The next day, Peaceflyt dragged himself to school, wings draping behind him as he had barely got any sleep last night. He knew he was undoubtedly more popular than Peak, even though he didn’t think he was as popular as some of the other students. Most of the Jade Mountain Academy students were deathly afraid of her, and he was glad no one stared at him like a future serial killer.

‘You had more violent dreams than ME last night!’ Peak said in his mind, referencing the dreams Peaceflyt had about Deneb last night. She always had a firewall around that part of her thoughts. She was always careful of how many of her thoughts could be read, now that so many NightWings with mind reading there were. Peaceflyt couldn’t block his thoughts with fire, so he just kept skyfire on him most of the time. It meant he couldn’t have secret conversations with Peak, but it would guarantee that no other mind reader would hear his thoughts. Currently, he had his piece of skyfire on the outside pocket of a pouch wrapped around his arm. He had no clue why, but it didn’t block his thoughts when it was in that specific pocket. It was something he’d thought about but had never come to a conclusion.

‘Really? Wow, I must be darker than I thought,’ Peaceflyt half-joked.

‘Yeah. I got some Darkst- dark dreams,’ she thought, hearing another mind reader close by.

At the beginning of school, when Peaceflyt and Peak were two and a half, Tsunami made all the mind readers at the school agree that they would stay out of other dragons’ minds. (Apparently multiple students had complained about some mind reading NightWing who was listening in on their thoughts and spreading rumors about their crushes and stuff). So Tsunami had gone out of her way to get some skyfire from the ocean to give to everyone who was a mind reader there. Peak couldn’t wear it, so Tsunami just had to make her promise that she wouldn’t read anyone’s mind.

The SeaWing was greeting everyone again at Jade Mountain again. This was something she’d been doing recently. Peaceflyt wondered why she wasn’t hurrying around the school like she normally was.

“Hi, Peaceflyt. Hi, Peak,” she greeted them. “How are you guys doing?”

“Meh. Okay,” Peaceflyt responded exhaustedly, trying to sound slightly less tired than he actually was.

“Just crashed a family reunion,” Peak answered Tsunami at the same time, seeming thoroughly well-rested.

Tsunami nodded and beckoned them both into the school with a smile, but Peaceflyt could hear a bit of confusion in her mind.

. . .

“I’m just glad that Atacama is fine with sharing a cave with ‘the fiery beast’,” Peak told Peaceflyt when they got inside. “And that Ridge liked my mom and aunt-that-didn’t-disown-me better so he talks to me. Some SkyWings hate me just for hatching.”

“Well, that really sucks,” Peaceflyt said with sympathy. I mean, I personally trust you JUST enough to not wander into my cave and burn me in my sleep.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Peak responded sarcastically.

“Let’s see… what’s our first class?” Peaceflyt muttered to himself, racking his brain. “Oh, right. Duh. It’s-”

“It’s OBVIOUSLY self defense, which you hybrids need around here.” Blizzard, the Jade Winglet IceWing, said obnoxiously as he came up from behind them. “Frigid told me.” He laughed.

“I was just about to say that,” Peaceflyt said, annoyed.

“Why does Peaceflyt need help with self defense, when he has RainWing venom?” Peak asked with venom practically dripping off her words. “And, Blizzard,” Peak said, exercising her royal posture, “Why would a firescales of all dragons need lessons in self defense?” Blizzard started walking faster as Peak emphasized her point by waving her talons.

“Thanks,” Peaceflyt said, once Blizzard was out of earshot. “Let’s go to self-defense.”

Peaceflyt and Peak hurried down the halls to get to self-defense, and saw Frigid and Atacama sparring once again when they got there.

“She’s always gonna win, you know,” Peak told Frigid, and inclined her head towards Atacama.

‘Thanks,’ Atacama thought to Peak.

Poor Clay, having to deal with so much misbehaving students, Peaceflyt thought to himself. That’s probably why he comes in late so much. He took his piece of skyfire out of the outside pocket of his arm pouch and placed it into the main pocket, and at once everybody’s thoughts were silenced to him.

“Hi, Silver Winglet,” Clay told them. “Today, we’ll…” He checked a sheet of paper on the wall. “Today, we’ll be sparring.”

Peaceflyt sighed. He hated sparring. He kind of hated the whole idea of conflict.

“No using… any tribal advantages. Or powers, if you have them. You know the rules, I don’t think I need to go over them again. Why have you two started early again?” Clay inclined his head at Frigid and Atacama. No one answered. “Never mind,” Clay muttered. “Choose your sparring partners. I’ll be in the corner if anyone needs me.”

Peaceflyt saw Pelican walking over to him. “Peaceflyt?”

“Yeah, sure.” Peaceflyt hated sparring, but at least he knew and trusted Pelican. He got into a pathetic fighting position, and Pelican did the same, except his wasn’t really as pathetic.

“Dragonfly?” Ridge asked the coffee-brown MudWing. Dragonfly shrugged and nodded.

“I guess I’ll just spar my shadow again,” Peak joked from a corner of the cave where no one could accidentally tumble into her and get set on fire. While she was watching Dragonfly and Ridge spar, Pelican delivered the first blow to Peaceflyt. He leapt back and around Pelican and scraped his back. Pelican flew above him and got his tail, and Peaceflyt ducked to kick him.

This was basically what happened in self-defense every day. Basically just a lot of fighting, which Peaceflyt, a sensitive dragon, pretty much hated.

Luckily for him, Sunny came in about three-quarters through class and asked to borrow Peaceflyt.

“What?” Clay asked, initially confused. Then he must have remembered something, because his face relaxed. “Ohh. Yeah. Sure.”

Oh no, he thought to himself as he walked toward the cave entrance. Is this an award or something, or did someone blame me for something I didn’t do and we have to talk about it?

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,” Sunny said when they were in the halls. A wave of worry splashed over Peaceflyt. Did she read my mind? Then he realized that he was currently wearing his slightly-worried face, and she must’ve just seen that.

“Glory- Queen Glory’s ordered that the RainWings at Jade Mountain should be doing venom practice every day, just like in the Rainforest. So she visited over the school break two days ago and helped build this.” Sunny lead him to a room that was open to the mountainside. A cluster of leaves and flowers were draped over the opening, letting the sunlight filter through in green rays. Seven target boards, mimicking the ones in the rainforest, were set up on the opposite wall.

“Hi, Peaceflyt,” Walnut said. All the other RainWings at the school had already arrived at the class and were practicing their venom shooting. Tiki and Paradise, the Gold and Jade Winglet RainWings, were talking in the corner. Tiki looked at Peaceflyt and waved. He smiled back.

“So, basically,” Sunny waved her talons around the room, pointing at different stations. “The targets are for venom practice. You probably already figured that out. And on the other side of the leaf curtain, there’s a ledge if you want to get some sun.

“Plus, you can talk with the other dragons here. So it’ll probably be pretty nice. BUT, you do have to get in at least a little venom practice each day.” Sunny smiled, waved goodbye, and hurriedly walked out the door, like she was busy.

Ok, so now what can I do? Peaceflyt thought. He settled on just going and talking to Walnut.

“Hi, Peaceflyt! How are you?” Walnut asked. “I got here about fifteen minutes ago. I would think it’s pretty late for you to come.”

“Oh. Yeah, it probably is. Did Sunny get you personally, or did she get multiple students to come with you?”

“Oh, she got me with Vine, Tiki, and Paradise. So basically everyone but you, really-” Walnut got cut off by the bell, which signaled the end of class. “I guess Sunny brought you a little too late,” she said, laughing.

. . .

Peak and the rest of the Silver Winglet came out of self defense ahead of Peaceflyt, who ran up to catch up to them.

“Hi, Peak. Did you have fun sparring oxygen?” asked Peaceflyt sarcastically.

“I had fun watching Atacama win again.” Peak smiled.

“Group discussion next,” Peaceflyt remembered. “Let’s see how much we’ll talk.”

“I’m definitely not going to talk until Tsunami makes me,” Peak pointed out.

“Neither am I,” Peaceflyt agreed.

The Silver Winglet headed inside the group discussion cave, where Tsunami was waiting for them.

“Hey, Silver Winglet,” she said.

“Hi, Tsunami,” said Ridge as he sat down on the other side of Peaceflyt.

“You had self-defense before this, right? How’d it go?”

Peaceflyt glanced over at Peak, who was sitting in the back corner next to Atacama. They looked like they always did in self-defense class- attempting to avoid any conversation with anyone else and talking about whatever friends would be talking about.

“Well, most of us participated,” Frigid challenged, glaring at Peak.

“At least I didn’t lose for the millionth time,” Peak challenged back before lapsing into silence.

“Break it up, guys.” Tsunami scowled at them. “This class is supposed to help you get ALONG, not ARGUE.”

She turned to look at Peaceflyt. “How was your venom practice?”

I guess I have to talk now. “I… kind of arrived a bit late to it,” Peaceflyt informed her. “So I didn’t really do much.”

Tsunami cast a look at Sunny.

“I was busy. You know… working on the school expansion,” Sunny quickly said.

“Oh!” Tsunami interjected. “You guys know about that, I think, right?”

“Are there any new classes?” Dragonfly asked shyly.

“Yes,” said Tsunami, grinning. “I can tell you them, if you want.”

. . .

“Peak-” started Tsunami, when group discussion was almost over.

“I know the drill.” Peak sighed. “I actually have to talk now.”

Peak started to take part in the conversation for a bit, but within a couple of minutes, the bell rang, and that was the end of class.

“She didn’t notice me until class was almost over,” Peak noticed after they left class.

“Cool,” replied Peaceflyt.

The Silver Winglet headed toward history, where Webs taught. Webs was the oldest teacher the school had (Peaceflyt guessed he was around fifty years old, but he wouldn’t ask him about his age). About three weeks ago, he’d learned about the SandWing War of Succession, and how Webs brought Tsunami and Queen Glory’s eggs to an underground cave to raise them in order to stop the war. He also noticed that Tsunami got touchy when it came to that part of her life.

Peaceflyt knew that history was Peak’s favorite class, because she could just sit in silence and not get asked to do anything (not counting the rare occasion where Webs would call on someone to answer a question he’d asked). Peaceflyt actually didn’t mind this class much either. Being the introverted dragon that he was, sitting quietly wasn’t THAT bad. And he did kind of like history. But the tone of voice that Webs would drone on could bore any dragon out of their mind if they listened to it long enough.

“Today, we are going to learn about Queen Diamond, an IceWing queen who started an ancient war over her son and daughter-in-law.”

Peaceflyt saw Frigid’s brow furrow. Oh. I wonder if this relates to that Darkstalker dragon.

His thought was proven right when Webs mentioned Darkstalker in his lecture. (He didn't know how he was paying attention enough to hear that).

The rest of class was just like a normal class of history at Jade Mountain. About two dragons ended up snoring, and most of the others attempted to stay awake in case they were asked a question. Peaceflyt thought that Peak and him were probably the only ones to actually find a bit of interest in this class.

A few minutes later, the bell for lunch rang, startling Atacama out of her slumber.

“That was kind of unpleasant,” Atacama told them after walking out of class. “I HATE being woken up. Hey, at least it’s lunch.”

. . .

Peak flew off to eat and hunt alone, like she did every day. Atacama, Sparrow, and Pyramid ate somewhere in the Great Hall when the food arrived from Clay’s hunting group.

Peaceflyt, being half RainWing, didn’t really hunt often, so he just sat with Walnut, Tiki, and a MudWing from the Gold Winglet named Swamp during lunch.

Lunch was pretty uneventful. Tiki, Swamp, and Peaceflyt talked a bit while Walnut went to the Prey Center to get some fruit for the RainWings at the table they were sitting at.

After lunch, it was free time. Peak was still out eating and hunting, and would be out until their next class, Herbs and Healing. Peaceflyt normally spent free time in the music or art rooms, and occasionally the library where Walnut was most of the time.

“Peaceflyt?” asked Walnut. “Can you come to the library with me today?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“I’m not Peaceflyt, but I’ll come too,” Tiki added.

Their trip to the library was relatively normal, too. Peaceflyt and Tiki brought out some board games, and the three RainWings laughed and talked.

Soon, the bell rang, and Peaceflyt headed to Herbs and Healing with Fatespeaker, the very optimistic NightWing teacher.

“I’m back,” Peak said as Peaceflyt sat down, landing gingerly on her dark red talons outside the classroom.

“Hi, Peak! And the rest of you,” said Fatespeaker as Peak walked in. “Today we’re going to be practicing on one of the greatest healing herbs in the Mud Kingdom!”

She pulled out a bunch of what looked like cattails from a cabinet in the back of the classroom, and explained that these were a special type of cattail grown near the Mud Kingdom’s coast.

“Ridge, hand these out, please.” Fatespeaker dumped the plants into Ridge’s talons, and he carefully handed them out to each of the Silver Winglet.

They practiced brushing the cattails in a certain way across the scrapes and scratches they had gotten from self defense class. Peak, obviously, couldn’t do much in Herbs and Healing either, because Fatespeaker was worried about her accidentally burning the herbs she would practice with. “I mean, at least she can learn about them,” Fatespeaker had said when Atacama asked if Peak would actually be doing anything in her class.

The rest of the day was a normal school day for Peaceflyt. At dinner, Peaceflyt sat with Swamp and Tiki, and shared some of his extra food with them.

At the end of the day, he went to his sleeping cave with Ridge, his clawmate. He often wished that Pelican would be his clawmate instead, because Peaceflyt knew him better, but for now, Pelican was stuck with Frigid.

“Hi,” Ridge said about an hour after the sun set. He'd gone out to the library after dinner to read and was just entering their cave for the night. “Are you going to sleep already?”

“I guess so,” Peaceflyt said, getting into a comfortable position. “I just kind of have a weird feeling tomorrow is going to be an eventful day."