Chapter Text
Desertglass was practically bouncing off the walls. Today was his first day at Jade mountain academy, and he couldn't wait to meet the rest of his winglet. After the third world-altering prophecy, there had been a massive influx of new students, and to compensate, lots of new winglets had been added to Jade Mountain. Desertglass had been assigned to the new Agate winglet as its rainwing, and was presently making his way to his sleeping cave to meet his new clawmates, which according to the list, were Rust, a skywing, and Heatwave, a sandwing. As he approached his cave, he could hear voices talking inside.
“It says here our last clawmate is named Desertglass. Judging by the name, I'd say they ran out of Rainwings and gave us a second Sandwing!” Said Heatwave, "That'll be fun!”
“I highly doubt they would give us two sandwings” said Rust
“I don't know, Desertglass is a sandwing name”
“Ugh, rainwing or sandwing, if he's anything like you, I don't think I'll be able to handle twice the yammering!” Complained Rust.
“Hmph! You're just jealous of all my gold treasure, aren't you?” Heatwave said haughtily.
“What is it with you and gold? If I had any, I'd give it all to you just to get you to shut up about it!”
Desertglass picked that moment to make his entrance. He swayed into the room, smiling wide. Inside was a proud looking Sandwing with a beautiful gradient in his scales and lots of gold jewelry, and a bored looking Skywing with splotchy, unevenly-colored scales that ranged in color from dark red to pale, washed-out yellow. “Hi! You guys must be Heatwave and Rust! I'm Desertglass, it's a pleasure to meet you!” He said, opening his mirror-like wings and sending a quick, colorful flash of rainbow through his color-changing scales .
“See Heatwave? I told you they wouldn't give us two sandwings” said Rust.
“Desertglass is an unusual name for a rainwing, where did it come from?” asked Heatwave.
“Sounds like a sandwing name, doesn't it?” asked Desertglass, “Well, you would be right. Or, at least half right” He said, proudly lifting up his long, coiled, and barbed tail.
“Ah, a hybrid! That makes more sense, ive seen a lot of those around the school, they seem to be more common nowadays. Never seen a rain-sand before though” commented Heatwave, “Which venom type do you have, or do you have both?”
“Just Rainwing venom, but not in the way you would think.” Desertglass said, “I can't spit it like a rainwing, it's in my tail barb. Anything I sting dissolves like it was hit by rainwing spit!”
“Are you into treasure at all?” asked Heatwave, “Specifically gold?”
“Its funny you should say that, I actually do a lot of selling and trading treasure, I even had a little popup stand in Possibility before coming here!”
As Heatwave and Desertglass got into a conversation about treasure, Rust groaned and covered his face with his talons. “Ugh! Now there are two of them! I'm gonna go find something else to do!” He said as he trudged out of the room.
Desertglass watched him go. “He seems kind of grumpy. Did he wake up on the wrong side of the sleeping mat or something?”
“Ugh, Rust is just boring, pay no mind to him” Heatwave said, "He's not at all into treasure”
“I'm gonna go check on him,” Desertglass said.
“Ok I guess, but im telling you, you are wasting your time, hes super boring”
‘Boring, or just bored maybe?’ Desertglass thought as he chased after Rust. After a few seconds, he caught up to him.
“Hey, you looked kinda bored in there. Are you looking for something to do?” asked Desertglass.
“Bored is an understatement!” exclaimed Rust, “The orientation activities all look boring, and I don't wanna hang out with Heatwave, you know he rambled about gold for an entire hour before you arrived?”
Desertglass pondered for a moment, then an idea came to him. “You know, official classes don't start till tomorrow, and I have a really good idea for something we could do! How do you feel about going on an adventure?”
“Well, I suppose I might as well, it's not like there's anything else fun to do. What did you have in mind?”
Desertglass looked around to make sure nobody was watching them, then dug into the bag he carried around his neck and pulled out a strange looking trinket. It looked sort of like a compass. It had an octagonal shape, with six of its eight sides occupied by small gems, each in a different color. The seventh side had a large, whitish-pink pearl, and the eighth side looked like it used to have one of the smaller gems, but it had been damaged and the gem was long since missing. Inside was a tiny, sharpened bone that sat on an axis and appeared to be pointing north.
“Ok, it's… a really over-the-top compass?” Questioned Rust.
“You are tired of Heatwave bragging about all his treasure, right?” Desertglass asked, “Well, I was thinking, what if we got you some treasure of your own that you could brag about to him?”
“That would be nice, but how is this fancy compass going to help us find treasure?”
Desertglass smiled. “That's the fun part. It's not just a compass, it's animus-touched, and if activated, it takes you straight to lost treasure! That's how I ran my stand in possibility, I used this to go hunting for my treasure. Each of the colored gems represents a Pyrrian tribe, whichever one lights up is what territory the treasure it's leading to is located in!”
Rust was stunned. “Wow… uh, ok, I've got a few questions. Mainly, where in the moons did you get this!? Also, why is a gem missing?”
“Its apparently a family heirloom, but no one in my family knows where it originally came from. It would have gone to my brother, Chupacabra, since he is older than me, but he didn't want it, he's not much of an adventurer, unlike me. As for the missing gem, my best guess is that it was the nightwing gem. I have followed each of the others at least once and they led me to treasure in every territory except the night kingdom. I guess at some point, someone really didn't want this thing leading other dragons to the night kingdom, which is understandable considering how secretive and elusive they used to be.”
“How does it work?” asked Rust.
Desertglass held up the compass, “Watch this,” he said, “Take me on an adventure please” he said to the compass. Immediately, the little bone-needle inside began spinning wildly, then stopped a few seconds later pointing in a new direction, and the red gem lit up. “Oh sweet, this treasure is in the Sky Kingdom! Come on, let's go!”
Desertglass and Rust began following the compass. They followed it for about an hour when suddenly the needle flipped back the other way.
“We are here!” said Desertglass. Him and Rust landed and began walking around to trace where the exact point was. Eventually, they got to a place where the compass started spinning again. Then, the large pearl on the compass lit up.
“Oh you are in for a treat my friend!” Exclaimed Desertglass, “When the pearl lights up, it means whatever treasure is buried here has been animus-touched! Lets get digging!”
Now Rust was excited. He joined Desertglass and together they began digging where the compass had led. Once they got about seven feet down, they found a very old looking chest covered in strange engravings. Carved around the sides were twenty-five tiny, spiky dragons. The lid was carved with an image of what appeared to be an island with a circle surrounding it. Underneath was carved an image of a skywing holding one of the tiny dragons.
“I wonder what these carvings are all about?” Asked Desertglass.
“Enough about the box, lets see what animus enchanted treasure is inside that I can totally rub in Heatwave’s face! I bet he doesn't have any animus-touched treasure!”
Desertglass opened the box. Inside was what appeared to be a bunch of really old scrolls, some with diagrams, others with more drawings of the tiny spiky dragons, and on top of all of that was what appeared to be a small, metal dragon model that had rusted and fallen apart over time.
“A dragonet toy? Really!? You dragged me all the way out here for some beat up old dagonet toy!? I think that treasure compass thing must be broken.” Huffed Rust, “Now how will I show up Heatwave?”
“Well, uh, the compass said the treasure was enchanted? Maybe this toy has some kind of enchantment?” Reasoned Desertglass.
“No way, it's obviously just a useless old toy of some kind. Who would waste an enchantment on that?”
“You can still have it if you want, I did promise you any treasure we found”
“No thanks, it's just old junk,” Rust hesitated, “But… thanks for taking me out here I guess. I will admit, even though we didn't find anything cool, it was still kinda fun,”
“Youre welcome” said Desertglass. ‘That's so weird though, the compass has never led me astray before…’ thought Desertglass. ‘Maybe this toy is more important than it looks.’ He tucked the box into his bag, and he and Rust headed back to Jade mountain.
When they arrived back, the sun was beginning to set. Rust walked off to the sleeping cave, but Desertglass headed to an empty study cave to examine the contents of the box further. He dumped the scrolls and toy pieces out onto the table top and began poking through them. Then he remembered the engraving on the bottom of the box. He flipped it over to look at it again.
“A skywing holding a tiny spiky dragon. Maybe that tiny dragon is this toy… And didn't skywings used to have animus dragons thousands of years ago?” He looked at the engraving again, “Maybe an ancient skywing animus enchanted this toy… but to do what?”
He decided to take a closer look at some of the scrolls. He gently opened the one with the diagrams. It looked almost like a blueprint for this model dragon, but they were incredibly detailed. The diagrams were labeled “SharpWing Prototype model 2”.
“Wow, this thing has weapons!” Desertglass said, noting the sharp tail and paralyzing toxin marked on the blueprint. “Maybe it was some kind of ancient attack machine? A magic ancient attack machine?”
Desertglass then organized all the pieces of the small metal dragon. A few pieces were missing or too badly damaged, but most of it was still there. He delicately began reassembling the model, and eventually, after a few hours, all the salvageable pieces were reassembled and the model was whole again, minus a few pieces.
“I'm gonna call you RazorBlade, because you are sharp like a razor, and apparently, according to the diagrams, you are called a SharpWing!” Said Desertglass. “So how about it? Are you a magic little guy?” The SharpWing didn't move or respond. “Huh, well this was a prototype model, maybe the animus never actually enchanted this one. Maybe the reason the pearl lit up is because it was built by an animus dragon. That must be it. Oh well, tomorrow is a show and tell for new students, this'll make a nice discussion piece even if it's just a stationary model.”
Desertglass packed up and headed back to his sleeping cave for the night. Rust and Heatwave were already asleep when he got there. He set the old box containing the scrolls next to his mat, and set RazorBlade on top of it, then laid down himself.
“Good night, little friend.” Desertglass said to RazorBlade. As he dozed off for the night, he didn't notice the little SharpWing slowly rotate its head around to look at him.
“Friend…” It creaked out quietly.