New Friend by PalDreamer (Commission)
This commission was drawn by paldreamer! You can check it out in their gallery here. It also guest stars thorphax's Koi as the SeaWing who seems a lot more nervous around new dragons than Crimson does x3 I really like how this one turned out! The contrast between their expressions is fun, and I like how they're scaled different too, Crimson with the pebbly textures and Koi with fishlike overlapping scales. The art is so pretty! :D And, of course, it's story time c:
[quote]Crimson was singing again.
He didn't think he'd get in trouble for it this time. Yes, he was on a coastal patrol, but far more importantly than that it was a peacetime patrol: the war was [i]over.[/i] He'd even been there when it happened! Although so had seemingly every other dragon on the continent, to be fair, and he'd had perhaps the worst view of the new SandWing queen of anyone there. By his parents' orders, he'd been up at high altitude: ostensibly to track the formations of enemy armies and report their tactics, but really just to keep him out of harm's way if the reunion of the three sisters [i]had[/i] dissolved into a five-tribe melee. It hadn't, to everyone's relief, which left Crimson wishing he [i]could[/i] have been down there perched on the walls, maybe with his mother ready with the main wing of the army, or maybe with his father flanking Queen Ruby--not that [i]he[/i] had the rank to be anywhere near there...
But whether he'd had an up-close view of one SandWing sister getting snake-bitten and another... dissolving into dust or [i]whatever[/i] had happened (he still hadn't heard a proper explanation of what happened to Blister), a new queen had been selected, and all the queens had made peace. Which meant there wouldn't be any SeaWing raiders flying in--well, there weren't supposed to be--and if anything, this time Crimson [i]did[/i] want to see another dragon. Because if there was another dragon, they probably wouldn't want to fight, and he could say hello and finally get a proper chance to talk to someone from another tribe--they might have interesting things to say, or knowledge to share, or songs they knew, or maybe they wouldn't mind listening to something of his own!
A shame even peacetime didn't relax things enough for him to bring an instrument with him on patrol (for variety, of course!), but his voice was just as good.
So Crimson, and he sang, his spirit feeling even higher with the feeling of pressure off, with the mood at the outpost and of the commanding officer so much more relaxed and the burden of war lifted from everyone's wings. He wove among the mountain peaks, lower slopes, and the beaches, watching the sky and the ground below for any signs of other dragons. SeaWings, MudWings wandering further north perhaps... Who knew, even a Rainwing now that they finally seemed to be traveling outside their rainforest? He had been more than a little surprised when suddenly a few of the SkyWings at the SandWing palace had turned into RainWings, and ever since then he--and a lot of other SkyWings, surely--had been giving each other curious looks as if wanting to be sure they were really a SkyWing, and weren't pretending to be red-scaled while carefully tucking frills against their neck. Well, he was curious, but everyone else was probably more accurately giving each other [i]suspicious[/i] looks. He thought that finding a RainWing would be exciting and fascinating, not troublesome! Besides, considering that tribe's reputation, he didn't think it likely they'd be trying to send spies...
Ooh, wait--there!
He stopped singing, stilled his wings and glided. SeaWings tended to blend into the water, especially from this high above, but his eyes were sharp and he'd seen waves at the water's edge break over [i]something[/i] that he didn't think he'd seen before! Something that had moved and flicked a long blue tail and fanned its wings, then looked back down into the shallow water around its paws. He banked, swooped to put the mountain behind him and spilled altitude gradually, trying to put a stand of trees between himself and the SeaWing; this wasn't the first time he'd seen one while patrolling, but previous encounters had all ended in the other dragon vanishing under the water whenever he roared or drew close enough for them to see him diving their way. He had to figure out a way to get close enough to say hi and show he was friendly without scaring them off!
It wasn't like he blamed them for running. He knew plenty of SkyWings who were still less than pleased with the other tribes, and he'd heard a number of conversations around the outpost about how this tactic or that battle or whatever ambush meant they had no intention of ever trusting their former enemies; and surely even if other tribes didn't feel just the same way about SkyWings, they might still fear a frustrated soldier searching for retribution, whether sanctioned or otherwise.
Crimson lost sight of the other dragon once he was low enough to put the trees between the two of them, but so far as he'd seen he hadn't frightened them away, at least not yet. He drifted lower, and lower, hardly flapping, and tried to land as gently as possible; then he tucked his wings in and crept forward, weaving between the trunks until he could see the beach from around another tree and a few bushes.
The SeaWing was still there! He was mostly blue, with a yellow underside and yellow markings on his face and the tips of his fins; yellow tendrils trailed from his jaws, and he stood at the edge of the water, waves gently pushing his tail back and forth as they rolled in and back out again, alternately exposing the SeaWing all the way down to the tops of his paws, then coming nearly back up to his chest again. The SeaWing stood very still; then he lashed out into the water with a paw, making a pleased noise when he pulled a small, wriggling fish out of the sea.
Now Crimson just had to figure out how to say hi. He had gotten close without scaring him away, but he couldn't just barge out of the trees; surely he would vanish beneath the waves in an instant if he was startled, just as he had before. So Crimson would have to take things more slowly, get his attention another way perhaps, a way that wasn't scary...
How about a song?
Something friendly. Perhaps even silly, to be extra disarming. He hummed to himself and he swayed his snout, searching for a rhythm, and then he thought of something, as he watched the SeaWing eat the little fish, then set about looking for another. He took a deep breath, he pulled his snout back so he'd be fully concealed, then he started to sing, softly at first.
"Sitting in the shallows
Eyeing all the fish with hungry jaws..."
He tried not to giggle. The lyrics were practically writing themselves in his head.
"Water dripping down his snout
Webbed talons reaching for a trout
Hey there, SeaWing!"
He didn't think he heard any extra splashing, just waves. He got a little louder, and started to slither forward towards the beach.
"Water cools his warm scales
Watching as the shiny fishies flail
Hey there, SeaWing!
Chomping on a fishy
Spitting out bones and scales to sea
Oh, hey SeaWing..."
Could he dare expose himself now? The SeaWing surely wouldn't be violent... either he'd be there, hopefully enjoying his song, or he'd be gone. Crimson took a breath for the next stanza and peeked his head out of the bushes, eyes bright: and there the SeaWing was! The dragon stood staring at the trees and then at him, slack-jawed, snout tilted to one side.
"Sun and seagulls
A SeaWing fishing lonely
Taking time the only way he knows
Oh, SeaWing my friend
Don't you start away uneasy
You brand new friend
You see it's only me..."
Crimson paused, having reached an outcropping of rock no more than a few lengths from the other dragon and scraping his mind for more lyrics--only to be distracted as a set of luminescent scales lit up on his body, patterns rippling along his neck and wings. His eyes went huge: he'd seen far away that night at the SandWing Palace, lights flashing on some of the SeaWings' scales, but he'd never seen it up close! Even in the sunshine the lights seemed very pretty, and his tail wagged behind him, song abandoned for the moment. "Those blinking scales are so cool!"
The SeaWing's snout tilted the other way, and finally he spoke, his voice low and soft and mumbly. "What are you doing?"
"I was singing! Did you like it?" he asked, and then paused. "Do SeaWings sing? ...I guess it might be hard to sing if you're underwater. What do you do for music at the bottom of the ocean?"
"Is that what you call it?" For a moment Crimson was offended--he really did have a fantastic voice--but no. This poor, deprived SeaWing might have never heard something like that before!
"Yes! I [i]love[/i] music, singing, playing instruments, writing new songs as I go." The SeaWing leaned back, and Crimson realized he'd hopped up on the rocks and spread his wings in enthusiasm; he tried to rein himself in, but that was [i]so hard.[/i] He was finally getting to meet a dragon from another tribe! "My name's Crimson. What's yours?"
"Oh... Koi." Koi looked away when he spoke, and Crimson realized that he wasn't so mumbly because SeaWings spent a lot of time underwater; the other dragon was nervous and shy. Koi wasn't as tall as him, but Koi was broader, and might have been a year or so older. "Why were you singing?"
"I thought it would be a good way to say hello, without scaring you away or anything. I know the war is over and all, but I hadn't been able to get close to any SeaWings I saw while out flying yet, so I was trying to make sure you didn't think you'd have to run away or anything."
That made the SeaWing blink two or three more times. "The war is over?" he repeated, slowly.
[i]"Yes![/i] What, do you live-- Well, I guess you [i]do[/i] live at the bottom of the ocean," Crimson said, and giggled, thumping his tail on the sand. "All the tribes made peace, and now the SandWings have a new Queen, Queen Thorn. I don't know if she was some long-lost sister to the other three or what, but now she's their Queen, and nobody's fighting any more. Which means instead of going on patrols to watch for enemies, I can look for new friends. Like you!" He beamed at Koi, who still looked fidgety and doubtful but also was not fleeing into the ocean. "Isn't it exciting?"
He looked down at his paws, and wiggled them in the wet sand as the last ripples of the waves rolled over them and back out again. "I... think? I think, fishing will be safer it sounds like... But I did not fight anyway so, it should be the same for me," he trailed off, and looked out to sea.
Surely the SeaWing didn't want to run away so soon! Crimson was hardly a scary SkyWing. How could he keep him around? "Would you like to hear another song?"
"Oh! I... Yes," he said, and lowered himself onto his belly. "Under water is very quiet."
"How do you talk underwater? Do you... oh! Is that what the blinky scales are for?" Koi nodded, and Crimson ruffled up his wings happily. "That's awesome! Now what to sing about... Maybe not a flying song, if you prefer to swim. [i]I[/i] haven't been swimming much, only in this one lake up in the mountains, and the water there is so cold! The ocean looks a lot warmer. Hmmm, I'm not sure I have a song I know about that. Ooh, maybe..." He hummed a few notes to himself, and Koi's ears perked up.
"How many songs do you know?"
"Oh, heaps! Some of them I wrote myself, some of them I'd read the sheet music for, or even heard someone else perform. There wasn't a lot of time for many dragons to spend on music during the war, and it seemed like everyone else was too grumpy to want to listen," he huffed. "Except that one time Major Gale and most of the other soldiers drank a lot of that stuff she said I wasn't old enough for..." She had acted very odd that evening, but she'd asked for him to sing at least, and they'd all seemed to like it! "Anyway. One song coming right up." Crimson hummed again to pick up the tune, then took a breath and launched into the song.
"Here I am now
It took some time to come around..."[/quote]
[quote]Crimson was singing again.
He didn't think he'd get in trouble for it this time. Yes, he was on a coastal patrol, but far more importantly than that it was a peacetime patrol: the war was [i]over.[/i] He'd even been there when it happened! Although so had seemingly every other dragon on the continent, to be fair, and he'd had perhaps the worst view of the new SandWing queen of anyone there. By his parents' orders, he'd been up at high altitude: ostensibly to track the formations of enemy armies and report their tactics, but really just to keep him out of harm's way if the reunion of the three sisters [i]had[/i] dissolved into a five-tribe melee. It hadn't, to everyone's relief, which left Crimson wishing he [i]could[/i] have been down there perched on the walls, maybe with his mother ready with the main wing of the army, or maybe with his father flanking Queen Ruby--not that [i]he[/i] had the rank to be anywhere near there...
But whether he'd had an up-close view of one SandWing sister getting snake-bitten and another... dissolving into dust or [i]whatever[/i] had happened (he still hadn't heard a proper explanation of what happened to Blister), a new queen had been selected, and all the queens had made peace. Which meant there wouldn't be any SeaWing raiders flying in--well, there weren't supposed to be--and if anything, this time Crimson [i]did[/i] want to see another dragon. Because if there was another dragon, they probably wouldn't want to fight, and he could say hello and finally get a proper chance to talk to someone from another tribe--they might have interesting things to say, or knowledge to share, or songs they knew, or maybe they wouldn't mind listening to something of his own!
A shame even peacetime didn't relax things enough for him to bring an instrument with him on patrol (for variety, of course!), but his voice was just as good.
So Crimson, and he sang, his spirit feeling even higher with the feeling of pressure off, with the mood at the outpost and of the commanding officer so much more relaxed and the burden of war lifted from everyone's wings. He wove among the mountain peaks, lower slopes, and the beaches, watching the sky and the ground below for any signs of other dragons. SeaWings, MudWings wandering further north perhaps... Who knew, even a Rainwing now that they finally seemed to be traveling outside their rainforest? He had been more than a little surprised when suddenly a few of the SkyWings at the SandWing palace had turned into RainWings, and ever since then he--and a lot of other SkyWings, surely--had been giving each other curious looks as if wanting to be sure they were really a SkyWing, and weren't pretending to be red-scaled while carefully tucking frills against their neck. Well, he was curious, but everyone else was probably more accurately giving each other [i]suspicious[/i] looks. He thought that finding a RainWing would be exciting and fascinating, not troublesome! Besides, considering that tribe's reputation, he didn't think it likely they'd be trying to send spies...
Ooh, wait--there!
He stopped singing, stilled his wings and glided. SeaWings tended to blend into the water, especially from this high above, but his eyes were sharp and he'd seen waves at the water's edge break over [i]something[/i] that he didn't think he'd seen before! Something that had moved and flicked a long blue tail and fanned its wings, then looked back down into the shallow water around its paws. He banked, swooped to put the mountain behind him and spilled altitude gradually, trying to put a stand of trees between himself and the SeaWing; this wasn't the first time he'd seen one while patrolling, but previous encounters had all ended in the other dragon vanishing under the water whenever he roared or drew close enough for them to see him diving their way. He had to figure out a way to get close enough to say hi and show he was friendly without scaring them off!
It wasn't like he blamed them for running. He knew plenty of SkyWings who were still less than pleased with the other tribes, and he'd heard a number of conversations around the outpost about how this tactic or that battle or whatever ambush meant they had no intention of ever trusting their former enemies; and surely even if other tribes didn't feel just the same way about SkyWings, they might still fear a frustrated soldier searching for retribution, whether sanctioned or otherwise.
Crimson lost sight of the other dragon once he was low enough to put the trees between the two of them, but so far as he'd seen he hadn't frightened them away, at least not yet. He drifted lower, and lower, hardly flapping, and tried to land as gently as possible; then he tucked his wings in and crept forward, weaving between the trunks until he could see the beach from around another tree and a few bushes.
The SeaWing was still there! He was mostly blue, with a yellow underside and yellow markings on his face and the tips of his fins; yellow tendrils trailed from his jaws, and he stood at the edge of the water, waves gently pushing his tail back and forth as they rolled in and back out again, alternately exposing the SeaWing all the way down to the tops of his paws, then coming nearly back up to his chest again. The SeaWing stood very still; then he lashed out into the water with a paw, making a pleased noise when he pulled a small, wriggling fish out of the sea.
Now Crimson just had to figure out how to say hi. He had gotten close without scaring him away, but he couldn't just barge out of the trees; surely he would vanish beneath the waves in an instant if he was startled, just as he had before. So Crimson would have to take things more slowly, get his attention another way perhaps, a way that wasn't scary...
How about a song?
Something friendly. Perhaps even silly, to be extra disarming. He hummed to himself and he swayed his snout, searching for a rhythm, and then he thought of something, as he watched the SeaWing eat the little fish, then set about looking for another. He took a deep breath, he pulled his snout back so he'd be fully concealed, then he started to sing, softly at first.
"Sitting in the shallows
Eyeing all the fish with hungry jaws..."
He tried not to giggle. The lyrics were practically writing themselves in his head.
"Water dripping down his snout
Webbed talons reaching for a trout
Hey there, SeaWing!"
He didn't think he heard any extra splashing, just waves. He got a little louder, and started to slither forward towards the beach.
"Water cools his warm scales
Watching as the shiny fishies flail
Hey there, SeaWing!
Chomping on a fishy
Spitting out bones and scales to sea
Oh, hey SeaWing..."
Could he dare expose himself now? The SeaWing surely wouldn't be violent... either he'd be there, hopefully enjoying his song, or he'd be gone. Crimson took a breath for the next stanza and peeked his head out of the bushes, eyes bright: and there the SeaWing was! The dragon stood staring at the trees and then at him, slack-jawed, snout tilted to one side.
"Sun and seagulls
A SeaWing fishing lonely
Taking time the only way he knows
Oh, SeaWing my friend
Don't you start away uneasy
You brand new friend
You see it's only me..."
Crimson paused, having reached an outcropping of rock no more than a few lengths from the other dragon and scraping his mind for more lyrics--only to be distracted as a set of luminescent scales lit up on his body, patterns rippling along his neck and wings. His eyes went huge: he'd seen far away that night at the SandWing Palace, lights flashing on some of the SeaWings' scales, but he'd never seen it up close! Even in the sunshine the lights seemed very pretty, and his tail wagged behind him, song abandoned for the moment. "Those blinking scales are so cool!"
The SeaWing's snout tilted the other way, and finally he spoke, his voice low and soft and mumbly. "What are you doing?"
"I was singing! Did you like it?" he asked, and then paused. "Do SeaWings sing? ...I guess it might be hard to sing if you're underwater. What do you do for music at the bottom of the ocean?"
"Is that what you call it?" For a moment Crimson was offended--he really did have a fantastic voice--but no. This poor, deprived SeaWing might have never heard something like that before!
"Yes! I [i]love[/i] music, singing, playing instruments, writing new songs as I go." The SeaWing leaned back, and Crimson realized he'd hopped up on the rocks and spread his wings in enthusiasm; he tried to rein himself in, but that was [i]so hard.[/i] He was finally getting to meet a dragon from another tribe! "My name's Crimson. What's yours?"
"Oh... Koi." Koi looked away when he spoke, and Crimson realized that he wasn't so mumbly because SeaWings spent a lot of time underwater; the other dragon was nervous and shy. Koi wasn't as tall as him, but Koi was broader, and might have been a year or so older. "Why were you singing?"
"I thought it would be a good way to say hello, without scaring you away or anything. I know the war is over and all, but I hadn't been able to get close to any SeaWings I saw while out flying yet, so I was trying to make sure you didn't think you'd have to run away or anything."
That made the SeaWing blink two or three more times. "The war is over?" he repeated, slowly.
[i]"Yes![/i] What, do you live-- Well, I guess you [i]do[/i] live at the bottom of the ocean," Crimson said, and giggled, thumping his tail on the sand. "All the tribes made peace, and now the SandWings have a new Queen, Queen Thorn. I don't know if she was some long-lost sister to the other three or what, but now she's their Queen, and nobody's fighting any more. Which means instead of going on patrols to watch for enemies, I can look for new friends. Like you!" He beamed at Koi, who still looked fidgety and doubtful but also was not fleeing into the ocean. "Isn't it exciting?"
He looked down at his paws, and wiggled them in the wet sand as the last ripples of the waves rolled over them and back out again. "I... think? I think, fishing will be safer it sounds like... But I did not fight anyway so, it should be the same for me," he trailed off, and looked out to sea.
Surely the SeaWing didn't want to run away so soon! Crimson was hardly a scary SkyWing. How could he keep him around? "Would you like to hear another song?"
"Oh! I... Yes," he said, and lowered himself onto his belly. "Under water is very quiet."
"How do you talk underwater? Do you... oh! Is that what the blinky scales are for?" Koi nodded, and Crimson ruffled up his wings happily. "That's awesome! Now what to sing about... Maybe not a flying song, if you prefer to swim. [i]I[/i] haven't been swimming much, only in this one lake up in the mountains, and the water there is so cold! The ocean looks a lot warmer. Hmmm, I'm not sure I have a song I know about that. Ooh, maybe..." He hummed a few notes to himself, and Koi's ears perked up.
"How many songs do you know?"
"Oh, heaps! Some of them I wrote myself, some of them I'd read the sheet music for, or even heard someone else perform. There wasn't a lot of time for many dragons to spend on music during the war, and it seemed like everyone else was too grumpy to want to listen," he huffed. "Except that one time Major Gale and most of the other soldiers drank a lot of that stuff she said I wasn't old enough for..." She had acted very odd that evening, but she'd asked for him to sing at least, and they'd all seemed to like it! "Anyway. One song coming right up." Crimson hummed again to pick up the tune, then took a breath and launched into the song.
"Here I am now
It took some time to come around..."[/quote]
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