In two weeks time, Bubbles was in his first day of this new school. He saw dragons from all different tribes except Hivewings, of course. Every dragonet was put into a level, based on their age and skills. He was put in level three, which was third to mastery.

Since older dragons had applied, they didn’t need any training, so they left after the Applying Week. On the first day, he was given a sheet of six skills that he had to master over a month each, and Bubbles decided to start with the easiest: First Aid.

Bubbles was given a dorm room with the other Seawings, and they played too rough so he stayed out of their way. He spent the first week learning how to treat wounds of all different kinds, such as burn wounds, poison stabs, knife stabs, and sharp teeth bites. In the second week he had to treat actual wounds from level one and two trainees after their fight practices.

Week three was what Bubbles would call “Golden Week'' because he got to do simulations of the actual thing every day! The other dragonets in his level were really nice and let him do all the work since he loved the simulations. Week four was test week. He thought he did well, since he paid attention to the medic teachers.

The next skill was fighting. Bubbles had never been bad at fighting, but he was never real good either. Week one was the basics. Go for the throat, stab the tail, slash the wings. The class was given a day to study and memorize HiveWing anatomy and their possible poison attacks: Teeth, tail, and wrists. Week two was real fighting, and had matches with the other students in Bubble’s level. Week three was Golden Week and the fourth was tests.

Skill three was focusing on flight. Bubbles had to fly around in circles all week, and got worn out after an hour. This was the hardest skill to practice. Week two was survival tips, and Week three, as always, was Golden Week. The fourth was test week, and Bubbles was less confident on that quiz.

Skill four was possibly the easiest. He and the rest of his level was trained in simple survival skills, such as how to create energy on an empty stomach and how to create a fire (he was a SEAwing, after all). Making tents and camouflage was very simple, and Bubbles memorized how to make them within a few minutes. Week two was even easier. He had to get used to the small foods that would be packed with him for the journey so yay! Extra food! Golden Week and Test Week came afterwards, and those were peaceful.

Skill five made Bubbles jump when he was told about it. He got to do detailed simulations of what it was like to be inside the HiveWing towers and hatchery. It was so big! And the entire thing was made up of three materials - Silk, trees, and mud! So fascinating!

The last skill was to be trained in the worst and most impossible thing to learn in a month. The hardest of all skills, the worst to have to be trained in, was to be able to survive three weeks without food and water. Without water! That’s literally impossible for a Seawing! But, sure enough, all he had to do was to first go a day without food. The next day was an all-you-can-eat buffet. The next two days there was no food. Then the buffet. Then three days. Buffet. Four days. Buffet. And so on, and so forth, until the month was over with a buffet.

Bubbles knew there were only those six skills to learn and master, but he had to be trained for seven months, and each skill took one. But on the morning of the seventh month, he had to wake up at the crack of dawn to sit outside, on Pyrrhia’s most western coast, and wait until the first wave of dragons came back with their eggs.

It was only until four days later in the late afternoon that Bubbles could see figures flying their way towards Pyrrhia with their eggs. Right away, he could recognize the SilkWing. It was Queen! As the dragons flew closer, Queen spotted Bubbles and gave him a weak smile. Bubbles could tell that her wings were injured so he hopped into the air to help her.

“Queen! I’m coming!” He yelled. Bubbles soared up to his friend and Queen instinctively handed him the dragonet. Wait. Dragonet? Her egg had hatched! Bubbles helped Queen fly to the safe beach and she collapsed on the sand, panting and slightly bleeding. The dragonet in Bubbles’ arms chirped and smiled. She reached up and grabbed Bubbles’ snout.

“What do you think.. of the name Aster?” Queen panted as she sat up.

“An Aster is a type of grasshopper. A bug. Wasps are bugs, which is what Hivewings are based on, so that works.” Bubbles responded. He handed Aster over to Queen, as the dragonet was wriggling out of his grip.

In the seventh month, everyone had to practice the skills they had just learned, and since Bubbles had aced all but one of the tests, he was stuck with the third skill: flight.

. . .

Bubbles was exhausted and dizzy from flying in circles all day. He collapsed into his seaweed bed and decided to take a nap. He closed his eyes and dreamed. He dreamed of seeing Queen again.

“Queen! There you are!” Bubbles piped. He was walking around the Raindance Memorial and saw her looking at a statue. Bubbles trotted over to his friend.

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“Isn’t she beautiful?” Queen said softly, as she stared at the eyes of the Rainwing.

“Well, she is a Rainwing, and all Rainwings are pretty.” Bubbles answered.

“Well, I’ve only seen the Rainwings in the Rainforest, and they’re all too bright and chirpy.” Queen continued. “From the stories in the Readers’ Section, she didn’t always eat fruit. She sometimes ate cow meat, and other Rainwings can’t stand that stuff.”

Bubbles and Queen stared at the statue for a moment.

“Hey. Psst. Little dragon? Wake up!” Queen whisper-shouted. Except it didn’t sound like Queen. It sounded bubbly and cheerful. Queen was calm and soft. Someone shook him.

“Wake up! Please!!” The voice continued.

Bubbles opened his eyes. There was a Seawing standing in front of him holding his shoulders. Well, three Seawings to be exact, and they were all male, except the one shaking him.

“Why did you wake me up?” Bubbles croaked.

A half-blind male spoke up.

“Well, as you should know, all the Seawings who applied to be with the HiveWing Hunt live in the same dorm, and there are five of us in all. We woke up to the sound of a window shattering, and the other two Seawings have left!”

A blue-gray one piped in.

“And it’s midnight. We’re forbidden to leave the dorm at this time.”

“Midnight? Did I sleep through dinner??” Bubbles said as he sat up.

“That isn’t important.” said the half-blind dragonet.

“And what is important,” said the blue-gray dragonet, “is that it’s better to all go and have a good reason than if one of us gets caught and waits a year before being able to apply again. So we need you to come with us.”

The three dragonets led Bubbles down the corridor and he noticed things that were there that he didn’t realize until now. Every archway to the dorms had a color pallet that matched the tribes’ basic scale colors. The Seawings had blues, Skywings had reds and oranges, Mudwings had browns, Sandwings had yellows, and so on and so on.

“What are your names?” Bubbles asked.

“My name is Pacific,” the female answered, “The half blind kid is Jellyfish and the other is Seahorse.” They walked into a tunnel that went down.

“I’m guessing you want to know what happened to my eye?” Jellyfish said to Bubbles.

Bubbles had been wondering, but didn’t want to be rude.

“I was born with it.” Jellyfish continued, as if wanting to get the story out of the way. “It’s hard to see in the deep dark, so I don’t go into the twilight zone. That’s how I got my nickname, Jellyfish. My real name is something else and I don’t talk about it.”

They turned a sharp right into the Herb Lab, where healing and First Aid was taught. It was a big, open space full of plants in giant pots. It was surrounded by mangrove wood fences for decorations, and had a patio cover that was made up of criss-crossed birch wood and was covered with colorful, flowering vines. Since the Herb Lab is near the ocean, fog had rolled in and made it tricky to see.

“I think Kraken is here. She loves this place.” Jellyfish said as he took the lead. “She especially likes the venom-spitting tulip that’s grown here.” Jellyfish led the other dragonets around the outside of the Herb Lab until they saw a light pink tulip with dark red veins on the petals inside a white pot. Next to it was the silhouette of a dark Seawing dragonet cowering towards the plant.

“Kraken! You’re too close to the plant! Get away!” Pacific screamed as she lunged towards her, talons stretched to yank her away. She was right. Kraken’s face was very close to the tulip which, as its name suggests, spits a deadly venom. But she was too late. Bubbles spread his wings to pull Pacific away from the tulip. The tulip spat a wad of venom at Kraken’s face. The venom hitting scales smelled like burning cow fur. Kraken opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

Bubbles watched with horror as the scales on Kraken’s face melted until you could see her skull. Her body crumpled on the floor and lay limp. Everyone was silent for a moment. Bubbles looked around. Jellyfish, Pacific, and Seahorse’s faces were mixes of sorrow and loss and guilt. Bubbles noticed a note on the pot of the venom-spitting tulip. It said:

WARNING. DO NOT MAKE ANY SUDDEN NOISES OR GET TOO CLOSE TO THIS PLANT.

That made Bubbles realize that when Pacific screamed, she woke the tulip and made it spit venom.

“What do we do now..?” Bubbles spoke up, after a long moment of silence.

“If we’re caught,” Seahorse mumbled, “we’ll look like suspects and be kicked off. But if we’re in our dorm, we’ll have to live with the horror and anguish for the rest of our lives.”

They did a vote. Pacific wanted to make it look like an accident, but everyone else decided to go back to the dorm. That night, it was hard to sleep. His muscles ached even more now than it did before he went to sleep after school.

The morning wasn’t better, not even a little bit. The commotion of the death of a student shook everyone and the second wave of ten dragons was postponed two weeks. The tulip was destroyed and a big, fat load of students left the school, due to another outbreak of the deaths of three Sandwings and four Nightwings with the cause of poisonous spiders. The Herb Lab was shut down and skill practicing was no longer mandatory.

Bubbles was allowed to roam free for a week while the school was cleaned up and the chaos was left to die down, and the other Seawings spent their time playing and hanging out on the beach. Bubbles decided to spend his time helping Queen recover and take care of Aster. Seaweed, Bubbles’ mother, flew out to the HiveWing Hatchery to help manage the dragonets as they started to hatch. Bubbles met some dragons from school who were helping with the dragonets as well.