This is a short fanfic by Nar expressing my inner feelings.
Tsunami stayed put. She pretended that she cared about the patterns of the gray-brown pebbles along the river bed. She pretended she cared about the way the pressure of the water put her wings in an awkward position. She pretended to focus on the currents tickling her scales.
What she really cared about was the fuming red SkyWing perched on the shore.
She couldn't let anyone see that it got to her, the doom and eternal fate the guardians had put on her shoulders. She was to stay here for four more years.
It didn't get to the others. Starflight would be happy as long as he got scrolls, and likewise Clay would be happy if he had food. Sunny seemed to understand the guardians for putting them in this slump. Glory, well, nothing ever got to Glory. Wasn't she supposed to be stronger then them, or stronger than some of them at least?
She wished it wasn't her hatching day today. It just reminded her of all of the mental (and possibly physical) torture she would have to endure throughout the rest of her time in those cursed caves. That was why she would stay in the river bed for as long as possible. If that meant for the next four years, so be it.
Maybe, in order to appreciate the paradise that lay outside (whatever that may be), she had to endure the...
Not paradise, Tsunami decided, as Kestrel finally was able to yank her out of the stream.
After battle training was over, she sat around the largest cavern of the system, sharing a slightly larger cow that Webs had brought specifically for their hatching day.
"Okay, what am I now?" Sunny asked as she teetered back and forward on her back talons, attempting to step forward.
"Some dragon who's been eating too many rotten grapes," Glory half-seriously guessed. They all laughed.
Normally, they weren't allowed to play games, but since it was their hatching day, Tsunami guessed Webs requested permission for them to.
"I was going for a scavenger, but I guess that works too," Sunny said between giggles.
They went on to play four more rounds of this game, each one more hilarious than the last. Tsunami enjoyed herself. But through it all, she knew it was going to end, so satisfaction was impossible. It was like this anytime she was with her friends.
Soon enough, it did. Tsunami lay in the river, trying to imagine sitting on her SeaWing princess throne. She was last to fall asleep; she could hear Clay and Dune snoring in harmony.
She woke up shortly after. She noticed the flames in the torches hadn't shrunk much. This time she imagined instead this time living with a poor SeaWing family in an underwater cave. She fell asleep sooner than when she first lay down.
Tsunami woke up again near dawn. She imagined herself swimming through open expanse. Then, she forgot about everything else and tried it for herself in the underground river, truly admiring the patterns of the gray-brown pebbles, the pressure the water put on her wings, and the way the currents penetrated her outer layer of scales. She smiled.