Chapter 2: Meeting the Quartz Winglet

“Hello?” Butterfly’s voice echoed through the school. She shifted uncomfortably and looked around. All the halls were empty.

She didn’t mention it earlier, but not only was she starting in the middle of the year, it was also like eleven thirty. Yeah… Not exactly the best conditions.

She needed to find the headmistress. Butterfly was about to turn down a random tunnel when she saw a map of the school hung up on the wall to her right. She walked over to it and studied the markings. She was in the Great Hall, and then there were sleeping caves in the tunnels to her left.

On the right, the tunnels went off to classrooms and the Prey Center. However, if she were to continue going straight, she’d find all the teacher’s offices, the headmistress’s office, and a staircase.

She figured the headmistress was her best bet. Butterfly took one last long look at the map and then walked down the Great Hall.

The excitement and anticipation and worry and nerves warred with each other inside her stomach, making her feel as though her insides were doing back flips and cartwheels.

Imagine, her heart doing a back flip?

She exhaled a laughing breath from her nose and shook her head. Her imagination was increasingly ridiculous—and for that, she was grateful.

~*~

Butterfly walked into the headmistress’s office to find not only the headmistress, but also a NightWing who seemed about her age. His ruff was rainbow and he had colorful scales along his neck. He was sitting in a chair and staring up at the ceiling as though extremely bored.

As she looked around the office, she noticed a messy desk filled with two separate piles of papers and a golden dragon was hidden behind them, cradling a pot of ink in her left talon while her right talon dripped with the black fluid. The name Sunny was engraved on a gold plaque.

She looked up and smiled at Butterfly. “Hello. You must be the new student! I’m Sunny, your headmistress.” She tapped her claw on the side of the pot of ink in an attempt to dry it.

“I’m Butterfly,” she smiled back.

“Well, come here to my desk so I can give you your scrolls,” she disappeared behind her large stack of papers and her wooden desk and when she popped back up she was holding three scrolls. “This is your welcome scroll,” she handed her one with a green ribbon keeping it closed, “this is your schedule,” the scroll was tied with a pink ribbon, “and this is your map,” that scroll was tied together with a dark purple ribbon.

As Butterfly took the scrolls from Sunny, the NightWing sat up in his seat and looked at her closely.

“Your winglet is in History class right now,” Sunny explained. Butterfly turned her head to give her her attention, “and the class ends in twenty minutes, so you can have a look around the school if you want. Once the gong sounds, be sure to go to the Prey Center for lunch, though. It can get pretty crazy in there,” she gave her a wink.

“Um, you’re really just going to tell her to go explore the school on her own?” the NightWing wondered. “You’re not even going to have someone show her around?”

“I was going to pull out Auklet from History, as a matter of fact,” Sunny replied.

“You’d really hijack the princess’s education like that? I could do it,” he offered, standing up. His chair scraped the floor with a most unpleasant sound. “I’m just in detention. I won’t be missing out on anything. Besides, my tour would probably be better than anything Auklet could offer.”

Butterfly looked at Sunny as the headmistress made her decision. “I suppose,” she began, “that would make more sense.” She opened her mouth to say more, but the NightWing cut her off.

“Great thanks I love you bye,” he said hurriedly, grabbing Butterfly by the arm and pulling her to the door, making her lose her grip on her scrolls and nearly drop one.

“Goodbye, Peacemaker!” Sunny called after him. “Bye Butterfly! You’re welcome back if you have any more questions!”

The NightWing closed the door and looked at Butterfly. “I’m Peacemaker,” he introduced himself, “and Sunny is my ‘aunt’,” he made quotation marks with his claws.

“I’m Butterfly. And, what do you mean by—” she copied his talon gesture.

“Her and my mom are good friends, so I grew up with her. She’s basically family,” he shrugged. “Basically. By the way, thank you so much for being new because detention is super boring.”

Butterfly chuckled. “No problem. Now, about that tour…”

~*~

In the fifteen minutes that Peacemaker had been showing Butterfly around the school, she’d learned:

•Where the Art cave, History cave, Music cave, and Prey Center are

•That Peacemaker was in the Quartz winglet along with Butterfly

•That Prince Cliff, Princess Auklet, and Princess Toucan were also in the Quartz winglet

•Cliff had a crush on Auklet

And that was all they got a chance to see and talk about in fifteen minutes because Peacemaker had insisted that they save a spot for their winglet in the Prey Center.

“The academy is pretty great,” Peacemaker was agreeing with a previous statement. “The only thing I’d change is History. It’s gotta be the most boring class there is.”

“Maybe History doesn’t like you either,” Butterfly said quietly with mock seriousness.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.”

GGGGOOOOONNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!

GGGGOOOOONNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!

GGGGOOOOONNNNGGGGG!!!!!!

“That’s the bell!” Peacemaker jumped onto a table and covered it with his wings, bracing himself with his talons.

“What are you—” Butterfly began.

“You’ll see,” he cut her off.

The quiet of the halls quickly began to thrum with eager conversation, and it became louder and louder as the dragonets got closer and closer until—

“Hey Peace!” A ruby red SkyWing covered in gold and copper jewelry waved his wings at the NightWing as he and a crush of dragonets swarmed through the archway leading to the open ledge. He paused by a spread of fruit and filled a banana leaf with strawberries, mangos, kiwis and some other small red and hairy fruit that Butterfly had never seen before. He walked over to the table and Peacemaker climbed off it. “Oh, great—you saved our spot.” He poured the contents of his banana leaf on the table and sorted through them. “I brought you strawberries—since they’re your favorite, mangos because they were ripe—I think… kiwis because they were soft and I’d already touched them, and these red furry ones just looked peculiar and they reminded me of you. And then there was this new gray fruit that I’ve never seen before… wait, that might just be a rock,” he tapped it with his talon and then threw it over his shoulder. “Yep—just a rock.” Cliff then looked at Butterfly and opened his mouth to say something, but then a SeaWing holding a net full of wriggling fish flew in and dragonets swarmed it.

“Be right back,” he promised before turning and diving into the swarm, his copper tail bands tinkling as he turned.

“Hey, Peacemaker,” a SeaWing, RainWing, SandWing, HiveWing, and LeafWing chorused as they sat down at the table. (Well, the HiveWing called him Peace.)

“How was detention?” the LeafWing wondered, popping a strawberry into her mouth.

“It was really boring for the first thirty minutes, but then this girl,” he patted Butterfly’s back and everyone looked at her curiously, “she walked in and I was able to snatch the job of showing her around the school.”

“Interesting,” the SeaWing cocked her head at Butterfly. “My name’s Auklet. What’s yours?”

“Butterfly,” she introduced herself. “I’m in the Quartz winglet.”

“Shut. Up!” The SandWing nudged the LeafWing with her wing. “Girls—she must be our missing claw mate!”

“Oh, yeah!” the LeafWing exclaimed, eyes slowly lighting up as realization dawned on her. “You’ve got a hammock in our sleeping cave, by the way.”

“Cool,” a small smile danced on her face.

“My word, those dragons are absolute savages,” the SkyWing came back holding a few fish and sat beside Auklet.

So I guess he’s Cliff then, Butterfly thought, noticing the way the SkyWing offered Auklet his biggest fish.

He looked at Butterfly for a moment. “Peace, I believe introductions are in order?”

“Yep. I’m Peacemaker—although you know that already. That’s—”

“Cactus,” the SandWing interrupted, filleting a fish with her claws.

“Fine,” Peacemaker huffed, grabbing a strawberry, “I won’t be a gentleman and introduce you guys.”

“I’m Mantis,” the HiveWing stuck out his talon for Butterfly to shake but then at the last moment pulled it away to scratch behind his neck.

Cliff flicked him. “Rude.”

Mantis grinned at Butterfly.

“I’m Cosmo,” the LeafWing leaned over the table to grab a small fish that was slowly flopping away. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Princess Toucan,” the RainWing dipped her head in a proper way.

“And I’m Cliff,” he said proudly, a smile playing on his pleasant features. “What’s your name?”

“Butterfly.”

“Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant,” he chirped. “I believe our next class awaits? Tell me, Cactus, what’s next?”

The SandWing looked at Butterfly and shook her head. “By ‘awaits’ he means we have an hour for lunch. He’s just weird and a little bit fancy. Most royalty are,” she whispered as though filling Butterfly in on a big secret. She rolled out a scroll and scanned the paper. “Next is Battle Training with Tsunami,” she informed the table. She had set her fish on fire and the smoky smell filled the air.

“Butterfly, you are going to love my sister,” Auklet propped her elbows on the table and rested her head on her talons.

“Yeah, just as much as we love you, I’m sure,” Cosmo slung a wing over the princess’s shoulders.

“Yeah, exactly,” she agreed. “…wait… was that sarcasm?? Cosmo—”

Cosmo smirked and popped the tiny fish into her mouth. “Cosmo thirty-seven, Auklet zero.”

Butterfly smiled to herself. This year, school was going to be awesome.