When Dragonets Love

Friends and Foes

Cocoa blinked open her eyes to the sound of dragons talking heatedly in hushed voices.

She was prone on a bamboo RainWing cot, the bright light streaming in from the open hut felt good on her scales but it was so unfamiliar. Cocoa knew this place. The RainWing Infirmary. I can't remember the last time I've been here...The one time she had come, she was only a year old. She and Vine were racing recklessly through the Rainforest, when suddenly they ran into a sloth who fell out of its tree. Fortunately, Cocoa thought fast and dove under it to try and catch the sloth. But she wasn't prepared when it landed on her back and she and the sloth crashed through all the trees. She was trying to protect the sloth from the fall with her wings so she hadn't been able to fly them to safety. It protected her wings as they fell but when they hit the ground Cocoa hit her head hard.

Vine carried her to the Infirmary that day but, according to him, it took a lot of convincing for them to treat her. When she woke up in the Infirmary later that night, even the RainWing nurses looked displeased by the hybrid's presence. Of course, they kept to the formalities and got her out of there healthy and as soon as possible.

Ever since then, though, Cocoa has kept her distance from the RainWing Infirmary. The RainWings made her place clear.

Cocoa shifted onto her side and she muffled a yelp as a shot of pain rocketed up her forearm. She looked down at her right arm, it was wrapped in a sort of gauze made of leaves. The nurse looked over and she steadied her breathing so it still looked like she was sleeping. She felt the nurse's drilling eyes shift in the other direction.

She cocked her ears in the direction of the voices outside.

"I can't believe you." It was Vine, but his voice was seeping with an unfamiliar sense of disgust? Hurt? Betrayal?

"Look I'm sorry, I-I'm sorry, for everything...I mean...what do you want me to say?" It was Snake, he sounded unwillingly apologetic, yet apologetic none the less.

"Sorry...?" Vine sounded like the word was rotten apple in his throat. "You're sorry—? Very funny—you know, you never, learn do you?"

"Vine, you have to know that it wasn't my fault! Harpy—"

"STILL making excuses, huh—?"

"Shhhhhh," the nurse hissed.

Cocoa could make out the two shadows on the balcony shrinking back. And then squabbling a little before Vine and Snake continued their argument.

"I know your pity story, Snake. Hell, the whole Claw knows about it."

The Claw and a Harpy? What was that? Harpy is a SkyWing name, so...Who was that?Cocoa didn't know Vine knew anyone out of the Rainforest, much less a SkyWing. What did Vine have to do with this Claw? She looked down at her own claws and raised a brow. But...what did The Claw have over their new friend?

"Snake...I—I, she took my sister!"

Vine was silent and even Cocoa started to feel uncomfortable, taking someone's sister seemed like quite the crime.

Then, "Look, I don't know what you want from us, or whatever Cocoa sees in you, but I'm going to need to ask you to leave."

"We were brothers," Snake said in a hurt voice, "Now? I can't even recognize you."

There was a hush of wind and in one strong wingbeat he was off.