Clay, Roy, Glory, Sunny and Starflight were lined up, military style whilst Tsunami whispered – hissed at them. “Wehave to get out of this stupid cave!”
Roy could see that Tsunami was extremely angry and his first thought was, “What else is new?” but, he could relate.
That night, Kestrel the selfish SkyWing had “caught” the dragonets talking at dinner. She obviously liked silence so, of course she blamed Tsunami, Roy and Glory because they were some of the most frequent dragonets to stand up toher bullying and “disobey” her “authority”. “Come on! Clay, you are so brave, and you have great ideas. Glory. You can camouflage in the cave, and even better, the guardians don’t know that you must have some idea of a way to escape? Roy… you are a complete fantasist… you can turn invisible… HOW DO WE ESCAPE!”
Roy could definitely hear the desperation in her voice and, somehow, it cleared his mind. “Hey guys?” His voice sounded hollow, “Have you tried the sky hole? No, no, no I mean, have you tried to melt it down – it’s obvious that we can’t fit through unless it is bigger. Why don’t we make it bigger? Whilst we escape, I can create a hologram withmy light manipulation ability and the guardians won’t know we’re missing, until we’re long gone.” The dragonets allstared at Roy as if he was a golden NightWing. “That’ll definitely work…”
The gloomy, cold, sarcastic words left hatred drenched inside of Roy. The dragonets all violently spun around so fast that Roy cricked his neck. Pure shock was etched on the dragonet’s faces as they saw who the words belonged to. In front of them, framed in the dark sleeping cave entrance, as still as a statue, stood Webs, the spiteful SeaWing… 1000thoughts clouded Roy’s mind. Accusations, criticisms, but most of all questions. This SeaWing had taken away Roy’s beloved sister from him. This
SeaWing had taken Glory away from him. “What do you want!” Roy snarled down at her, the words were a little more forceful than he expected but, he didn’t care. Although he was far taller than her, her notorious cold-as-ice glare was still extremely intimidating. “Your plan is a good one, FlashWing, yet you overlooked one major problem. Evenif you do manage to melt down the sky hole, you’ll have to deal with Queen Aquila, Queen of the ScavengerWings.” The sleeping cave was filled with silence. An unspoken thought radiated around them. “And why would Queen Aquila try to hunt us down all of a sudden?” Queen Aquila, Queen Sparkle – Socks as Roy liked to refer to her, was the most feared Queen in all the Secret Islands. She was the most corrupt, power-hungry dragon to ever exist. “Well, as a guardian of the dragonets for the talons of peace, it is my duty to ensure your isolation from other dragons. I suggest you stop glaring at me, that’s my job, you should most likely leave. She will be here any second.”
Wordlessly, Roy and the dragonets flew gracefully up to the study cave. Without a glance back at Webs, they all started to spurt out waves of flame at the sky hole except for Roy and Glory. He was using all his concentration and from his paws formed himself, Glory, Clay, Sunny, Starflight and Tsunami. There was no time to celebrate Roy’ssuccess as just then Clay had returned through the sky hole. Roy realised that Clay had already taken all the other dragonets out, minus himself, Roy and Glory. “Come on you two. I will lift you out!” At that very moment, when Roy had hastily grabbed his sister’s hand, he heard a sound that made his heart stop cold.
Clay lifted Roy and Glory out of the cave when they saw a banana-yellow shape spread eagled on the ground. There, Sunny was unconscious. There was a swoop and then Starflight and Tsunami joined them. “No!” Glory screamed. Tsunami was the best at fighting out of all of them, if she could be beaten so easily then what would happen to the rest of them… “Whoever you are, I suggest you show yourself or we’ll, um… we’ll open fire on you, or… something.” A fully grown female dragon appeared right in front of them. “Well, hello there gorgeous!” On the edge of the cliff, silhouetted in the three moon’s light, stood Queen Aquila in the flesh. Roy could make out a scarlet claw shaped scar across her left eye. There was an eerie diamond encrusted aura around her as if, when someone walked near her, they would turn into a diamond or something. If anything, they would probably just turn into dinner. Roy could see that over her shoulder Sunny was badly injured. Clay seemed to look in the same direction, but he soundedsurprised when he said, “Hey look, it’s another ScavengerWing!” Roy looked at the solitary tree that Clay was pointing at, and he could see that there was another ScavengerWing, but as soon as Queen Aquila looked around, theScavengerWing fell off the tree.
“Oooof! That’s got to hurt!” muttered Roy.
Roy felt sick in his underbelly. He knew that the only way for Queen Aquila to leave them alone was to sacrifice himself. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a FlashWing skin coat that changed colour? Well, I will come with you back to your kingdom and willingly give you my skin, if, and only if, you leave my friends and my sister alone.” Glory looked astonished at her brother’s stupidity, and she was speechless. Clay, realising what Roy was trying to do wasalso speechless and he looked grim. No you didn’t think you’d escape that easy, did you, precious?” Roy calculatedrapidly… “Glory, when I say jump, I want you to grab Sunny and fly off the cliff to the Rain and FlashWing kingdom, hopefully they’ll protect us. Clay you’ll need to grab Tsunami and Starflight and follow Glory… I’ll try to stall Queen Sickly-Sweet as long as I can… I can try trap her in the sky hole. Before you two say anything, yes, I know it’s dangerous but it’s our only way of escaping.”
Roy said his plan from the corner of his mouth so that Queen “Wig head” couldn’t hear him. He spoke to everyone ina loud booming voice, each one of his words echoed in the valley below. “So, guys, I guess this is the end of the line for us… The only thing we could do is…JUMP!”
Time seemed to stop as Clay and Glory snatched up their targets. From the corner of his eye, he could see Queen Aquila charging towards him. He clutched to the hope that he would see Glory again and… he ducked and clawed at Queen Aquila’s underbelly, through her from the tail and kicked her in the wing. “Arrrhgh,” she moaned. Foolishly she charged. Once again Roy caught her tail and hurled it into the sky hole snout-first. All that was left visible of herwas her sparkly feet. Roy couldn’t resist, “See ya, Sparkle socks!” And with a smirk on his face, he flew off. Eventually he caught up with Glory and Clay. Apparently, they were much slower flyers when they were holding the unconscious forms of their friends. In about ten minutes filled with Roy explaining how he had beaten Queen Aquila, they landed happily on luscious fields overwhelmed with tropical fruits and trees. It was an absolute paradise… “Hey didn’t I see you fall off a tree?” There stood the clumsy ScavengerWing Clay had seen in a tree… he was hiding (badly) behind a tree. He had long majestic golden-blond hair and a smug smile. “Didn’t I see three of your friends getting beat up my evil Queen?
Roy smirked, “You’re not evil are you, care to join our tribe…?”
He looked hesitant, “My name is Scruffy, and what tribe would this be?”
Glory wasn’t listening, she was asleep… “Hi my name is Roy, this is Clay and on your right is my sister, feel free to refer to her as sleeping beauty, and my three unconscious friends are Starflight, Sunny and Tsunami and this would be the tribe of the dragonets…”