Wings Of Fire: Spotlight

Chapter Three - Overheard

Bloodmoon scooted beside her. "Maybe let's just watch."

Mako giggled, not really knowing the reason. "Sure."

"Point earned!"

The caramel colored MudWing from earlier threw her wings into the air triumphantly and high fived a wingless SilkWing. Their chocolate and banana colored talons meet with a loud slap, and the other two dragons, a HiveWing and another SilkWing, seemed somewhat disappointed.

Lynx blew the whistle, and the dragons filed around the short wall to the pools of water to drink. A SkyWing teasingly flicked a spray of water at a SandWing, who looked quite bored. The SandWing adjusted her spectacles, which were bronze and complimented her cinnamon freckles and sandy dust colored scales, and sighed, stalking away. She caught sight of Mako and arched a brow. "Hey you."

Mako and Bloodmoon glanced over and questioningly pointed at themselves, and the SandWing gestured to Mako. The dusty yellow dragoness stepped towards the shark colored SeaWing. "You alright there? You crashed head-first into the wall."

"I think so," Mako chuckled, the effort seeming to press on her head.

"You should go see Nurse Mayfly," she suggested. "She's new, but talented. And next period isn't for another ten minutes, so you should have time."

"I think I can handle it," Mako scratched her neck.

"That's a lot of thinking going on," the SandWing noticed. "It's scary."

"Fine." Mako groaned. "But I'm not going to like it. I hate going to the doctor or wasting my time. I can handle it..."

The dragoness pushed up her spectacles and slithered towards Coach Lynx to inform her. Mako reluctantly pushed past the ivy tendrils that blocked off sight of the gym and flew up the winding stairs. From there, she turned left and continued down the hall until she reached the Medical Wing and found the Nurse's office.

Vines trailed over her spine as she entered, and she brushed the dull honey scented tendrils away from her face. The musky smell of medicines and herbs hit her nostrils, threatening to draw a sneeze. Mayfly was in the dimly lit room, shuffling bottles of clear medicines with musical clinks.

"Hello?" Mako muttered.

Mayfly turned her head, barely illuminated by the flickering candlelight. Her eyes shone darkly, like the spell of night, and her scales seemed as if someone had thrown a sack of cocoa powder over her. Her leg and tail were crooked and blackened with frost and two of her claws were absent.

"Hello," Mayfly rasped. "What do you need?"

"I hit my head in gym class," Mako explained, "and was wondering if you had any ice."

Mayfly winced, but rose and lumbered over to a sectioned off dent in the stone wall. She brushed away ivy and wisteria with a talon, then reached in and pulled out an ice pack. She wrapped it in a fluffy towel that looked as if woven from owl feathers and fresh snow. Mayfly reached out to hand it to her.

Mako accepted it graciously. "Thank you, Nurse Mayfly."

"That's a little formal, don't you think?" Mayfly answered lightly. "Just Mayfly is fine, but run along to your nest class. I have work to do."

Mako nodded and swept out of the room, tendrils of vines slapping against her vision. She slowed to a steadier pace and began walking back to class, but a muffled, anxious voice stopped her.

Halting, she pressed her ear to the office door.

"I can't believe you opened this school another year, Sunny!" A dragon roared, and it sounded like Tsunami.

"There is still prejudice and hate in the world!" Another dragon, Sunny, she guessed, shot back. "We need to bring the tribes together!"

"There will always be a dragon in this world that hates!" Tsunami growled. "We can't fix that! We can't just walk up to them, use the power of friendship, and suddenly the world is perfect! Nobody can fix this world, the point is to just accept it and move on!"

"If we don't continue this school, dragons are going to go back to the old life of constant war over disagreements," Sunny argued. "Acceptance is the whole point! How can dragons ever get along if they can't accept that everyone is different?"

"We're running out of gold!" Tsunami hissed. "We physically can't keep this school running!"

"What other choice do we have?"

"Face it, Sunny. We have to close Jade Mountain."

"Wait! I know what to do!" A new dragon butted in, sounding similar to Sunny. Mako could barely see her from the corner of her eye, but through the window, she seemed like a NightWing.

"What?" The other two questioned eagerly.

"We could turn to..." The voices trailed off as they went deeper into the tunnels.

"Moons!" Mako cursed. "Turn to who?"

But she didn't notice the gong ringing. Once. Then twice a few minutes later. No students were seen.

Then Mako realized. "Talons and tails, I'm late!"