Wings of Fire- A Glorybringer Legacy (fanfiction)

Chapter 8: A Picky Clawmate (Anaconda's POV)

As Anaconda strode down the tunnel, she caught quite a lot of stares, whispers, and not exactly welcome thoughts.  A few dragons actually turned to look at her, and nudged their friends to whisper in their ears.  Alright, this is ridiculous, she thought.  Back in the rainforest, she knew that some dragons thought she was pretty, but here, where there were so many dragons near or around her age, the thoughts were escalated to a whole new level.  Thoughts like Whoa, look at her, and she looks amazing, followed her through the tunnels.  To her, it felt like she was surrounded by a huge crowd of hundreds of dragons all staring at and judging her.  She actually didn't really mind crowds, you were used to it if you were the daughter of one of the most famous queens on the continent, but this made her feel as if they only paid attention to her because of her looks.  Anaconda decided to try to block out the thoughts and pretend not to notice the stares.  She lifted her chin, adjusted the color of her ruff from irritated orange to royal blue, and walked toward her cave.  She turned left at the sixth cave, and looked up at the scroll suspended above the entrance of her cave.  The two names on it were her own, and "Terra".  A MudWing, interesting, she thought.  Anaconda went inside the cave and observed the space.  There were two sleeping spots to the right of and across the door, against the walls.  Against the other wall there was a scroll rack as brown as a MudWing's scales, loaded with all different genres of scrolls.  One of the sleeping spots was an arrangement of reeds, and the other one was a platform with cushioned leaves on top.  It was right next to a window cut into the wall, through which beams of warm sunlight shone onto the platform, casting golden flecks onto the emerald leaves.  As she picked up a scroll titled Water Creatures of the Bay of A Thousand Scales, she heard a thumping sound and a shout of indignation from outside her cave.  "How DARE you! What is WRONG with you? Can't you try to WATCH where you're GOING? You're LUCKY I'm in a good mood today!"  "Good mood, yeah, right," another voice muttered quietly.  "WHAT WAS THAT?" the first voice thundered.  "Nothing," the second voice said innocently.  Anaconda snapped her head up and looked outside her cave to see a big MudWing dragonet and a handsome SeaWing glaring at each other.  Even trying to block out their thoughts, Anaconda could feel resentment radiating from one dragon and wariness from the other.  Oh three MOONS, the MudWing was her clawmate.  Before she had a chance to duck back into her cave, however, both the dragons turned their heads toward her.  "What do you want?" the MudWing demanded.  "Nothing," Anaconda responded, raising her eyebrows. "I just thought it would be nice to meet my wonderful, charming clawmate ," she continued, deliberately provoking the temperamental dragonet.  The MudWing narrowed her eyes and lashed her tail.  Anaconda smirked and turned toward the SeaWing dragonet.  He was looking at her with a combination of admiration and amusement and his mind was going, Princess Anaconda, hybrid, daughter of Queen Glory, seems charming and maaaybe attractive.  Anaconda's ruff turned pink in embarrassment, but she quelled it quickly.  Terra huffed and stomped inside the cave.  "You should know, I can read minds," Anaconda said, just to see his reaction.  The SeaWing tried and failed to look as if it didn't really matter, and Anaconda raised an eyebrow.  Well, he thought, there goes my dignity. "So, what's your name?" she asked.  The SeaWing gave her a charming grin.  "I thought you knew that," he said cheekily.  Anaconda rolled her eyes and said, "As a matter of fact, I do know that, Hurricane." So why did you ask? he deliberately questioned her through his thoughts.  "I was trying to make formal conversation," Anaconda replied.  "I suppose you're used to it after being the daughter of a queen," Hurricane said with a thoughtful look on his face.  Anaconda said, "I suppose so."  He grinned at her again and in his mind, she could hear him wondering if he should ask her out, and then deciding it was maybe a little too early, and then trying to act as if those thoughts didn't just run through his head in front of her.  "Okay," Anaconda said, "When you're ready to ask me out, I promise I won't start squealing like a little girl or act all weird or anything."  Hurricane raised an eyebrow.  "In case you're worried," she added, shrugging.  Anaconda turned around and swept into her own cave without looking back.  When she looked over at her clawmate, Terra was snoring loudly, dreaming about all sorts of gruesome nonsense, so Anaconda walked over to her sleeping spot, lay down, and fell asleep, smiling to herself, and thinking of a certain handsome SeaWing.