Wings Of Fire: Heart of Oak

Epilogue

Holly's POV

Whoosh.

The portal opened above a forest of baobab trees. The branches of some of the smaller ones swayed and bent lower to their roots, but the largest made a sound like a lion's growl as the wind blew through its leaves.
A few gourd trees dropped their fruit and a furry brown monkey scrambled to the ground, scooped it up, and hurried back into its safe harbor.

And on the ground, blue, green, yellow, and purple wings shimered in the sun, and several familiar faces looked up at them, some of them baring expressions of shock, others smiling at each other.

Holly wobbled slightly as she and Mandrake decended, but she gracefully managed to raise her talons and say, "YOUR SAVIOR IS HERE!" without toppling out of the air.

The dragons below them gasped, then laughed.
"Howy!", Bumblebee said, clapping as they landed.

"Waaazzz up?", Swordtail joked, making hand-guns.

"Holly?", Cricket asked.
"But how?"

"Guys, what the frick happened here?", Holly asked, grinning.
"I leave for six minutes, and there's an entire frickin' forest that wasn't there before! This is amazing!"

"Sundew would tell you that's the power of leafspeak", Willow said. "But the real amazing thing, would be if someone reminded her to eat once in a while."

Bumblebee bonded over to Mandrake, and hugged his leg.
"Oh, hey", Mandrake said. "I didn't know she liked me this much."

"I eat all the time", Sundew protested.
"I ate a . . . . . something this morning, while I was sorting seeds. . . . . . . I think. The seeds had lots of questions. Being flown across an entire ocean must be a pretty confusing thing for a tree."

"If you're talking about that talonfull of cashews, that does not count", Willow said.

"DOES MY CASHEWS!", Bumblebee declared grumplily.
"SNUDO IN BIG TROUBUBLE!"

"We're having a feast after this, right?", Swordtail asked.
"I was promised a tree-planting party!"

"Uh, yeah", Willow said.
"Sundew's idea of a tree-planting party is we spend the whole day planting trees, sweating in the hot sun, and then standing back and saying, 'Nice job us. Good night, trees.' And then, that's it, that's the whole party."

Swordtail and Bumblebee looked outraged.

"That's weird", Dusky said, smiling at Holly.

"Wanna know what else is?"
Holly strutted across the ground, holding her head high, and then tilting it in confusion.
"Hey, the grass is green today! That's weird; yesterday, it was yellow."

"Somebody watered the grass", Mandrake said. "Somebody's dog. . . . . ."

"No, no, no", Swordtail said.
"A tree-planting party is whn we plant ONE tree, and then we eat, and dance, and flop around, then eat some more, and ideally, play Charades."

"Swordtail is strangely great at Charades", Luna said to Holly.
"New discovery. Qibli's fault, as you can imagine."

"Charades are my secret super-power!", Swordtail said, fluffed out his wings.
"Just wait until it's my turn to save the world!"

"If anyone can save the world with Charades, it's you", Blue said loyally.

"Yeah", Luna said.
"Sure."

"I'm sure this party can find some happy mediem between planting trees, and infanite Charades", Willow laughed.

"Did you bring it? Can I meet it?", Sundew asked Cricket.