Chapter Text
The air was dry but crackled with energy. In the dim flickering light that the overhead clouds cast on the nighttime world below, Taro had to wonder if chasing a dozen Nightwings across the rainforest was the stupidest thing a small team of under trained, mentally scarred RainWings could do. At his wing tips Razz and Filo kept pace, the only indication of their presence the occasional shimmer as their scales shifted to match the changing light levels around them. Up ahead, Jenjar took the lead, also invisible save for the steady beat of bright orange that shot across the stretched webs of her wings. It was a form of communication the General had taught them, modeled after what little she knew of her own tribe’s underwater language.
So far there’d been little reason to use that language except when guarding the perimeter of the NightWing camp. Now, however, Taro had to admire just how effective it was. Even in the dark, the bright signal up ahead told him and his wingmates where to fly and to hold position as they were, and the dark mass of wings in the distance couldn’t possibly see it. And yet the paranoia induced thought that somehow they could was what put the tingle in his spine. Part of him was excited that this was his first real taste of being a…well, something like a soldier, though no one had called RainWings that so far. He felt like he was a part of something important, fighting against the steadily growing winds of an oncoming storm to stop an enemy. He was on a mission!
But a larger part of him was terrified. He and his team weren’t prepared. They were outnumbered, even outclassed, and the dragon leading them was notably impulsive, sometimes irrational. Taro knew her from before, but she wasn’t the same since the NightWings stole her away. He knew he was different too. He’d been one of those who had carried on unconcerned with his tribemates’ mysterious absences. He’d thought they’d be back of their own free will. There had been no reason to worry until he’d been taken too. Now, he worked harder than the others, trained with more vigor, and fought with more passion in the sparring rings. But Jenjar was something else. She’d gone from a joyous yellow-green flower arranger to an angry dragoness of orange and flaming red. Her colors hardly shifted anymore, and her once sky blue eyes were a cornflower dusk. It was painful to see the Change so obvious in someone else.
I wonder if anyone sees it in me, he thought, considering that he hadn’t really known any of the others until they were shackled together in a smelly sulfur dungeon.
Thunder clapped again and the strongest gust they’d had to face yet rushed upwards into their wings, veering the RainWing troop off course. They managed to stabilize again, scales lit with subtle symbols as they fell in line, but when Taro narrowed his eyes and peered into the distance he saw that the NightWings were further away.
Suddenly, lightning crashed, searing an arc towards a large crooked tree not so far from his squad’s position, and Taro was momentarily blinded. A droplet of rain fell, smacking his snout with a jolt of unexpected cool, and then the sky fell like a waterfall. They were drenched before he could blink the water from his eyes and Jenjar shouted something he couldn’t make out from somewhere below him. Razz repeated her orders from his right.
“She said we can’t fly in this! Get to the trees!” she yelled, and Taro didn’t bother trying to find her in the deluge. He spiraled for the canopy and nestled himself in the upper branches of a banyan. He paused to get his bearings.
“Taro, over here!” Filo called from the dark, and in another flash of lightning Taro could see the seafoam RainWing under clumps of bananas in the neighboring tree. He joined Filo with a well aimed leap.
“You see where Jenjar went?” Taro yelled. His own voice was swallowed by the loud rustling around them but his companion seemed to hear.
“Yeah, just north. Follow me!” Filo replied with an erratic nod.
With a twist, they flipped tail first into waiting vines and swung their way deeper into the vegetation. The rain pattered continuously around them, concentrated by the leaves above into small rivers and cascades that fell from branch to gnarled branch. Taro splashed his way through them, bouncing towards a waiting tree trunk and clawing his way up with curved talons. The trees here were massive, and the gaps between sometimes wide. These gaps were spanned by long natural bridges of vines, some of which held plants that were usually found closer to the ground. Silent as an owl he soared into such a suspended bush of tangberries and stopped to wait. Filo wasn’t far behind.
The clumsier RainWing carelessly snapped twigs as he crashed into the bush with him, but the bird call he sounded was a perfect imitation of the crowned whitebarb, which lived nowhere near this section of the forest. A matching whistle answered, its echoes bouncing off the walls of the green canyon around them.
“Ah! Just ahead,” Filo said before launching upwards in a burst of fruit and debris. Taro made his exit with more stealth, and soon they joined Jenjar in the center of a massive carrotwood. The knot of orange branches overhead kept water out, while the thick waxy leaves around them reduced most of the storm’s noise to a dull roar. Despite the situation, Taro felt the taut muscles in his wings relax. This was a safe hiding spot.
Jenjar was wedged between a couple branches, her head angled to peer through a hole in their shelter. From here, a narrow sliver of the horizon could be seen whenever the sky briefly turned light blue. If it wasn’t for the lightning, the forest would be pitch black.
“Where’s Razz?” Jenjar asked absently, eyes squinted as she tried to spot their targets.
“Right here!” Razz’s youthful voice chirped, and she popped into their natural hut with a flurry of her berry colored wings.
“Good,” Jenjar said, turning to face them with her spear raised. “Rest for a bit and gather your resolve. We’ll be moving out shortly.”
Filo tilted his head. “Uh, how now?”
“As long the NightWings are grounded, we have the upper claw. This is our forest. We know it best, and they can’t move through it like we can!” Her tail flicked meaningfully, and Filo muttered an oh before reaching hurriedly into his pouch to count his darts. He’d done that countless times on patrol. Taro figured it was a nervous habit. “We’ll go in quick and quiet, knock ‘em out, and then send word to Queen Glory to send in a retrievable team to transport them back.”
“Retrieval,” Razz corrected quietly, a grape poked through on the talon she held aloft.
Taro watched Jenjar’s matter of fact nod, and whatever buzz he’d had for adventure earlier started to evaporate. This was just surreal. Faced with his patrol captain’s sheer determination to take this to a level out of their league, he felt like his super-soldiering fantasy was bleeding into the real world and at its center was a RainWing who thought she was Tsunami herself. It was delusional. It was dangerous. Reason took over fancy now, and he took a cautious step forward.
“Jenjar, Filo’s the only one with darts, and there’s…eleven of them.” He was pretty sure it was eleven. “How are we supposed to take them on if he can’t get a dart in before they realize what’s happening?”
Jenjar’s horns tossed back and she smirked assuredly. “They’ll be sleeping. In a storm like this? Why would those monsters go out again?”
Filo nodded creakily as if it made sense, but Taro was quick to shake his head. “They just landed, and they’re on the run. They won’t be sleeping, they’ll be keeping watch. I bet they know they’re being followed.”
Razz looked thoughtful.
“They can’t know we’re following them,” Jenjar answered slowly, her grip tightening on her weapon. He could see her eyeing him. He hated it when she did that. It made him feel stupid. “They can’t even see us! Besides, whether they know doesn’t matter. We still have the element of surprise. We’ll circle around and approach from the north while Filo flanks ‘em and puts ‘em all down at once!”
“Yeah, wait, I – Uh – Nevermind,” was Filo’s aborted comment. He shifted nervously, claws rested over his pouch.
“It sounds…” Taro trailed off and he hesitated. It seemed like he was always voicing his doubts to her, and he knew she didn’t appreciate it. But this was more important than guard duty. It paid to be cautious. Didn’t it? “It sounds like you’re taking us into combat, and I don’t think that’s a good idea. “
On cue, she growled with exasperation. “Oh, I knew it! Taro! For the love of – “
He pushed anyway, “We should wait for back up while they’re grounded and then surround them. That’s the safest way – “
“How many times do I have to - Sometimes you have to take risks, Taro! We don’t have time to wait for back up. It took us two days to get here!”
“And others may have followed behind us!” Taro argued quickly. “Everyone saw it when they escaped. We just happened to be the first to respond. Glory wouldn’t just let us fly off and disappear! Back up won’t be far behind - we’re kind of incompetent if you haven’t noticed! We need to wait!”
Jenjar’s tail thrashed and she seemed to bite her tongue. Trying to keep a rational lilt to her voice, she replied, “I – we can handle this. We know them, Taro. This time we’re prepared.”
“Maybe, but there’s eleven of them and four of us,” he reasoned.
“We’ve got venom! Lots of it, as I recall!” Jenjar retorted sharply, gesturing pointedly to her mouth with all talons simultaneously. “They’re afraid of us!”
“Yeah, but you’re leading us into battle and I just don’t think you’re qualified to make combat decisions! Not two moons ago we were still in the healers’ huts. We were starved and weak. We’re still recovering, and I just don’t think –“
“I WAS THERE LONGEST,” Jenjar shouted with a slam of her spear on the wooden floor, and the comment was followed by an ominous rolling from the sky that shook the tree from the ground up. Taro shut his mouth with a clack of teeth. “I was the one who lasted the longest, Taro,” she continued in a quiet fury. Her wings were raised, silhouetted against the dim light outside, and in those wings he could see the holes where she’d been pinned to Mastermind’s wall. “By the time I got there, all the ones before me were dead or dying. I know what hunger and weakness are. I knew all about it before you did, but I’m standing here now because I am stronger for it.” She raised a claw, snake-like, and pointed into the distance. “There are NightWings out there and they have a plan. There have been rumors going around for as long as they’ve been here, infesting our home with their ugly scales and jealous eyes. If it has anything to do with harming me or my tribe or my forest, I’m going to find it out and I’m going to stop them. If I’m willing and able to take them on in battle, Taro, so should you be!”
Taro suddenly found it very hard to meet her gaze.
She turned her claw at Razz, then Filo, both of whom shrunk into the shadows at her intensity.“You two don’t know, but you will. If we let them get away, I guarantee you they’ll be back and they’ll hurt you. I won’t let that happen.”
There was a long moment of silence save for the sounds of the torrent outside, but the storm was now noticeably quieter. It seemed to Taro that they all realized this at once, and Jenjar spun to take a look.
“Perfect,” she muttered. “The rain’s let up and we still have enough light to see. We move now.”
All four RainWings slipped from the warm dark of their shelter back into the night. Alighting on the top of a neighboring carrotwood, they took a moment to glance northward over the sea of swaying leaves. Filo startled hard enough to nearly fall from his perch at what they saw.
“Uh – It looks like they’re moving!” he observed with a small squawk. “They won’t break for anything!”
Taro looked on as the mass they were hunting broke the distant tree line ahead of them. The V-shaped figures were barely discernible in the night.
“What happens if the storm dies out?” Razz asked, eyeing the sky. “Then we can’t see them anymore.”
“Then we stop. And only then,” Jenjar determined, and then she spread her wings and was carried back into the sky. In a moment she was gone except for a splash of tell tale orange on her back. Razz followed first, then Filo after an apprehensive sigh.
This time around Jenjar picked up the pace, and Taro struggled to keep up. While the thunderheads seemed to be on break for now, the tempestuous skies were still chaotic. Six times he nearly crashed into Razz, and Filo couldn’t seem to keep his balance for longer than a few minutes. The rain splattered into their eyes, blurring their vision. But Jenjar floated above it all, or crashed right through it. She looked invincible.
It was during a brief lull in the storm that Taro realized something was wrong. He looked about, trying to figure out what the factors were before his eyes settled on Filo’s back. The rippling light from the dying clouds gave him an odd shadow, and he seemed to fade in and out of view. Taro looked to his right to find a similar effect on Razz’s scales, and water pelted all four of the RainWings leaving a faint outline in the downpour. His heart pounded against his ribs violently as the thought struck him – they could be seen. How hadn’t they noticed before? Were they really that exhausted? He flapped hard to gain altitude enough to see ahead and choked. His squad was closer to the NightWings now, close enough to see a few of them glancing over their shoulders directly at him.
He was absolutely sure that two of them were missing.
“Jenjar!” he hissed in alarm, then louder, “Jenjar!”
Razz gasped beside him having seen the same thing, “Where’d they go?”
Taro nearly ran head first into his appointed leader when she halted midair to look around wildly. Filo immediately fumbled for his darts. A few fell out of his pack towards the ground.
“THERE!” Razz bellowed, and as Taro turned to look a swooping black shape with bared yellow teeth and outstretched wings morphed from the shadows around her and swallowed her whole.
“Razz!” Taro cried, but the NightWing clipped him and he spun out, a rough tail whacking into his side as it passed. He tried to catch himself but for a few terrifying moments he couldn’t tell up from down.
From somewhere a frightening roar shook the air, followed by the screeching cry of a RainWing in pain. Taro whipped his head around to try to see who it was. His eyes locked onto a streak of fire in the dark and a strong wind forced his wings straight. Stabilized, he hovered briefly, looking on as Jenjar rammed the first NightWing in the back. It let go of Razz, whose hot pink form launched upwards towards Filo.
Taro’s body froze. As the clouds crashed again, overpowering the sounds of battle, the fight seemed to slow to a crawl. The sight was too familiar. Filo was a mix of sickly green and grey. Blood marred his scales from gashes in his arm and shoulder in a pattern like cracked rock. It looked as black as venom in the pale blue light of the angry sky.
“Taro! Taro, help him, I got this one!” Jenjar shouted, her voice slamming him out of his reverie. Her crimson form fell passed him towards the canopy gripping the first attacker around the throat and snout from behind. The NightWing spat rage into the air, but she forced its head away from herself.
Not twenty wingbeats away Razz met Filo’s NightWing head on, darting skillfully around the bigger dragon with outstretched claws. She beat her wings round its head and raked claws into the thinnest parts of its wing membranes. It reared back with a shout. Filo fell stiffly from its jaws and floated limply towards the forest. The sky seemed to dim as the monster let loose an arc of flame that came too close to the pink flier. Taro flinched, but she managed to get behind the other dragon and let loose a small flame of her own –a sticky black one. It was messily aimed, but splattered along the NightWing’s side. For a moment it looked confused, and then began to wail. Its screams echoed around him and in a slow fall, the giant twirled and writhed, blood arcing into the air. With an explosion of snapping twigs and leaves, the figure disappeared and its howls went with it.
The first slivers of the grey light of morning peeked over the eastern horizon and lit upon a scene of silent stillness. Taro couldn’t believe the brutality with which the others fought. It was exactly what they’d been trained to do, of course but... It made him sick and proud at the same time, feelings he couldn’t quite resolve with the nightmare he’d just witnessed. Stunned, he drifted like a feather downwards before eventually landing on an outstretched branch. He sagged his weight against it, shaking.
Razz entered his line of sight, her claws wrapping around a broken limb where the NightWing had sunk into the emerald sea. Her amber eyes found him but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
“Where’s the other one?!”
Jenjar burst from the wet green from off to the left like a small sun, yellow victory glowing in her scales. Her spear was gripped so tight in her claws that the color didn’t reach her knuckles. “Well?”
Razz gestured below her and Jenjar nodded. As she passed, her eyes raked briefly over Taro’s form and she grimaced with disappointment. Taro realized with a jolt that he hadn’t aided them in battle. He felt very small.
“And the rest of them?” Jenjar pressed, though the burst of red along her wings indicated she already knew.
Razz inclined her head. “Gone. I don’t see them anywhere. They might have landed.”
“Or blended with the clouds…” Jenjar’s tail flicked in thought as she eyed the retreating storm. “We defeated them quickly enough that we may still have time to catch up. You performed admirably,” she added with a wise air that reminded Taro uncannily of Grandeur.
Razz ignored the patrol leader’s praise. She seemed shaken, but focused, a far cry from the somewhat naïve dragon Taro knew her to be normally. Did one battle make a warrior? “Where’s the NightWing you had?”
“Dead. Soon as I could pull its teeth apart I spit down its throat and left it.”
Taro shuddered, his eyes sliding shut. Jenjar sounded strange. Cold.
“We’ll find them,” she continued assuredly. “But first we need to find out what their plan even was. That might give us a clue as to where they’re going. Is yours still alive?”
“I think I can hear it.”
“Let’s go.” Jenjar looked back at him, her eyes flat, her tone dismissive, “Taro, you can stay up here if you want.”
Taro watched her slip down into the trees, but Razz lingered. She watched him with an unreadable and oddly serious expression for a long moment.
“Filo will need your help,” she said.
When she finally turned away to follow, Taro’s heart jumped with shock and guilt. The very end of her curled tail was gone.
She hadn’t said a word.