Tree

There were many things leading up to this specific, incredibly unwanted situation in which Orius had found herself stuck in.

The first was a long way back, to her parents not loving each other. Lovelessly they made Orius, and lovelessly they "raised" her. With barebones conditions, they neglected to teach her much of anything, or make sure she knew how to fly. Of course, she could, as a technicality, fly. She was a dragon at heart, instictually knowing how to pump her wings when she needed to. But aside from flying short distances without thinking, she wasn't... Great at it. When panicked, her breath skipping, her wings would go out of sync, striking down on different heartbeats or falling at different angles, ultimately leaving her limping across the sky until eventually spiralling down to the ground. Thankfully her big beefy body was used to being thrown around, or else she'd have sustained way more injuries than she current had. And that was the way she liked it- her wings were fragile and took meticulous care to fly with, and she wasn't used to fragile. She was a working dragon, and she worked with her arms and legs, and sometimes her whole body if she had to push and couldn't use her arms, but her whole body usually excluded her wings. She had no time for the minmaxing it took to fly, so she just.. Never found it in her to learn. It was easier to crash down to the ground than to spend all the time figuring out just the right way to make sure her wings went at the same time and followed her commands. She was slow, anyways, and thought even if she knew how to fly, she'd ultimately fail in execution.

The next part of this situation was being sent off to school. The big cool school she had just enrolled in that she still was not sure the name of. All of the steps leading up to that were kind of a blur. She remembered stepping into a room she wasn't supposed to be in and seeing dragons she knew weren't supposed to be there either, handling items they DEFINITELTY weren't supposed to be handling, and then running off and talking to a lot of dragons bigger than her that asked questions she couldn't remember or know how to answer, and at some point everyone unanimously agreed that Orius had done something right, for once, something very good, but every time she thought about it it made her heart skip a beat and her scales prickle, that looming feeling of "I shouldn't be here, we shouldn't be here" persisting from the moment even weeks after it had gone. And the news went higher and higher until a scroll came to their door, telling them some fantastic news, but Orius couldn't read it, because she didn't exactly know how to read well yet. She was six, she figured she had to learn at some point, but she had just neglected to do it, accepting her bad grades from literally just not knowing the instructions. She knew some words, knew the sounds and the letters to accompany them, but didn't know all the words or how they strung together just yet. Apparently how she wrote wasn't the right way, which she wasn't sure about- she wrote how she thought, and apparently that was supposed to be in nice clean lines, which was not how it was penned down. So she'd skimmed it over, not knowing most of the words or the right order to read them, and handed the letter off to her unloving parents, Thrip and Minute.

They had told her, rather uninterested, it seemed, that she was leaving home now. They told her to pack, and not much else. She had to get on a sea caravan, because she could not fly, especially for a long time, because apparently she was going to an island really far away. But she didn't have anything to pack- she didn't have much and supposed her writing wouldn't be needed for wherever she was going- a school?- and so she would just go with nothing. But for various reasons, including waiting for the next sea caravan and the apparent spring break currently going on at the moment, she decided to wait a bit.

So the next part was going to the Spring Jubilee, because she heard that was where the students were, and she wasn't sure if she HAD to be there, but she couldn't ask anyone because she was on her own, so she decided to just go there. She had never gone to any festivities, from big continent wide ones to even a birthday party, so she wasn't sure what to expect.

She was mystified. The big looming trees around her reminded her of the Hives, but so much... Better. She didn't like the jagged look of the hives, but these were natural, soft in a way, forgiving she imagined. Her mind rolled slow, as always, which was just the right pace to take in this scene. Flowers, trees, streamers, things she had seen in her every day casual life (sans the streamers), but had never thought to appreciate. But this was a new place, and seen in a new light, she realized how beautiful the little things were. She peered up, to where she expected the sky to be, but there were trees and flowers that looked delightfully pure, unlike the flowers she saw often on the ground that were usually trampled or insect ridden.

And she chose to fly up to them. There were flowers on lower levels of the forest, yes, but she had set her eyes on the sky first, and her mind was slow and it focused on that first and before she registered the easier to view flowers, she was already flying. And maybe it was her glasses and her poor depth perception, but she really thought that the flowers were closer to the ground than they really were. She was a rather large six year old, but a six year old nonetheless, making the distance between her and the towing trees so much larger. Her week wings pounding mindlessly, until it wasn't mindless, and she started thinking.

How far away was the tree and the flowers? Why hadn't she stayed on the ground, where she was safe? What if her wings went out the wrong way, and she tilted, and she didn't know how to correct herself, so she'd tilt more until she started spiralling? Or what if her wings got too weak, and she didn't realize she was too far up, and she couldn't get down fast enough? What if she spent too long thinking instead of flying that she ran out of choices and something bad happened?

She spent too long thinking instead of flying that she ran out of choices, and something bad happened as her wings did what she dreaded, striking down in just the wrong way. She was close now to the tree, but toppling fast. She struggled to get further- her HiveWing wings were meant for fast slow strikes, gaining altitude slowly. But now she flew with intensity, trying simply to get UP, not to be stable. And so toppling, she gained height.. And slammed into the branch she had been aiming for. Maybe the trees were closer than she thought. Her depth perception was bad, after all.

She clung on, happy her arms were strong. A lot of her previous exercises were tree based, anyways. She did pull ups on stray branches, but not this high up. Moons, she was high up, peering down at the ground, several Orius' lengths down. Certainly she'd be injuried if she just tried to fall down, and she wasn't sure how to get down slowly on her wings when she was all shaky and thinking too hard about flying. She could fly without thinking, from one place to another in her daily life. But right now, the thought of flying made her scales prickle awfully like someone had put pins between them, and her wings felt numb.

So clinging to the branch, waiting for her heart to stop thrumming and her wings to regain feeling, she had a lot of time to contemplate all of the many things leading up to this specific, incredibly unwanted situation.

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yikes, im not good at writing. especially one shots. probably a lot of stuff in this, timeline or process wise, is inaccurate. but oh well! i needed to make something for the spring jubilee. this is how orius enjoys the festival  EVENT #7: The Spring Jubilee and the Leaf Capitol Welcome to the Leaf Kingdom’s annual Spring Jubilee!
Art by River-Flight
After a series of disasters in the fall and winter, gentle spring has finally come to Isle Mezzo. The Ember Mountains, Hot Springs, and Ruins, barren of all life for months due to the fire and winter, are now the home of many green shoots and sprouts; new plants blooming upward at an incredible rate due to the nutrient-rich ash and soil. The docks, destroyed by the Mother Bonewalker Himalaya, are partially repaired due to the slow recovery effort, but they are finally functional again, with a third of the homes and buildings rebuilt. Everywhere the twitter of birds can be heard, celebrating the budding of flowers and trees, and a sense of general hope is in the air.
As always, each year the Leaf Kingdom holds a Spring Jubilee to celebrate the coming of spring. A celebration held in the Leaf Capitol (Sequoia City) that all dragons of all tribes
shes good at grappling, i imagine when she regains feeling she does short falls and grabs back onto the tree trunk until shes close enough to the ground