FSE

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The day ended with the sound of ringing, the local clock in the classroom singing its rattling metal song for its few seconds.

I survived.

Stars packed up her sculpting tools as the dragonets left the classroom, taking their various little fruit sculptures with them. Her lesson was simple, a series of fruits from the Rainforest for the dragonets to practice sculpting basic shapes. This lesson was also inspired, or rather, improvised, last minute the prior night while she was gathering her lunch for the day which made an excellent subject matter she had to admit. She really needed to be less scatterbrained.

She chuckled to herself as she hurried out of the building. ScatteredStars was the right way to describe her mind half the time, full of mystery even to herself, with little bits of thoughts strewn about in an otherwise deep void of nothing. A bit of her wondered if that was what her parents had seen when they looked into her eyes, or if the name was meant to be somehow inspiring.

Maybe they hoped I'd become an astronomer or some NightWing visionary like Moonwatcher, not a runaway to another continent.

Which is how she ended up being a teacher, or well, at least a substitute for the art classes. Teacher was not where she envisioned herself growing up. She wanted to do something big, change the world, be one of the Dragonets of Destiny or equally grand. Go on adventures like the books and scrolls she read about. When she graduated from her base studies at Jade Mountain Academy, she eagerly went out on her own, disregarding her parents in her attempts to forge her own destiny, her own way forward.

That sure worked out well.

Instead she ended up on Pantala, right here, working odd jobs and staring at a mango that almost looked as disapprovingly at her as her parents did. So in revenge she sliced it up with her talons and began munching on it.

She couldn't help it. Other dragons overwhelmed her. Their emotions and thoughts cascaded against her and she could never really learn to block it out. Her mind worked differently. Her teachers called her a NightWing that saw the world as RainWings. All around her dragons were awash with the colors of their emotions and their thoughts bouncing in between them. The other mindreaders tried to teach her to envision walls or ways to isolate herself but it never worked.

She couldn't block out the chaos filling her mind of other dragons' thoughts and feelings, like the growing smell of scented candles, all being lit one by one. It will pull and tug at her, all those droplets bleeding into her mind's eye, swirling until she would focus to bottle it up, and then the rest would overwhelm her. Soon everything became just colored splotches and endless trains of thought all blending together until she'd find herself curled up into a ball in tears, clutching her head in terrible, agonizing pain.

So she was given a shard of skyfire, to help keep her mind calm. It made everything a silent buzzing, muted, but she could swear if she just looked hard enough she could see the migraine-inducing bands of color just out of reach, trying to burst its way through. But it also muted her own expectations of herself, of being more than just a walking disaster of a dragon. She was a wreck, she believed, and therefore she should accept it and just try to live a small life.

"Ow!" she yelped suddenly, dropping a slice of mango. A single drop of blood landed on a slice, from a new cut on her talon. She had managed to spear herself while lost in thought. Thankfully no one around had noticed, or at least she hoped.

There goes my mind again, everywhere except where it needs to be.

"Are you okay?"

She froze, sudden terror encompassing her, surrounding her like wings, blocking out the sun and the world around her. A voice, someone saw, someone was asking. She had been noticed. All at once everything began spinning in her head, all the moments of embarrassment, shame, disappointment, lemons.

Lemons?

She looked towards the voice and found a familiar face staring at her. The concerned-colored but equally happy to see her, red along the cheeks, Soursop. The RainWing smiled at her, holding a freshly sliced lemon in her talons with a tea in the other.

"S...soursop? What are you doing here?" She tilted her head, idly taking her bleeding talon into her maw to suck on it gently, trying to mostly hide the cut and try to stop it bleeding. "I mean hello, yes I'm fine."

Soursop laughed, before dropping the lemon slices into her tea and sitting back on her haunches, sipping idly. "You're such a strange one. I came by after I heard you were working here from another customer, and since you always make my mornings I was hoping I could do the same for your evenings!"

Stars paused, her mind whirling around everything just said. It didn't make sense, why would she be here to just be here? Did she want to taunt her? Was she trying to enhance her business by ensuring she kept stopping by? What was this all about? Not to mention it was a little creepy to just show up at someone's work afterwards and just be there. But then again was it any worse than her drawing random dragons in the marketplace idly while mostly trying to study dragon to dragon interactions in hopes of...

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?"

She snapped back to attention. "No no no, sorry. I was just... uh. Studying the... I don't have a good excuse, I got lost thinking. I'm not sure what you mean."

The RainWing tilted her head. "I mean, I like you and our discussions and wanted to hang out a bit, and be friends, or well. Try it anyway. We're both from the Rainforest and I miss having others from Pyrrhia to talk to." She started drinking her tea, while still holding part of a lemon, almost dropping it and catching it, in turn almost dropping her tea.

Stars had to admit that this was an awkward way to just meet someone, but then again, awkward might as well be her own name. She just shook her head, trying to push away any anxieties she had of interaction for just a moment, to just try talking to another dragon.

"Sure, I know a great place to watch the storms roll in. Want to come see?" Storms and lightning, could she have said something less interesting to someone like this RainWing...

"Absolutely! I'd love to!"

Stars had to admit, it was kind of nice to have someone who seemed to want to push past the barriers of isolation she'd slowly built up for herself. She talked to her sculptures, sure, but they didn't make for much conversation, whereas a real living dragon could perhaps let her at least open up some. Part of her debated taking off her skyfire for just a moment, to peer into the enigma of the other dragon before her, to understand her mind and emotions, but that part of her was quickly suppressed by her own fears of being judged, of knowing someone was maybe just pitying you.

Go away bad thoughts. Let me enjoy this for a moment even if it is pity.

She shook her head to clear it, letting the thoughts pour out like water in her ears. She looked up to the nearest glassed window already catching a few drops. A quiet prelude to the main weather event.

"Aha!" she exclaimed to the RainWing. "Perfect timing! A storm is rolling in. Let's go! It'll be beautiful!"

She guided Soursop over to the nearest entrance to the level of the Hive, where already the wind was blowing against the smooth silk-wood doors with increasing force. The powerful scent of the savanna rains flooded their noses as they slipped right outside to the covered balcony.

Maybe things will be okay for once.

***