Chapter Text
It hadn’t even been a week into Jade Mountain Academy before something had to go wrong. And of course, Carnelian had to be in the crossfire.
That morning, she had gone out right as the sun rose. Lighting the sky in a marbling mix of deep blues and pastel yellows. The Claws of the Clouds Mountains were distant silhouettes while the desert baked the land in the west. It was just what she needed. She would’ve gone out with other Skywings, but the ones here were immature. Flame was a brat who had never been in war. Garnet was a baby. Ever since they were dragonets in the Wingery. Peregrine was too young to understand anything. And Thrush was just a dimwit.
Not only that, but politics were a constant topic between Skywings. The majority were very supportive of Queen Ruby. Carnelian was one of them, of course. And she made that very clear, but she didn’t like to talk about it as much as everyone seemed to. Though supposedly some Scarlet supporters made themselves very known. So now the entire tribe is splitting apart. It’s idiotic. Carnelian hadn’t even known it was happening until Thrush started opening his mouth. She could tell by just how he spoke that he was about as brainless as a Rainwing. Really she got along better with a Mudwing than her own tribe. Which was depressing to think about. All of the other Skywings had parents who were able to let their children escape the hands of war. But Mudwings? Not at all. Which made all the Mudwings a nice breath of fresh air, and a little bit of familiarity too.
Once the sun had risen higher up into the sky, casting away deeper blues in replacement for might brighter ones. She decided to head back inside. Swooping through a skylight and down into one of the hallways full of sleeping caves. Hearing the snores of dragons made her regret coming back inside, but she pressed on. Figuring she might as well check the Library for any messages from her Mother or Queen Ruby.
With the tunnels quieter, she was able to maneuver around much faster. Strangely the Nightwings were all awake, congregating together in a blob of black scales and wings. None of them acknowledged her as she slipped by. Other than them were a few early risers from random tribes. In fact she nearly tackled a Sandwing as it turned the corner in front of her.
Her initial reaction to the dragon was to pin them to the rocky floors. But the Sandwing kept moving, growling out a hushed threat or apology. Carnelian didn’t know, it didn’t matter. She could kill them in a fight regardless.
But around the corner was the entrance into the library. Inside first held corridors lined with endless scrolls. Dozens holding random quotes that were supposed to sound mysterious. At the end there was a room full of windows covered in leaves. Giving the room an iridescent green shine. Around the Library were shelves, holes in the walls, and racks filled with scrolls. There was a section with the cave branching off in different areas. Piles of leaves rested in each one so a dragon could quietly read. There were other places on rock ledges too. Carpet danced across the floor, crimson and scarlet threads intertwined with golden edges lead up to the front desk. It was circular, crafted from a large mangrove tree. The words ‘LIBRARIAN’ etched in the centre of it. A group of dragons were yammering to one another, each an array of different colours. But the first to go was a frigid icewing, who stormed past her with the most uncharacteristic Icewing expression she had ever seen. Though maybe seeing angry Icewings was just the norm for her.
Ahead were the familiar shapes of her clawmates. Ditsy and Mumbles. She walked up behind the two, focusing on the frail, bandaged figure that was Starflight. His scales were shiny despite his injuries. Shining a deep indigo with hints of midnight blue. He glanced in her direction, giving a faint smile. Carnelian had a slight respect for him and Clay for a time. She had assumed that their injuries were the result of a battle. How little she knew. Though losing your vision from lava, and or burning of dragonviper venom wasn’t anything to be ignored. Clay might be the first dragon in history to survive a bite from one of those things.
Starflight greeted Ditsy and Mumbles patiently before handing Carnelian a scroll with a royal Skywing seal on it. Her eyes perked up slightly as she took it. “Thank you.” She said.
Absently she hoped that the letter would demand for her return home. That her battalion needs her, because obviously they did. She worked harder than any of those rockheads. Carnelian felt her own talons play with the scroll.
A scraping sound of claws against the stone floors caught her attention as a flash of cloudy white scales entered the room. It was the same Icewing from before. Except this time he was carrying a giant golden cage that sparkled like crackling fire. The bars of it surrounded a small bipedal creature. Carnelian squinted, trying to get a closer look. The creature had a ball of fur on its head, some on its shoulders and limbs. Initially it stayed motionless until the Icewing set it down on the ground. Its head cautiously turning to glance at each of the dragons. Its expression was hard to read, though there was little reason to bother. Skywings liked to eat these things, no point in looking any further than that.
The Icewing glared at Mumbles, demanding that she figure out what's wrong with it. Which was peculiar, almost comical. Everyone started chattering like a bunch of birds about the scavenger in the cage. Going on and on about this creature as if it meant anything. Anything other that a decent snack. They were particularly filling for their small size. A lot of dragons in her battalion would snatch one in the morning to satiate themselves till evening.
“Maybe Bandit’s special!” The Ice dragon begged, he looked significantly more worried than before. His brow arched back in an uncanny way.
“Maybe he’s delicious,” Carnelian commented, winded past the worried ice cube. Slinking off with stiff claws. She glanced back down at her scroll, ignoring any possible retort from the Icewing. But before she even realised it, he stormed out of the Library.
“I’m glad you two are getting along. Sunny and I spent a long time putting clawmates together.” Starflight chimed in with his usual soft smile, his head was tilted towards Carnelian. She gave him a skeptical expression, even if he couldn’t see it.
“Maybe you could move me to a different cave. One with less talking.” She hissed, shooting a glare at Ditsy and Mumbles. Her tail lashed in annoyance, as it was quite literally impossible to enjoy some solace of peace with those two around. Even in the dead of night.
Ditsy found her statement to be practically treason, attempting to defend herself and Mumbles. “Moon barely talks! She just talks more in her sleep than when she's awake!”
“Thats exactly my point. You yap all day and Mumbles yammers all night!”
Mumbles looked speechless, glancing at Ditsy with a cracking smile. She looked both embarrassed and guilty at the same time. Whatever. Carnelian twisted away, figuring that even with her complaint nothing would be done about it. So she left, jumping up onto one of the rock ledges far enough away to not hear any of them talk. A nice moss patch was placed on it, sinking underneath her weight as she lied down. Talons aching to inspect her scroll. Peeling off the seal as the rough tannin soaked pages unfurled before her. Black inked letters formed before her eyes. Handwriting she recognised almost instantly. A slight hesitation before reading the words.
Hello, my dear,
I hope this letter finds you well. I know you didn’t want to go to Jade Mountain Academy, but I wanted to give you some semblance of connection. You fought in a war you had nothing to do with and now it's changed you. I want you to be better than me and those before me. I want you to find love and friends where you’d never expect to look. I know what I did was cruel to you and I know you probably hate me for it. But I hope you can forgive me.
Love, Caracara.
Suddenly it was snowing and the scroll was gone. Smoke was pooling out of Carnelian's snout. She glared down at the falling pages, fire in the back of her throat threatened to eliminate its existence completely. Her mother’s apology meant nothing, just another attempt to get under her skin. A soft hiss left her throat as she jumped off the rock ledge, stepping out of the Library.
Whatever, it’s nothing. History class is going to start soon. She might as well make her way over there. Then maybe after class shes gonna make a break for it. Despite her loyalty to Queen Ruby, she is going to disobey her orders just so she wouldn’t be put under this pathetic experiment for peace. She was much more useful with her battalion, and if they really need a skywing then they can send someone else. Because in no possible way was Carnelian going to take this. Her heart burned with a fiery anger, wings aching for the flight back home. Honestly, she could just go now. But she has a recess after this class which will give her a head start.
As she wandered through the hallway she heard screaming. A black dragon was yelping for help, dragons surrounded her, asking what was wrong. Carnelian easily defused that this was not her problem. So she kept on going, walking up towards the History Cave. A flash of desert yellow whisked up to her snout. Beading black eyes and a waving sail stopped her in her tracks. His face was concerned, telling her to not to go in.
She asked why but he gave some half-assed response. Something about it needing to air out? Carnelian obviously didn’t believe him, feeling like it was some stupid Sandwing trick. But she couldn’t lie, she took a moment to sniff the stale cavern air. To which she smelt stale cavern air. With a growl she shoved the Sandwing aside. Walking into the cave anyway.
This was her last destination before she was going to leave this place and nobody was going to stop her. Not even some lowly Sandwing. Carnelian stepped inside, glancing at the different wooden tables, a wall of papers and notes, and two other dragonets sitting patiently inside.
All of it went up in a flash.
There was pain for a moment. And a loud ear piercing boom before it all had vanished. It was instant. Everything was now an empty void, darker than the darkest nights in Pyrrhia. Her senses were devoid of any sort of stimuli. The silence was deafening, droning on for a long time. Carnelian tried to move, but she had no limbs, no body. Just an empty void that went on and on for a painstakingly long time. Her thoughts were slow, or maybe they didn’t exist. Just words formed in the head of a dragon who died before she ever got to do anything.
Finally something appeared before her. Three dots spun in the circle on the corner of her vision. They disappeared after a moment, and what came next were large white bold letters.
LOADING…
Then everything faded. A glistening vast field of rolling hill painted the brightest lime green grass cascaded the horizon, while the sky was a perfect sky blue. White puffy clouds dotted the sky as a gust of wind blew the grass in soft waves. It look straight out of a painting, with the most vibrant colours used in the landscape. High above were circling hawks screeching at one another.
Loading Tribe…
The words flashed for just a moment before vanishing. Numbers and words flooded into her field of view. Skywing specific information appeared. Listing off what was dubbed as ‘Buffs’ and ‘Nerfs’. The first one was labelled in green whilst the second was red. There was something about elemental magic. Though the only magic Carnelian was familiar with was animus magic. As she read through the information she wasn’t sure what to think of it.
Apparently her buffs were a speed boost, fire damage, lightning damage, agility, nimble, and strength. While her nerfs were happiness, swimming, hunger, and skill learning. She is a carnivore, which wasn’t anything new. She had fire and lightning magic and a weakness against Icewings and Nightwings. She tried to find any reason as to why but no other information was given to her. With a flick the words vanished.
Pick Your Traits
A box popped up right in Carnelian’s snout. This was a list of traits with two sections. One in green and one in red with a number either a plus or minus symbol next to them. It only took a moment of reading these traits to realise exactly what was going on here. The negative traits had a plus number beside them, the taxing the trait the higher the number. While positive traits subtracted from that. So in order to get good traits she’d need to get bad traits, which was very annoying.
So Carnelian decided to start with the negative traits first. Attempting to use her talon to move the list up or down. Realising she still had no body. Despite that, a part of her brain felt like it could touch the box, just in a different way. She squinted, flicking the list in her head. The list moved, expanding its list by at least three times. Carnelian mentally moved it, which made her brain stumble. She decided to go to the bottom of the list, searching through the absolute worst traits. Going through ones that said ‘Blind’ Its description was fairly short, as it should be. And all it said was “Guess…”
‘Deaf’ “...”
‘Clipped’ "Permanently unable to fly”
‘Severely injured’ “You start off severely injured. Speed and strength temporarily hindered until healed”
‘Legless’ “You can’t be this stupid, right?”
Practically all of these she couldn’t imagine a single dragon taking, most of them crippled a dragon forever. Were the points worth it? A pause. Was any of this worth it? Where was she? Why was this happening? Did she actually die?
Of course there was no answers. Any potentially nobody around to ever answer them. Stumped, she blankly stared at the list, pondering exactly what had happened and how she ended up here. It was so abrupt, almost like a flaming cactus bomb. Skywings used plenty of them in the war, of course she had never been very close to one. But that was the only thing that made sense. A bomb, but why? Who would set a bomb off in a school? Anyone with fire. Were they after Carnelian or someone else? She didn’t really have enemies, not that she knew of.
A groan left her throat as she glanced up at the traits again, rereading the descriptions on the traits before scoffing. This was stupid. These traits were far too taxing, and while a lot of the good traits were very remarkable. She wasn’t going to give up a limb just so she can have higher damage. Though taking ‘Severely Injured’ was likely the best choice? Being hurt isn’t a good start, but if she managed to heal them off she could enjoy all of her positive traits. No pain no gain, right?
With another quick scan across all the traits, she tried to find something more suitable for her. There were some decent negative traits. Though she spotted one titled ‘Cursed’ which prevented her from using elemental magic. A glance at the positive traits showed all of the potential she could have. There was a trait called ‘Venomous’ which let her bites be deadly. Though she decided to go back to the negative traits and pick them first, this time starting at the top of the list instead of the bottom. Which the very first one was something called ‘Sea Cow ‘
“Your swimming speed will suck. Unfortunately you won't look like a sea cow while doing it. Rather just a flailing cockroach” The description liked to be funny, which all the more begged the question on what, or who made this. Was this an animus spell? Besides, her swimming speed was already hindered, however she didn’t plan to go swimming. Every Skywing stayed far away from water in the war.
Her commander drilled into her the dangers of any body of water. Telling endless stories of Skywings getting dragged in within a split second and the only thing left of them was a spiralling pool of metallic blood. And it wasn’t just Seawings. Icewings were particularly good swimmers despite their lack of frills. Carnelian sat there, spacing out for a long moment. It was a habit she had been developing over the last several months, it often happened when she thought about the war. Some soldiers had done the same thing in the infirmary. Carnelian tried to ask them about their time serving and they’d gladly tell until going quiet when the story got particularly serious. It was hard to get anything else out of them unless they had a few drinks in them. Which they obviously weren’t allowed to have. But with Queen Ruby in place, proper veteran treatments will be put in place. Not just for Skywings too.
She sat there for a moment longer focusing back on what she was supposed to do. She tried to mentally pick ‘Sea Cow’ but the box dissappeared. She tried to choke out a swear, but no sound came. Words popped up in her face.
Congratulations!
You Picked a Random Set of Traits!
Carnelian’s heart sank to her claws. A new box appeared with the randomised traits it selected for her. She almost didn’t want to look at her negative traits. Fearing that it was potentially the worst combination in the history of Pyrrhia. But it’d be idiotic not to look. She glanced at them. Starting from the Negative. At the bottom she got ‘Severely Injured’ a part of her almost wanted to scream curses at the Sky Dragons. ‘Clumsy’ and ‘Crybaby’. She had already gone through the first of these traits. Clumsy was self explanatory. So Carnelian inspected ‘Crybaby’. Its description was brief. “Your pain sensitivity is increased”
Annoying but probably not as bad as trying to make it sound. She had felt real pain before, and this fake version of life probably couldn’t accurately do that. She was a soldier after all. Pain was nothing to her. Especially after an Icewing had broken her femur whilst in combat.
It was only a little over six months ago. Carnelian had been surveying the bog. Swooping down beside the treeline to stay hidden. Her scales coated in a thick layer of mud for camouflage. As bright red scales stuck out in a landscape that was anything but a mesa. Beneath her the grass was a brown terracotta colour. Muddy water overtaking the ground below. The trees beside her were tilted with roots forming loops above the water line. Normally the birds sung, but today they were dead silent. She had been out there just to get closer to the front lines, opting to go around safely just so she wouldn’t be spotted. Her wings resisting to flap so she could be quieter as she approached. The distant roar of a raging battle echoed ahead. Just a little further ahead. All she had to do was fly over a large hill and she’d be there. Her mind was so focused Carnelian failed to realise she was being followed. A crushing weight slammed into her. Her body hitting the mud with a splat. Droplets flung in the air white a white blur raked at her chest. The dragon’s presence bit at her scales like an icy morning. Carnelian roared in pain as she tried to wiggle free, whipping the Icewing with her tail as she flapped mud in its face. It appeared to work until a bone shattering pain erupted through her leg. A loud CRUNCH reverberated her ears as the boiling hot pain seared from her leg all the way up to the rest of her body. As she tried to move she felt her bone shift into her muscles, a scream rang across the bog. Carnelian couldn’t move, the Icewing had her pinned down. The mouth opened wide as a blue glow shined deep in its deep ocean blue throat. She knew this was it for her. Just a moment ago she was fine, and now she was looking face to face with the Sky Dragons, soon to join them. Her eyes fell shut. Everything fell silent, but when she opened them she didn’t see the Sky Dragons anymore. She didn’t even see the bog. There were walls, gently crafted and painted to look like the sky, with gold trim around the pillars. Her scales were back to their red colour, clean and warm. A thick bandage clung to her leg as another wrapped around her chest. A warm cushion bed laid beneath her. This wasn’t home, but what looked like the Infirmary. Her mother rested beside her, head on one of her wings. Eyes shut like she had fallen asleep. Carnelian asked her what had happened. Her mother immediately woke up from the motion and nearly strangled her with a hug. But according to her, a Mudwing saved her. Though she didn’t know who. But the Icewing who tried killing her fled and was later found dead in the battlefield.
After that, Carnelian never went back to the war. She spent months healing her broken femur, though it probably would’ve healed sooner if she didn’t run off all the time. Then the war ended, and six months later she was transferred to Jade Mountain Academy as an order from Queen Ruby. And of course that led to where she was now. Dead and going through some sort of purgatory.
Her eyes looked back at her new assigned traits. Trying to keep her negative ones in her head as she inspected her positive traits. Starting from the top. ‘Vigilance’, ‘Pyromaniac’, ‘Photosynthesis tissue’, and ‘Crafty’. She inspected each, wanting to know exactly what all of them did. Vigilance gave her a higher awareness buff, letting her sense danger before it happens. Or spotting nearby dragons before they see her. Helpful. Pyromaniac gave her a buff in all things fire. Fire damage, fire output, fire temperature, everything. Photosynthesis Tissue allowed her to heal faster in the day. And finally Crafty gave her a boost in learning different skills. There was no clear answer as to how much, but hopefully it evened out her Skywing nerf. But overall, these selections weren’t bad. Maybe better than what she would’ve picked.
Pick Your Talent
A new set of choices popped up in front of her. These ones were much more complicated than everything before. It was a list, but of occupations? Each one had buffs, some with nerfs as well. A lot of them were occupations that allowed her the use of learning other magics. They were all decent choices. One of them was ‘Ocean Lookout’ which allowed her to learn water magic, increase in awareness and a buff in strength when alone. There were ones similar with different buffs. But further down there were a few that really caught her eye.
‘Animus’ the words glowed in an ominous deep crimson. The description beneath it explained what it was. “Allows you to learn and use every single magic type. Health and Charms are constantly dwindling. Traits will be removed, but you can gain them over time. No you actually aren’t an animus, snail brain.”
Just beneath that was an equally shocking Talent. ‘Firescales’. This one shined like fire, glittering almost like molten gold. “This tribe specific Talent allows you to have a deep understanding of fire magic, which makes you incredibly powerful from the start. However, your health is very low. Upon picking this you will gain the ‘Severely Injured’ trait.” Carnelian almost laughed. Nearly picking it right then and there. Though, a bit of her Skywing pride told her not to. Firescales were fundamentally wrong. Literal living killing machines. Even if she actually did set a forest on fire with her own claws, the name by itself is wrong.
She continued through the list. Spotting another interesting Talent. This one was called ‘Copycat’ which removed her ability to use elemental magic, but gave her the ability to copy magic off of enemies she killed temporarily. Another was called ‘Hybrid’ which had a 25% chance of letting her choose what her other tribe was. Whatever she got would let her use their magic too, but all of her magic couldn’t be fully mastered. Then down the list things got more boring. Her eyes kept flicking back up to the ‘Firescales’. Just being that powerful and the added bonus of already being cursed with ‘Severely injured’ and having ‘Pyromaniac’ would boost that even further. Even if she didn’t actually become a Firescales, she practically would be anyways. This was too good to pass up, her traits matched up perfectly. So before her choice was randomly picked for her, she went for it.
Congratulations!
You picked Firescales!
The glittering green hills and endless blue sky fell away. Darkness fell over Carnelian for just a moment before things reappeared. The first thing that filled her ears were chirping birds. A landscape peeled open before her. But this time it wasn’t any rolling hills. Rock pillars surrounded the clearing, each one just short of the tree tops. The sky was a mosaic of deep purples to light pinks and pastel yellows. Speckles of white stars dotted the sky, sparkling like diamonds high above her. Vanishing as the sun began to rise. Its rays casting down on the land, leaves glowing a golden shine.
Symbols and images engraved in her field of view that disappear no matter where she looked. A closer look and some of them looked like abilities and her current status. There was something called a Primary skill, along with a Secondary skill. But when she attempted to use them it didn’t allow her.
Unlock at Level 5
The words popped up in her face like they were mocking her. She tried to shove the words away, but they vanished on their own accord. So now she needed to get levels, yes, not confusing at all. Carnelian groaned in annoying. Deciding to explore the other options. With a bit of prodding she somehow managed to open up a box that showed off her stats. Her health was full, but she figured that five health wasn’t very good. Or maybe it was amazing. Her Skywing buffs were visible, and her traits as well. So she didn’t need to memorise them after all. Then up top it said ‘Level 1’ which she guess was her current level.
She mentally put the box away. Taking a closer examination at her surroundings. Small boxes appeared up on top of her view, which showed that she was currently very injured. A look at the box told her that her injury was 83%. Great. Perfect even. But probably not that bad, like she said before, she has been in actual pain. A slight hesitation before she lifted herself to her claws. Immediately her body ached like a bunch of Icewing tail spikes penetrated her scales. Everything, even breathing hurt. She couldn’t even stand up for a second before flopping back onto the ground. Which felt like falling from the tallest spire in the Skywing castle. Carnelian laid there, huffing shallow breaths as she begged for the pain to stop.
This was so much worse than fracturing her femur. Sure she snuck off a lot, even with a broken leg, but she also was essentially a giant snail. She was easy to find because she never got far.
Her breaths echoed, she attempted to slow them so the pain would stop. A soft growl left her throat as the throbbing pain kept up its dance throughout her muscles. Honestly she would’ve probably writhed there for a long time, but a shift in the grass made her go still. Ears and eyes perked up as she quietly peeked her head out of the tall green blades. Her head and neck were the only thing that didn’t hurt, which was something at least.
But it wouldn’t matter. A blackened figure stood just before her. Their eyes met as the dragon shifted again. Its tail was huge, almost like a crocodile’s. Their horns were straight, points slightly inwards. They looked familiar. It wasn’t Mumbles, they were missing a silver scale by their eye. But their face was one she had seen recently. Very recently. They were a student, a nightwing about a neck length smaller than Mumbles. After just a few moments she remembered who he was. He was in the classroom when it blew up. He looked just the same as before, his scales were a greyish blue tint, with dulled cloudy sky blue underbelly and sparkling wings that had a black to blue gradient. He wore these chains around his neck, which was an odd choice for apparel. His face was nonthreatening, maybe a little confused.
Carnelian would’ve gone up to interrogate him, but for obvious reasons she just laid there, trying to look menacing. But he simply came closer to her. Potentially trying to end her suffering? She didn’t know, but his lagoon blue eyes never left hers as his wings and tail dragged across the grass. He squinted for a moment before looking surprised.
“Hey! I know you.” He chirped with a sigh of relief. He even wiped at his own forehead, giving her a smile as he reached down to give her his talon. “You were the Skywing in the History Cave, right?”
Carnelian reeled her head back, barring her teeth. She didn’t want to become friends with a lying Nightwing. Especially when she was particularly weak against them. Though she might as well not make it her enemy other. “Right before it blew up, yes.”
The Nightwing blinked at her. Squinting suspiciously, though his expression never turned annoyed or bothered. More like a dragonet solving a puzzle. “How did you know it blew up? Did you do it?” His head tilted one direction.
She was taken aback by that. How did this little idiot come up with that? “What?!” She shook her head. “Do you think Skywings are that stupid?” A hiss left her throat. Carnelian wanted to get up on her own talons, as it seemed this rock head wasn’t quite understanding who he was talking to. Maybe all that time in the volcano starved his brain of oxygen.
The dragonet flinched at her yelling. He took a step back with his ears folded back like a deer. “By all the roaring strawberries! Sorry! I didn’t know I died, okay?”
She glared at him quietly. For a long moment it was just the two of them, and a part of Carnelian wished she didn’t immediately try to drive him away. She let her aggressive snarl fade away. Honestly she could probably use his help. If she can’t walk then theres no way she could survive out here. So she was gonna have to swallow her pride. “My name is Carnelian.”
The Nightwing, who sat beside her, looking up at the fading stars glanced back at her in surprise. He paused for a moment, unsure if she was lying or maybe said something else. Then he cracked a smile “I’m Bigtail. Nice to meet you.”