Starling's Darkness |A Wings of Fire Fanfiction|

Chapter 1

Starling woke up with a sudden jolt.
A sharp thing was jabbing his side, so he snarled and whipped around to see what it was.
It turned out to be a stick, that his pet bird Rico had dropped from his nest.
Starling snatched up the twig and hurled it across the room, where it skidded to a halt just outside his doorway.
Oh no, mom will know I'm awake now...
Sparrow peeked her head through the stone archway that separated his room from the rest of their home. Starling's mother looked down her long ember coloured snout at him through bright enthusiastic green eyes.
"Starling! You're awake! Finally, it's mid-afternoon already you lazy canary! Three moons, get out of bed!"
Starling groaned, and reluctantly drew himself up from his sleepy stance. If it hadn't been for his dumb bird's twig, he could have slept a little longer!
He stood up and shook out his talons and wings, and headed for the doorway.
Sparrow was breathing fire into the fireplace they had snugly lit in one corner of their living room, brewing some sort of pelican stew, by the smell of it.
Starling plopped himself down onto a stone stool on the opposite side of the fireplace, and Sparrow looked up at him once again.
"Tomorrow's your first day of guard training."
"Guard training! That's right!" Starling leaped up from his stool and started bouncing around the room.
He had been waiting two whole years to finally become of age for this, and he could finally learn to defend his tribe and kingdom! And he could even possibly meet new friends!
"I can't wait!" Starling yelped.
"Can't waaaaaaaaiiit."
Sparrow let out a puff of smoke from her nostrils in amusement. Then, her green eyes flashed with memory.
"Oh! That's right! Starling, I met another mother SkyWing yesterday- Spire, was it? Anyways, she has a daughter that's your age who's starting guard school tomorrow as well!"
Starling let out another groan. His mom was always trying to make him make new friends, when all he wanted was to be left alone to sleep, without any twigs poking him.
After he and his mother had eaten breakfast, Sparrow was determined to get him out of the house.
"We're going to meet Spire and her daughter today!" Sparrow told him, quickly brushing off her son's sunset colored scales. (Minus the purple.)
Sparrow promptly dragged her son out of the cave, leaving Starling covered in dust by the time they arrived at Spire's door. Sparrow knocked three times, and the wide oak door flung open to reveal a tall, honey coloured dragon with bright green eyes. "Sparrow! Finally! Is this your son that you've told me so much about?!" Spire said, her eyes shining as she looked Starling over from snout to tail-tip. Starling suddenly felt awkward, "You told her 'all about me'?!" Starling squeaked.
"Well, why wouldn't I? Your the most perfect little dragonet anyone could ask for!" But strangely, as Sparrow said this, her eyes flashed with sadness, but as quickly as Starling thought he had seen it, it vanished, leaving behind his ordinary enthusiastic mother.
"Only good things, dear." Spire replied, whom had not even paid attention to the look Sparrow had just given Starling. "Oh come on inside! You have yet to meet my two daughters- Torch! Lucite! Come here!"
A second honey colored dragonet poked her head around the corner, but instead of Spire's green eyes, this one had pumpkin orange ones. The honey colored dragonet stepped out into the light of the torches. "Hi!" She squeaked.
"This is Torch." Spire introduced her daughter. "She's three months too young for guard training, but she will be starting later this year! Now... where's Lucite? I called her didn't I? LUCITE!!! Come meet our guests!"
There was a sudden crash from somewhere inside the house, and the sound of about 10 cooking pans clattering to the ground, as a short orange, crimson, and black dragonet appeared around the same corner as Torch, a frying pan tilted awkwardly on her head. Lucite had the same green eyes as her mother, but... Starling felt like there wasn't something totally 'SkyWing' about her, not like Torch or her mother, at least. Lucite's green eyes widened as she saw Starling. "You!" Lucite cried, shaking the frying pan off her head and bounding across the room to get a closer look at Starling. "You are the dragon I saw in my dream last night!" She cried, leaving Starling utterly confused. "I-I was in your dream? But, I've never even met you?"
Spire stepped foreword to interupt Lucite as her queer daughter opened her mouth to speak again, and she silenced her with a flick of her tail.
"Starling, dear. Lucite is not a pure SkyWing... you see, her father was a NightWing. But he was killed in the War of SandWing Succsession, so I have taken another mate, Torch's father. Lucite sometimes has visions, but that's it." Spire finished, giving Lucite a sideways glance. The short orange dragoness looked down at her black talons. Now Starling began to see the NightWing in her; the way her horns were smooth and straight instead of thin and curled, the black freckles on her snout, her star-speckled wings, black talons, and tail tip. Suddenly, Lucite perked up again.
"I saw another NightWing in my dream too." She whispered. Torch, Sparrow, and Spire were all staring at Lucite now, Sparrow strangely, had a look of horror in her green eyes as Lucite began to speak.
"He was massive, with dark blue whorls in his wings. He said nothing about who he was, or what he was doing. My dream ended with him telling me that I was destined to find 'The Dragon of Fire and Darkness'. Of course, I have no idea who that is, or what that even means, so I think we're okay!"
Everyone was silent.
Starling turned to look at his mother, who's eyes looked as though they could pop out of her skull at any moment. Suddenly she grabbed Starling, and began quickly ushering him out the doorway. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Spire, Torch."
She didn't say Lucite...
Starling thought, as his mother shoved him away. "I hope we can meet again soon, but we must be going now."
Starling didn't dare ask his mother what the rush was, because he knew if he asked questions when Sparrow was in a mood like that, he would get a holler as a response.
What's up with my mom?
Is there something she's hiding from me?