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Leo strutted down the crowded merchant-filled street, narrowly dodging rushing customers as he went. His tail barb was coiled close to his body, and his wings were tucked in as tight as they would go. A few larger sandwings struggled to get through the chaos, and he didn’t envy their size in the slightest. His light rainwing build, a build he had come to love after a lot of self reflection and years of self loathing, made it easy to slip through the crowd like a lizard through floorboards.
The worn and cracked leather bags hanging over his sides bounced with each step, full of various jerkies and other preserved goods. He’d even found a jar of peaches for a reasonable price; an incredible luxury in the desert. But most importantly, he’d been able to find a cherimoya, which hung satisfyingly from a pouch around his neck. There was no way in hell he’d pay the asking price for a fruit like that, so he didn’t. The merchant had been too preoccupied with a gaggle of rabble-rousing mudwing dragonets, and Leo’s camouflage gave him even more of an upperhand. The poor peddler had no chance.
Leo stopped in a shaded alleyway and slumped against one of the walls, drinking in the cool stone’s touch. A few other dragons were in the corner as well, lounging around and doing the same thing. He reached into his pouch and undid the button, lazily grabbing for the fruit.
He grabbed a little less lazily when it didn’t immediately come up, which was odd since it was the only thing in there.
Now irritated, Leo ripped the patch off. To his horror, the fruit was gone.
He jumped to stand and bristled, frill raised and wings flared. The other dragons in the alley quickly cleared out, not wanting any part of the angry hybrid. He whipped his head from side to side, angrily scanning for the scoundrel that’d stolen his steal.
Up on one of the sandstone rooftops there was a flash, ever so brief. The trajectory and timing were just right, and Leo knew that the glare of white scales that had left his vision was the culprit.
Leo snapped his wings open and darted into the sky, startling the dragons below. His sudden departure sent papers and other garbage into the air with him. The jagged skyline of the den was almost overwhelming to look at, but Leo’s childhood was spent running through the streets without abandon. His scales darkened, and he flew like a sling-shotted stone after the white glimmer that darted between buildings.
“HEY SHITHEAD!” Leo landed with the high-pitched scraping of talons on stone. He was practically frothing at the mouth. More dragons poked their heads up out of curiosity, then ducked down when they realized they wanted no part of the conflict unfolding. “I STOLE IT FIRST!”
Fruit was so hard to come by in the Den. Leo hadn’t known he’d even like it until a raisin flew into his mouth one day from a rolled-over kiosk. A controversial opinion among his friends at the time, he’d even go as far as saying he liked fruit better than meat. And so, if a delicacy like that was swiped quite literally from beneath his nose, Leo saw no other course of action than to run after the thief and beat them till they were bleeding.
Adobe pots and metal pans clattered across the searing tiles as Leo shot past kiosk after kiosk. Dragons were shouting and swearing at him as he half flew, half ran through alleyway after alleyway chasing the white spark. Icewing, rainwing, albino, it didn’t matter; whoever this dragon was, they were going to learn a lesson about stealing from Leopard.
It seemed this dragon was only good at sprinting, lacking much of the stamina that Leo had. He thanked his sandwing genes for the long-haul stamina he had. As his enemy got closer, Leo noticed that this dragon was indeed, and at least partly, an icewing. His spines bounced with every bound he took, and as Leo followed his tail into the tented alleyway market, he knew he had him cornered.
This market, coined as “The Dark” by its merchants, was formerly Black Eagle territory. Although no dragons held any allegiance to the deceased syndicate, Leo still knew many of the vendors by trade and by fellowship.
“Bullfrog, tail!” Leo roared. His adversary was close enough to touch, and the icewing threw a glance over his shoulder in alarm.
An extremely large, nearly black mudwing perked his ears up. With unprecedented speed, he pivoted from out of his stall and swung his tail around with a big SLAP. The icewing tripped over it and flew several tail lengths ahead, skidding to a stop with his chin on the ground. Every stall and customer had gone silent.
Leo leapt over Bullfrog’s tail and onto the white dragon’s back, flipping him over to stare him in the eyes with a threat. Leo’s barbed tail was suddenly inches away from the dragon’s chest, bright yellow gone acid-green in the dim lighting of the market.
“Do you have any idea who you just stole from?” Leo asked. Petty and self congratulatory, he knew, but he was so hungry and angry he couldn’t help pulling that card. “I got more dragons up my sleeve than you’ve met in your entire life, so cough up what you took and we can end this without any blood.”
The white dragon rolled his shoulders as best as he could, wincing. “Yeah, one problem with that.” His accent was thicker than Leo’s. He spat something that hit Leo directly in the forehead.
The projectile didn’t get so much as a flinch from him, but as it dropped back onto the ice dragon’s finned chest, Leo knew its unmistakable brown form.
A cherimoya seed.
Leo damn near shoved his barb right between the smug dragon’s eyes, but Bullfrog pulled him up by the scruff before he could make the move.
“You two need to take this out of the Dark,” Bullfrog said. He’d hoisted the white dragon up similarly. “There’s a bar around the corner to the left, you know where it is,” he shot a look at Leo. He tossed both of them onto the ground. “Go. Now.”
---
“So it’s not a gang?” Leo asked again. He took another sip of the tequila in his glass.
“No,” Sleet, his former adversary said. “It’s a coalition. Alliance. Whatever.”
Turns out, the two had much more in common than Leo thought. Sleet grew up in the Den, the same way as Leo. Both had suffered at the claws of horrific headmistresses, and both had suffered discrimination because of the way they looked growing up. Sleet grew up east side, which explained why his accent was so much thicker than Leo’s. Leo had grown up in the south, only a few blocks down from the east neighborhood’s border.
Small world, Leo thought.
The tequila had softened them both up, and the warm low-hanging lights sucked whatever hostility was left over. The bar was much more like a tavern at midday. It was hard to keep one’s temper.
Leo swirled the drink around in his cup, watching the yellow-orange lights dance in the current. “I don’t wanna join no gang.”
Sleet sighed and rolled his eyes. “You ain’t gonna be joining no gang. It’s a co-affliction.”
“Coalition.”
Sleet puffed up again. “I know what I said.”
It was Leo’s turn to roll his eyes. “Relax.” He tapped his claw on the stone bartop. A coalition where the hybrids in the Scorpion Den worked together didn’t sound bad. He was wary and knew he had every right to be, considering the last hybrid group he’d been involved with. Sleet didn’t have the same delinquent aura about him, although he was smug. “Ah, whatever. I’ll join your club.”
Sleet smiled with all his cracked teeth and held out a claw for Leo to shake. “Pleasure doin’ business with ya! Welcome to the club, brother.”
Leo took the offer and shook it. “To new horizons.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Sleet said.
And drink to that they did.