Chapter Text
Peril understands why she couldn't go with her friends to the rainforest. It’s full of things that burgeon and blossom with life, and she is nothing but anathema to that. It's far more fitting to sit in the lonely caverns underneath Jade Mountain Academy and sulk, and wonder why the rest of her winglet couldn't have picked a retreat that could have accommodated her.
She sighs as she flicks a stray pebble into the lake. It’s a conceited thought, she realizes as the ripples break apart her reflection. Why should they plan everything around her? What right does she have to force them to plan around her issues?
All the same, though, she really wishes that they did.
But despite how much that wish yearns to free itself from her, she failed to mention it at all when they were talking about it because it’s not enough for them to just accommodate her. Selfishly, Peril wants them to notice, wants them to ask, wants them to graciously throw themselves down at her feet, and only then would she deign to say something as profoundly powerful as “oh, that would be kinda nice.”
And for that, too, she hates herself. She hates how she lacks the temerity to utter something as socially shameful as that. Somehow, the monster responsible for extinguishing dozens of lives can’t even muster the courage to ask her dragonet friends to involve her in their plans.
Her scales pulse in pale yellows, not unlike the subtle flames of a crackling fireplace, and her breathing grows unsteady. Maybe it was a blessing they didn't ask , she thinks as she lays down, curling her tail up between her legs. Maybe if she asked, she would have discovered that they were planning to go without her anyway, or that they couldn't change their plans at all.
It’s better that she didn't ask, if only to blind herself to their motives.
But the tendrils had already seeped into her heart, and though Peril is nothing but fire and brimstone, there are some things that even she cannot burn away. After all, even if her winglet didn’t say anything at all, Peril could still figure out their motives.
They were tired of her. They were tired of how fiery and angry and impulsive she could be. They were tired of how difficult it was to keep up with her constant chaos, the monumental highs and the epic lows that ruled her soul. This trip was their temporary escape from her because even though she’s not a monster anymore, none of them would ever forget the atrocities she committed long ago.
Or maybe , she thinks with frustrated, furrowed eyebrows, they’re actually going to the rainforest because Kinkajou and Queen Glory needed to meet for something important, and she had told the rest of her winglet that she was perfectly fine sitting the trip out.
Peril's breath tightens, embers floating out of her maw as she tries not to cry. Her chest heaves as groans force their way out of her mouth, but not a single tear falls from her clenched eyes. She’s accustomed to this, forever alone since birth, and she would not cry about it NOW of all times.
But that begs the question: what happened to her? When did she become so sensitive and meek ? She used to be respected and feared by every dragon, no matter if they were a common soldier or Queen Scarlet herself. Maybe she commanded more fear than anything else, but that mattered little: it was just respect with extra steps.
Nowadays she has to do these stupid little things like “get along” with dragonets she would have burned to death at one point in her life and “try her best” to not give in to her chaotic impulses. And whenever her personality clashes with the need for social decency, she feels her past nagging at her. It would be so easy to transition back to when she served Queen Scarlet — all it would take would be the casual, collective murder of her winglet, if only to rid her of the possibility that they could continue to be happy without her.
Revulsion fills her heart. Peril knows that’s extreme, not only because civilized dragon society would frown upon it, but also because, well, she doesn’t want to. It was the vileness of her emotions speaking in that moment; it wasn’t who she actually was. The whole reason she’s moping alone in this cave is because their rainforest trip tore her heart apart: she doesn’t want to live without them. They have softened her, yes, taming the unmatched ferocity that she once was, but in ways that she can appreciate.
But what if they’re all just pretending to like her?
She remembers well how life was in Scarlet's palace. Most feared her and fewer respected her, but there were always a few dragons seeking to curry her favor. She spat out a flame in disgust, her scales glowing fiery and bright as she remembered how satisfying it was to set them afire for their weakness.
Peril knows the rest of the winglet would recoil in horror if she told them that no, she still doesn’t find her past behavior intolerable at all, especially to those as unbecoming as sycophants. After all, if it’s so satisfying, then it can't be wrong, right?
Maybe she’s a monster after all, a monster pretending to wreath itself in societal decency just to “fit in,” to “belong,” to “coexist with other dragons.”
She lets out a bark of laughter. They already don’t accept her for who she is! Why does she even try? She could never become charismatic like Qibli, or regal like Winter. There’s certainly no hope for her to be as optimistic as Kinkajou or as thoughtful as Moonwatcher. And Turtle, the only dragon she could really be herself around, even found his courage when he needed to.
And what about her? What did she become? Nothing more than a burden for all of the other dragons because her only skill was murder, and the solutions to any of their problems involved little of that.
Maybe I should become a mercenary, she thinks. Burning and scorching her way through distant battlefields for treasure and glory. It’s all that she’s good for, after all.
But her memories are quick to remind her of one particular dragon who told her she was more than just a monster, and they fight back as fiercely as it could against the inferno of her sorrows.
And where is he now?! her mind screams back in sudden, equal measure. He’s the one who even made attending Jade Mountain Academy an option for her. He’s the one who believed in the goodness of her heart, whatever that meant. Peril can’t believe that she was foolish enough to eat his words up like that. Is this what was supposed to happen? Why would he praise and encourage her before abandoning her like this?!
Then the other half of her mind balks. Clay isn’t a mindreader, and even if he is, she already knows that no one could scry past the fiery intensity of her thoughts. Why is she getting so angry at him when there’s no way for him to know how badly she needs him?
Her thoughts are toxic and insane and horrible, but none of that matters. She’s still angry at him. How could her favorite dragon abandon her like this?! Even though he has little idea of what the Jade Winglet is up to, he should have known that she was alone. Why doesn’t he want to comfort her?
The rocks under her body begin to lose their firmness, deformed by the sheer heat beginning to pour out of her body. The air before her eyes shimmers as her heart beats faster and faster; Peril’s thoughts begin to tumble, thoughts of inadequacy and hopelessness and abandonment melting into an aura that consumes her whole, and there’s little she could do about it besides endure it, or attempt to—
Her brilliant blue eyes snap open as the soft sound of wingbeats fills the air. A small figure floats down from the ledge at the exit of the cave, and it takes her little time to guess at who it was.
“Peril?” the MudWing asks. “Peril, are you down here?”
It’s a question so obvious that she wants to burn it to cinders, but for a moment, everything suddenly feels okay with the world. “Clay?”
The large MudWing lands close to her, but not close enough for her to reach out to. She processes whether to take offense as she watches his dark brown eyes glint in the firelight of her own body. “I figured I might find you down here,” he says much too casually for her tastes. “Turtle told me that the rest of the winglet went to the rainforest.”
“Maybe they did,” she says, suddenly aware of how the ground surrounding her body glows a dull orange. “So what?”
“I just wanted to check on you.”
She hates the way he spoke to her. His baritone voice, though smooth and gentle, reminds her of how he cooed at newborns. I’m not a helpless dragonet! she thinks as her body grows even hotter. Every scale on her hide compels her to scream at Clay, to let him get just a taste of all the caustic emotions flowing under her scales.
“I'm fine,” Peril says.
“Are you sure?” Clay asks. “You don't look very fine.”
“And how do you know that?!” Peril growls, his words goading her into standing up. “Of course I'm fine! How dare you tell me that I'm not fine!”
Her muzzle curls in a grimace as she notices Clay lean away from her. How could he?! she screamed to herself. He has fireproof scales! He could handle her! Is he so repulsed by her that he can't even bear to be next to her?!
“Look at your claws,” he says, worry creasing his snout. “You're melting the ground.”
Peril looks down. The rock around her claws glows red hot, squishy and unstable and congealing into lava. “That's okay!” she says barely without screaming. “That's fine. I don't think there's anything wrong with that!?”
“Peril.” Clay shakes his head. “What's wrong? Are you thinking about your winglet?”
“No!” She doesn’t realize she screamed until she hears her shrill voice echo through the cave. “Why would I be thinking about them or how they left me all alone here? They can stay out there forever for all I care!”
“You don't mean that. You know you don't.”
“Then why does it feel like it?!”
It was the question that always stumped Clay. She could practically hear him rack his mind for a response, something to placate the insanity of her thoughts, but today she feels far less patient than usual. “I’m not stupid. I know they care about me,” she hisses. “Turtle told you I would be down here because he knows I like coming down here when I don't want to be found.”
“But I know that you want to be found.”
“No I don't!” Peril's claws curl into the lava pooling underneath her. “I don't want anyone seeing me like this, especially not you!”
Clay’s eyes sink. It nearly tears her apart to watch disappointment fall upon his face, especially when she knows that she can never speak her truth. She wants him here so badly that she was about ready to tear Jade Mountain from top to bottom to find him. But he can never know that — he can never know how desperately she needed his presence, needed to see him.
He can never know that there was something so horrifically wrong with her that even he can’t help her now.
And it angers her that he can’t figure that out, and still persists with his stupid words and stupid comforts. “They'll be back in a few days,” he says with a half-hearted smile, completely oblivious to how her emotions begin to boil over. “It’ll be like they weren’t even gone.”
“Whatever. Just stop. I don't care.” She snarled and shook her head. “Why are you trying so hard, Clay?”
“Because,” he says with infuriating simplicity, “I care about you.”
“But WHY?!” she screams, and somehow, despite the inferno consuming her soul, only now does it feel like she's truly losing control. “Why do you care?! Do you think I'm someone who can be fixed? Like a project you can lecture into becoming a better dragon? Someone who you can project your goodness upon? Why are you so insistent?!”
Her throat begins to close in on itself, tightening as she begins to find it harder and harder to breathe. She tightens her eyes up tight because, no, despite the sorrows running rampant through every last one of her scales, she is not CRYING — not for anyone, not even Clay!
She even has to bare her fangs at the MudWing to keep her muzzle from trembling as he takes slow, cautious steps towards her. “It's not any of those things,” he says slowly, not in the slowness used while thinking about his words, but the slowness that affects his voice when he's trying to reinforce his thoughts.
“I just care about you. Do you think I need a reason to care about you?”
Peril screams. She rises up on her hind legs before slamming her foreclaws back into the ground. Sparks and molten lava fly from her talons as her mind collapses in on itself. “That's not possible!” she howls. “How can you just CARE about someone like that?! You need a reason! You're lying! You pity me! You think I'm lesser than you! You think I need to be fixed!”
“Peril—”
“Don't you 'Peril' me! I'm tired of it! The fakery! The charades! Tell me what you really think! CLAY!”
For all of her fury, for all the ways she knows how to turn a dragon into little more than ashes and bones, her body nearly collapses under itself when she feels Clay's claws grasp her shoulder. They grip her tight in reflex, for she knew her firescales now burned much hotter than even he could withstand — she could even smell the scent of his burning flesh.
But still, he holds on, even as she can see the pain coursing through his shimmering eyes, and says the right words to annihilate her entirely.
“I just think that you're worth it, Peril.”
His eye contact lasts long enough for a single tear to form in her eyes. She curses and tears herself away from Clay, more than aware of the pained growl that escapes him. Her eyes lock onto the lake in the cavern, and though she has little idea of what will happen next, she soars through the air and dives straight in.
The world explodes around her. Water vaporizes on contact with her scales, churning around her, tossing her to and fro as if she were a boat in a hurricane. Giant bubbles rise from her scales, marching up in an endless parade as she wonders if she could ever cool off. Part of her hopes she can't, if only so she could have an excuse to drown herself and spare the world of her presence.
But the waters around her do not permit her that dignity. It takes only a minute of holding her breath for her scales to cool, tiny streams of bubbles floating as they would in a barely boiling pot. She would have sighed were she not underwater, and instead expresses her resignation in how she slowly beat her wings in the water, pushing herself upwards until her head breaks the surface of the lake.
She feels the water boil away from her face, but it doesn’t stop. Confused, she opens her eyes and looks up as droplets continue to smatter her snout, and only then does she see the cloud that lines the very top of the cavern. It’s raining inside, she realizes dimly.
The SkyWing lets out a tired pant as she swims to the edge of the lake, fishing herself out and flopping onto the cavern floor. The water wicks away from her body as she spreads her wings open, though the rain smattering her scales leaves streams of steam trailing all around her. She brings her tired gaze up, looking across the cave to see Clay sitting in the very same spot that she had burned him.
It was almost romantic, she thinks with a somber chuckle, to see him staring at her so forlornly in the rain. In another time — another life, perhaps — things would have been so different.
Peril pads over to him, each step leaden and heavy. To her utmost surprise, he doesn’t try to leave. He doesn’t flinch; he doesn’t even recoil from her impending presence. He simply retains the same sad look from before, one that reminds her of a puppy, and overwhelming shame begins to fill her heart as she sits next to him.
“I'm sorry,” she says.
“It's okay.”
Peril stares into his eyes, wondering if he can see the guilt in hers. She hates how she can’t even recall an ounce of the emotion that possessed her just moments earlier. All she feels now is regret.
She looks down at Clay's foreclaw, hidden conveniently behind his good one. “Are you okay?” she asks.
Clay takes a moment before following her gaze downwards. “It'll be okay,” he says. “It might take a few weeks to heal, but it's not like you set me on fire or anything.”
“Sorry.”
“It's alright. Really.”
She looks with tired eyes at the small grin that Clay gives her, and a new emotion suddenly fills her. Her claws scratch the ground as her entire chest collapses in on herself, and it feels like she's dying again but in a completely new, horribly way. “It's not okay,” she cries, unable to fight the way her body conspires against her. “It can't ever be okay.”
Peril won't cry. Not because she's weak or pathetic, not because she's made of steel, but because she simply cannot. Tears build in her eyes, and the thought of them hissing away upon her firescales fills her with profound agony — why was she cursed so thoroughly that she couldn't even cry?
She feels a talon brush along her cheek. As tears begin to fall from her eyes, Peril realizes that she can't hear her sadness boiling away on her own hide any longer. Instead, her sorrows coalesce on Clay’s claws, and he wipes away at them dutifully, one talon after another. “Clay,” she says before her voice cracks. “Please, Clay—”
“It's okay, Peril,” says the MudWing beside her. She feels his talons on her jaw and follows their gentle gesture as they push her into looking at him. “It's okay to cry.”
“It's not!” she exclaims, winding her claws around his wrists and marveling at the fact that he doesn’t even try to pull away from her. “I won't! I can't...!”
But she does.
For the first time in her life, she cries genuinely and openly, and for the first time in her life, there is someone there to assuage her pains, and though there is no way he can remove them entirely, it is better than nothing at all.
And she is okay with that.
