The Queen’s Order
Silverspot shoved her head down and looked at her food, trying to not creepily stare at the attractive dragon. She had to remind herself that she had a partner already assigned to her, pretty SilkWings couldn’t be important.
Trying to ignore the dragon who had caught her attention, Silverspot picked at her smoothie with the large spoon the restaurant had given her. Taking a bite, she found that the flavors burst on her tongue and were delightful. She quickly consumed the rest of the smoothie, forgetting about the dragon she had previously been interested in.
Silverspot took her glass cup and gulped down the fresh water it held, clearing away the seeds stuck in her teeth. The glass clinked when it connected with her teeth. Still thirsty, Silverspot got up from her small round table and went to the bar to request her cup be refilled. Water refills were free, one good thing about the Hives’ rules.
Receiving her now filled to the brim cup, Silverspot turned around, staring intently at the class, not wanting to spill its contents. She walked forward and ran into a body, sending the liquid onto the dragon she had bumped into. The water pooled on the tree-stuff ground, making Silverspot’s talons wet.
After melting through her shock, she blurted out an apology. “I’m so sorry!” Silverspot said, thoroughly embarrassed. “I wasn’t looking where I was going–” she continued, but stopped mid sentence when she looked up from the puddle. It was the SilkWing who she had seen enter the restaurant.
Silverspot’s mouth hung open but she couldn’t speak.
“It’s okay, I was standing too close behind you. It’s really my fault, if you think about it,” the blue and red dragon said, looking into Silverspot’s eyes.
“No, no,” Silverspot protested. “I should have been looking where I was walking.” Silverspot then noticed that the front of her splashed victim was dripping wet.
“Oh my Clearsight, you’re wet! I’m so sorry, let me get a napkin.” Silverspot turned back to the bar and grabbed a cloth folded on its surface. She handed it to the dragon, ashamed. “I’m so, so, so, so sorry,” she repeated.
“You don’t need to keep apologizing, it’s okay, really,” the dragon said with forgiving eyes. “I don’t mind, it was an accident after all.”
Silverspot blushed, apologizing was just a reflex at her age.
The dragon used the napkin to soak up the water dripping from her scale-less neck and chest. Silverspot stood, watching her, not knowing if she should leave or stay. Her mind was still a little cloudy after the shock.
“I’m Burnet,” the shimmery dark blue and green dragon said.
Hope filled Silverspot’s chest. She really isn’t mad, her mind happily inferred. “I-I’m Silverspot,” she said, a light stutter from the surprise of Burnet sharing her name.
“Let me get you another glass of water,” Burnet said as she took the cup from Silverspot’s loose talons. Their claws briefly touched, sending jitters shooting through Silverspot’s arm.
As Burnet talked to the barkeep, Silverspot’s mind ran wild. Now that she had a moment to think, her embarrassment grew tenfold. Not only did she spill on a random dragon, she soaked a really attractive dragon. She brought a talon to her face, covering her eyes in humiliation.
Burnet appeared next to her and brushed her wing against Silverspot’s to let her know she was back. Butterflies fluttered in Silverspot’s stomach from the contact. Stop acting like this, you have a partner assigned by the Queen! her mind scolded.
To her surprise, Burnet glided to a table and set two glasses of water down. She then sat down and looked to Silverspot, an invitation leaping from her actions.
Silverspot’s breath hitched as she walked to the table and sat down as well, resting her tail on top of her talons. “Thank you,” she said to her new acquaintance.
“It’s no problem,” Burnet guaranteed. “So,” she continued. “I haven’t seen you here before, and I know most of these dragons.” Burnet gestured to the SilkWings eating around them.
“I just metamorphosed a few days ago, and moved here soon after,” Silverspot told the listening dragon.
Burnet held up a talon to her chest, gesturing to herself. “I left my cocoon a week ago. What Hive did you come from?” she asked, seeming interested, which made Silverspot feel the butterflies rise again.
“I lived in Mantis Hive.” A sudden wave of sadness crashed into her. She missed her parents tremendously. This new job, new stores, new dragons, it was all too much.
“Do you miss it?”
Silverspot nodded solemnly. A short silence encompassed them. “I take it you’ve lived in Cicada Hive for all your life?” Silverspot asked, trying to continue the conversation, and to take the focus off of herself.
“How’d you know?”
“You must have lived here a while to know all these dragons.”
Now it was Burnet’s turn to nod. “So, what job were you assigned? Are you happy with it?”
“I’m a Hive Drone for a HiveWing family. It’s… fine.” Silverspot looked down at her talons.
“I reinforce the silk bridges. I work night shifts, actually, which means I have to leave soon. I don’t really like it, but it’s not like I can do anything about it.” Burnet sighed.
Silverspot’s heart sank. She didn’t want Burnet to leave. Something about this SilkWing gave her warmth in her chest and made Silverspot want to talk to her forever, despite the awkward meeting. “Oh,” she said.
Burnet must have seen her disappointment because she hesitantly said, “Will you… be here tomorrow at this time?”
“Yes!” Silverspot said with a little more enthusiasm than she had meant to. Her face flushed again.
Burnet smiled at Silverspot, her eyes crinkling and making Silverspot’s stomach turn upside down.
Burnet’s antennae twitched in the air. “It’s time for me to go… but I might see you tomorrow?” she asked.
Silverspot nodded three times.
Burnet got up from the table, waved once with a smile, and left the restaurant.
Did I just make a… friend? Silverspot thought to herself, unsure what that interaction meant. The image of Burnet's smiling face popped into her head. The graceful slope of her snout, her long, white horns that glimmered like the moons, Silverspot blushed to herself and fidgeted with the tip of her tail. There was something about that dragon that altered her brain chemistry.
The moons were rising in the sky and the stars were shining brightly, nothing obstructing their light waves. Silverspot flew in the chilled night air to her web. All she could think about was how excited she was to wake up the next day, work, and then meet with Burnet. Perhaps they could talk for longer and get to know eachother better. Nothing would please Silverspot more.
Weaving her way through the webbed halls in her cell, Silverspot made her way to her home web. Her antennae moved in the air, sensing something. An anxious feeling rippled in her body, causing an instinctual alarm.
She slowly walked into her web, the darkness like a shield hiding an enemy. Her muscles were tense, ready to defend herself.
A dark shape emerged from the shadows, freezing Silverspot’s heart. She held her breath ready to fight against an attack.
“Hello!” the dragon said. This surprised Silverspot. H ello? What intruder says hello?
“Who are you?” she asked in a demanding tone.
“I’m sorry, did I scare you? I’m Admiral, your partner!” Moving closer to Silverspot, Admiral materialized and she could finally see his features. His scales were bright greens and blue, dim only in the lighting. She could make out his eyes and his antennae, and found them to be… incredibly boring.
“Oh… Hello,” she said, trying her hardest to not act uninterested. “I’m Silverspot,” she said.
“I assumed, since this is our web,” Admiral said, matter of factly but not meanly.
Great, so we do have to share a web, like Pavon said. Silverspot let out a small sigh, caught herself in the middle of the action, and tried to play it off with a cough. Studying the male dragon in front of her some more, she realized he was older than her, maybe seven or eight. That brought up more questions. Pavon had said SilkWings were usually partnered to dragons the same age as them, why was Admiral so much older?
An awkward silence swirled around their horns, but Silverspot didn’t know what to do to get rid of it. She figured she could talk, ask him questions about his life, but she really had no interest in doing so. What she wanted to do was sleep.
“I’m really tired, Admiral,” she said, adding a fake yawn. “I think I’m going to go to sleep now.” With that, Silverspot walked over to the farthest edge of the web, trying to get as far away from Admiral as possible, and laid down with her back to the stranger.
If she had to live with him, fine, but that didn’t mean they had to talk or anything, especially right at that moment. They had their entire lives to get used to one another. The rest of my life , Silverspot thought grimly. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push the negative thoughts back down into the depth of her mind. Their buoyancy seemed to be stronger than she thought, making it much more of a challenge to go to sleep.
Thanks to her antennae, Silverspot knew that Admiral picked up on her signal and went to the opposite side of the web.
“We can talk tomorrow, then,” Admiral said out loud to the darkness. “Yeah, that sounds good,” he continued, more to himself than to Silverspot.
Silverspot winced at his positivity and buried her snout deeper underneath her arm and wings, ready for sleep to take her.
In her talons, Silverspot held a letter that looked very much like the one she received when she woke up from her metamorphosis. The black seal was pressed to have the image of a crown, the symbol of Queen Wasp.
The sky was just beginning to lighten, the sun not yet broken through the horizon. Silverspot had made sure to wake extra early so she would not have to speak to Admiral on her way to work. She might have been acting rude, but there was something blocking Silverspot from Admiral. Was it her heart, her brain? She didn’t understand. All she knew was that she did not want him as her partner. He just didn’t seem… right.
That night, while Silverspot was sleeping, she had a strange dream. It had started as her being up high in the sky, a star among its many siblings. Silverspot, or the star, was looking down at herself as a dragon. Silverspot had eggs, two of them. And there was a dragon beside her. She definitely wasn’t Admiral, but her colors kept switching and her face was blurred like a black void.
Silverspot the star wanted to unmask this dragon and find out who she was. She seemed really important. The eggs had begun to hatch and the two dragons leaned down to investigate. Just when one was about to crack, Silverspot had woken up.
The dream was still heavily present in her mind. Silverspot’s talons slowly ripped through the envelope, revealing a short letter signed by the queen.
Silverspot began to think of a million reasons why Queen Wasp would personally send a letter to her. Was she getting banished? Was she getting sent home? Was there some mistake in my partnership? she thought hopefully.
She held the letter close to her face and started reading. Silverspot gasped and dropped the letter from her talons. The parchment fell to the ground silently, just like Silverspot’s stomach. No, no, no, no, no, not yet. It’s too soon, I can’t— her mind was like a cavern with a single light source. Every nook and cranny of Silverspot’s mind was silent except the repeating ‘no’s. She was horrified— beyond horrified . Most of all, she wasn't ready.
Queen Wasp had ordered her to be with egg by the end of the largest moon’s cycle. And it had to be Admiral’s child.
Silverspot’s gut wrenched upwards and she felt like she was going to throw up. She took a few shaky deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Did she dare write back to her Queen and argue? Did she try to say no? Disobey? She couldn’t, she’d get punished.
This was nothing like what she’d imagined her life to be.
She had never heard of being forced to have eggs, but maybe this was just something SilkWings didn’t talk about. Maybe it did happen to everyone, just no one said anything. Silverspot nodded her head, trying to convince herself she’d be fine.
A list of things she had to do that day rose to the surface of her mind. One— get to work. When she took Carpenter to the park again, she’d ask Pavon if she was aware that the Queen did things like this.
The sickening feeling didn’t leave her for a long while.