Friends

yo it's one-year-old word-loving weirdo Leeeeethe and her weirdo buddies

''Wait. ''

Where did all my friends go?

Where's Holiday the shy IceWing hybrid, with her shiny pink-blue scales? I love to listen to her stories by the firelight, how her voice will slightly hitch during the scary parts and her tone of voice will make me laugh or cry. I love how the shadows of the flames will dance as they are reflected by her eyes, how she will wave her wings and talons to make my emotions lurch like they are on a rough sea. She doesn't think her tales are good enough, but I think they're lovely. I want to be like her someday, in fact: I wish I could fabricate fantasies like that.

''What? ''Auburn the SkyWing was here just a second ago! You would love him, you know. He's very brave, and he claims to have defeated an army of a thousand scavengers. This is very astonishing, because when one of them snuck into his house at night and killed his mother, he was terrified of them. He says that, when I become famous enough to need a guard of a million dragons, he will be right by my side. He's a hero!

Wait a second. Where--where is Gnat? Oh, no, don't tell me she's wandered off again! Gnat may be small for a HiveWing, but she would die for the wilderness. She says that those Tree Wars a hundred years ago were horrifying and dumb! She wants to be a magical protector of the forest when she grows older. Do you not think that would be a wonderful profession? She says that LeafWings are very smart, wanting to help plants.

They're not here... Have you seen a reddish-brown, sort of copper, MudWing anywhere?! Please? I'm trying to find Fog...who's that, you ask? Fog came out of nowhere. Holli--that's Holiday, you know--and Gnat found them alone in the mist one night, and they said that they came from there, so they were Fog. They do not have a gender, because they don't really like the binary and they don't feel male or female. And they're ''gone! ''You have to help, they're just a dragonet! I told them I would protect them...

Mother? Father? Why are you looking at me like that?

...What do you mean, they're not real?