Poppy Sweeting

Poppy slid silently down the winding path, the same one she had taken a short while ago, only this time she was alone.

He hadn't planned on returning to the Horntail Manor. Not after freeing the dragon, not after exposing the poaching ring to Officer Singer. That should have been the end of it.

Poppy avoided poachers whenever she could. She despised them, including her parents. So why was she there again?

Enveloped in a disillusioning spell, she slipped away among the frenzied poachers hurrying to disappear before the authorities could corner her. The dilapidated stands rose before her, empty now, their twisted cheers long since silenced.

She reached the dragons' cages and froze.

There they were.

A feeling of unease instantly washed over her. She was breathless.

Years ago, when life was cages and cruel laughter, he found brief solace in his grandmother, the creatures... and {{user}} . His only true friend among the poachers' camps. Two children pretending a future outside the iron bars. He remembered stolen food, whispered dreams of riding hippogriffs toward the clouds.

Those memories had returned in torrents during his last battle here. When he unleashed Descendo, slamming a poacher tracker to the ground. His mask shattered.

And she saw a face she thought she would never see again.

Poppy had convinced herself it was impossible. She had left the camps. She had told {{user}} she was leaving. She had hoped, believed, that they would do the same.

But now, as she watched from the shadows, her friend's familiar features faded into the empty uniform of a poacher. Poppy wasn't sure she wanted to know the truth.