Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chestnut wasn’t exactly happy with her life. No one could fault her for thinking that. In fact, she was fairly confident that everyone felt exactly the same way she did. Of course, she had it better than some, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. 

It wasn’t even remotely her fault her life sucked, which she thought was extremely unfair. It wasn’t her fault their dumb queen couldn’t be more like the LeafWings’ and fight for themselves. But noooo , first chance she gets she bows to the HiveWings and calls it a day just to save her own scales.  

Now, over two hundred years later, Chestnut has to bear the consequences of that stupid selfish decision for her entire life. 

Well, her entire life starting next week. 

In five days, she’ll break out of her dumb cocoon and be sold to some dumb, haughty, privileged, stuck-up, HiveWing who only sees SilkWings as dumb property. 

Why couldn’t the SilkWings be more like the LeafWings? If it had been up to her, she would have gladly sacrificed a few hundred dragons for their freedom. Ok, well maybe not gladly , but in her own humble opinion it would be a fair trade. 

Today is her last free day of “freedom”. The last day of living with her parents that is. In a way, she was going from one prison to another. I quite prefer my current prison thank you very much. Not that anyone had bothered asking. At least she knew this one. 

She had been encouraged to spend her last day doing what she wanted.  

She wanted to go to school like it was just a normal day, she wanted to mess around in art class with Cadet and call her painting “abstract” just to get a passing grade, she wanted to throw paint at Cadet’s dumb blue face and joke about how it was a drastic improvement.  

She was too bummed out to do much of anything and opted for staying in her hammock and stare numbly at her talons instead. Just like she had been doing for the past hour or so, she wasn’t exactly counting. She’d watched the sun slowly move across the suspended webs. The smell of the dew in the morning was slowly fading and the bustle of dragons in the hive was steadily getting louder. 

She was still in her parents’ silk web on the outside of Hornet Hive on her silk hammock that she was definitely too big for. Her parents had spun it for her before she hatched and it had been the same one her entire life. Even if they cared, her parents didn’t have much free time, and wouldn’t bother spending it on spinning her a new one. She couldn’t even spin herself one because SilkWing’s didn’t get their silk until after their metamorphosis. Who made that rule? Biology apparently. 

She could feel it though. On her inner wrist where her silk was coming in. And when she flipped her talons over to look, she saw the little white light against her brown under scales to match. It didn’t hurt, it was just itchy. Enough to be annoying.  

Chestnut had been to other SilkWings’ metamorphosis days before and she never liked that blank look of the metamorphosis trance on their face as they spun their cocoons. She hated the idea that she didn’t have the choice, that her body would just start acting on it’s own at some point. 

Her gaze trailed upward on her right talon leading her to the branding on her palm. Three letters forming a triangle with a large C on the top for her name, and a smaller _ and _ for her parents’. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at it. She wasn’t sure why her parents’ names had to be on there, they didn’t deserve to call themselves her parents. The only reason they came into the webs was to sleep before they both had to leave for their separate HiveWing “owners”. She wasn’t even sure what they did because she hadn’t had an actual conversation with them in, what she was sure was, years. She was pretty confident they didn’t even know her name anymore. 

It wasn’t like this for all SilkWings. Cadet and Aponi both spent a lot of time with their parents and Cadet was actually really close with hers. (She wasn’t jealous. She really wasn’t!)  

It didn’t even matter now because she was fairly confident she was never going to see them again anyway. After she got her wings, she would belong to a HiveWing and most likely move to another one of the 9 hives that populated the continent. Other than the Leafwing territory of course. 

Frankly she couldn’t care less about moving to another hive. She wouldn’t have to worry about missing her parents or any siblings. The only dragon she would miss would be Cadet. (She would rather die than tell her that though.) And maybe Aponi and Skipper. It was more the principle that the HiveWings could just decide to move her around like as they pleased. 

She would be moved to another hive and partnered with another SilkWing, whom she would hopefully get along with, and that would be the rest of her life. Her and her partner leaving at the whim of their respective HiveWings, leaving their own dragonets to grow up and do the same. 

Now she was really bumming herself out. 

She still caught herself still staring at her branded palm. She blinked away her daze and flipped her talon over again. She’d been in this loop all morning and was starting to feel physically sick. Could she call a sick day on her metamorphosis? Maybe reschedule? Does next year work? 

She sighed. Her antenna curled inward. 

“Chestnut?” She heard a quiet whisper. Chestnut glanced up at the empty space, halfway convincing herself she had imagined it. There was nothing around her but the white of the webs and the wooden treestuff that made the walls. Although, it was a nice gesture for the ghosts to keep her company. 

Someone whispered her name again. Chestnut turned her head to the source of the sound, trying to stand but the hammock kept rocking beneath her. She settled for some sort of sitting-ish thing and assumed the ghosts wouldn’t judge. 

Except it wasn’t a ghost; it was Cadets dumb face. (Luckily the rest of her azure self was attached.) Her head was peeking through the webbing that passed as a floor here. She was holding onto the layers of silk web and was about one dragon’s length from Chestnut. Cadet didn’t have her wings yet either, her sixth hatching day was months away. 

Chestnut was this close to screaming. 

“What are you doing here?” Chestnut whisper-yelled back. “You’re supposed to be going to the Dauber Hive today.” Something Chestnut was glad to be missing. She had no responsibilities on her metamorphosis day because technically SilkWings could go into the metamorphosis trance at any time and they needed to be able to get to the Cocoon as soon as that started. Chestnut felt several hours away from that.  

“Are you kidding?” Cadet fully climbed into the room and stalked over to Chestnut, still whispering. “We go there every year. I’m not leaving you here alone on the most important day of your life.” As if it was obvious. 

“That is subjective. And you could get in really serious trouble if you get caught.” The hammock wobbled again. 

“Eh,” she waved it off, “They’ll just give me construction duty.” 

Chestnut was going to make a counter argument of how they’d assign her there forever if she kept this up but then she remembered who she was talking to and decided it would be pointless. 

“We’re not even friends. Why are you here?” Chestnut’s talon slid across her face. Cadet looked at her sideways. 

“I’m starting to think you don’t know the definition of friendship.” 

“I’m starting to think you’re crazy.” 

“Fair point.” Accompanied by a curt nod. 

“Well, you kept me company, goal accomplished. You can leave now.” She waved her right talon at Cadet. 

Cadet rolled her eyes and grabbed Chestnut’s wrist, pulling her to the ground. Chestnut stumbled out with an “Eep!” She whipped her head up to glare at Cadet. “Hey-!” She didn’t get to finish before Cadet started dragging her down the layers of web to the entrance of Hornet Hive. “W-What are you doing?” She yanked her talon free and stumbled to a stop. Cadet stopped as well and turned to look at her. Chestnut wasn’t sure but she thought she saw a bit of concern on Cadet’s face. Either that or it was disappointment. She wasn’t very good at reading faces. 

“You can’t go in the hive! We’ll be the only SilkWing dragonets there and it’ll be pretty obvious you’re not on the school trip then.”  

Cadet seemed to pause to think about this for a second. 

“Wait, are you serious? That didn’t even occur to you, did it?” Chestnut was raising her voice. Her weight shifted, causing the webs to wobble a bit. A hurt expression crossed Cadet’s face, her antenna folded back. “This could affect you for the rest of your life!” 

“Of course I thought about it, you idiot.” She turned to fully face Chestnut. “I thought ‘today is probably the last day I’m going to see you ever and I want to spend it doing stuff with you.’” It looked like Cadet was nearly tearing up which didn’t match the almost angry look on her face and that gave Chestnut pause. It didn’t even occur to her that Cadet might actually be sad about her potentially leaving. And that made Chestnut feel even worse that she probably wouldn’t think to do the same for Cadet, especially if she would need to put herself in danger to do it. Her annoyance suddenly shifted into guilt. Cadet was going out of her way and risking herself to spend one last day with Chestnut. 

After a few moments of silence staring at each other, Chestnut wordlessly passed Cadet and continued to the entrance checkpoint. She hated that Cadet was doing this, but deep-down Chestnut really did want to have this. It made her feel like the most selfish dragon in the world. 

After a second, she heard Cadet bound after her.  

It took 30 seconds to get to the checkpoint and she was starting to panic about Cadet. The more red than is normal HiveWing working at it had been watching them approach for a while and it probably would have made her uncomfortable if he didn’t look like he was so incredibly bored and half paying attention. 

He didn’t need to say anything to prompt her before Chestnut had offered her right wrist. Although the look on his face was funny enough to relieve a bit of her stress, he looked halfway between happy he didn’t have to say anything and offended a SilkWing dare do anything without direct permission. 

He checked the three letters on her palm, wrote something down, gestured for her to switch to her other wrist and checked the irremovable bronze wristband with the name of her school engraved in it. Nodded to himself. Checked a paper next to him.  

After she got her wings, the wristband would have to be forcefully removed and replaced with a silver one with the name of whomever she belonged to on it. 

Personally, she thought bronze would look better with her brown and cobalt scales. Oh well, SilkWings didn’t get to customize. Unless the dragon who ‘owned’ her thought the same thing.  

On the other talon, if a HiveWing wanted an aesthetically pleasing SilkWing, they’d much rather go with someone else, like Cadet. Chestnut was too visibly busy with the brown and different shades of cobalt and white that splattered her scales and brown wasn’t a HiveWing favorite anyway. They saw it enough on themselves. 

She was allowed inside without any hassle. She waited just inside for Cadet and felt her heart speed up when he checked her wristband. He looked at his paper for a moment. 

“You’re supposed to be on a school trip today. They left hours ago.” Chestnut couldn’t see the guard’s face, but she could clearly see Cadet’s, and Cadet looked really nervous. Which then made Chestnut more nervous. 

“O-oh, heh, was that today?” Cadet’s shoulders drew up. Chestnut facepalmed. Cadet was terrible at lying, and the look on her face did not look like someone who just realized they’d missed something important. She was keeping eye contact with the guard and smiling nervously and it really hurt Chestnut to watch. 

The guard didn’t say anything for a bit, he just stared at her and Chestnut feared he saw the exact thing she did. 

“Were this a normal scheduled school day, you still would be an hour late.” 

Cadet opened her mouth. Chestnut saw where this was going and decided it would be worse if Chestnut let her speak. She stepped back into the guard’s field of view. 

“She’s with me. I requested she get the day off today. I didn’t know today was the trip.” Chestnut lied. 

The HiveWing eyed her with suspicion. “I didn’t get any notification for this.” And Chestnut was tempted to just say ‘that's because it’s a lie’ mostly because it’s very against the rules to lie to a HiveWing and she wanted to see the look on his face. (Oh, he would be so mad.) And also, because she was not good at thinking on her feet and had no other answers. 

But then both she and Cadet would be put in Misbehaver’s Way for lying and taunting a figure of authority and even more for Cadet for skipping school. If anything could give Chestnut nightmares, it was Misbehaver’s Way. 

“I’m just as confused as you.” She managed. He started looking through all his papers again. 

Wait, could she even be put in Misbehaver’s Way with her metamorphosis today? How would that work? Does the HiveWing venom they use stop the metamorphosis? Well now she’s curious.  

Chestnut’s never been sent to Misbehaver’s way before. All the SilkWing schools take trips to see it regularly to show the dragonets what happens if they don’t do exactly what they’re told. Cadet ended up in Misbehaver’s Way once with Skipper for borrowing art supplies without asking. It was only for an afternoon but they both described it as the worst thing possible to live through. 

A few HiveWings are born with stingers on the end of their tails with venom capable of paralyzing a dragon. Skipper described it as feeling like he was being injected with fire, and when that wore off, he was stuck in place as though he were a statue, fully aware and able to feel and see but unable to move in any way, not even to close his eyes. 

The HiveWing cleared his throat. Speaking to no one in particular: “I am going to report this,” Chestnut's heart dropped “If this was false information, Cadet will spend the next two days in Misbehaver’s Way for skipping class and lying. Chestnut will be recorded for lying and punished for 2 hours in Misbehaver’s Way after finishing metamorphosis for lying.” He finally looked up at them. “Welcome to Hornet Hive.” 

All the SilkWings could manage was a nod as they walked into the hive. Chestnut wasn’t even sure if those were hive regulated times or just random numbers that mirrored how mad he was. 

“I’m so sorry.” Chestnut turned to Cadet as soon as they were out of earshot. Which wasn’t as far as it could have been due to all the noise of the hive. 

“Oh, phhh.” Cadet tried a smile. “I knew this was probably going to happen anyway. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble too.” 

 Cadet really was going to make her cry. Chestnut did not cry often. 

“And hey,” Cadet continued, “by the time you wake up from the cocoon my punishment will long have been over.” 

“Two days, Cadet. Without food or water or blinking.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll remember to close my eyes this time.”  

“This isn’t a joke.” 

“I’m not joking. I knew this was going to happen and I decided it was worth it. I’m just sorry you got caught too.” 

Chestnut’s vision was going blurry. She would not cry. 

“Now come on. I've stashed some scales I’ve saved up somewhere and I’m ready to spend them!” She dragged Chestnut forward. 

“As long as you remember where you put them.” A smile tugged at Chestnut’s lips. 

“Oh, hush you. Of course I remember. You know, I’ve always wanted to try almond brittle.”

Chapter Text

Termite wasn’t having a very good day.  

He’d been flying circles above the savanna for hours trying to catch something, but someone must have warned all the gazelle ahead of time because he couldn’t find any . How could he not find a single gazelle? 

Sure, he could go back with some buffalo. But he got buffalo yesterday and Locust likes variety. Plus, gazelle is always the top seller at The Meat Hook and Termite gets paid more for catching it. 

Termite could see the heat shimmering in the air, and it was bright enough that, no matter where Termite looked, he had to squint. The constant buzz from all the bugs was starting to pound in Termite’s head. He didn’t even need the money right now and this was not worth it. 

He was tempted to go back empty handed but he was on loose webs with Locust already and losing this job would set him back, and thinking in this heat was making his head hurt.  

He would actually die before he caught a single gazelle. 

He would get heatstroke and simply perish .  

And Termite’s parents would wonder what could have been, had he not been working for Locust just to make some extra scales. And years would pass and they would think; “Why, oh why did we pressure him to get a job he didn’t need because we have enough scales to spare just so he could get ‘experience’ of what it’s like to work despite the fact he isn’t going to be doing anything at all with food in his future other than eating it? Oh why, oh why? Our favorite son.” And then they’d toss his brother Longhorn out the window because he's the worst. 

Sometimes, Termite thinks he should be an author. 

He ended up returning with a zebra and a wildebeest. Less than he usually brought but Locust was just going to have to deal. If he wants more than that he can go catch it himself. 

He secured the smaller than normal catch onto his delivery wagon just after entering Apidae Hive. He attached the wagon to his torso and weaved his way through the very busy hive, briefly greeting the dragons that he knew and trying his very hardest not to bump into anyone with his cart. 

He ended up only hitting a SilkWing, but oh well, he probably deserved it. 

Honeycomb cells shaped the walls of the marketplace, some of which were stores selling anything from candy to glass creations to clothes. HiveWings were flying around and filling every corner of his vison, giving the marketplace the feel of an actual bee hive. Some SilkWings were around too; loosely following behind HiveWings, cleaning the main area, watching young HiveWings. Or just on display in shops, trying to sell products or just sitting there, like they were some forms of royalty. 

 All around Termite were tents lined up in neat rows where HiveWings who couldn’t afford a cell were selling their products or services. The hive smelled like the familiar scent of way too many things; Warm food, scented candles, something burning, sickeningly sweet candy, wet grass. Hundreds of conversations overlapped to make a loud buzz of constant noise. 

All of it was covered in the warm yellow light of the glass lanterns strung overhead that gave it all a sense of familiarity. Luckily, The Meat Hook was on the ground floor so he wouldn’t need to take his cart up the back hallways to get to the right level. 

“Termite, you’re late.” Locust briefly glanced up at him from the front desk. Dried jerky was hung up on display and the oven in the back was cooking something. Termite detached himself from the cart at grabbed the animals off the back of the wagon. 

Locusts eyed the catch as Termite hulled it to the back section of the store. He could see the frown growing on Locust’s face and Termite could feel his own annoyance bubbling.  

“Look, if you want more than that you can go outside in the smoldering heat and catch them yourself.” 

Locust didn’t say anything as he turned his attention back to the crowd. Termite rolled his eyes and more roughly then necessary, threw them in the meat bin 

Great, now he was in a bad mood. 

Maybe he should skip today. He was overdue for a skip day, and he didn’t like how that Zebra corpse was eyeing him, or how Locust did that dumb thing he does when he’s upset and his wings get all twitchy and make that infuriating slight buzzing noise that was just on the wrong end of noticeable.   

Maybe Hoverfly needed some help bothering the upper-class. Or the lower-class. Who knows. He should go ask. 

He poked the corpses around for a minute to make it seem like he was doing something helpful and waited for that waste of space to calm down. If anything, Locust seemed to get more annoyed, like he knew full well what Termite was doing. He probably did, Termite was predictable. 

Termite didn’t have to wait long for a customer to come by. He knew Locust wouldn’t call him out for leaving in front of a customer, and Termite couldn’t care less when he felt Locust’s glare on his back as he casually walked away from The Meat Hook. Worst case scenario he’d get fired and he’d get a different job. A job he’d probably like more. 

He weaved through the crowd, keeping an eye out for any of his friends. They tended to hang around. Especially Hoverfly, who seemed to have nothing better to do with his time then hang around and wait for entertainment. He was living the dream. Minus the fact that he always had to leach money off Termite. Because he thought getting market jobs were for lowly workers and he was above that. At least when Termite’s other friends asked for money, they didn’t insult him on the way out. 

Well, it was fine because other than that, Hoverfly was fine. He was a pretty fun guy.  

He wouldn’t admit he was a little grateful when he ended up running into Cimex instead. Literally. Whatever the HiveWing had been holding was now a shattered pile of yellow and grey glass on the floor, his arms still outstretched as if holding something and seemingly frozen in time as the sound echoed. The only movement that showed he was alive was his jaw clenching and talons shakily curling inward.  

Termite cringed. “I will pay for that.” 

“It wasn’t mine.” 

“Oh,” a pause, “who’s was it?”  

Cimex’s talons curled into fists. “You are insufferable!” 

“What? But I didn’t do anything!” 

Cimex bent down to scoop the shards into his empty palm. 

“You shouldn’t touch that.” Termite reached over to stop Cimex from cutting himself, which resulted in Cimex shoving his arm away. 

“Not right now, okay?” 

“I’ll go get a bag for those. Just don’t hurt yourself.” And he turned to do exactly that as soon as he saw Cimex’s stop reaching for the glass. Weaving through the crowds as second nature until he saw a purple SilkWing with a public service label around her neck and a broom, idly sweeping an already clean floor.  

He shoved down his irritation as he approached her. “Do you have a bag that can hold glass?” She looked up at him. “And preferably a broom.” 

“Yeah, let me just go grab it.” She handed Termite the broom and started walking somewhere. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to follow her or not, but after a moment's hesitation, he decided he didn’t want to feel useless standing around and add to the pit that’s been building in his chest all day. 

And if her slower than average walking pace made him want to stab someone, preferably the violet dragon, then who’s to say.  

Luckily for Violet’s sake, the walk to the storage closet was short. She shuffled into the narrow closet, almost hitting all the tools lining the walls. She reversed out of the closet and turned to Termite, handing him a drawstring linen bag. 

“Thank you,” he muttered as he turned his back to her. She didn’t even offer to clean it up herself. He would have said no but wasn’t it her job to at least ask? And to make up for lost time, he flew above the majority of the crowd, only lightly nicking his wings twice. Why were some dragons so lazy? 

He refused to see the hypocrisy in that statement. 

Termite spotted Cimex’s brown and yellow form still seated on the floor pathetically watching his pile of broken glass. Although it made his chest churn with a feeling he couldn’t quite identify. He’d had some of his stuff broken by Longhorn before. And if how Cimex was feeling toward Termite right now matched how Termite constantly felt about Longhorn, then he needed to do something about it; Lest he lose his favorite HiveWing in the friend group. 

Yet another uncomfortable feeling. Why did this keep happening today? 

He landed a small way away from Cimex, and unceremoniously began sweeping the glass into a neat pile, the skills he got in the shop paying off. Though his friend stood up with an alarmed expression on his face. 

“What? It’s not like I can break it anymore.” Cimex’s eyes narrowed anyway, “what are you going to do, try to glue hundreds of shards back together?” It took a second for his own words to echo in his ears.  

”I mean- I" His attempt at what could have been an apology was cut short by Cimex’s glare. Without breaking eye contact he grabbed the broom out of Termite’s talons. 

“Go away Termite.” 

“Cimex-” 

“Not. Now.” 

Termite held eye contact; any surface fondness being snuffed out by a wave of distance. It was like that feeling in his chest was actually made of wood, and it had just been lit on fire. 

“Fine, cry about it if you want so bad.” Cimex didn’t even look hurt, why did Termite want that? Not that Termite had much time to study his face before he turned to join the rush of the crowd. The second those words left his mouth, he felt guilty about it. Or, he thought he did. And he hoped he imagined it but Cimex almost looked like he expected this. 

Why was it always Termite’s fault? Selfish Termite who doesn’t think about anyone but himself. No one wants him around. They’re faking it, they don’t actually like you. You knew that. Why are you pretending like this is new information? The crowd around him shifted from the comforting familiarity to an almost crushing, loud, suffocating, noise.  

“Shut up.” Quiet words swallowed by the meaningless noise, for no one but that nagging in his head. A growl building in the back of his throat. Why couldn’t everybody just shut up . Idiots, all of them. He tried watching his talons as he walked. He didn’t need this right now. 

A small sliver of his mind told him he was overreacting. That he blew up over nothing. He didn’t feel like listening. He just wanted to go someplace other than here. 

His wallowing was interrupted with a jolt as he impacted with someone. Adding fuel to his fire. And the second he saw vibrant blue color indicating a SilkWing, he snapped. Red filled his vision. His lips pulled back, showing his teeth as he snarled. Shoving the SilkWing with claws extended. “ Watch it. ” And if he was present enough, he may have registered the pain on the SilkWings face. Whether or not it would have mattered to him.  

The SilkWing fell backward into a market cart. Slamming against the wood making noise louder than the buzz. Causing a couple nearby heads to turn and watch. Eyes like voids consuming all the entertainment they could gather. The cart vender, grabbed the wooden cart, steadying it, as the SilkWing drew herself off the ground. They were talking, he couldn’t make out what they were saying. 

Termite couldn’t even tell if the buzz was around him or simply created in his head. He met the SilkWing’s eyes and was somewhat surprised to see matched anger in her cobalt eyes as she gripped her upper arm; a small stream of blood ran through her talons. Good . That traitorous part of him whispered. Was it traitorous if you agreed with it? 

“Watch where you’re going next time.” He spat. Idly noticing the large spots on her wings resembling a moth. For a SilkWing, she was pretty dull.  

“You’re one to talk.” She countered in an unexpected turn. “Mr. Looking at the floor .” 

“Look,” he snarled. “I do not need to deal with you right now.” 

“ Me? You don’t even know me.” She said with a single bark of laughter despite her snarl. Termite forced a sigh. 

“You know what? I have better things to do.” He stood taller, looking down his snout at the moth-ish SilkWing for a second, before breaking eye contact and turning away. 

“Oh, better things to do huh? Then clouding up your time canoodling with a lowly SilkWing?” He heard shouted over his shoulder. He stopped walking and lowered his head. Turning his head back to face her. He met her eyes and was sure there was no light in his own. 

“Yes.” He said it slow with no bite, anger dropped to emotionlessness. Her expression froze for a second, as though that’s not the reaction she was expecting, it filled him with a sense of victory. If angry indifference was an expression, he was sure his face was a shining example. He was certainly trying to make it seem that way at least. 

He turned away from the moth and the watching eyes. Head low. He was right though; he didn’t need to deal with this right now. He had actual problems to worry about. Without the distraction of whom he was willing to bet was named Moth, he couldn’t stop thinking about Cimex. 

Cimex. Bumping into that dumb SilkWing. Everyone was staring at him. Idiots, the lot of them. Nothing better to do then judge others like the absolute wastes of space they were. Speaking of wastes of space, the SilkWings everywhere, encroaching on his space. 

And Termite had failed the song and dance that was talking to his friends. Again. 

Why did it feel like he was always walking around eggshells when he was with his friends? Cimex had been the easiest. It felt more real with him. But apparently not to Cimex, Cimex didn’t even care how Termite felt. It was an accident! Cimex was the one who needed to calm down! 

Maybe I need to calm down. He hated the fire that burned beneath his scales. But the thought of letting go of his anger felt too much like giving up. What he needed was a distraction. A perfect middle ground without having to actually face what was making him mad. He was great at avoidance. Locust always said so. 

Something to keep his mind off of how much he would very much like to find Cimex and step on his talons. 

Hoverfly would take his side, right? Hoverfly always took his side over Cimex. Yeah, that’s what he needed right now, to be validated. Sounded better than going to his house where his mother would scorn him and his brother would simply exist . As much as he wanted to be in his room. 

He was logical enough to know when going home was a bad idea. At least he was now. That SilkWing had been helpful with one thing, which was drawing him out of his pity party. 

Now the problem was finding Hoverfly. No one knew how to find Hoverfly. He was just sort of, there , and then he wasn’t. He had no job he was consistently at and he avoided his home at all costs. Though now that he said it, he had jinxed fate into his favor, Hoverfly would be just around this corner and then Termite would be like ‘oh! Hoverfly I was just looking for you. Cimex was being a little larva and I need you to tell me I’m right.’ And Hoverfly would go ‘ah, I see. You are totally right. Cimex was being a stupid hatchling and needs to grow up, it really was just a dumb little glass thing.’ And Termite would go ‘I knew you’d understand.” And then he’d suggest they vandalize something and Gnat and Beetle would show up and they’d all laugh and then throw Longhorn out the window. 

Had he mentioned Longhorn’s wings aren’t big enough to fly yet? 

He was smiling and nodding just thinking about it. But when he turned the corner, no Hoverfly. He frowned. Only strangers. Admittedly, saying ‘strangers’ was subjective, he knew most of these dragons his whole life. The HiveWing’s at least. And regretably, the some of the SilkWings as well. Some HiveWing’s got attached and kept the same one’s their whole lives. Well to each their own, he could certainly see the benefits of not changing them out. He was passionate about this topic; he wrote an essay on it for school. 

He looked around another corner. And then another. Where was he? He thought his jinxing powers were stronger than this. And he hated looking for things and he didn’t like the headache he got when he couldn’t find things and he wanted to go to his room and punch someone and claw Moth to death and be with his friends and laugh and not feel like this anymore . 

Not that he was feeling like anything. He was fine. 

He’d feel more fine if he had his friends around. Putting his anger aside, what he really wanted was for Cimex to forgive him. But that would mean Termite had done something wrong, which he didn’t, because it was an accident.