Chapter Text
Amaryllis landed on the porch of her tree-house, her weight making it sway a little. She allowed her scales to shift into whatever colors they felt like before she walked inside. She had something to take care of.
Two years ago, she had fallen in love with another dragon named Ocelot, who was beautiful and kind in every way imaginable. She and Ocelot lived together for a year, before Queen Dart Frog drafted her love into a war that he never returned from. Amaryllis got the news that her mate had died in battle a month after he was drafted, and then received the news that she was being drafted into the Queen’s Royal Guard about a week later.
In the lead-up to her new position, she studied and learned all of the laws the queen had passed during her long reign, such as the law on Rainwing Eggs. It had been tradition for Rainwings to bring their eggs to the communal hatcheries for eons, but Queen Dart Frog had just made it an official law.
But, here she was, standing in her treehouse and staring at her future dragonet.
She didn’t know why she kept her dragonet away from the hatcheries all this time. Fear? Clinginess? Maybe Amaryllis was just being selfish. The law was there for a reason, right? The queen’s advisor, Poppy, said it was there so the dragonets would have the best future. So that the entire tribe could raise them instead of just one dragon. So that the dragonet would learn from the best.
Still, Amaryllis hid her egg away from everyone. She didn’t want to live in a world where her own dragonet never knew who she was, or where she didn’t know who her dragonet was.
Amaryllis pulled the leaf curtains in front of her tree-house’s doorway closed, before looking around. Everything was as it was before. The white cosmos flowers lining the windows seemed to glow in the light of the full moons, and the jars of fireflies she placed around her home helped illuminate what the moonlight couldn’t. Her desk, containing several scrolls imported from different kingdoms about dragonet-care, home decor, and short stories for dragonets, sat in the corner, and a small doorway leading to Amaryllis’s bedroom was carved into the wall next to it.
She grabbed at the armor she was wearing and pulled it off, before hanging it on a nearby armor rack she had carved a week before her duties in the Queen’s royal guard. In her heart, she knew that it was time. Time for her dragonet to hatch. That was why she had asked for time off, saying that she “had a stomachache from eating too many mangos”.
She needed to be there to see her dragonet come into the world.
Stepping through the second leaf partition between the main room of her house and the bedroom, she immediately saw the egg in all its glory. She only had one window in her bedroom, but the light it allowed in illuminated the shell of the egg amazingly, letting every color on its shell become vibrant and perfect. Amaryllis’s breath caught in her throat, and she could almost feel her scales turning all shades of pink.
She stepped inside, a large smile growing on her face. She reached for the leaf-curtains on the window to close them, but changed her mind. The light made this moment so much better, and nobody else was up at this hour.
“Hey sweetheart.” She whispered towards the egg, before sitting down in front of it. Her scales shimmered in the moonlight as well, revealing her vibrant pink scales and bubbles of yellow excitement.
The egg didn’t reply, it was just an egg, but Amaryllis continued anyway. “What would you want when you first hatch?” She wondered aloud, before quickly grabbing a scroll that she had left haphazardly across the floor next to her hammock. It was a scroll about what to do during a hatching, but it didn’t have a section for Rainwing hatchings, since almost all Rainwings hatched in the hatcheries. But using context clues from the other sections (Skywing dragonets liked warmth, Mudwing dragonets liked being with their siblings at hatching, Seawings dragonets liked being in water, etc) Amaryllis assumed that Rainwing dragonets liked flowers and fruits.
She looked over at the leafy nest she had placed her egg in. She had lined it with dozens of kinds of flowers; cosmos, trumpet flowers, orchids and the like. She had just forgotten the fruit. Next to the nest was a small bowl of fruit she had gathered the day before.
She wandered over to the bowl and grabbed some fruit options. What kind of fruit would her dragonet like when they hatched? Grapes? Bananas? Moons forbid Durian?
Amaryllis flicked her tail nervously, and small bubbles of lime green began dotting her talons. Nobody else had done this before, so she had to be careful, right?
A flicker of movement caught Amaryllis’s eye while she looked through the bowl. She turned, looking towards the window fearfully, thinking she saw a shadow of another dragon, before looking to her egg. Her eyes widened, and a feeling of excitement washed over her scales.
A small crack had appeared on the shell of the egg, and something inside was starting to wiggle.
Lime-green, yellow, and pink splashed across her scales like rain, and Amaryllis crouched down so she could be level with the dragonet once she came out.
She.
Deep down, instinctually somehow, Amaryllis knew that her dragonet would be a girl. In that case, would her dragonet like strawberries and cherries more? Amaryllis read somewhere that female dragons like those fruits. She didn’t know where, but it was somewhere, right?
The egg wiggled in its flowery nest, and another tangle of cracks formed on the surface of the pristine shell. It wasn’t long before a small mouth poked its way out. A pristine, yellow head finally popped out. The dragonet’s eyes were a beautiful lime green, and they had a pair of dark-green horns. A trail of small dark-green scales jutted from their back to their tail, and their underbelly was a vivid lime-green. Their main body consisted of yellow scales.
Amaryllis’s heart swelled, and her scales filled with sakura pink. She didn’t even question why her dragonet hadn’t come out with pure lime-green scales like other rainwing dragonets. She smiled, and watched as her dragonet stared up at her. “Hello sweetheart.”
The dragonet chirped, blinking her wide eyes up at her mother, before her scales shifted.
Well. Not all of her scales.
A few spots along her sides turned a vivid pink, as long as a few spots on her cheeks.
Amaryllis’s smile turned to a confused frown. Weren’t Rainwing dragonet scales supposed to be able to turn any color? Why were only a few spots on her dragonet changing color while the rest stayed the same? Did Amaryllis do something wrong?
Also, a small marking next to her dragonet’s eye. It looked like an arrow, pointing to her dragonet’s eye. It seemed to also be able to change color, and it appeared on both sides of her head.
Amaryllis had been so caught up on those few details that she didn’t notice her dragonet crawling over to the fruit bowl. She blinked, and watched as her dragonet nosed the different fruit options, before settling on a fairly large fruit. She gripped it with her tiny talons, before falling backwards into her nest and chewing on it.
It was a Papaya.
“Papaya.” Amaryllis said aloud, which caused her dragonet to perk up. She blinked her eyes at her mother, before looking back at the fruit. “pipap?” she burbled, before looking back at her mom.
Amaryllis looked at her dragonet and the fruit, before deciding. “That’s your name. Papaya. After the fruit.” She crouched down again and playfully poked the fruit her dragonet held.
“Papapapa!” her dragonet happily burbled, before digging her teeth into the flesh of the fruit. Amaryllis chuckled, before taking the fruit from Papaya, much to the dragonet’s dismay. Amaryllis split the fruit in half, and gave it back to her dragonet so they could eat it much more easily.
The dragonet blinked, before digging their snout into the fruit and eating voraciously. Amaryllis laughed a little, bubbles of yellow amusement rising through her scales. This was the happiest she ever felt.
She didn’t care if Queen Dart Frog was going to punish her. It would’ve all been worth it just to spend this moment with her dragonet. But she’d never let Queen Dart Frog punish her. She’d find a way to sneak Papaya into the system. Better yet, why don’t they just go live somewhere else? There were plenty of spots on Pyrrhia they could fly away to and live peacefully. Just Amaryllis and Papaya, together forever. Happy.
But that’s not how the story goes.
A large thud on Amaryllis’s porch made her shoot up. Lime shot through her scales as fast as a bee, and she turned her head away from her dragonet and toward sthe source of the noise.
She couldn’t see anyone.
But the movement of shadows across her floor indicated that she and Papaya weren’t alone.
Before she could turn to her dragonet and tell her to hide, or put her in a hiding spot herself, a large weight slammed into her and pinned her to the floor.
Papaya chirped confusedly, before a large dragon materialized on top of Amaryllis.
Their scales were a royal blue, with a few stripes of darker blue lining her talons and tail. Her eyes were a vicious golden yellow, and they seemed to be staring into Amaryllis’s very soul.
There was no mistaking it. This was Queen Dart Frog.
“Stomach Ache from too many mangoes, eh?” Queen Dart Frog mocked, before
more dragons materialized around the room. Amaryllis couldn’t see anything happening with her dragonet, due to her head being pinned facing away from her, but she could hear the confused chirps and the shushing of some of the dragons.
“Don’t- Don’t hurt-” Amaryllis spat out, before being cut off by Queen Dart Frog.
‘Hurt her? Moons above I’m not a monster.” she said in a mock-hurt tone, before strengthening her grip on Amaryllis’s neck, “But you do know what happens to dragons when they break the rules, right?”
Amaryllis could hardly breathe. “It- It was just one rule-”
“One rule that would have cheated me out of all kinds of power.” Queen Dart Frog hissed, red scales darting along her talons like angry cobras. The queen looked towards a couple of dragons, and Amaryllis could hear Papaya whine a little.
“What are you doing with my dragonet?” Amaryllis asked, letting the red run through her scales. The only way she could describe this emotion was motherly rage.
“Why, I’m keeping her in my castle. Papaya, you called her? One of my spies spotted her through your window and described a certain..” she used her other talon to poke a spot next to Amaryllis’s eye, “marking.”
“But- What does a marking have to do with any- anything?” Amaryllis sputtered out, briefly seeing Papaya in hr peripheral vision being taken away through the leafy curtains, “Papaya-”
“Your dragonet is an animus. Have you not read one of your parenting scrolls in a while?” The queen laughed, before clamping her talons around Amaryllis’s throat completely as not to allow her to speak. “You were planning on running away, weren’t you? Your dragonet in tow? You’re honestly just like your father.”
Amaryllis struggled for breath, her talons digging into the floor. Her scales began to go white with pain as Queen Dart Frog leaned closer to her ear, “Don’t worry darling, I'll take good care of her for you. But as for you, you’ll have to go out like your mate.”
Before Amaryllis could fathom what Queen Dart Frog just implied, the Queen twisted Amaryllis’s head back quickly.
CRACK.
From the porch of the treehouse, the loud snap was heard by a little rainwing dragonet being cradled in the arms of another dragon. What happened to her mom? She was so tired, but she didn’t know what to do. She tried to wriggle out of the arms of the dragon carrying her, but proved unsuccessful.
A few minutes later, or what felt like hours to Papaya, a sleek-looking dragon came out with blue scales. “Hello Papaya..!” The dragon cooed, looking at the dragonet with warm-ish eyes.
Papaya blinked at them, before looking at the doorway. Moma? She thought, before the queen blocked her view of the doorway with their wing. “I’m Queen Dart Frog. You’re going to live with me from now on.”
Papaya cocked her head to the side, before trying to look to the doorway again. But what about her mom?
The queen groaned, and said something to one of the other dragons, who came towards Papaya quickly.
It was only a brief moment that something poked Papaya’s arm, and then she slowly became sleepy. The warmth of the dragon holding her became too much to resist, and she let herself fall asleep.
And let herself forget this night.