"Bramble! Dinner'll be ready in ten minutes!" Cyan calls from the main room in the tree hollow. 

Bramble groans and rolls onto his feet. His room has been a mess for weeks, and he has finally taken the time to clean it. Grumbling under his breath, he stretches himself out like a cat. In his humble opinion, every and all dragonets who clean their rooms should get a day of being lazy. 

But unfortunately, he knows that won't happen. He enters the main room of the tree hollow and glances up at his mom. "I'm going for a small flight," he calls, already heading toward the door. 

"Alright, be back in ten minutes," Cyan replies. 

Bramble nods and threw open his four wings, launching himself into the air. His sore muscles seemed to grumble in protest, but he persists, flying to his favorite spot in the entire Rainforest. 

A large, thick tree branch, as wide as a dragon. Little groves had been carved on it, from generations of dragons sinking their claws into the same wood he was at the moment. 

Bramble sighs and leans back. He loves this spot, but that isn't why he's here. He's here because he has to brainstorm. In three weeks, there's going to be a tour of the Burrows, and he is ecstatic. He can go with his parents, without his parents, whatever he wants! 

But they will never let him go. They say it's too much of a hassle and too expensive. But he knows they don't want him to go alone. 

"Hello, little dragonet, are you lost?" 

Bramble jumps and turns. Standing before him is a tall, elegant, thin RainWing with pale green scales. She has some sort of fancy necklace around her neck. It's some sort of a flat golden disk with a dragon on it. 

"N-no?" Bramble says, confused about who this is. 

"Oh, well. It does so appear that I am," the thin RainWing pouts. "Can you give me directions to the nearest Burrow?" 

"Oh, no, um... Sorry? But I don't really know where any Burrows are..." Bramble says hesitantly.  

"Oh, no! That's okay! I just wanted to know, where are your parents?" 

Bramble felt a slight, small flare of suspicion. But it wasn't big enough to cause concern. But instead, he turned around and drifted off of the branch. He trusted this RainWing, for some strange, unknown reason.

My parents will know what to do with her, he thinks.

***

"Wait! Your mom was Cyan?!" Dawn yelped, finally putting two and two together.

"Yes," Clock says simply. "What's wrong with that?"

"My sister's mom is a SilkWing named Cyan!" Dawn cried.

"And your father?" Clock asked.

"Aardvark," Dawn replied. Clock stopped walking briefly and began to consider.

"That's interesting," he admitted.

"Yeah, but I never got to know either of them," Dawn explained. "Cyan left before Flutterwing was even born so that she could go back to Pantala and help her tribe! Flutterwing knew Aardvark but I didn't cause he left when I was a month old. Flutterwing says that Cyan must have been pretty unhappy."

"That's odd," Clock said, puzzled. "Mother was never unhappy."

"Oh," Dawn said, beginning to suspect something more was going on. "And my mother was Papaya. Does she have something to do with this?"

"Nope," Clock said surprisingly. "I never knew a Papaya. In fact, I barely knew any other dragons, now where was I?"

"You had just met my evil aunt," Dawn reminded him.

Clock nodded, then stopped. "Snappea is your aunt?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention," Dawn said. "Papaya and Snappea are sisters. And I also have a few cousins, but I don't know what happened to them."

"Oh, yes, anyway," Clock said distractedly. "I brought Snappea home and at dinner, she convinced my parents that she would take me on the Burrow tour..."

* * *

Bramble is ecstatic. He can go on the tour! He does another lop-de-loop and half-tackles Snappea, who is flying serenely next to him. Snappea falters slightly in midair, and he immediately scrambles to support her.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I was just trying to be playful! I didn't want to hurt you!" He yelps.

Snappea pats him on the head reassuringly. "Don't worry, it's okay."

Bramble lets out a sigh of relief. He's worried that if he makes her mad, she might get in the way of the cave tour. Or march him straight back to his tree hollow. Snappea pulls herself into a dive and begins to plummet toward the ground.

Bramble follows, shaking slightly in excitement. They land in front of a gawping cave opening. Vines hang down in shaggy curtains over the opening.

"Isn't there supposed to be a sign?" Bramble asks.

"Huh. You must be thinking of a different cave tour that you've heard of," Snappea says dismissively.

Bramble shrugs and follows Snappea into the depths.

***

"Well, that's not ominous at all!" Dawn announced, waiting for Clock to continue. He remained silent. The only sound was the sound of his metallic joints clicking together. "Well? What happened?" She demanded.

Clock let out a deep, groaning sigh. "I went down into a strange portal room."

Dawn nodded her head in recognition, remembering the events that had led up to her being dropped here. "Did you fall for it?" She asked.

"I admit, I was starting to get a little suspicious. I asked where the rest of the tour was, and she said it was beyond the portal, so, none the wiser, I went through..."

* * * 

Bramble hits the ground with a soft thump. "Where are we?" He asks.

"In a fun place," Snappea says, her voice bitter, with something dark and angry layered underneath it. "Enjoy the tour."  

Bramble opened his mouth, then closed it again. For the first time all day, he feels a trace of fear. There's something wrong with this. What is going on? 

Snappea moves ahead of him. She seems unhappy and prone to biting. A group of figures appears through the mist. The figures are a group of RainWings. The dragons are decked out in full body armor. 

The armor is made of gold, with the same symbol that's on Snappea's neck on the chest plates. The dragons move slowly, deliberately, each connected to one other by a thick golden cord clipped to the chest plate of the armor. 

The dragons are moving in the opposite direction to Snappea and Bramble, and a few other figures move along them. Bramble can tell that these are no dragons. They are made out of metal and lugging incredibly large sacks. 

Instead, Bramble can tell that they aren't alive. They move, sure, but their cold obsidian eyes are blank and empty. Unseeing, even. 

One is painted white, and its cold contrasting eyes stare down at him. Bramble presses his ears a little closer to Snappea. They moved out through the trees. And in front of them was a work camp.

In front of a cliff, with a huge hole in it. Several small cabins were clustered along the edges of the trees. "Well, you're going to be here for a while. So get comfortable," and with that Snappea walked away, leaving Bramble alone and waiting.

Eventually, a weary, thin SkyWing steps forward and talks to him...

* * *

"And let me tell you, I'll never forget the words he told me... He said: 'Come with me if you want to survive, if you're looking for a vacation, you've come to the wrong place..."

"And you listened to him?"

"I did. I followed him and asked him where I was. He explained everything. Even the fact that I was not expected to work, for some strange reason. But I worked anyway, I worked for weeks, crying myself to sleep at night, missing my family... Ya know, that sort of stuff."

"But what happened? Oh, and also, what was his name?"

"Firepeak, but anyway... It all happened some two months after I arrived..."

* * *

"Hey, what was your name again? Brumble? Brundle? Whatever, I have something to show you," Snappea says rudely, walking up to him. Bramble blinks in surprise.

"My name's Bramble. Not Brumble," Bramble grumbled. He was secretly pleased. It was the first time since he had arrived that she had paid any attention to him whatsoever.

"Ah, yes, whatever. I don't care," Snappea says, strowing briskly toward the Storage area.

Bramble hurried after her. He felts excitement as she leads him into a storage room, only to feel it sink away the second he realizes it's the room where they store the scary mechanical dragons. "What are you bringing me in here for?" He asks.

"Oh, would you just wait and be patient?" Snappea snaps impatiently. Bramble suddenly becomes very scared. Snappea steps forward and locks the door.

Bramble gulps.

Snappea grins, pulling out a rope and slowly beginning to back him into a corner. "You know, I kind of wondered what I was doing when I agreed to allow a sniveling, whining dragonet to have fun, but then I realized what an opportunity it was."

She begins to tie Bramble up. He begins to fight. He squirms out of her grasp and races toward the locked metal door. He then started to slam his fists against it. "Let me out let me out please let me out!" He begged, tears streaming down his snout, as he realizes he's made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Snappea forcefully drags him to the wall and tied him up. "No one will ever know what happened to you," she snarls. "You'll die here! You pathetic worm!"

She pulls out a knife.

Bramble starts to hyperventilate. His tears seem to pour down his face. "Is this why you brought me here in the first place?" He hiccups.

"Yes, you die here!"

The knife went into his chest, and the pain was excruciating. Then it was gone, washed away with a soft, cozy darkness.

And Bramble was drifting... He could see the forest beneath him, but he was free and untethered. Still, he appeared down and watched. He drifted down and watched as his own body was dragged into one of the metal machines. 

But it's all irrelevant to him, he doesn't care about it anymore. He watches as Firepeak wonders where he is and connects the dots. Snappea hides the machine away, for fear that will reveal the truth.

Then, one day, he opens his eyes to find... He's in a body again. Panicking, Bramble begins to run around, unused to the weight of his body. Except... It isn't his body. I'm in a machine! He thinks. Not just any machine, the machine.

The one his body is in. He tries to stay still, but Snappea finds out about the 'haunted dragon' and comes down.

"I don't understand what all the rumors are about," she grumbles. "It's just a little scary down here. Nothing's alive."

But at the sight of his murderer, Bramble begins to cry, and his cover is blown. "You! The result of that failed disaster. You trash!" 

Snappea drags Bramble outside, deep into the forest. His sobbing seems to transfer his chest, forming a never-ending hiccupping sob, which turns into a clicking sound as the years pass and he falls into disuse. 

I'm a clock! He thinks. I could be used to tell the time!

* * *

Thick, black tears started to run down Clock's metal checks. And Dawn felt her own tears well up. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, wrapping him into a hug.

≺︱✵︱≻

A/N

everyone meet Dawn:

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂

Edit: lol, anyway, sorry for ruining how sad this chapter is.