting it aside.
“Oh, yes, Jade Mountain is very lovely! All the teachers are very nice. I've met most of my best friends while there, including Winter, of course! Plus, everyone there is at least a little weird, so it's easy to connect with others through our own oddities. Anyways, it would be nice if you joined! Though I can totally understand why you wouldn't want to as well.” She finished up sorting the peppers, then moving onto the small strawberry garden as she smiles and giggles to herself before getting to work with an empty basket.
Sky starts carefully looking through his flower bed for weeds so he could remove them. “Yeah…. It's definitely a hard choice, but I'll figure it out eventually. If I do end up going, it'll be nice seeing you there!” He yanks a weed out of the dirt and sets it in his basket. “It would be nice to get a proper education…. I mean, It's kind of embarrassing, but I barely know how to read…” He gives a nervous chuckle before carefully looking through the bed again.
Kinkajou gives Sky a friendly, understanding smile. “Psshhh, like that matters to me! My handwriting still totally sucks, and I only started learning how to read a couple months ago. Hell, I'm still getting a hold of spelling my own name! But seriously, you're smart as hell either way, so I couldn't care if you're able to spell or not, if it helps.” She carefully examined each strawberry before plucking them, leaving any that aren't ripe yet (which thankfully isn't that many).
Sky smiles back at her and continues weeding his flowers. “Well, at least it's nice to know I'm not alone on that out here, I suppose. Well, when I figure it out I'll write to you. Or rather have someone write for me… But besides the point! Hmmm…. Oh!!” His tail starts wagging out of excitement. “At some point I'll be going to the rainforest so I can visit Pineapple and meet his boyfriend and friends! He's really a lovely guy, we write to each other a lot, actually!” He smiles and giggles happily to himself before taking a couple seconds to calm down and get back to weeding the garden.
Kinkajou giggled at Sky's excited reaction to talking about Pineapple. “Seems like the two of you are quite close! Met for the trip to Pantala, correct? Well, it's nice to see you getting along with him, he really is a kind spirit. Oh! And once you finally go to the rainforest, you'll get the chance to meet our queen! Queen Glory is such a lovely ruler, I could talk good about her for hours!” She eyes the strawberries before carefully grabbing several and tossing them into her basket.
Sky smiles softly with a small tint of blush on his face. “H-He really is nice…. I like how he doesn't treat me differently for being abnormal, I like how nice he is to me and…..” He trails off into half coherent mumbles as he moves to another area to work on.
Kinkajou grins widely as her scales glow a brighter yellow. “You have a crush on him don't you? I bet you think he's just sooooo cute~” Kinkajou teased Sky as she laughed to herself. “Oh I bet he's just the prettiest dragon ever~” She continued to friendly poke fun at him, trying to rile up some sort of reaction out of Sky.
Sky gets extremely flustered and throws a handful of dirt at Kinkajou. “No! H-He's just really nice! I just like how open minded and considerate he is…. It's not like that, I swear! Plus, e-even if it was, he already has a boyfriend, I wouldn't have a chance with him.” He mumbles something else under his breath as he continues removing weeds.
Kinkajou laughs at Sky's embarrassed reaction to her teasing. “Calm down, I'm just messing with you. Also, polyamory is very common among rainwings. It might be harder to find a monogamous relationship than a polyamorous one. But, y'know, totally just a random fact that has nothing to do with your not-crush on Pineapple. Anyways!!! I think I'm done here. I'm assuming you'll be finishing up soon, as well?” She double checks everything to make sure nothing was missed.
Sky pushes aside the embarrassment he was feeling and picks the last of the weeds in the area. “Yeah, let me dispose of these things and we can either rinse off my home grown food or we can visit your friends and I can do that at a later date. I'm fine with either option so you can decide.” He takes off his gloves and sets them inside on his counter, then grabbing the basket of weeds and dumping them in a big bin.
Kinkajou ponders her options for a few short moments before answering with her decision. “We can go rinse off the fruits and veggies first, it'll be easier if we get them out of the way instead of waiting.” She also takes her gloves off and sets them inside with Sky's and grabs a couple of the baskets to bring to the river
Sky grabs a couple baskets himself and he checks them out to make sure they're all ripe. “Sounds good! It shouldn't take too long to rinse them and bring them back, so you can probably fit in some good time to spend with Winter and Turtle. I may or may not stick around but I'm a busy guy around here so I might head out after we get there.” He brushes some dirt off of his arms and triple checks the fruit.
“That's fine! We should probably go wash these, though. Don't wanna waste too much time, y'know?” She flashes him a friendly smile as she picks up a basket with her tail.
The two dragons chat and banter as they head towards the river bed to wash the dirt from the crops filling their baskets. They both slowly come to a stop as they reach the river bank.
Kinkajou sets her baskets down and takes the ones Sky was carrying, setting all of them into the water so it fills the baskets and lightly rinses the vegetables and fruits alike. The young rainwing quickly gets to rubbing dirt off of some peppers from one of the baskets as Sky steps forward and does the same to some tomatoes.
The pair chats and banter whilst they wash off the fruits and vegetables, being careful as to not miss anything. Eventually, after several not so long moments go by, the two dragons finish up their chore, pick up their baskets, and find their way back to Sky's house.
“So, Sky, do you still wanna head over to Winter's house to meet with them?” Kinkajou sets the baskets down in Sky's kitchen, brushing off her scales of dirt once again.
Sky himself also sets his baskets down, next to Kinkajou's. “Yup! Wouldn't hurt talking to Turtle and Winter. Hopefully they're awake by now, I wouldn't want to interrupt their sleep.” He rearranges the baskets and straightens them out.
“Sounds good to me!!! Welp, we should probably head out now, don't want to waste too much time pondering and thinking!!”
~~~~POV Switch~~~~
Turtle felt the coldness of Winter's scales pressing tightly against his as he laid resting in the Icewing's bed. He grumbles at the sun flashing in his eyes as he pulls the cold dragon closer, finding an odd comfort in the prince's presence.
The seawing prince twines his tail with the other dragons and nuzzles his snout into his neck, careful not to poke himself on Winter's sharp icewing spines.
Hmmm…. Turtle is sure he might've heard someone talking, but eventually decides it's probably from the half-awake dream he's having. He blocks out the background noise and focuses on the closeness between him and the other prince.
The moment feels tender, he can't help but cherish it. That is until he and Winter are RUDELY AND ABRUPTLY WOKEN UP by the ANNOYINGLY HIGH PITCH squealing of a CERTAIN RAINWING GIRL.
“Wha…? Who the hell- KINKAJOU?!” Winter quickly scrambles to his feet, his face practically painted blue with blush. “Kinkajou, I swear to the GREAT ICE DRAGON AND ALL THE MOONS. If you say a SINGLE WORD TO ANYONE ABOUT THIS you are DEAD.”
Kinkajou was turning every color in and out of the rainbow and jumping around with the energy of 10 supernovas as she teased Winter and asked him a bunch of invasive questions. Winter, being the kind dragon he was, pushed the brightly colored rainwing off her feet and into a (thankfully) empty shelf.
Amidst the chaos that is Winter and Kinkajou, Turtle notices another dragon standing in the doorway, that dragon being Sky, who was chuckling at the interaction happening with the rainwing and icewing. “Those two are funny, how can anyone manage to handle both at the same time?” Sky remarked, mostly to himself, though still acknowledging the seawing prince a couple of steps away from him.
Turtle fidgets with his arm band as he looks at the two dragons. “H-Honesty, I don't know… They're uh, definitely a pair to watch interact….” He lightly chuckles as Kinkajou continues to tease and poke at Winter.
“So….. Winter, ey?” Sky questions Turtle, giving him a teasing smile.
“I….. Don't wanna talk about it.” Turtle runs a claw over the last of the skyfire stones he has on his arm band. Even if he wouldn't say it to anyone anytime soon, he did enjoy that rare moment of closeness he had with Winter. It was nice, to say the least.
Eventually, the friendly feud between Winter and Kinkajou settles down, and things are more normal.
“So…. It's still sort of early in the morning,” Kinkajou remarked, settling herself next to Winter “do y'all think we could find something to do. Maybe just hang out or uh… Other things?” She questioned, looking around at the small group of dragons around her.
“Well I was hoping to catch some breakfast after waking up, I-I mean we're all probably hungry, right?” Turtle fidgeted with his claws and slightly adjusts his sitting position. “But if not I'm always down to do whatever you guys want…”
Winter hums to himself before responding “Hmm, grabbing something to eat doesn't sound too bad, I suppose.”
“Food sounds good!” Sky exclaimed, agreeing with the two.
“Well I won't complain if we get something to eat, me and Sky will probably find some fruits and whatnot while you and Winter do your hunting. C'mon, let's go!!”
They all eventually head out of Winter's house to do their individual food finding.