Wings Of Fire: Heart of Oak

One Does not Simply Steal the Book of Clearsight

Holly's POV

"You were gone forever!", the strange Leafwing said, clinging Sundew's talons.
"I have so many things to tell you! I've been waiting and waiting and checking the bolder every night, and it was awful and I didn't like it, and let's never do that again! I was half afraid Belladonna found out about us. I started to wonder wether I should needed to mount a daring rescue mission - blast through the barrier! Knock the other Poisonwings aside! Tear down your prison and sweep you away to safty! Wouldn't that be so heroic?"

Sundew twined her tail with Willow's.
"The most heroic and romantic thing ever, but totally unnececssary. But, Willow, you know Belladonna could never keep me locked up, even if she wanted to."

A small beautiful purple flower grew out of the ground right by the pale dragon's talons.
"Show-off."

"Ahh", Holly said under her breath.
"That explains her and Mandrake."
Belladona must not know about this.
I wonder why Sundew still hangs out with Mandrake if she doesn't like him.

"So what have you been so busy with? I had this really awful dream that you left the Poison Jungle and ran to Wasp. I almost told Queen Sequoia, but shes always reasuring us that Belladonna would never endanger us by. . . . at least that's what she'd tell. . . . . . Sundew?", Willow asked, seeing her expression.

"I did leave the jungle", Sundew said. "I mean we were careful. . . ."

"Who's we?"

"Belladonna, Hemlock, and I made it to Wasp Hive without any trouble", Sundew said. "But we couldn't get inside at first. And then we met these. . . . other dragons."

"Oh no, oh no."

"But it was ok!", Sundew interjected.
"Two of them were Silkwings and one of them was a Hivewing who can't be mind controled and is on our side.
Techically, I think she might be on this one Silkwings side, but, he's on our side, unless Belladonna has ruined it. The point is, it was fine and they wanted to help."

"I'm going to have a heart-attack. So you met some alies and then came back?"

"Um. . . . no", Sundew admited."We kind of. . . . . stole the Book of Clearsight."

"WHAT?!"

"Shhhhh", Sundew said, covering Willow's snout.

"We needed to take away Wasp's knowledge of the future. Or at least that's what we thought."

Knowledge of the future?
Wait, wasn't Clearsight that one dragon with really strong foresight, or something?
Hmm . . .

As it turns out, the Book was a lie. Clearsight did leave a few prophecies, but they petered out over a thousand years ago. Nothing Wasp told us about the book was true."

Willow stared at her in the moonlight.
"Wow. Didn't you guess that once? A few years ago, you said, 'What if it's all a lie and there never was a Clearsight and everything we've been told about the Book is false?' "

"Did I say that?", Sundew asked, looking pleased. "Well, I was half right. It looks like Clearsight was real, but so were the lies and evil Hivewings over the last thousand years."

Willow took a deep breath.
"Okay. So that's amazing. You snuck into the temple, stole the Book, and then came straight back home?"

"Uh, no", Sundew said.

"No? Sundew!"

"Not exactly. I mean . . . . one does not simply steal the Book of Clearsight, right?"

Holly barely kept herself from snickering.
One does not simply steal the Book of Clearsight.
It is folly.

"By all the trees", Willow said." You were seen? How many saw you? I mean, if it was just one or two, it wouldn't be that bad, everyone would probably be like, 'You saw a Leafwing? Nah, you're just drunk!' Or at least, that's probably what it would be like, right?"

Sundew scrunched up her snout.

"Um, three?"

"Um, more like. . . . all of them?"

"ALL OF THEM?!"

"You've got to stop shouting", Sundew said.
"Your village isn't far away and I'm not dealing with other dragons who aren't you tonight."

"You can't possibly mean all of them!"

"Well", Sundew said, "in the sense that the queen was in their heads, yes. Oh wait! Only all the Hivewings in Wasp Hive, so only one-ninth of the Hivewing population. You were right, not all of them after all."

"All the Hivewings in Wasp Hive", Willow echoed. "With the queen in their heads, they attacked you and watched you get away."

"Now you're on the right track", Sundew said.

"So basically, we're all going to die."

This time, Sundew was the one who yelled. "No, we're not, Willow! We're going to win this time!"

"How can you possibly think that, Sundew? Even if we could win eventualy, war means dead Leafwings, especially war with Wasp.
And we can't win because nothing is different than last time, exept now there are fewer Leafwings!"

"That's not true", Sundew said. "Things are completely different."
She began counting with her claws.
"We have a flamesilk. We have the Book of Clearsight and know the truth about it. Our half of the tribe has been preparing for war for years and has a lot of weapons. The Silkwings are restless and oppressed and unhappy- I mean, not all of them, think, but some of them have created an underground anti-Hivewing movement, so this time, they won't just blindly go along with Wasp. Also, the Hivewings will be scared to come fight us in the Poison Jungle. And we know the secret to Wasp's mind control."

She took out the vine.
"It's some kind of plant that she must eat or something and then she injects it into Hivewing eggs to put the dragonets inside under her power."
She held out the vine and Williow sniffed it, then ran one claw lightly along the stem.

"I don't know it is", Willow said. "If it grew here, you'd be able to sense it, right?"

"I tried", Sundew said. "Some of the older trees did that 'Hmmmm' thing they do when something seems familiar, but they didn't tell me whta it was. Once I thought I heard a relative of this plant, but I lost it and couldn't find it again."

"There are dragons in my village we could ask", Willow said."Sundew, I think it's time."

"I can't", Sundew said. "I'd be betraying my tribe. And wouldn't you get in trouble?"

"Not as much as you will", Willow answered. "I mean, some dragons will be mad, but, we need to tell Queen Sequoia about the Book and the flamesilk."

Sundew started to interupt then stopped.

"What is it? Is there something else?"

"She'll also want to know that one of the Hives burned down."

Willow's jaw fell open.

"Sorry, I didn't get to that part", Sundew said sheepishly. "Hemlock took a few other dragons to burn down Bloodworm Hive. It was from a distance, but I saw a lot of smoke, so I think it worked."

"Then we don't have any time", Willow said. "I thought we had time to plan, but that's an act of war, Sundew. Wasp might be on her way here right now with the whole brain-washed army right behind her."

"Doubtful", Sundew said. "And I-"

"I agree with Sundew", a new voice interjected.

An enormous long-necked Leafwing emerged from the trees.
Her tail was so long it dragged in the pound behind.
Holly noticed, with a small jump, that one of her ears was missing and half of her right horn.
This was a dragon who'd been to Hades and back.
This was a dragon should have died decades ago.

"Hello, Belladonna's daughter", Queen Sequoia said.
"I need to know everything. It's high time you joined the real Leafwings."

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Wordcount: 2280

Renx out!