Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 54

Cactus flowers

There was too much happening all at once for Cactus’ taste. Echo finally got back from his adventure at the fallen base, only to immediately decide it was the best idea ever to start galavanting off with Frost of all dragons studying scavengers to his heart’s content. 

She didn’t care much what they were doing, but she was still annoyed at Frost from the Foeslayer incident. And she could tell he blamed her for Echo accidently releasing an ancient enemy of the IceWings. 

She decided that she would forgive him. 

If he stopped stealing her best friend at exactly the worst times. 

Cactus had been looking for Echo for three hours trying to show him the weird bug she thought he might like. At this point it was less about the bug and more about the search. She didn’t care anymore if he even wanted the bug, she was just bored and he was the only interesting thing. 

Right?

“Are you sure you haven’t seen him all day?” Cactus asked Foam for the fifth time. The SeaWing general was getting annoyed at this point, but he seemed to get it. 

“No Cactus, sorry. I haven’t seen him since yesterday. Perhaps you ought to find the scavenger den yourself?”

Cactus frowned and glanced out the window, did he like scavengers better than her? “Good idea.”

Foam blinked, “that’s not-” 

But Cactus was already gone, barreling outside as if the world depended on it, the bug clutched in her talons long since dead. She didn’t want to know, but she had to. If he was leaving her for a scavenger den she wanted to be there to smack his stupid little face. 

I am not going to be alone again. Never again. 

As it always did, the thought was accompanied by pain, sorrow, and a flash of bright blood. The guilt that gnawed at her from the inside slowly waned as Cactus searched, there’s no reason to be guilty, it wasn’t your fault. 

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Three days later, Cactus took Echo -by his own will- to the kitchens. Because apparently he’d heard of some weird scavenger things and wanted to try it.

Cactus silently showed him the empty kitchen and lit the stove for him. Then she sat down off to the side and watched him, trying to gauge whether he was about to burn down half the base. He had no fire, so he wouldn’t have any experience with keeping a flame under control. 

Somehow, the CaveWing got the concept and seemed fairly confident as he chopped up a strange vegetable with a sharp knife. Why he would willingly eat a vegetable was anybody’s guess, but Echo seemed to think that it would help the flavor. 

Cactus disagreed, but she didn’t crush his dreams as he tossed it all into a big pot with water and set it on the oven, turning back to chop up a different vegetable. Apparently, he still thought it was a crime to kill or eat anything larger than his talons, though he didn’t seem to have the same misgivings about fish. 

Had he been eating vegetables this entire time? 

Cactus gave the pot a worried look and glanced over at Echo, who had just barely sliced his palm cleanly. Oh dear. He bit his tongue to keep from yelping and looked down at the wound with wide eyes, a strange look coming over his face. 

“Are you alright?” Cactus stood up, moving to come closer, but Echo shook his head, face growing confused as his bright blue blood dripped from his open palm. 

Cactus opened her mouth to ask again when suddenly, Echo turned his head away and vomited a large stream of ice all across the side of the stove. 

It just kept coming, it poured out of him like a waterfall of snow. Some of it turned to steam on impact, other parts liquified, but near the end it stayed on the side as the Stove’s own heat had been depleted. 

Echo gasped and snapped his mouth shut, blinking at the melting frost that clung to the oven. 

After twenty minutes of cleaning up the water, getting Echo something to drink, and bandaging his talon, Cactus finally relit the stove and took it upon herself to do all the chopping from then on. There would be no more random vomiting on her watch, nope. 

As she dumped the minced vegetables into the pot, Echo looked at them with wide eyes, “no fair! You’re better at that than me! You didn’t even want to try it!” 

Cactus frowned thoughtfully at the pot. “Alright, I’ll try it if you add some type of meat.” 

Echo nodded eagerly, “can you get some type of meat?” 

Cactus rolled her eyes but smiled as she stalked off toward the rabbit hutches, some nice soul had taken it upon themselves to breed rabbits for anyone who didn’t have time to go hunting themselves, and they were kept just down the hall from the kitchens for anyone who didn’t want to just impale the things on a stick and flame it. 

It took her a bit to get one of the rabbits, but she returned to Echo with the dead creature and he shivered at the sight of it, “you’re going to have to get it in there yourself, sorry I can barely look at it.” 

Cactus shrugged, she hadn’t expected much else. It wasn’t long before the Rabbit was sliced up and put into the pot. She discarded the fur and undesirables and waited as Echo stirred the pot, putting a suspicious amount of salt in. 

Cactus didn’t know many dragons that actually used salt, it was a lot of effort to find and most of the time only the SkyWings and SeaWings could get it. Eventually Echo extinguished the stove and took the pot off, moving it to a table off to the side. He searched around in various areas before he came back with two large bowls. 

Cactus frowned as he scooped the weird stuff into the bowls and grinned at her, “shall we?”

Cactus looked down into the broth for a long moment, “If I die, tell my story.”

It wasn’t actually half bad though so perhaps Echo had something here. Cactus didn’t tell him that though, she merely steeled herself and insisted that vegetables were for RainWings.

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Cactus gets to eat one more bowl of vegetable soup for every vote!