Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 35

Morning glory

A short but thickly built sandwing rushed into Glory's meeting with the speed of a thousand frights, as if West the destroyer was after her. She had the decency to wait for Glory to ask what was wrong though, dancing on her toes impatiently as she looked from side to side.

Glory closed the meeting, no one had gotten anywhere anyway, and no one had any idea what Tsunami was planning. It had been a week already and Glory was starting to get worried. Perhaps this anxious messenger was about Tsunami?

"What is it?" Glory asked as Foam and the rest of the generals filed out of the room.

The sandwing gave her a clumsy salute and began to stutter. "Sir! Uh... Miss Glory. We... we might have a problem! General Riptide has requested... Requested to see you!"

Glory frowned, "alright, ‌do you think it might be urgent?"

The sandwing didn't seem to know what to do with her talons, so she saluted again, a bit more smoothly this time. "He uh... he said something really... a really bad thing happened. Sir! Uh... miss."

Glory frowned, trying to figure out what Riptide might consider bad. She nodded, "alright, I'll be there shortly."

The sandwing saluted again and rushed off, almost faster than when she'd arrived. Glory decided that when she was done talking with Riptide, she would ask if that sandwing was alright. She seemed... stressed. Glory left the room after the sandwing. Going at a more sedate pace because there was no use tiring herself out before she got there.

After leaving the building she took to the sky, heading toward General Riptide's side of things. He was in charge of the spies and more discrete parts of the resistance, mostly because Tsunami trusted him and he was the only dragon who wanted the job.

As a result of his position, Riptide guided his spies from a far more discrete area of operations. It was technically still part of base four, but if the camp were taken over, Riptide's dragons would be unaffected physically.

The spy base of operations was just underneath the main camp, and while there were several entrances, any of them could be collapsed if an enemy discovered one. The entrance Glory used was beneath a tavern filled with noisy off-duty soldiers who were getting drunk far too early in the morning.

She entered the tunnels and followed them east until she came to a fork in the tunnel, it was unsurprising to her, but instead of choosing a way, she turned around and looked at the tunnel behind her, looking up almost completely straight where a different tunnel continued. It was hard to spot, especially in the dim lighting with few lit torches.

Glory clambered up and stepped into Riptide's base of operations, which was much more chaotic than she remembered. Glory stepped over a stack of scattered scrolls and dodged around the lines of messenger dragons, each taking a scroll from that stack and rushing off to some unknown place.

She saw Riptide in the middle of it, frantically giving dragons orders. "No no! Don't take one to my father! We need to get one to the most urgent dragons first! Are we sure that Tsunami is still not back yet? Yes yes! I know, I'm just worried. Calm down, Cherry! Just get that one to base six!"

He continued divvying out orders and questions, dragon after dragon. When he noticed Glory waiting patiently off to the side he relaxed a visible amount. "Glory! Help!"

She walked over to the seawing with a thoughtful look, still trying to figure out what was wrong.

Riptide handed her a scroll, "can you get this to Foam?!"

She gave him a confused look, took the scroll, and sighed, "Riptide, I know that something stressful is happening or just happened, but can you please calm down long enough to tell me what in the moons is wrong?"

"I don't even know, Glory! I woke up this morning with a panicked messenger screaming at me and spent the next hour helping him write up these scrolls! Base one fell and no one knows anything!?!" Glory frowned and unrolled the scroll, scanning through it with practiced eyes.

Oh. She looked back up at Riptide, also beginning to panic.

"Base one fell? The one base that might've had a chance at growing greentop?" She felt her scales shifting in panic and let them. Everyone else was panicking, she was just another rainwing colored green and teal with fear and stress.

Riptide nodded and Glory felt herself fall into a daze. Base one had been the only chance they'd had remaining. And somehow it was gone too.

After that, Glory took several scrolls to the various generals and majors, sadly explaining the news and wishing that Tsunami would just hurry up already and get her tail back home before Glory went insane from the pressure.

Somehow Tsunami thrived in situations like this, Glory didn't see how that was possible but the seawing princess seemed born to lead. 

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the messenger SandWing gets to salute again for every vote    o7