Chapter Text
Storm was always known as the weird one, as unlike most other ThunderWings, he yearned to see the world outside of their valley fenced off by the imposing mountain range and eternal storm raging above it. Storm knew why they never left the valley and mountains, as ThunderWings had been exiled there long ago after losing a war. But that was a long time ago, the ones who fought in the war being long dead. So why should he stay exiled with dragons like Tonitru, who had always bullied Storm for having electric blue scales on his underbelly and wing membrane of the same colour instead of the regular yellow all the other ThunderWings have as well as, quoting his teacher, ‘Pretending to live in a make-believe world where you can be a different gender to the one your born as.’ Most of the other students and some other teachers had made fun of him and said that he would never truly amount to much. A few even physically beat him, luckily he had always been fast compared to his peers, which allowed him to escape most times a fight gets physical.
“Storm!” A voice practically shouts in his ear, making him jump.
“What have I told you about paying attention in class?” His teacher looks at him sternly with a disappointed look in his eyes.
“Uh, to pay attention?” Storm says, sounding more like a question than an answer, causing many of his classmates to snicker at his misfortune. His teacher’s disappointment spread to the rest of his face,
“No, Storm… well actually, yes but it’s not that simple, you spend far more time staring out at the mountains than doing your work.” Storm rolls his eyes before turning his head back to stare at the mountains again, his teacher narrows his eyes,
“Storm, come with me.” Storm sighs and gets up and follows his teacher as the rest of his class immediately start loudly whispering amongst themselves, a few even cheering.
Outside the class Storm’s teacher stops him,
“Storm, I know you have never really fit in with anyone else in this school, due to… those.” He nods his head at Storm’s blue scales and wing membranes with a look of slight disgust in his eyes.
“But that is no reason for you to not do your work, you must do better or your family’s legacy will be tarnished more than when you were born, which would be quite the shame as they are a lovely and dutiful family.” His teacher leers over him,
“Am I clear Storm?” Storm nods his head with a mostly bored expression, “Yes sir.” He drawls.
“Very well, now go take your seat and pay attention for once.” His teacher sweeps past him with a dramatic flourish of his wings.
After class, Storm was about to take to the skies, the one place where he could actually enjoy himself, swooping and spinning through the air. But just as he unfurled his wings, Tonitru and her gang of bullies surrounded him, a couple hovering above preventing him from flying away.
“Hey freak, where do you think you’re going.” She saunters up to him with the most arrogant expression he had ever seen.
“I was about to go home Tonnie,” Her facade cracked for a moment as anger flashed across her face before she schooled her expression again.
“But it seems you and your harem have something to say.”
His plan of annoying her worked, a little too well, as without even saying anything she charged and tackled Storm who wasn’t expecting a physical brawl. Tonitru quickly pinned him down, her larger body making him unable to do anything but futilely struggle.
“You’re gonna pay for those insults, transy” Storm’s eyes widen,
“Woah, no need to go at that part of me, is making fun of me being blue not enough for you? I mean it wasn’t even a very goo-” His sarcastic remark gets cut off by Tonitru punching him across the face. At this point his whole class and even a couple other classes of students with a few teachers had gathered to watch.
As Storm properly started trying to shove her off him, she continued punching him, leaving bruises and a couple broken scales across his battered face. Storm managed to wrap his spiked tail around Tonitru’s left horn, causing her to freeze giving him the opportunity to yank her back by the horn crying out in pain, Storm staggers to his feet, and looks up to see the dragons who were just watching before start yelling insults and slurs at him for daring to harm their perfect student.
As this happened Tonitru rose back up again, lifting her head up to the skies with a bright yellow glow emanating from her throat, prepared to blast Storm with a bolt of lightning.
Storm started panicking as he had no defense against a ThunderWing’s most powerful ability, he couldn’t even use his own because for whatever reason he couldn’t learn too.
Suddenly Tonitru’s neck and head snapped down, aiming at Storm, a bright yellow lightning bolt tore its way out of her throat and blasted him directly in the chest. However instead of being blasted into unconsciousness or even killed, he was merely knocked over, the electricity seemingly being absorbed into his scales.
Suddenly electricity crackled across Storm’s scales, basking them in a bright blue glow. He then instinctively lifted his head to the skies and proceeded to blast Tonitru back with a bolt of lightning far more powerful than hers as she screams in terror and agony. The bright light left most of the crowd and Storm blinded for a few seconds, as Storm’s sight came back, he gasped in horror upon seeing the charred corpse of a ThunderWing that was clearly Tonitru. While he had never liked her, and had even had fleeting thoughts about killing her due to the torment she caused him, he had never planned on actually acting out those fantasies, especially not in such a brutal manner.
Upon seeing whose corpse was laying on the ground, the crowd became enraged enough to try and attack Storm, who was still wincing from the burning in his throat due to the extra power of his lightning. He barely noticed the angered mob of dragons coming towards him in time, using his smaller aerodynamic body to his advantage, he slipped through the crowd and took to the air where his superior speed would carry him to safety.
Once he was far enough away that he was certain no one could find him, he landed and just… stood there, processing what had happened, now that he wasn't in danger he realised the enormity of his situation, he had just murdered someone, in front of an entire crowd. He needed to find his parents, surely they could fix this, make the others see reason, that he didn’t mean to kill Tonitru. And so off he went frantically flying towards his parent’s home, unknowing of the pair of eyes tracking him.
Storm slammed open the door, making his parents and little sister jump in fright, his mother stepped forward,
“Storm! What in the Nine Titan’s names was that for! You gave us all a heart attack!” Storm stumbled towards her, babbling in desperation,
“I didn’t mean to- It just happened! It wasn’t on purpose- please! You have to believe me! You have to convince the others that I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“What? Storm, slow down and just tell us what the problem is!” His Father, annoyed by the incomprehensible babbling shouted, causing Storm to reel back at the harsh tone. Taking a deep breath and collecting himself, he started to explain,
“Sorry Father, you see, um, I was about to head home when Tonitru stopped me-” His mother interrupted him,
“What would such a perfect and model student want with you?” She said condescendingly. “She insulted me, I insulted her back,” His Father slammed a curled talon on the table angrily.
“You insulted her, in broad daylight?” He hissed, Storm stuttered a reply,
“Uh, yes?” His mother gasped,
“You idiot! You know that if you do something wrong the family is also treated as if we did something wrong! You wouldn’t want little Fulgur here to grow up hated for your misdeeds would you?” She pulled his little sister against her side, Fulgur, who had been listening with rapt attention, though not truly understanding the conversation, pouted, unhappy at being pulled from her seat.
“Of course I don’t want her to grow up hated!” Storm protested.
“Then act like it! You don’t do your work, you don’t pay attention in church, you barely even listen to us!” His mother shouted, “All of these things make everyone else consider this family as dirty and unworthy as the dirt you sleep on!”
Storm, having enough, stood up and shouted back.
“It’s always about family to you! And yet I doubt you would truly understand family if it bit your tail, you've never cared about me because I was different, you act like you care but it’s all just so that people recognize you as a good standing family, worthy of holding political power!” They step back, shocked into silence as Storm continues his spiteful rant.
“Unlike Fulgur who’s your perfect little angel sent to you by the Titans themselves!” He finishes mockingly.
“How dare you! Everything I do is for the betterment of this family’s standings!” She spits out hatefully.
“Exactly! For the family’s standings, not for the family!” Storm points out with anger.
“Well maybe that’s because you're not deserving of being part of this family!” She screams in his face, causing Storm to recoil as if he had been physically hit.
“Now get out of my house before I force you out you miserable Titan-cursed freak!” Storm, still wide-eyed and in shock from the insults, stumbles out of the house and collapses on the stairs, curling up into a ball with tears streaming down his face and letting out distressed noises and not paying attention to his surroundings.
Ignorant to the outside world, Storm was unaware of how the cold, hard stairs of his family’s house changed to the warm softness of a bed. He blinked his eyes open wearily, looking around at the unfamiliar room he found himself in. The walls being that of a cave and a messy desk in the corner with many scrolls strewn about, some even being on the floor. However Storm’s observations cut off as an adult female CloudWing entered the cave, the sight usually would have greatly excited him as dragons from other tribes were very rare to see in the ThunderWing’s home, the only ones being messagers sent to inform them of what was happening in the outside world, and those messages were always only for the Queen. But the little excitement that did well up was swiftly crushed by the memories of what had happened to him recently.
“Ah, you're awake, how are you feeling?” The CloudWing inquired upon approaching him, when she got no response she sighed, clearly this child has been through too much recently, but she saw what he had done to the other ThunderWing, he was the one she was searching for, not that arrogant princess who had demanded to be hailed as the Chosen One.
“Storm,” She started, getting a reaction out of him as he flinched at his name,
“I saw what happened with you and that female ThunderWing.” That definitely got a reaction, as he curled back into a ball. So she hurriedly continued,
“I can tell you didn’t truly mean to do it.” He looked up with wet eyes as he heard the words he needed to hear said by a complete stranger.
“You are the one chosen by the Storm Titan, as foretold by my prophecy.” This time his expression was a mixture of slight shock and confusion, but due to the events that transpired recently, the shock at the idea that that power had come being the chosen one of a literal god was lessened, but still present.
“I know this is a lot to take in, but we do not have long, we must set out by sunrise.” Storm stared unhappily at that statement and spoke his first words since she took him to her study in the Stormy Mountains,
“What do you mean, we?”
“Well we must find the other ones chosen by the Titans, and then, we must commune with them so we can know why you were needed.” Storm shook his head in disbelief, a bit of his old personality shining through his depression.
“Whatever, it’s… something to do, I guess.” He says as he gets up.
They walk out of the cave into the darkness of night, with the three moons casting an ethereal glow upon them with the Great Tree in the distance and the Valley of Thunder behind them, they set off, taking to the air to find the other ones chosen by the Titans, and upon the CloudWing's face, a victorious smirk grew.