Master of None: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

30.

Way

We've been stuck in this camp for weeks: the tents packed close together, dragons walking with their wings pulled tight in and their heads down, trying to get to wherever they want to go with as little trouble as possible. Everyone wakes early; waits in line hours to state their case to the MudWing bureaucrats who run this place:

I'm a doctor.

I have dragonets.

I'm sick.

If you let me through to the city, I'll be indebted to you the rest of my days. Ask me anything, and I'll oblige, I swear.

The camp presses up against the city, so close and yet so far away. The spires of the palace loom over us, as though taunting us with their proximity.

The rain pours down our scales, never washing away the mud of our pasts; whatever it is the Mud Kingdom's army of bureaucrats are taking so long to review. They tell us: we're doing the best we can; there's an unprecedented workload on our bureaucracy; we have to be careful with the plague. It'll be done when it's done. Just be grateful to be out of the warzone.

I'm not sure why it's better for us to get sick and die here than in the city. Less potential for spread, I guess. The second that black rash shows, you can hear from across the camp–the screaming, the rush of dragons to get away, so the authorities won't know they were anywhere near an outbreak. No one knows how they decide who gets let into the city and who doesn't, but a plague exposure seems like a surefire way to be stuck here another two months.

The refugees whisper stories: about soldiers built like machines who tore through their cities; how they were lucky to escape with their lives. They speak of daughters and sons who didn't make it out; about friends they're going to spend the rest of their lives trying to find to no avail.

About a dragon with midnight scales and an army behind her: Shadowhunter.

She was the reason I made it out.

She lifted a building and brought it down on Sharp-eyes's army. She brought my daughter back from the dead. She led an army of a thousand soldiers into my town and drove off the soldiers.

I can't really believe they're talking about my sister. I can't picture her leading anything; she couldn't even babysit us without something going wrong.

But the stories mean she's still alive, and they comfort me, even if I'm sure they're wrong.

Indigo thought this would be the best way to get through to King Salamander after we learned that he isn't taking audiences. The gates are locked. The palace is shut. No one's heard from him in months. 

It's a safety thing, with the plague back, the guards explain to us. There's nothing we can do. So now we're here, waiting. Every day, Fathom or Indigo goes to line up at the crack of dawn, hoping for an audience with Lord Landslide; the minister who's supposedly running this whole mess. Every day, he gets turned away.

We've tried to leave, but now we're in, it's too late. The gates are manned by soldiers, careful not to let any potential carrier of the plague go free in the Mud Kingdom.

We're stuck.

***

I find myself standing in the back of an empty office, staring down an open trapdoor.

"You seriously think this leads to the city?"

"Shhh, don't talk too loud. I don't know if the whole building is empty," Precocious whispers. I squint into the void below us–a few stairs, leading into nothing.