Legends: Gladiator, Part 1, Chapter 1

Chapter 1 is here! Any ideas would be welcomed if you have any ideas! Suggestions, ideas? Also, I've decided this will be my NaNoWriMo novel.

Scarlet obediently sat down in front of Kingfisher and prepared for the worst. This was how things went recently: Wake up, eat, learn, eat, go to sleep. Ever since her mother found she liked watching fights and fighting fights, she had decided to make Scarlet’s life the absolute worst life a SkyWing princess could have.

“Today,” said Kingfisher in his creaky voice, “We shall be learning more about SeaWings.”

The mention of SeaWings made Scarlet’s scales tingle. It was already two weeks after Condor was attacked, but hearing the word ‘SeaWing’ still frightened Scarlet to the bone. The mention of Condor sent a worm of guilt into Scarlet’s mind. Condor selflessly jumped in front of Scarlet before the fatal stroke of the SeaWings’ claws, and injured herself in the process. In retaliation, Scarlet brutally murdered the SeaWing in a way that she would probably not mention in front of Condor.

“Eh? Are you listening to me?” said Kingfisher suspiciously. Kingfisher had orange-yellow scales and dark maroon eyes. His scales didn’t glisten, for he was old and battle-scarred.

Scarlet, who had not noticed a word that she said and had not been paying attention to her tutor, replied immediately, “Yes, of course.”

“What did I say last?” said the short SkyWing, inspecting Scarlet closely.

“Uh . . . You said . . . ‘Eh? Are you listening to me’?” replied Scarlet slowly.

“No. Before that.”

Scarlet racked her brain for the answer, and her jaws opened and blurted out, “Today, we shall be learning more about SeaWings. That was what you said.”

Scarlet made the mistake of trying to imitate Kingfisher’s voice, and it proved to be a bad idea.

For a long moment, Kingfisher stared at Scarlet in confusion, and then his snout contorted in outrage.

“THAT WAS FIRST THING I SAID! I JUST WENT THROUGH HALF OF A SCROLL AND YOU DIDN’T HEAR A SINGLE BIT? AND DON’T MOCK MY VOICE! DO YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU EVER HEAR ME? OR DO I NEED TO REPEAT THAT ALL SO YOU CAN HEAR? ARE YOU DEAF?”

“Well, if you keep that up, I probably will be,” mumbled Scarlet, glaring daggers at Kingfisher.

“I’ll send a message to you mother, just in case you were wondering. I’ll tell her exactly how I feel about our lesson today,” and on that note, Kingfisher strided away, realized that he was going in the direction of the scroll shelf, turned around, strided towards the exit, and flew out unruffled.

Scarlet sighed. The following afternoon was not going to be a pleasant one.

. . .

“Why have you disrespected Kingfisher again?” said Queen Citrine, glaring down at her daughter.

“I most certainly did not!” cried Scarlet angrily. That was what her mother was always like. Citrine would send some idiot to do something for Scarlet, and when the idiot did some idiot thing, then she would be sent to her mother for a reprimand.

“Do I need to remove another part of your free time?” glowered Citrine warningly. It was a tad scary to be glowered by Citrine. Citrine may have been a little bit empty-minded, but she was huge and had blindingly red scales with an orange underbelly.

It was a bit funny though. Scarlet had basically an inexistent amount of "Free time".

At that point, Scarlet just whirled around and ignored her mother.

While the queen was yelling at her in a very un-queen-like manner, Scarlet decided to observe some of the tapestries inside the royal throne room. There was one that looked like a map of Pyrrhia. It had many gold flecks on it to show where many of the dragon cities were. She could make out the Sky Palace, and the MudWing Palace. There were other gold flecks around that probably meant stuff like "Freezy death city" and "Secret NightWing Cave". 

Scarlet harrumphed at that. SkyWings were obviously superior. They didn’t need to know where other dragons were. It would be useless in times of war anyways since the enemies would be on the move.

Scarlet then directed her attention to the two gold statues of SkyWings on both sides of the entrance. They were actually very pretty. It was the kind of art the Scarlet liked. The SkyWings were completely gold, but there were ruby specks that seemed to represent miniscule.

The eyes were bright carnelians and the horns were made of dark onyx. They were really beautiful statues.

“Scarlet! GET OUT NOW! I do NOT want to see your SMUG SNOUT ANYMORE TODAY!” yelled Queen Citrine, exasperated.

Scarlet shrugged. She didn’t really want to see her mother either. She then leaped out of the cave and heard her mother say something like, “Can’t embarrass the Sky Kingdom in front of the ambassadors.”

Confused, Scarlet glanced down and saw a group of five SandWings. SandWings? What are SandWings doing here? Scarlet couldn’t understand what her mother wanted with SandWings of all creatures.

“Psst. Scarlet! Over here!” whispered a voice somewhere near her as she landed in the theater stands. Scarlet never liked the theater. It was just music, fake screaming, fake love, fake everything, and then a rowdy applause that involves hysterical SkyWings spewing fire everywhere.

Theaters, thought Scarlet with disgust.

Scarlet turned around, “Who’s there?”

“It’s just me. Jasper,” whispered the voice again.

Scarlet rolled her eyes, “Jasper, why are you hiding backstage again?”

“Look! This time it is REALLY important!” cried Jasper in an excited tone.

“Like it was important when we sneaked down to watch an old SkyWings’ dance party?” challenged Scarlet, “Or when we watched Kingfisher eat purple salmon?”

“Okay, those were jokes, I’ll admit that, but this time there are SANDWING AMBASSADORS! Don’t you want to see THAT?” cried Jasper.

“Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.” said Scarlet, hopping down with him, already regretting her decision. They clambered down through the smelly backstage tunnels of the theater. As Scarlet looked around, it seemed like a perfect place to hold prisoners. But of course, then the prisoners wouldn’t be displayed for all to see. When I’m Queen, I want my prisoners ALL caught and shown to EVERYONE!

As she thought about it for a while, she wondered if the theater could be an arena. It would certainly be more efficient. Arena battles were much more interesting than theatrical shenanigans. As Scarlet mused over future plans for an arena, Jasper abruptly stopped where he was standing.

“What is it?” Scarlet barely mouthed to Jasper.

Jasper shook his head and pointed diagonally up.

Scarlet looked up and saw nothing but some small cracks of light. She realized that this was the space directly underneath one of the golden SkyWing statues. Scarlet then heard a scraping noise followed by speaking.

“Your majesty,” said a dry, oily voice that was obviously a SandWing. No healthy SkyWing would or should ever be able to speak like that. Well, thought Scarlet, unless that SkyWing was Kignfisher.

“Of course. Welcome,” said a voice that was unmistakably her mother.

A third voice popped in cheerfully, “We would be delighted to be in your presence, Queen Citrine. We have some matters to discuss.” The cheerful voice sounded way too cheerful. Scarlet never really trusted anonymous cheerful voices as a rule.

“Yes?” said the Queen, “And that would be . . ?” She prompted.

“There are rogues at the edge of our border, burning our oasis towns, your majesty” said the cheerful voice in a slightly less cheerful manner, but still overly cheerful.

“And we have a few towns already deserted,” growled Oily.

Citrine made a popping noise with her tongue, “Oh my, that is awfully unfortunate. Have you found who is behind this?”

There was a sudden jump or movement and Scarlet had a stab of fear that one of the SandWings had murdered Queen Citrine. Then Scarlet reprimanded herself for that fear. If Citrine was killed, Scarlet would murder THEM and claim the throne.

Oily croaked accusingly, “We came to you to find out who was behind this!”

As Citrine quickly reprimanded Oily for disrespecting her, Cheery popped in again and complemented Citrine’s jewels and polished scales. Citrine always loved fashion, and she replied heartily. The two continued to chat at an extreme pace, and Scarlet could barely hear a thing in the room other than their mindless gibbering.

Then, one of the cracks above Scarlet then began to get bigger. She realized that it was being pushed. She then saw dusty SandWing Scales, and was about to scream in outrage.

The SandWings were about to steal the statue from the SkyWings.

Jasper, who also saw this going on, put his talon on Scarlet’s. He gave her a look that said, Breathe. Think about what you are about to do.

Scarlet breathed, and then thought about what she was about to do. She realized that if she jumped up there and stopped the SandWings, she would have to explain to her mother what she was doing under the statue, spying. Besides, there was no direct proof that the SandWings were going to steal the statue. So the warning could be in vain. So, she stayed there, seething over not being able to do anything, and waiting, waiting, waiting.

Cheery and Citrine kept on chattering and chattering, and suddenly, Scarlet heard Cheery say, “I heard that your theater is beautiful!”

Queen Citrine replied gleefully and deluge of beating wings followed. Presumably Cheery and Citrine flying off. The room was left with only SandWings. As Scarlet readied herself to leap up and attack, Jasper grabbed her again.

“Breathe,” he said.

Scarlet breathed for a moment, and then realized that she could never overpower three or four SandWings at once, for SandWings were different from SeaWings. SandWings had poisonous tail barbs that were very sharp and pointy and poisonous. They were also much more trained to fight dirtily than SeaWings, so three or four SandWings would probably be the equivalent of six or seven SeaWings.

So there she was again.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

She couldn’t stand it. She wanted to do SOMETHING! She was probably much stronger and faster than any of those sand snorters, but the four of them would definitely overpower her.

And so she waited. Waiting for the perfect chance, like a hunter stalking its prey.