Smolder cleared his throat, and continued where Thorn had left off, speaking in a deep and dramatic voice.

Tsunami was strutting...

"Hmm, makes you sound like a chicken," Glory mused.

"What? I AM NOT A CHICKEN!" Tsunami shouted.

"Sorry, but chickens do strut," Riptide added, and then flinched as if he expected to be injured.

...around the study cave barking...

"And now you sound like a dog," Glory continued.

"I AM NOT A DOG EITHER," Tsunami declared loudly.

"But you were barking," began Riptide. He didn't brace himself this time, and Tsunami took this opportunity to hit him.

...orders.

"Figures you'd be the one bossing us around," Clay said. "No offense or anything."

Sunny and Clay sat down by the entrance, folding their wings back. A breath of air drifted down from the whole in the roof, far overhead - the only window to the outside in any of the caves. At night, without the distant hint of sunlight, the room felt colder and more hollow. Clay stretched up and sniffed at the darkness that had fallen on the other side of the whole. He thought it smelled like stars.

Starflight opened his mouth, likely to say that stars didn't smell like anything, but Fatespeaker quickly hushed him.

"I remember that opening in the roof," Tsunami mused to herself. "We made a plan to build up a pile of rocks and then climb out through that, but then the plan got ruined." She sent a not-so-subtle glare at Sunny.

"Sorry, but we still got out anyway in the end," said the SandWing-NightWing nonchalantly.

A map of Pyrrhia hung on the wall between the torches. Tsunami and Starflight loved staring at the map, trying to figure to where their hidden cave was. Starflight was pretty sure they were somewhere under the Claws of Clouds Mountains. SkyWings preferred to live high among the peaks, so anything could happen in the deep caves below without being noticed.

"Are you saying that the dragonets of destiny have been right under my nose the entire time?" Scarlet said, both angered and delighted to see how near they were to her. "How THRILLING."

"You get your claws on us anyway in the near future," Tsunami snapped.

"Stop spoiling things!" Glory yelped, although she was a bit less adamant.

"All this history is so confusing," Sunny murmured to Clay, swishing her tail back and forth. "Why don't the three sides just sit down and talk out an end to the war?"

"Ah, Sunny," Tsunami sighed fondly.

"I wish it worked out that way," Starflight said. "Then there wouldn't have been need for the pointless war."

"It wasn't pointless!" the SandWing sisters protested, but everyone was agreeing with Starflight.

Sunny nodded too. "Sometimes words are better than war."

"That was deep," Starflight commented.

"That would be great," Clay said. "Then we could stop studying it."

"Mm, somehow I think we'd still have to learn about it," Starflight objected.

Sunny giggled.

Peril glared again at Sunny.

"Stop that," Tsunami said bossily, stamping her feet at them. "No whispering! Pay attention.

"Bossy..." Glory whispered to Deathbringer.

"I HEARD THAT," Tsunami snapped. "BE QUIET. PAY ATTENTION. NO WHISPERING. LISTEN UP."

"I think you just proved my point..."

I'm assigning parts."

Some dragons looked confused at this.

"This is not proper studying," Starflight pointed out. His black NightWing scales made him nearly invisible in the dark shadows between the torches.

"Ooh, dramatic," whispered Fatespeaker.

He swept a few scrolls between his talons and began to neatly sort them into stacked triangles.

A few of the black dragonet's friends snorted.

"Perhaps I should read to everyone instead."

"Please, no, anything but that," Glory said. "Maybe you could do that later, when we're actually trying to fall asleep."

Smolder started coughing as he choked back his laughter and read the next line.

"Dear moons, anything but that," Glory said from the ledge above him. "Maybe later, when we're trying to fall asleep."

"I take offense!" Starflight cried. "I'm not that boring when I read!"

Fatespeaker sighed, and took his talons in hers. "I hate to break it to you, Starflight, but even I have difficulty listening to you read..."

Starflight looked extremely dismayed at this.

"Him being unable to read is actually one of the few bonuses of his blindness," Tsunami commented without thinking. Starflight cried out miserably, while other dragons glared at Tsunami.

"That was totally uncalled for," Fatespeaker said, glaring.

Her long, delicate snout, glowing emerald green with displeasure...

"My scales don't glow," Glory said in a rather haughty manner.

"MINE DO!" Tsunami said, lighting her scales up and flashing them.

"You just said, I hope the monkeys cleaned the bathtub, otherwise my coconut chocolate is going to sneeze," Riptide translated, while Coral, Anemone, Auklet, and the other present SeaWings looked immensely amused.

... rested on her front claws. Ripples of iridescent blue shimmered across her scales, and tonight her tail was a swirl of vibrant purples.

"Pretty!" said the RainWing, and then realized she could do the same thing, and stopped listening to the book as she watched her scales shift color.

"Is that really what I look like?" asked Glory, examining her talons as if they didn't belong to her.

If it weren't for Glory, Clay thought, none of them would know how many colors there were in the world. He wondered what it must be like in the rain forest, where there was a whole tribe of dragons that beautiful.

"That is the first time I've heard someone call us something that isn't lazy," Glory said, grinning hugely at Clay. "And you're welcome."

"Shush," Tsunami scolded. "Now, obviously I'd be the best queen...

Her friends snorted. "Of course."

...but let's make Sunny the queen, since she is a real SandWing."

"Well, I'm the most SandWing of the five of us, but I'm part - " Sunny began, but Glory cut across her.

"No spoilers."

She bustled over and pushed Sunny into the center of the cave.

"How rude!" Thorn exclaimed.

"More like bossy," Sunny corrected. "But that's okay! We're used to Tsunami being that way, and we love her no matter what!"

"Thanks," said the SeaWing.

"Well, sort of," Glory muttered under her breath.

"I HEARD THAT!" Sunny yelled, her happy demeanor evaporating. "I AM STILL MORE SANDWING THEN YOU WILL EVER BE, GLORY."

"Someone hit a sore point..." Tsunami trailed off.

"Hsst," Starflight said, slashing his fingers back and forth across his throat in a silencing motion.

"Hsst." Starflight flicked her with his tail. None of the dragonets ever talked about why Sunny didn't look like a regular SandWing.

"THREE MOONS," said Sunny.

"I think you look like a SandWing," Smolder offered, and then went right back to reading when he saw the murderous glare Thorn sent at him.

Clay's guess was that her egg had been taken from the sand too early. Maybe SandWing eggs needed the sun and desert sand to keep them them warm until hatching...

"That's actually an interesting theory," Starflight mused. "Does anyone know if it's true?"

"Our eggs just need to be kept warm," Thorn told him. "They don't necessarily have to be kept in the sand."

...or else they came out half baked and funny looking -

"YOU THINK I'M FUNNY-LOOKING?" Sunny exclaimed, looking extremely offended.

...although personally he thought Sunny looked just fine.

"Okay, I guess not..." she said, and nestled close to Clay again. Peril glared.

Tsunami tapped her talons on the cave floor, studying her friends. "Clay, you want to play the scavenger?"

"He'd probably rather eat it," said Glory jokingly, and then fell quiet when she saw the uncharacteristically malevolent glare Clay shot her.

"That's hardly fair," Starflight pointed out. "He's twice Sunny's size.

"That's not my fault," Clay protested.

"We know," Sunny hastened to assure him. "And we love you just the way you are!"

Peril glared.

A real scavenger would be smaller than her, according to this scroll over here.

"THREE MOONS, Starflight," Tsunami said in exasperation.

"Well, it's true," Starflight began to defend himself.

It says scavengers have no scales, no wings, and no tail, and they walk on two legs, which sounds very unstable to me. I bet they fall over all the time. They like treasure nearly as much as dragons do. The scrolls say scavengers attack lone dragons and steal -"

"OH MY GOSH, WE KNOW," Glory interrupted. "Starflight, with you telling us stuff all the time, it's a wonder we haven't learned every single thing about Pyrrhia."

"You should thank me!" Starflight cried. "I've proven very useful in situations, especially when - "

"OH MY GOSH, WE KNOW," Smolder read.

"Thank you for agreeing with me," Glory said.

"No, I was reading what you said in the book," Smolder explained.

Glory snapped. "We were all here for the fascinating lectures about them. Don't make me come down there and bite you, Starflight."

"That would require too much effort," Tsunami said, rolling her eyes.

"Lazy RainWings," Morrowseer muttered under his breath. "All the easier for our plan..."

"RAINWINGS ARE NOT LAZY," Glory declared angrily. "And by the way, you smug frog-face, we stop your plan and I'm now queen of the NightWings."

Morrowseer looked shocked, as did many of the NightWings from the past and other dragons who didn't know this fact.

Deathbringer shook his head, wrapping a wing around Glory protectively. "What did you say about spoilers?"

"I'd like to meet a real scavenger!" Clay said. "I'd rip off it's head! And eat it!"

"Of course," said Clay.

He pounded his front talons on the stone below him. "I bet it would taste better than the mouthfuls of feathers Kestrel keeps bring us."

Kinkajou made a face. "You ate feathers? That's weird. The poor birds!"

"Poor, hungry Clay," Sunny teased.

"When we're free, we'll go find a scavenger nest and eat all of them," Tsunami promised, nudging Clay with one wing.

"Oops," Tsunami deadpanned.

"I'm still upset that you didn't tell me the secret," Sunny admitted.

"It's not that we didn't trust you," Tsunami began to explain. "Except we didn't want to risk our plan being exposed because someone told the minders."

"So you didn't trust me."

Sunny blinked at her. "When we're free?"

Oops. Tsunami and Clay exchanged glances. Sunny was sweet and trusting and absolutely terrible at keeping secrets.

"I can keep secrets when I want to!" Sunny protested. "I didn't tell anyone about Moon's mind reading and future seeing powers!"

"Except now you just told everyone," Tsunami said, as Moon looked rather flustered and several dragonets attending Jade Mountain looked to her in surprise. Meanwhile, several of the NightWings from the past were disbelieving. They'd lost their powers centuries ago. There was no way a dragonet had them now.

"I mean, after we fulfill the prophecy, of course," Tsunami said.

"Nice save," Riptide said sarcastically.

"Clay, be the scavenger. Here, this can be your claw." She swung her long will in an arc and smashed a stalagmite loose. Shards of rock flew across the cave, and the other dragonets ducked.

"Show off," Glory muttered.

Clay hefted the sharp rock spear in his claws and grinned wickedly at Sunny.

"Ooh, evil Clay!" Sunny squealed.

"You know, I really can't picture Clay as an evil dragon," Deathbringer said, apparently in deep thought.

"He's too nice," Tsunami added.

"And he's got fire-proof scales!" Peril finished, twining her tail with Clay's.

"Peril, on the other hand..." Deathbringer trailed off, laughing at the scandalized and murderous expression on Peril's snout. "I'm just kidding! I can't really talk, seeing as I worked as an assassin!"

"Don't actually hurt me," she said nervously.

"I wouldn't," Clay assured the smaller dragon.

"I know," Sunny beamed up at him.

Peril glared.

"Of course he won't," Tsunami said. "We're just acting it out. And the rest of us will be the princesses. I'll be Burn...

Burn spread her wings magnificently so that she had all the attention in the assembly cave. "I'm way too good to be played by a mere SeaWing," she said.

"This is why we didn't ally ourselves with you," Coral commented drily.

...Glory can be Blister...

Now Blister gained the attention of the assembly cave as she spoke condescendingly, looking down her snout at a very annoyed Glory. "I'm way too smart to be played by a lazy RainWing."

"Well, just for the record, I'm queen of two tribes and you're queen of no one," Glory said with a flick of her tail, changing her scales into a magnificent royal blue splashed with sparkling gold.

Blister looked outraged.

"So much for spoilers," said Deathbringer.

...and Starflight will be Blaze."

There was a moment of silence at this statement, and then many dragons burst out laughing. Starflight looked the angriest he'd ever looked.

"Ahahaha," Tsunami giggled. "I forgot we had him do that..."

Once everyone calmed down, Blaze now spoke. "I'm way too pretty to be played by a mere NightWing!"

"I think Starflight should've been Blister, because he's smart," Fatespeaker suggested.

"I had to be a princess last time, too," Starflight observed. "I'm not sure I like this game."

"Now I'm sure I don't like the game," Starflight commented, still looking angry and embarrassed.

He stretched his wings and the scattered silver scales underneath glittered like stars in the night sky.

"Hmm, maybe he is pretty enough to play Blaze," Tsunami teased, and then got hit in the head with a scroll.

"I'm so sorry!" Starflight, who'd thrown the scroll, cried. He rushed towards Tsunami. "Are you okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah," Tsunami said.

Starflight scooped up the scroll and caressed it gently. "I'm so sorry I did that to you. You understand I was just getting revenge, right?"

The scroll said nothing.

Tsunami looked extremely miffed, while other dragons just looked at the Jade Mountain librarian, hopeless.

"It's not a game, it's history," Tsunami said.

"Now you sound like Starflight."

"And if we had any other friends, we could play it differently. But there are three sand dragon princesses, so you have to be one, so stop complaining."

"Bossy, bossy," Glory tsked.

"I'm thirsty," Smolder declared. "Someone should really bring some water here to drink."

"This mango tastes like water." Coconut the RainWing held out a half-eaten mango to the SandWing prince. "Maybe you could drink that?"

Kinkajou facetaloned.

"Um, I'm okay, you can finish eating that," Smolder said. "Who else wants to read?"

Sunny volunteered, and then continued...

Author's Note: I'm not sure when I'll be able to update next. I can't find a version of the book online that will let me copy material, so it might not be for a while. I'm super sorry! Especially because I feel like such a hypocrite. Whenever I see these types of fan fictions, I always get upset when the author stops updating for similar reasons, and now I'm in the same situation. So please, if any of you know where I can get a source of the book online for free, please let me know and I will continue updating as soon as possible! Thank you all so much!