Wings Of Fire; Thorns And Roses

"Party"

It had been an uneventful few days. Radiant had convinced herself to go to the party, after all it could be a place to finally get used to some dragons.

At least, it could be.

She still had her doubts, but it was too late to chicken out. Radiant already said she was going and she didn't want to seem weak because she couldn't handle a few dragons.

Radiant sat in the tent, picking at her dinner. It was a salad that was filled with all sorts of gross and fatty meat, cooked to a unappetizing brown hue. She only ate the tomatoes and lettuce, which still had that disgusting flavor of the 'cow meat', or whatever those Pyrrhian dragons called it.

"How are you holding up?" Locust suddenly asked.

"Okay," Radiant said, looking across the tent to Locust's small bedding. "You've been to parties before, right?"

Locust popped a chunk of the brown substance in his mouth. "Plenty. Most of them were pretty boring. Just a lot of talk, wine, and you were expected to be all fancy."

"Sounds terrible."

"It was," said Locust. "I think this party would be better. Carpathian, Tide, and I think Charcoal are all going to play music. No drums though, Tide seemed choked about that."

Radiant just tuned out Locust as she focused on her meal. A feeling inside of her tightened more and more with each passing minute.

Parties are supposed to be fun after all, right?

She didn't find the idea too fun, but maybe she would change her mind. A bunch of dragons... close together.

"Isn't that just the coolest? There's so much about Pyrrhia..." Locust said, snapping Radiant out of her thoughts.

Radiant glanced up back at Locust. "Mh, I guess," Radiant replied.

Locust paused for a bit. "So... there's been word about dragons migrating to Pyrrhia."

"And you want to go as well?"

"I mean, what else do we have here?" Locust asked. "My title as 'duke' means nothing now that most of the dragons are underground."

"That reminds me, how are those headaches?"

"Not bad. I've been taking medicine Fauna gave me. It's apparently the best thing they've got against this mind control thing. Some weird toxin thing that BeetleWings had."

"BeetleWings?" Radiant asked. "Aren't they dead."

"Yes, they just found the recipe for it."

"What is it? The souls of the undead or something?"

"Beats me, all I know is that if I take a few gulps of this thing each day I won't have to worry about it. They say the older I get the less I'll have to take it too."

"Isn't that special now, huh?" Radiant fiddled with her talons.

Locust laid back. "I still can't believe it."

"What?"

"All of this. All of my life up until I met you has been so dull and boring. Now? It's great, minus all of that bad stuff!"

"You have a broken leg and a concussion."

"Those are temporary," Locust said. "But still like... besides that whole Wasp thing I've... been good. I still feel bad about everything, but those circle session things have been helping me."

Radiant smiled a bit. "That's nice."

"Maybe you should..."

"What?"