The parts to Ember’s armor suit had arrived unharmed at jade mountain. Ember was quite proud of the idea to pay another dragon to fly the armor to jade mountain. That way she wouldn’t possibly melt through the armor on the flight over to meet Ash. Only Ash then pointed out

Once Ember had realized her mistake of sending the armor to jade mountain instead of the rainforest, she and Ash got into an argument over how they were going to transport the armor to the rainforest. Much to the disagreement of Ember, it was decided that Ash would carry the armor set across the long journey to the outside of the rainforest. Ember would burn or melt through any sack or container that could hold the armor so Ash had it tied to a satchel on his back.

Despite being a skywing. Long flights really didn’t really agree with Ash. He wasn’t able to coat his wings with any insulation so the wind rushing across them constantly had him lose heat when moving through a lot of air.

Ember knew he was able to mitigate this by eating coal to help himself generate more body heat, but it was still a net loss, even if they flew at the warmest parts of the day. She regretted that she couldn't keep him warm with her scales, but it was impossible for either of them to fly comfortably in close proximity.

If Ash pushed his body too far when his body was too cold, he would start having coughing fits. Some of the really bad ones he even hacked up some black blood. Seeing his talons stained slightly black always made Ember’s spine tingle. Ember couldn’t bear seeing Ash in any discomfort, and Ash’s coughing fits looked like the absolute pinnacle of dragon discomfort.

It took them a day and a half to travel to the outside of the Rainforest kingdom when it would usually take an average skywing an afternoon. The extremely heavy armor pack didn’t exactly help though.

Eventually they made it to the edge of the Rainforest.

“This is it then… I’m actually going to see what it is like there” Ember marveled.

“Oh it is beautiful. You are going to love it,” Wheezed Ash.

Ember noticed how stiffly he moved. A sign that he was dangerously cold despite it being a warm summer's day. She went up to Ash to lend him a warm wing.

“Ash I’m so sorry you had to carry it! I should have thought ahead.” Ember apologized.

“Don’t worry about it… I offered to do it in the first place and… frankly I needed the exercise anyways” Ash responded.

Ash suddenly lurched into a coughing fit, his whole body curled from the force of it. At the end with a hack he spat out black stained liquid.

After a few gasping breaths, Ash continued, “I think I’ll be fine now. The coal’s working… just slower than I would like”

“Are you sure Ash?” Concern glazing Embers face, she hated seeing him like this. A deep fear she had been struggling to repress crawled up into her throat. It made it hard to breathe, or to think.

“Ash is fine.” Ember denied. “He is going to live just as long as any normal dragon. I’m certain… He promised he would always be there for me and he never breaks his promises… except for that one time with the cookie.”

“I'm a positive Ember…” Ash replied, pulling Ember away from her inner thoughts.

“Come on Show me how the armor works. I want to see” Ash asked.

Assembling the armor onto herself was a bit more of an ordeal than Ember originally anticipated and she needed a lot of Ash's help. Most dragon armors only covered the chest and maybe the front arms and neck in steel to increase mobility but still allow flight.

But this was a full body suit,

Even her wings were being fully sealed inside the suit. She couldn’t stretch them at all with the suit on. All of Ember was covered head to tail in interlocking plates of a dark metal.

Ash tried to get a more detailed description on how it worked, and Ember informed him it was made with the help of her coworkers, Gale and Pine.

“According to my friends at the forge, theoretically, this suit should take up to 8-12 hours before it reaches any temperature that can cause burns and even longer than that for stuff to set on fire just by touching this. Hopefully… I haven’t tested this.”

“Ok” Ash mused “You don’t really sound that confident.

“It's based off of an armor set that was already built that was meant to keep molten lava inside the suit. It should be good enough.” Ember replied.

“Keep lava inside the suit? Who was this made for again?” Ash asked?

“Queen battlewinner? The last nightwing queen? Aren’t you supposed to be the historian here? Ember teased.

Ember felt and heard his knuckles of Ash rap her on the helmet. Quickly followed by an “Ow” from Ash. “Yup… definitely solid metal” He said.

“Serves you right knucklehead,” Ember replied.

And before he could suffer any further humiliation Ash changed the subject.

“The armor looks done! Step back let me see how it works”

The armor was layered similar to dragonscale, to provide maximum mobility and coverage, It took Pine and Gal ages to bind the plates together in a way that would move. She would be forever grateful to them for making the armor. They even refused pay, alleging that being able to attempt to craft such an intricate piece of armor was its own reward. Also because they couldn’t decide how they would split the gold between eachother if Ember did pay them, even though they were married.

Ember moved around and stretched her legs, neck and tail. Flexing and testing the limitations.

“Whoa! Your eyes look super cool in the armor. It makes their glowy-ness stand out much more!” Ash complimented.

“I’m glad it looks cool, because it definitely isn’t the most comfortable. it will have to do” Ember said, her voice muffled by the armors face plates.

Ember perked up. Suddenly making a realization. “Am I going to have to fly in the rainforest?? Because well”

She gestured to her now wingless sides.

“The rainwings have walkways for dragons that are too old or young to fly so it's all good” Ash remarked. “Besides, with the size of your legs you are probably strong enough to jump anywhere.” He also snickered.

“Oh shut up Ash” Ember scolded, but appreciated the compliment. She was proud of her physique. Even though she no longer had a reason to maintain as she had zero chance of joining the military anymore, she still exercised and pushed herself physically took keep her body the way she liked it.

Ember took a deep breath realizing that her nervous procrastination was wasting time… “Clocks ticking, lets go”

----------------------------------------

As they padded into the rainforest Ember couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The rainforest was incredible… Even with her peripheral vision limited it was beautiful. Ember hadn’t seen so many colors in her entire life. Golden fruits and leafy palms and colorful frogs, and maybe even a scavanger? Ember only saw it out of the corner of her limited view and when she went to look again. it was gone.

Even the smells were so profoundly different Thousands of flowers grow on vines or trees around her combined with the musty smell of the eath. Some dragon needed to tell the trees here it was almost autumn.

The trees here were so much different than in the mountains, and considering how many plants there were EVERYWHERE, she definitely understood why she was normally never allowed here, the whole place would go up if flames in seconds.

Ash led her to the center of the Rainwing section of the village and she was getting plenty of attention from curious rainwings about her armor.

“Whoa is that all metal?”

“Where did she get it”

“Dude, did you see? Her eyes are bright blue!”

“Why does that dragon next to them look like a giant sloth?”

Ember found the rainwings often endearing. They were just too dang happy all the time, and it was infectious.

A sudden thought occurred to Ember.

“Hey Ash! Remember when you told me you wanted to be a part of the old nightwing city excavation?”

Ash wasn’t paying attention and almost missed the question “Huh what? When did I tell you that?”

”A couple of months ago” Ember answered.

“I guess, I would love to be able to be the first to decipher any records they have found there, and the ancient nightwing city is a treasure trove of lost history. Records indicated they stockpiled their literature from everywhere a couple millenia ago, but nothing much has been found yet.”

“Great! Because although I don’t know much about this place. I DO know the queen of the Rainwings has gotta be somewhere around here. Why don’t you ask her about it.”

“Well erm…” Ash stuttered as anxiety tightened around him like a snake. “Wouldn’t it be better to find…”

“No excuses Ash, you’ve got to be assertive! Glory is one of the most approachable of the queens, or so I’ve heard, and if any dragon can get you your dream job, it’s her, and I know how badly you want to go…” Ember said authoritatively.

“The thing is that…” Ash stammered

“Either you do it yourself while I go and check us in with the ceremony, OR I drag you over to the queen myself…” Ember threatened

“Uh” Ash visibly swallowed hard.

“Don’t tempt me Ash, you KNOW I will” Ember warned.

It was a mostly empty threat. Ember wouldn’t force Ash into a situation that he was truly uncomfortable with unless it had to do with his health, but she needed him to get outside of his comfort zone. He needed to get out and live his life to the very best he could.

“Ok, ok fine!” Ash caved. “I’ll… look into it”

“If you don’t tell me about your conversation with the queen at the end of the day I’ll bonk you on the head… at least 3 times” Ember warned.

With that Ember pranced off towards the closest nightwing. They probably knew her blacksmithing buddy, or at least where to find her.

----------------------------------------

Ash watched Ember prance off into a crowd.

Did she even know where she was going? Eh… It didn’t matter, she was social enough to ask around.

Ash, after asking one of the local rainwings, got pointed towards the Queens treehouse.

He made his way over to it, but something caught his attention. There was… warm air, really warm air coming from… Somewhere. He could practically smell it…

It's always been one of the weird quirks besides having fireplace ash stick to him and the black blood. He figured it must be the tunnel to the volcano that the rainwings were rumored to have somewhere.

He flapped up onto the platform described to him and found a rainwing trying its absolute best to look serious on guard with black and red coloring, probably to look intimidating.

“Hey!” he said in an exaggerated husky voice, "What is your business?… Oh WOW! you are fluffy!” He dropped the act halfway through upon noticing Ashes' coat, splashes of yellow flowing over his scales.

“Wow this is super cool, you look kinda like a sloth! Can I touch it?” The rainwing said. Completely dropping his imitation of an intimidating guard. He didn't bothering waiting for an answer.

“Um sure I guess” Ash said while the rainwing was already petting his head.

“Wow, it's so soft! And kinda warm too… Are you here to see the queen? You might be allowed to. Depends on what day it is. Do you know what day it is?”

The rainwing jumped from sentence to sentence without so much as taking a second to breathe.

“I uh... don’t know” Ash stammered, his memory failing him at such a pivotal moment.

“Eh you are FINE, go in. Queen glory should be in there right now doing great and incredible things for the rainwing kingdom. Like figuring out MAIL!!” The rainwing said. There could not be any more enthusiasm in his voice.

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“I…erm thank you” Ash simply could not even begin to fathom keeping up the pace of conversation, and just walked in, if anything but to allow himself a break from the Rainwing guard.

Ash walked into the room… and was surprised. He was expecting a palace and while this room was definitely well decorated, it wasn’t the most extravagant place he’s ever been. It was only a single room… At least that's what it looked like.

There were stairs that lead up to a central raised platform, that Ash assumed the queen sat upon. It was covered in flowers and vines.

There were 2 rainwings and a nightwing talking about… something. He didn’t try to eavesdrop.

He waited patiently to be noticed… and eventually the older rainwing, who was really big for a rainwing when turning to leave, saw Ash.

“Hey Glory, you got a visitor apparently”, as she strode out of the room.

“Oh I didn't know you had an appointment" The nightwing questioned.

"I didn't," the Rainwing on the pavilion replied.

She was still young for a queen but definitely older than him by a few years.

“Am I not supposed to be here… I’m sorry, I can go…?” Ash stammered, his anxiety constricting him ever tighter as he turned to flee.

“No wait please, I need a distraction from this, it's honestly giving me a headache… The Queen said. Exasperation drenching her words.

“Lets just pretend this is an appointment or something…That is if you actually came in here for a reason. Please just give me something else to think about besides paper.”The rainwing queen groaned.

Ash's legs were rooted to the spot, he had to force himself to speak. “Hi… I’m Ash…of the skywings. I am an archeologist and ancient records translator. Right now I’m contracted at Jade mountain”

“I am Queen Glory of the Rainwings, and this is Deathbringer, My professional bodyguard... and clown."

A small "Hey" emanated from the nightwing, but Glory ignored them.

"I remember the Tsunami telling me about you when she hired you.” Glory continued. “You were apparently very good at your job... and also you were fluffy, she was particularly adamant about that detail for whatever reason.”

Ash’s muscles didn’t relax as the flow of conversation started.. “Thank you, your majesty"

“So… are you just coming in to say hi or do you have something to say?” Glory asked.

Come on Ash, think! Don’t just stand there like a dumbass

“I came here to ask you about possibly joining the…” Ash started. His voice cracking in several places.

Oh for the love of the sun why couldn't he speak!

“The NIGHTWINGS”, he exclaimed rather loudly and instantly regretted it. “The ancient nightwing city excavation.” He continued in a calmer tone. “I was wondering if you could contract me to work for you to translate anything on site or record findings''

“Oh. Well… aren't you working for Jade mountain right now?” Glory asked.

Why was this conversation torture. It was just a normal conversation. ACT NORMALLY ASH!

“My… My contract with Jade Mountain ends at the end of this summer.. I can start working with you then”

"I'm interested, mainly because Tsunami spoke highly of you but I want a bit of confirmation myself. I’m curious… What's the most interesting story you have dug up?”

Ashes internal screaming continued to intensify

Ash took a second to think.

“Well… The one I am in the middle of translating right now is very interesting. It's over 4 millenia old. It's an old children's story. I believe it was passed down orally among the mudwings until it was archived by the nightwings.

It tells the story of a monster called the Litch... some parts are more difficult to translate as mudwings dialects have varied the most out of tribes, but the gist is that the Litch stole the souls of dragons to keep itself alive. It could never die. Every time it was struck down by tooth, claw, or blade, it crawled its way from the afterlife and went back to wreak further havok.

Eventually an animus hero was tasked with slaying the Litch. They tracked it down to its lair and used the power of animus magic. They slew the monster casting into the abyss, never to return to the mortal realm.” Ash recited.

“That's the most I’ve gleaned from it anyways.” He finished.

“Huh, You know… those stories have a bad habit of being a little more true than you would ever want them to be. Its happened to me… twice...” Glory said.

“Yes,” Ash contested. “but we also haven’t ever found any wyverns in the world either and we have way more stories about them, but this is the first one I’ve seen about the Litch. They are very obscure, and I hope to uncover more about them.”

“Ok then. Glory said with a clap of her talons. “Deathbringer, you heard all that! This guy is good at this job, after we are done with figuring out how on Pyrrhia how to integrate this mail system without it being a complete disaster. I’ll put you in charge of getting in contact with Mastermind about the excavation and getting him on the team there…” Glory instructed to the nightwing.

“If we are lucky, we might even use the new mail service to contact him.” She finished

Oh thank the moons it's almost over.

He was starting to hyperventilate at this point.

“Is that all you came here for then Ash?” Glory asked.

Yup. definitely hyperventilating now… just a bit longer though.

“I umm… No, I originally came here with my sister to go see her friend's wedding” Ash replied, trying to hide his breathing.

“Oh right, I am attending it later today, it's between Peacemaker and…”

A fit of coughing, probably brought on by his hyperventilation, prevented him from hearing the name of the other dragon.

“Oh wow are you ok?” Glory asked concerned.

“Yea… Just fine” Ash wheezed. “Just had a bit of a rough trip getting over here.”

“Speaking of weddings Glory, when are you eventually going to propose to me… hmm” Deathbringer had a teasing note to the inflection of his words.

Glory balked at the sudden change of topic, Ash wasn’t entirely fluent on rainwing colors but he was fairly certain white indicated shock. She struggled Struggled to find her words. “Excuse me Deathbringer, you want to talk about this… now? Glory asked.

“Well I mean at this point” He was grinning now. “we should probably at least start a discussion about options. The amount of times you’ve personally assigned me to the night shift of your personal guard. Somebody might start looking into that… Just saying.” Deathbringer said, wearing a shiteating grin.

Glory was fully flabbergasted at this point, She gestured to Ash.

“Oh dear!” He said with mock horror. “I’ve let the secret slip, whatever will we do to prevent scandalous rumors from forming…Oh by the way, Glory your turning pink again” Deathbringer continued to antagonize. While slowly edging away from Glory and towards Ash.

He was correct. The usual green and blue of Glories scales were giving way to pink fading though.

“Bite me” Glory retorted as the invading colors subsided from her scales…

Ash could tell they had this sort of playful argument before and he wasn't sure if he should leave or not.

“Glory!” Deathbringer had switched back to the mocking voice slowly making his way closer to the exit.. “Don’t be hypocritical now! Talking about things like that in public. I mean… I guess if that is the sort of thing you are into, then I guess I could oblige you later. You know where I sleep.”

Deathbringer was right next to Ash at this point slowly inching towards the door.

Glory sputtered in confusion “What?... I don’t get it. What are you talking about...”

She stopped dead mid sentence. Clearly something clicked in her head.

Deathbringer nudged Ash “See? she loves it when I do this, she's turning pink all over and.. Oh wait, that's red…”

He was correct. While there was definitely a lot of pink… mixed with red.

“Whelp! That color means it's time I gotta make my getaway, see ya!” Deathbringer laughed.

And without a second of waiting he took off across the room laughing the whole way out the door.

Glory hopped after him chasing him to the door, nearly bowling over Ash.

“Get back here you salamander bastard so I can YELL AT YOU!

Ash could faintly hear, “I love you too!” from the fleeing nightwing.

“Do you want me to sleep dart him again Glory?”

Ash yelped as a bright pink rainwing just materialized, out of the corner and walked over to Glory.

“Nah, we will let him get away with it this time." Glory said, mostly pink and yellow now. When she turned around Ash noticed she was smiling.

Glory turned around to walk back to her platform with a sigh and acknowledged Ash.

“You see why I call him my clown right?” Glory sighed.

“I won’t tell a soul” Ash whispered.

That provoked a snorting laugh from Glory.

“Oh please, everybody knows about me and DB. He has just been wanting me to make our relationship official since forever. He proposed months ago… and I wish I could oblige him… It's just that it isn't so simple.” She explained.

Ash looked confusedly at her.

“The short version of it” Glory continued, “Is that Rainwing partnerships are generally… unofficial while nightwings have ceremonies.. While I could oblige him and be in more traditional bonding ceremonies like the nightwings.

It would have some fairly large political ramifications. I am technically the queen of 2 tribes so it makes literally everything twice as difficult. My actions here could set a precedent for centuries... I still don’t know which is the better option…” Glory sighed.

“ I’m sure you can tell which side my professional clown is on, he's been trying to convince me his way for some time now.”Glory concluded.

“Ah… Ok then that makes sense.” Ash said.

His heart rate still had not recovered from the sudden appearance of the pink Rainwing and wasn’t sure if he needed a doctor.

“Alright… I’m just about ready for some suntime… I’ll talk with Mastermind about setting you up with a contract and I’ll send you a letter once the fall begins. You’re free to go now” Glory said, and then walked out the door.

“Oh yea… The contract… the reason I came here.”

“Thanks,” Ash squeaked.

He took a second to rest from the anxiety session. He did it. He got the contract. Ember was right! He had the job of a lifetime!

“Hey…” a voice behind him asked. Making Ash nearly jump out of his own scales and fluff. It was the pink dragon “I’m not normally supposed to talk, or… be seen, but sense you know I’m here now. Do you mind if I…?

“Yes you can touch the fluff” Ash conceded as the rainwing ruffled the fluff on the top of his head.