FSE

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Moon woke up and climbed out of bed, she prepared herself for her first class, and left her bedroom. Qibli had gotten up earlier, and smiled at her when she walked past his classroom. She entered her classroom and noticed that most of her students were already there. She had the copper winglet for her first period, so she sat down and pulled out a set of workscrolls.

“Hello class, now that we are back from our fieldtrip we have to return to our normal curriculum. But for fun, I am giving you a short assignment. I want you to write one full scroll telling me about your experiences in the Summer Palace. This will be due in two days, and remember, don’t be afraid to ask me or your winglet for help if you need it.”

Snail raised her paw.

“Yes Snail?”

“I just sat at home and visited my family; I didn’t really experience anything.”

“Okay, why don’t you just write about your family, and a fun thing you all did together.”

Snail nodded, and everybody started working. Moon sat back and started grading some lesson scrolls. After a while, the period ended, and the copper winglet walked out of the room. Her next period was empty, so she decided to take a nice flight around the academy.

Starflight sat in the library, reading from a random book he selected, his paw was still injured in a way that made it difficult to write, so he chose to relax and not make it worse. There were a few other students lounging around, and his classes were dismissed with their assignments already, so he had the day free. He looked up as Michael walked into the library.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing much, just checking on everything before I leave. I have to set up the location for your wedding.”

“How’s all that going?”

“It’s fine for the most part, but I can only find one place for everybody to stay beforehand. Not many people live near that part of this continent.”

“I guess well be spending some time in that one spot.” Starflight chuckled.

“The skywing hermit won’t be too happy, but she’s pretty nice about most things.” Michael replied.

“A nice skywing?”

“You can imagine why she’s a hermit.”

Starflight chuckled.

“Well, I’m off then.” Michael turned and walked out of the library.

Starflight caught the eye of one of the skywing students. He sent her an apologetic look, and she shrugged. He sat there for another hour, before deciding to sit in on Sunny’s lesson. He got up and walked over to her classroom. He had made a point of memorizing its location long before his eyes got healed, and can probably make his way there in his sleep. As he walked in, Sunny was working on a painting of the night sky. The others were doing similar works, including a seawing that was doing an incredibly accurate painting of a moon. He walked up beside Sunny, and noticed that the painting looked suspiciously like the starry design of his wings.

“Need a model.” Starflight asked, making Sunny laugh.

“Now that you mention it… Maybe you would like to have my classes paint you one of these days.”

Starflight snorted. “Who would want to do that.”

He turned to look at the class, and noticed quite a few hopeful expressions.

“Maybe.” He added.

Sunny smiled a bit as she added some more stars to her painting.

“Hey, that looks a little like…”

“Shhhh.” Sunny shushed Starflight. “No need to say it.”

“You missed a spot there.” Starflight pointed with a chuckle.

Sunny glanced as his back, then nodded. “I don’t know how you would know that, but it appears that I have.”

They smiled at each other for a moment, before Sunny finished her piece and stepped back.

“It’s nice.” Starflight spoke.

Sunny beamed. “I’m glad you like it.”

She turned back to her class, and smiled. “Alright everyone, if you wish to keep your work, sign the back and leave it to dry over there.”

Everybody nodded, and started to place the paintings on the drying rack and putting new canvas on the easels. Sunny nodded to everybody as they left, then turned to Starflight. Her snout and claws were dotted with paint, and it made her look downright adorable.

“What?” She asked him.

“Your just so… cute.”

She frowned slightly at him. “Hey, I’m not cute.”

“You are incredibly adorable, and I love it.” Starflight replied.

Sunny blushed, and turned away. Starflight nuzzled her.

“You are also strong, beautiful, and brave.”

Her blush deepened. “Alright, alright.”

“And were going to get married on the southern beaches, really soon.”

Sunny nodded. “I just wish we could do it right now.”

“I do too, but I also want to show you off to all our friends and family.”

Sunny shot him a look. “What about me showing you off?”

“You can do that too.”

Tsunami poked her head into the classroom, and noticed the two lovers.

“Ugh, ack, can’t you do that after academy hours?”

Sunny laughed. “Nope, never.”

Tsunami rolled her eyes, and walked up to them.

“So, I was talking with some of Michael’s soldiers, of the ones that were there during the attack. I learned that the explosives weren’t dragonflame cactus, but some kind of tree sap. This is odd, because the particular tree this sap came from has been extinct for over five hundred years.”

Starflight nodded. “Michael said the same thing to me, except he doesn’t think it’s on this continent. I think it means that some random group of dragons have a small amount of these trees somewhere close by. I don’t think any tribe would have done this, it doesn’t fit any of their battle tactics, so it has to be a random group.”

“Could it be Vulture?” Sunny asked.

“It could, but he’s been quiet since the whole Darkstalker thing.” Tsunami replied.

“We should talk to Qibli and see what Vulture’s been doing lately. I know Thorn has been keeping an eye on him.” Starflight told them. “Maybe ask Fatespeaker if she noticed anything strange while on her break.”

“Yeah, I was going to go to him next, I was just going to update Sunny, then you.” Tsunami replied. “Wait, Fate’s back?”

Starflight and Sunny nodded, Tsunami snorted, turned and started to walk out of the room, then paused.

“Hey, save all the lovey dovey stuff for the wedding.” She called back, then walked out of the room.

Starflight turned to Sunny. “Well, guess things are starting to unfold.”

Sunny nodded. “But that’s not our problem.”

Starflight chuckled, and laid down in a corner of the class to take a nap.

Cricket adjusted her spectacles, and looked over at her Fiancée. Blue was weaving a blanket of his warm flamesilk, and humming idly while he worked. She smiled at him, and leaned against him.

“Hey.” She spoke.

“Hi.” Blue turned and nuzzled her.

“How were your classes today?”

“They were good, some of the Pyrrians are still getting used to me, but they are getting better.”

Cricket nodded. “Somebody asked me if I was related to Bumblebee.”

Blue laughed. “I kind of expected that, considering Luna and I.”

“It was funny.”

“I heard everybody loves Sundew’s class because Bumblebee wanders around and plays with the students.”

Cricket smiled. “She’s cute.”

“I wonder what silkwing hivewing hybrids look like.”

Cricket blushed heavily, and looked up at him. “I don’t know.”

He smiled and looked back at her. “Michael said they could be pretty much anything. A blue hivewing, yellow or even a black silkwing, mix of both.”

Cricket nodded. “It still feels weird.”

“Yeah, being raised to never be together, that the idea of it being disgusting and forbidden. But now we can, and we can have dragonets too.”

“I haven’t really been thinking about it.”

“We have lots of time.” Blue replied. “I’ve just been thinking of our future.”

Cricket smiled. “Do you want to stay here? Or eventually return to Pantala.”

“Part of me wants to stay here, because I can see us being happy here. But another part wants to go home, and be with our people.”

“Most of me wants to stay here, but I don’t know if that will change or not.”

Blue set his finished blanket down, and proceeded to nuzzle Cricket.

“As long as your happy.” He told her.

She smiled at him. “I’m very happy.”

They sat there for a while, kissing and nuzzling, before Luna and Swordtail walked into the room.

“Oops.” Luna spoke when she entered “Did we interrupt something?”

Cricket smiled over at Luna. “Yeah, but it’s okay.”

“We wanted to come say hi, we didn’t talk much during the trip.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, the library was massive.” Blue replied.

Luna chuckled. “I figured you were holed up there the whole time.”

“You okay?” Swordtail asked Blue. “After the attack?”

“I’m fine, I got burned during the second explosion, but Michael healed me.”

Swordtail nodded. “Glad you’re better.”

Luna looked over at her brother. “When I found out who hurt you, I’m going to smash their snouts in.”

Blue looked shocked. “Uh, I think Michael’s already planning that.”

Luna curled her paw into a fist and shook it. “He’ll have to get in line.”

“Do you think it was the skywings?” Swordtail asked. “Those dragonflame cactus things?”

“It could be, but I read that those cacti shoot hundreds of barbed seeds that spread everywhere. There were no barbs anywhere in the wreckage. At least for the first one, I kinda stopped paying attention after the second one.” Cricket looked over at Blue.

Luna and Swordtail nodded in understanding.

“But could somebody find a way to remove the barbs?” Luna replied

“It’s possible, but I don’t see why anybody would want to go through the hassle. To look at it from a tactical standpoint, the barbs cause extra damage, so there would be no reason to remove them.” Cricket told them.

“But maybe the skywings did it just to make it look like it wasn’t them.” Luna pointed out.

“Then again, the cactus isn’t a monitored good, any tribe could sneak into the kingdom and steal a few. So, if it was the skywings, they would leave it alone and say it was somebody else.” Blue replied.

It’s tree sap, check that book I gave you for the Crimson Maple.

The others nodded, then Cricket gasped, and retrieved a book Michael had given her.

“Michael just told me that the explosive came from tree sap.”

Blue gasped. “Leafwings did this?”

“I’m not saying that.” Cricket replied.

“But who else would know the properties of the sap, and how to use it?” Luna asked.

Cricket flipped to a page in the book.

“Just as I thought, this particular species hasn’t been seen on Phyrria or Pantala in hundreds of years.”

“But how is that possible.” Blue replied, walking over and looking at the book.

“The sap retains its power almost indefinitely, so whoever did this could have gotten the sap from a really old storage.” Cricket replied.

Luna looked at the book. “Or, somebody could have gotten their hands on some old seeds, maybe somebody with leafspeak.”

“Who, other than Sundew, has that powerful leafspeak?” Cricket asked.

“Wouldn’t know, I suspect that the sapwings liked to hide their leafspeak.” Luna replied. “Other than Freedom, I can’t think of anybody.”

“Could she have grown some of the tree? And kept it hidden until now?” Blue asked.

“I doubt it, it says here that the species doesn’t grow well on Pantala, and therefore was never brought over.” Cricket told him.

Blue shook his head. “Then where did it come from?”

“I think it came from some old storage location, maybe it was found by somebody who wants to cause a war.” Cricket answered.

Luna sat down with a sigh. “Ugh, and we had good news too.”

Blue looked over at her.

“Were engaged.” She waved her hands. “But you almost died, and Cricket had to drag you out of a fire. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Cricket looked confused. “Of course, you said that like I wouldn’t save the love of my life from a burning building.”

Luna chuckled. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Congratulations.” Blue replied. “When’s the wedding?”

“No clue, probably a long time from now, not worried about it at the moment.”

“What about you two?” Swordtail asked.

“We were thinking a month or two.” Cricket told him. “I want to do it in the skywing kingdom, because of it’s beautiful mountains, but I heard that might be harder than I thought.”

“I’m fine whenever.” Blue replied.

“Of course you are, you’re a male.” Luna chuckled. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Cricket shook her head. “He’s always been happy with whatever, that’s one of the many things I love about him.”

Luna laughed. “Of all the things.”

“Even when we first met, he was still upbeat, it amazed me.” Cricket nuzzled Blue’s snout.

Luna smirked. “You should have met him before; he was constantly worried about everything.”

It was Blue’s turn to laugh now. “What can I say? She brings out the best in me.”

Cricket felt extreme joy and pride in her heart from those words. She beamed over at him, and back towards his sister. Luna was smiling back at them, and she glanced over at Swordtail as he was flipping through Cricket’s book.

“I think we should go.” Luna told them. “See you tomorrow.”

They both nodded to her, then she nudged Swordtail and they both walked out of the room.

“So.” Blue turned to Cricket. “Tree sap.”

Cricket nodded. “Yeah, are you feeling, okay?”

Blue nodded. “Just tired, Michael told me the effects of his magic leaves our bodies low on energy for a few days, but I should get better soon.”

He laid down on the bed, and Cricket joined him. She nuzzled her neck under his chin, and sighed in content. Blue wrapped his wings around her, and held her close.

“You sure you want to have the wedding here?” Cricket asked him.

He smiled, and looked down at her. “As long as I’m marrying you, I don’t care where I am. To me, all that matters is you, I would travel to the ends of the earth to marry you.”

“You are way too good at that.”

Blue chuckled. “Too much time reading Queen Coral’s love stories.”

“You know, we could elope with Michael.”

Blue raised his eyebrows. “I thought you wanted a real wedding.”

Cricket sighed again. “At this point, all I want is to be close to you.”

Blue held her tighter. “You have that, so we can figure out the wedding of your dreams.”

“Really?”

“Anything you want.”

“But I already sent a letter to the skywing kingdom, they say that they can’t have such a security breach as to let a bunch of other dragons in, even if its for a few days.”

“I’ll talk to Michael when he gets back, maybe he can pull something together.”

Cricket smiled. “I just can’t wait to be your wife.”

Blue beamed back. “And I your husband.”