>Nearby the Diamond Spray Delta, on the border between the Sky Kingdom and the Kingdom of The Sea_

“COME ON, FIGHT YOU WEAKLINGS! ARE YOU SALAMMANDERS OR SEAWINGS!?”

Greenling ducked and rolled to avoid a fire stream from a SkyWing attacking from her periphery, trying hard to ignore what felt like a forest fire raging within her lungs.

A clumsy slash with her talons, that might as well have been aimed at one of the moons for all the good it did, was all she could manage to counter the attack. The attacking dragon simply powered away on swifter wings.

Rather than being able to reorient and pursue, the defending SeaWing could only flare her wings back out and engage the air itself in a battle to remain aloft.

Once stabilized, she was able to redirect some of her attention back to the battle around her- flinging her gaze around wildly.

Dragons of Sky and Sea, of blue and green and of orange and red whirled around each other in a mad swarm. A cacophony of enraged battle roars and agonized screeches mixes with the intense beat of angry wings and whoosh of fire breath pounded her skull like undercurrents in a storm.

She managed to catch herself as her eyes began to grow unfocused. There were too many quickly moving objects to track, and it was overloading her senses.

Her eyes finally locked onto a single form, the huge dark green shape of her Attack Wing Leader, the rallier and soldier coordinator that had just called out.

The massive SeaWing had managed to close distance with a SkyWing opponent despite the latter's speed advantage and was grappling the red dragon's talons with his own, keeping them from reaching his own wings.

The SkyWing tried to rear their rear talons to pummel the larger SeaWing in the underbelly, but was thwarted when the Wing Leader convulsed his entire body to swing his entire tail into the dragon's torso.

The SkyWing was sent careening off for the ground below with a gross noise Greenling would probably have trouble unhearing for a while.

But before the huge SeaWing could so much as roar triumphantly, did a small SkyWing maneuver and dive on him, connecting with his wing with scrabbling claws like an inexperienced hunter would pounce on a rabbit.

And with that their 15-year fighting veteran Wing Leader was condemned to a short fall and hard landing with the ground.

But at this point, Greenling had been distracted far too long.

She had hardly a second to shake herself out, before she caught onto another small orange SkyWing diving hard for her right-talon wing, talons outstretched and teeth bared.

Without thinking, Greenling barely managed to pull the respective wing in close with hardly a scavenger paw's clearance before she shared in her former Wing Leader’s fate.

The attacking SkyWing flared their own wings out again and easily pulled up and off, while Greenling once again fought the sky itself to regain stable flight before she met the treetops reaching up for her.

She caught herself at the last moment, straining every last flight muscle she had, pushing her wings until it felt like they'd shear off on their own to arrest her fall and slowly climb back up to the battle above.

Although, thank the moons, it didn't look like she would need to. Because at that moment, something almost imperceptible across both sides of the brawl shifted.

Both tribes of dragons maneuvered to disengage each other and gain a few wingbeats of distance from each other, and all made to dive for the ground on their own accords.

“DOWN! DOWN! EVERYONE TO THE GROUND! DOWN!” Someone roared.

Greenling released a wheezing pant that could perhaps be approximated as a sigh of relief and moved to join them as best she could.

The common image many pictured when imagining or recalling a battle between forces of opposing dragon factions was that of an epic aerial clash of claws, teeth and fire which rivaled in power that of a hurricane in its glorious baleful might.

A not entirely inaccurate depiction, given that it is pretty close to how they usually initiate. But that is not how the duration of the engagement is played out. If flying and fighting have anything in common, it is that they both require the majority of a dragon's strength, energy, and attention to do effectively.

To simultaneously engage the sky and wind in a constant battle to keep yourself from slamming into the earth at speed and engage other dragons in a more literal battle is immensely difficult for even the best trained and disciplined of dragons, no matter the tribe.

And no matter how skilled or powerful a fighter you were, you could only stave off exhaustion for so long.

If that wasn't enough: In the air, even the best and strongest fighters can be taken out by sucker slashes from far weaker dragons. Such as her former Attack Wing Leader.

A given dragon's claws, scale armor and strength were more effective on the ground, anyway.

Greenling tried to manage a somewhat elegant touch-down landing befitting of a dragon's dignity, but instead could all but collapse the final tail-length to the earth in an exhausted heap, promptly scrambling back onto her talons as other dragons just began to make their own, hardly any more show-worthy landings.

Both tribes haphazardly formed up and squared off against each other once again. Hissing and snarling all the while. Neither side charging the other yet.

Greenling shook her head to collect her bearings. She flexed her talons against the unfamiliar moist soil, preparing to engage.

She was by no means an outstanding fighter, but she had good reflexes and could more than hold her own. Especially on the ground, where the odds between SeaWings and other tribes were more even.

Behind and all around her, SeaWings pelted out challenging roars to the SkyWing attackers despite their own exhaustion. The sky dragons drew themselves up on their hindlegs and flared their wings out in an attempt to appear larger in response.

The SeaWing soldier rolled her shoulders and flared her wings out. She closed her eyes briefly.

She wasn't afraid. She couldn't be. Fear was a waste of energy. She was a dragon, through and through. And she was here to fight.

Alright, SkyWings. We managed to tire you out this time, now it's our turn to push the fight.

She braced her legs to charge and bared her teeth, reopening her eyes with newfound determination burning within them.

And the first thing she saw was a bright burst of orange-yellow right in her face.

Greenling shrieked as a wall of heat slammed into her scales and she reeled back, her brain overwhelmed by every alarm it had now screaming full force.

DANGER! FIRE! PAIN! ESCAPE! DANGER!

Any pretenses of calm and collected thought flew out the cave, and Greenling couldn't remember anything except adrenaline, rapid movement, and something heavy colliding with her upper back and shoving her hard into the dirt.

“Stay down! Get the heat off!” a voice yelled in her ear.

She was immediately yanked back to her feet by strong talons.

“You're not on fire! Get back in there!” The voice shouted, and the dragon darted off with a light shove.

Greenling staggered as she tried to regain her footing, frantically attempting to check herself for damage with one of her front talons.

The fire blast had singed her; her scales felt hot and burned with a sharp stinging pain, but contact with the SkyWing’s fire had been brief enough that nothing had set and no evidently serious damage dealt.

A technically fortunate outcome, but it still really hurt. And the pain will only get worse after the fighting adrenaline wears off. Assuming she survives that long.

Suddenly remembering the world around her existed, she whirled around to face the fight at talon, nearly overbalancing and falling back over in the process.

A rough line had- initially- formed between the dragons of Sky and Sea. Formed as the remaining dragons prepared to resume the skirmish. Any semblance of cohesion once there was now gone, the entire battle reduced to a mad brawl.

SeaWing soldiers had charged the SkyWings, desperate to close past fire-breathing range and engage with their claws and teeth.

The SkyWing detachment expended whatever fire they had left after the air battle into the charge, mortally burning or outright setting alight many of her fellow sea dragons in the process.

But even with their dreadful fire-breath spent and recovering, they were still more than eager to meet and match the SeaWing’s talons and teeth with their own.

I've got to get back in there! Greenling thought to herself.

She rapidly scanned the scene with her eyes, looking for a target. Quickly locking onto a pair of similarly sized SeaWings fighting with two corresponding deep orange SkyWings. Her fellow SeaWings were visibly disadvantaged, on the back talon and relegated to blocking strikes rather than delivering their own.

Without hardly a moment to apologize to her aching muscles and stinging scales, Greenling braced her hindlegs and sprung into action.

Bounding with all the strength she could spare, she shoulder checked one of the SkyWings hard before he could roll and leap at one of the SeaWing's exposed underbelly.

The impact sent waves like a torrent through her body, shaking her to her core and exacerbating the pain in her aching limbs. The intended target of her attack was sent sprawling, rolling off with a wild screech to get some distance.

I really hope I didn't just dislocate my wing. An errant thought floated through the battle-focus.

Rather doing what she ought to and follow up her strike to finish the orange dragon off, she swung her tail in a wide arc, aiming for the other SkyWing.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

This SkyWing, however, had noticed her from his periphery, and disengaged the SeaWing he was about bite to jump out of the way just in time.

Greenling's tail connected with nothing but air, and the force from the swing overbalanced and nearly knocked her over.

Spitting angrily about how much she hated fighting in the thinness of air, she managed to block the irritated sky dragon’s return slash by connecting his wrist against her raised forearm. The impact sent shudders through her arm and across her spine and wings.

Rather than following up, both dragons instead hopped back to assume better fighting stances.

Remembering to scan her own periphery, Greenling saw the other smaller SeaWings she had taken the heat off ganging up on the

hostile she had rammed.

A familiar hiss that she had come to hate with every scale of her being drew her back to her opponent. The orange dragon's jaws were open at a slightly weird angle, stark yellow eyes locked hard on her. A hissing sound distinct from the usual enraged noises emitted by fighting dragons emanated from him.

Already fully aware of what was coming, Greenling dropped from her talons and rolled as fast as she could to the left, only just clearing the incoming roaring blast of fire. The radiating heat singing her wingtip in the process.

The fire attack was short, however. Probably in lieu of his fire not having yet fully recovered after expending it earlier in the battle.

The SeaWing soldier roared both in pain and rekindled rage, springing back to her talons as quickly as she had gone down to face her adversary.

Both dragons hissed furiously as they started to slowly circle one another, waiting either for an opening or for the other to strike first.

With a snarl, the SkyWing planted his footing and started a hooking swipe with his left talon, aimed right at her throat.

Greenling instinctively raised her own talon to block the swing, but it was a feigned attack. The orange dragon drew his half-outstretched talon back and instead threw his right talon at her full force.

She roared with pain as claws connected with and dug through scales on her chest. But rather than staggering back, she instead rebalanced so that her weight was on her hindlegs and tail rather than all four talons.

She then switched to delivering rapid swipes with both webbed talons, aimed at battering the other dragon’s snout.

The SkyWing had overextended somewhat with his own strike, and was as such slow to respond. A few of her hits actually connected, no doubt disorienting him.

The sky dragon flinched back with bared teeth, resorting to meeting Greenling's uncoordinated attacks with his own wild talon swipes.

The two dragons whacked at each other for a few heartbeats before breaking off, both of them staggering back.

Greenling took satisfaction in the (albeit, not very serious) bleeding from the scratches inflicted to the wretched smoke-breather's snout. Even as she herself bled from the cuts on her chest.

The smell of blood, of smoke, of fire and of burning flesh permeated the air, clogging her nose and interfering with her battle-focus.

Her muscles and scales cried out with pain from damage and strain. Her sides heaved as she panted, her body desperately fighting to keep from overheating as she herself fought to keep surviving.

The dragons squared off against each other for a few moments. Talons planted firmly on the ground, bloodshot eyes locked, tails lashing lividly. Both still hissing all the while.

With almost simultaneous delay, both dragons suddenly lept at each other with catastrophic roars. Smashing into each other with a sound like a tree falling over.

The SkyWing’s claws wrapped around her neck following an unsuccessful attempt the throttle her. Greenling dug her claws into the dragon's shoulder and pushed with all her might. The SkyWing pushed back.

Both dragons thrust their heads forward, aiming to bite each other’s throat out. Instead missing and sinking their own teeth in farther down on the other dragon's neck.

A new awful agony exploded in her neck as the orange dragon's teeth tore into her gills. She grit her own teeth, embedded in the other dragons scales, as hard as she could both to deal with the pain and to spite the smoke-breather. The SkyWing grit back.

And so the brutal stalemate held, both dragons shoving their opponent with all their strength, digging their claws into each other, and tasting one another's blood.

Greenling could tell through the haze of agony and past the tears streaming from her eyes that she had a slight weight and strength advantage over the SkyWing. But her strength was slowly sapping. The world was beginning to grow distant, as the sights of battle grew darker and sounds of fighting grew quieter.

In a final moment of panic; the SeaWing realized she was suffocating. The SkyWing had claws around her neck, and was squeezing hard. She would lose this.

Her wings flailed uselessly, unable to be brought to bear to be of any help. Her claws and jaws locked down, refusing to let go. In a desperate bid, she swung her tail around in a full arc.

At this angle and range, there was no way her tail would be able to hit the sky dragon. But the momentum of the swing unbalanced both dragons, who were standing only on their hindlegs, sending them tumbling over and breaking the deadlock.

Greenling shrieked as the SkyWing’s teeth were forcibly ripped out of her, tearing her gills open in the process. Her vision turned red.

The orange dragon likewise howled as he rolled away, bleeding severely from his shoulders and neck.

But she was still standing, and he wasn't.

Fast as a shark, she hurled herself foreward and thrust her head for the dragon's throat. This time, she didn't miss.

She sank her teeth into the SkyWing’s neck, bit down, and ripped back. Taking blood, flesh and tendons with her.

The orange dragon's roar turned to a rasping gurgle as blood fountained out from his destroyed windpipe. Talons reaching out and clasping at nothing.

Greenling spun around, bringing her tail up, then slammed it down as hard as she could on the SkyWing’s neck. Ending the dragon's final spasms with a wet crunch.

She just killed a dragon.

She spat out the filthy meat of the wretched smoke-breather, and couldn't stop herself from rearing back and declaring victory with a mighty roar. A roar that came out more strangled and pathetic than not thanks to the damage done to her own airways.

But that didn't matter right now.

Because she'd won.

She wobbled on her talons, nearly keeling over entirely. Head clouded with black fogginess and pain from across her entire body.

Alright, maybe it matters a little. She granted.

Then again, maybe not.

All around her, the battle still raged. Dragons from both tribes were still locked in duels like her own. The other SkyWing she had rammed now lay slain on the churned grass, the SeaWings she was attempting to aid nowhere to be seen.

Many dragons, both red and orange as well as green and blue lay sprawled on the ground, their bodies torn open and leaking red into the soil.

Many more green and blue shapes had been turned partially or mostly a charred black from more successful fire attacks. Scales boiled and warped in horrbile ways before peeling off.

Despite all of that, it still looked like the SeaWings were actually winning. Somehow, against all the odds and precedents dozens and dozens of prior battle had set, they were actually turning the tide this time.

“SEAWINGS!” Greenling heard a shout.

“USE YOUR TEETH! GET IT THERE! FIGHT!”

She wasn't sure where the rallying cry came from, but it was met by many replying roars from both fellow SeaWings who weren't too preoccupied with fighting and from SkyWings calling out their scorn.

Greenling wanted to join in, but her call died in her torn up throat when her eyes locked onto something in the sky.

A shape. No, shapes. Many shapes. Big shapes, red shapes, brown shapes. Winged shapes.

She froze. Oh NO!

“INCOMING!” She managed to call out.

They have reinforcements. Of course they have reinforcements.

No other dragons immediately responded to her warning, so she tried to scream again. But her damaged throat and gills made it difficult and the resulting cry quieter than what was needed to be heard over the din of warring dragons.

Looking frantically for someone who looked to be somewhat in charge at the moment, given that their Attack Wing Leader had already fallen. All the while the approaching shapes grew in size.

Greenling realized the SeaWing general army, and other tribe's armies at that, didn't really have any subordinate commander ranks under Wing Leaders, just regular solders like her, lesser workers and patrollers. They were officially leaderless.

Leaderless on parchment, but perhaps not in technicality. The vast majority of Wing Leaders had a particularly adept regular that served their unofficial second in command. That dragon could take over as a temporary leader if the actual one goes down.

Greenling pressed a talon to her bleeding neck. So, find that dragon!

She couldn't make out any key defining features of a SeaWing who was currently acting as if they were in charge.

The shapes got closer.

Her eyes landed on a big blue SeaWing yelling at another pair of SeaWings.

Doing something other than only fighting, probably a good candidate.

“H-HEY!” She rasped as she began to stagger over to them.

“WE HAVE- THEY HAVE- oh, moons- INCOMING! THEY HAVE REINFORCEMENTS.” The SeaWing regular hollered as best she could, also flashing what luminescent scales still working as bright as she could manage to be more noticeable.

The head of the big blue SeaWing snapped towards her, and Greenling lifted her bloodied front talon off her neck to point at the growing shapes.

But when she herself followed her talon with her gaze, she realized she was already too late.

Fast-flying SkyWings had already reached the battle, and were performing rapid dive-attacks with their back talons and fire against SeaWings too exhausted to take to the air to dodge or retaliate.

Blasts of fire and grasping talons met SeaWings on the ground that had been holding their own this entire time like her. Agonized screeches, smoke and spurts of blood were all that went back up.

A roar came up from where Greenling was originally heading. She thought it might have come from the big blue SeaWing. She didn't hear what was said.

Nonetheless, she watched as many of the stronger, still standing SeaWings broke off from their own engagements and clustered together. The SkyWings, many of whom they had been fighting, rushed recklessly to encircle and surround their small group. Theirs and the flying dragon's attention now off stragglers like her

Bigger sea dragons stayed on the outside of the cluster, attempting to ward off stray swipes and small fire attacks from the sky dragons now trying to hem them in.

The fast dive-attacking SkyWings re-coordinated and redoubled their attacks on the cluster, but were now met by dragons from the center of the formation jumping or flapping up short distances to swat at or outright collide with the much faster-moving dragons.

Greenling allowed herself a grin. She was pretty proud to see this clever tactic invented and taught by SeaWing regulars like her to counteract situations just like this.

SkyWing attackers dove from the air down at the cluster to either breath fire or slash at them, picking up high speed as they went. A talonful of SeaWings thrust themselves upwards to slash at their wings, swat with their tails, or shoulder bash them out of the air.

She watched as a fast-moving dark red SkyWing that looked to be on a fire-attack run was intercepted by a pale blue SeaWing who merely clipped the fire-breather's wingtip with their own; the disruption sending the red dragon spinning wildly until crashing hard into the ground in a twisted heap.

She wrinkled her snout with disdain. Another reason dragons didn't actually like fighting in the air if possible.

Being airborne gave you huge offensive advantages over grounded dragons, but also huge survivability disadvantages compared to the same dragons.

That strategy the pale SeaWing defender just used to shatter half the bones in that SkyWing’s body with a single touch wouldn’t do any more than mildly irritate that same dragon if they were already on the ground.

But there was something missing…

Wait a minute, what about the brown shapes? I didn't only see red and orange dragons approaching… right?

It was possible she missed something. Her perception was still being clouded by pain, after all.

As if to answer her question, a big burning log of wood fell from the sky and smashed right into the cluster of defending SeaWings. Followed immediately by two more in rapid succession.

The logs bashed through the cluster, crushing limbs, wings, and tails and burning any SeaWings they connected with and leaving burning residue as they barreled through.

Greenling's jaw hinged open. She'd heard of these… these makeshift weapons being used by the SkyWings and tides-cursed MudWing traitors against grounded dragons and positions like this.

Seeing it for herself, though, was so much worse.

Logs. Parts of fallen trees. Used to slaughter dragons.

What kind of sick mind thinks of using things that clearly aren't weapons as weapons?

But it seemed yet worse things were in store for her fellow SeaWings. Another wave of brown dragons swooped in, but this time only one dropped one round, spiky object. An object clearly much smaller than the large logs already thrown.

An object she instantly recognized, despite only catching a single glimpse of it, and never having seen one for herself. Only heard about it from survivors.

What blood she had left in her turned to ice, and she dropped any pretenses of trying to avoid attention and screamed as best she could:

“R-RUN!”

It was already too late.

A bright flash of light came from the center of the defensive cluster, accompanied by a shaking boom that made the rest of the world's sounds fade out to a high-pitched ringing and flare of angry orange flame reaching back up for the sky above.

Shapes resembling SeaWings closest to the blast were launched tumbling into the air. Many more were simply hurled back, shrieking from alarm and pain.

Greenling felt a whizzing noise pass near her head, and flinched back. Recoiling off to the opposite direction.

Just like that, the already strained SeaWing defense was broken. Mangled blue and green bodies now joined the burned and sliced open already decorating the ground.

SeaWings still trying to fight collapsed their combat stances, now focused on trying to get as much distance from the other tribes as fast as they could.

Through the ringing in her ears, she could just make out sea dragons shouting:

“This is it!”

“Everyone for themselves!”

“Run!”

“RETREAT! FALL BACK FOR THE WATER!”

Just like that, they’d lost again. Even after all that desperate fighting. Even a small border skirmish- a skirmish that started when their own reinforcements arrived in time to aid an ambushed Patrol Wing- couldn't be turned to victory.

Through the haze of pain and new terror, Greenling turned tail and fled. Fled along with her fellow surviving SeaWings. Trailing blood as she went.