Chapter 63

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Wings of sand

When the door opened again, Sunny half expected it to be Cactus, returning after freaking herself out. But no, in front of her was the one dragon she least expected to see. 

“Qibli?” Sunny asked, gaping at her younger brother, he’d grown since she’d left home, he was now taller than her instead of the same height. 

The SandWing grinned at her, “Sunny.” 

“What are you doing here? Is something wrong at home? Are mom and dad okay?!”

Qibli grinned, “nope, nothing’s wrong, in fact, everything’s amazing. You missed it though!”

Sunny frowned, “missed what?” 

Qibli wrapped a wing around her, “we have a little sister!”

She gaped at him for a solid ten heartbeats, “WHAT? What’s her name! When did she hatch!”

Qibli kept on smiling, “she’s the cutest little thing ever and you are coming home with me whether you like it or not so she can meet her big sister.” 

Sunny blinked, “but, I’m stationed here! What about Starflight?” 

“You have permission from Tsunami already.” a voice put in. which had Sunny blinking and glancing to the side, where general Foam stood. “In fact, she’d like to encourage it.”

“What about Starflight? What if he gets worse while I’m gone?” 

Foam studied her for a long moment, “how much did seclusion help him during your travels?” 

Sunny started, “well, he stopped acting like a zombie.”

“Then I feel that it would be advantageous to bring him along, if you’re alright with that.” 

Sunny gaped at him, then glanced back at Qibli, “I get the feeling that you don’t want me to come back?” 

---

Wings of earth and dragon blood

Clay stood beside a burning dragon as they waited for the RainWing to finish writing. 

“Oh! Also tell her we wouldn’t mind going with the IceWings! Their job sounds fun!” Spark added enthusiastically. “Plus, that way we can go straight into the palace!!!”

The RainWing sighed and added that to the scroll, “is there anything else?” 

Clay glanced at Crane thoughtfully, who just shrugged. “I don’t see what else you can add.” 

“Are we sure it’s a good idea to be on the front lines?” Clay asked Spark, “isn’t that more dangerous?” 

Spark scoffed, “oh, don’t even worry. You’ve got me, and by the time we get there -if we do get to go with the IceWings- then they’ll be pretty distracted by the SkyWings and MudWings and RainWings right at their doorstep.”

“I fail to see how you know the entire battle strategy already.” Pheasant added, giving Spark a curious look, “did you bribe someone higher up?” 

Spark grinned, “nope, I just asked Tsunami, she was pretty distracted at the time, trying to deal with something. So she told me everything as a means of venting. Lot’s of ‘ack no we can’t send that battalion this way!’ and ‘but with the CaveWings it solves this problem.’ All very intriguing.” She nodded wisely. 

Marsh was the only one silent as the siblings and Spark watched the helpful RainWing file away their papers. He hadn’t spoken much since Umber’s death, apparently. Clay wanted to help him, but after asking Sunny about it, she’d explained that the best way to help was to just be there for him.

It was harder to be there for someone when they were never quite there.

---

Ashes of mind

Ash didn’t quite understand why Soulseer was so mad, the SkyWings were attacking, obviously that meant they could crush them beneath the powerful talons of the Night kingdom. It would be one less problem to deal with and therefore one step further toward their conquest. 

Ash sat atop one of the scouting posts to the north, watching the closing lines of dragons with a critical eye. Red and orange lines of sky soldiers marched and flew forward, arrows flying toward the defenders. The defenders were of all tribes, mostly RainWing and MudWing with everything else thrown in. 

The defenders shot arrows back, the front lines falling on both sides as dragons died and the next line moved forward. 

The fireless SkyWing smiled as the overwhelming numbers of defenders pushed the SkyWings back. They were winning so there was no reason to worry. Practically their entire army was here, which was roughly twice the amount of SkyWing soldiers. 

Ash felt a sudden jolt of something within his links to the eye. He delved in as Soulseer asked him to make an eye-wide command. She couldn’t do that with just her scroll. 

‘What is the command, my queen?’

‘Tell them attackers have been spotted coming from the east coast, RainWings and MudWings. I believe it’s the main body of the resistance. Send battalions fifteen, twelve, and four.’ 

Ash tilted his head, ‘that’s more than half of your standing army, are you sure?’

‘Very sure. They’re trying to trick us by surrounding the kingdom, well it won’t work.’

Ash was silent for a long moment as he frowned at the battles, ‘yes, I believe we can still win up here with that number, there will be higher casualties though, I assume you already know that.’ 

‘Make the command, Ash.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m doing it, give me a minute…’

Ash sat down, spreading his wings halfway and folding his talons just so. The best position for concentration. ‘Attention. Battalions fifteen, twelve, and four. Head south and protect from the attackers to the east.’

The battalions in question seamlessly split off from the main group, leaving as the command settled into their minds. 

‘They should arrive at the coast in a few hours. Is there anything else you need, my queen?’

‘Come back to the palace, you aren’t needed out there.’

Ash sighed, ‘as you wish,’ he liked it better to actually be there, watching the battles than controlling the dragons from afar, but apparently Soulseer was paranoid that he would somehow die and she would lose most of her control over the eye. Ash wasn’t exactly sure how the enchantment worked, but he did know that it was a real possibility. 

At first Orca had been the main dragon of the eye, but she’d abandoned Ash for practically no reason. He could still contact her through it, but she tended to panic whenever he did that, which made no sense, she’d created him. 

Ash sighed and spread his wings the rest of the way, taking off and gliding leisurely in the direction of the palace.

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I explain more about Ash with every vote?

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