Terracotta the Mudwing

Once upon a time, there was a small RainWing who loved everyone. Kinkajou paused.

She dipped her claw in the ink and scribbled out the last word. Once upon a time, there was a small RainWing who loved almost everyone. Which is fair enough, right? I mean, who could love every dragon? Some of them were even hard to like.

For instance, she had this one venom training teacher who was very mean to her. Not to name names. It was Bromeliad.

So she definitely didn't have to love her. I mean, would you? Also, this one time, our hero was kidnapped by NightWings, and most of them were even meaner than Bromeliad. And they were like that on purpose, because they were trying to scare everyone.

And listen, I know they had hard lives, but kidnapping dragons and being awful to them is still not okay, right? So it's alright to still be mad at some of them even a while later, don't you think? Also, some of her RainWing friends even noticed she was kidnapped, which made her love them a little bit less than she wanted to, although she really did love them lots before, but how could they not even care that she was missing? Oh, and also, there was this one big old shape-shifting dragon who attacked her so hard- Kinkajou stopped and wrinkled her snout with a scroll. This story was turning out a lot grumpier than she had planned. She slipped over her shoulder at her best friend.

Across the cave, Moon was curled up with her own scrolls, studying intently. She had her very serious Moon look on, which meant she probably didn't want to give Kinkajou writing advice right that exact second. Which was fine, Kinkajou could do this herself.

She pushed the grumpy scroll off her writing rock and spread out a brand new one. Right, let's try this again. How else did stories about heroes start? Kinkajou tried to remember some of the ones she had studied in school this year.

There was that one scroll that Webs assigned for history class about a brave SeaWing from long ago. It was kind of weird how many scrolls were about amazing SeaWings, honestly. She remembered it started with a story from when a SeaWing was a dragonet.

That was tricky, though. Kinkajou didn't really like talking about her life before she met Queen Glory. Because back then, she was the noisy one, and the one who talked way too much, and, oh no, here comes Kinkajou, and the troublemaker.

She thought her friends still liked her and didn't really mind that she was a little different. But then, none of them had cared when she was kidnapped, so that would seem to indicate that maybe they didn't like her that much after all. It didn't matter, though.

Kinkajou had Glory and Moon now, and other friends at Jade Mountain Academy, who she was pretty sure liked her. Hopefully, most of the time. Also, she wasn't thinking about this.

Okay, perhaps she could start her story with the time she was kidnapped by NightWings. Whoa, that was such a gloomy beginning. It had been horrible on the NightWing Island until Glory showed up and rescued her.

Glory was shiny and brave and smart and cared a lot about all dragons, including dragons she'd never even met. And she was very different from every other NightWing, but it didn't bother her at all. Kinkajou hoped she would be like that one day, all cool and unbothered.

Maybe she should wait to write her story until she was a little more like Glory. No, no. Starflight said to start writing for the practice.

I can write something. Today. Yes.

Here I go. Kinkajou went over the new scroll. Once upon a time, there was a RainWing named Kinkajou.

Most dragons would think, oh, that dragon is small and harmless and frequently pink. And she smiles too much. So who needs to worry about her? Certainly not us, the bad guys who want to take over the world.

What are the chances a tiny RainWing can stop us? None, that's what. We turn up our arrogant bad guy noses to her. Well, guess what? All those bad guys were wrong.

Turns out even little smiley dragons can save the world. More than once, in fact.

“Oops.” Kinkajou said, accidentally out loud.

“Oops what?” Moon said absentmindedly. Kinkajou sighed.

“I think I just did the thing where I gave away the ending in the first couple of paragraphs again.”

Moon looked up and blinked at the drift of scrolls piled around Kinkajou's talons.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm writing the very exciting, long-awaited, extremely dramatic epic of Kinkajou that readers everywhere have been demanding. Well, I'm trying to. Moon, did you know that writing is actually very hard?”

Moon laughed, and Kinkajou repressed the urge to run across the cave and hug her.

“I just can't figure out where to start.” A wave of concerned laughter rippled across Kinkajou's wings. She paused, took a deep breath, and turned the back to sunflower yellow.

Yellow was for happiness. Yellow made other dragons happy, too. Yellow and pink, the colors Kinkajou wanted everyone to see, and the colors she wanted to be inside and out.

“That's normal, I think,” Moon said. She rubbed her forehead, frowning a little. “Maybe try writing down everything that flies through your brain, and then you can edit it later.”

“I have a lot of things that fly through my brain.”

“I know, but it's all wonderful,” Moon said, which made Kinkajou want to hug her again. And that's when Starflight-

“Oh. Ow.” She folded over, clutching her head. Her silver speckled black wings unfurled like billowing distress signals.

“Moon!” Kinkajou cried. The ink bottle spilled a long shadow across the blank scrolls as she leapt to her feet and flew across the cave. “Moon, are you alright? Moon?” She wrapped her wings around her friend and pressed her front talons over Moon's.

“No, no,” Moon whispered.

“What is it? You can't be doing another prophecy!” Kinkajou shook her gently. It hasn't been long enough since the last one.

“It's Glory,” Moon gasped, her eyes flying open.

“Glory?” Kinkajou's heart stopped. “Queen Glory? My Queen Glory?”

“She's in danger. They all are. Something is about to... I can't…” Moon closed her eyes again, clutching her talons like she wanted to drive her claws into her head and drag the visions out.

That was all Kinkajou needed to hear. Or rather, she would have been delighted to hear more, such as extremely specific details about danger and how to stop it. But she had witnessed Moon's visions before, and the thing was that it could take forever to spit them out.

And even once Moon shared everything she saw, the details part was always still kind of vague and unhelpful. So, Glory in danger and upset, Kinkajou was out the window before Moon could open her eyes again.

“Wait!” Moon shouted. “Kinkajou, come back! We need help, and if you... We have to…”

Whatever she said next was lost to the wind, rushing around the peaks of Jade Mountain. Kinkajou soared toward the rainforest as fast as her wings could beat. Moon could go tell someone in charge and ask for help and organize whatever official mission needed to happen.