A/N: SPOILERS FOR MY BOOK, "HEART OF OAK!!!!!)

Over the five-six months that were "Heart of Oak" 's writing process, I was indroduced to new media and sources of inspiration such as, "Harry Potter" (I read it later than most people), "The Heros of Oylmpus", the movie "Remember the Titains" (it's about football, but you should totally watch it, even if you don't like sports), songs- including ones that are now my absolute favorites, and are even sung in "Heart of Oak"- , and new friends who gave me so many ideas, it's a wonder my head didn't explode.

This is a list of my top ten favorites moments, chapters, friendships, and relationships from "Heart of Oak", the ones that made me proud, made me smile, or even encouraged (and still encourage me) me when life got hard.

These will go in order of least important to most important.

10: Sundew and Holly
Holly's friendship with Sundew was partly inspired by my friendship with my teamate Carson.
My two bestfriends (not including my cousins, of course), Neva and Cecilia find him kind of annoying, but even though I want to strangle him sometimes, he's still my friend, so I could never bring myself to hate him even if I tried.

9: Snakes!
Yes, before you ask, this was indeed, an "Indiana Jones" quote -despite the fact that I've only ever seen parts of it.
I meant for this to be just a one-time joke, but it turned into a real phobia of Holly's. It's not like she doesn't have a reason to be afraid of them; she was nearly killed by a snake, not once, but TWICE, and her sister-friend's date was almost bitten by one.
But, it clearly goes farther back than that; I wonder what that history is. . . .

8: Bait
All hail The Dragon Prince!
This was an idea that randomly came to me, probably long before I finished the first HoO (Heart of Oak) chapter.

"What's that?", she asked.
"Oh, I'm not actually completely sure what that is", Mandrake said. "I call it a Glow-toad"

Holly grinned.
"A Glow-toad?"

"Yes", he said, a smile playing at his mouth.
"What's so funny?"

"It reminds me of one of my favorite shows on Netflix", Holly said.

Mandrake tilted his head in confusion.
"Netkicks?"

Holly's Bait is SLIGHTLY less grumpy than Ezran's Bait, is usually yellow with green spots instead of blue, and changes pink when he's happy.
He hates hats, but loves wallffles.

7: The Sapwing village
Okay, we all know that the Sapwing village was in the canon books- so, what's it doing on this list?
My discription of it, the version that we see in HoO, is diferent than the canon one.

I don't really want to quote the canon book for this, but you can go and either read about it on the wof fandom, or you can check out The Poison Jungle, if you have it.

Here's my version of it, as pictured in "Heart of Oak" chapter: "Pantala's Lothlorion"

Holly'd expected to see a wall or barrior or fence around the Sapwing village, as there had been around Sundew's but she didn't see anything like that anywhere in sight.

At first, Holly was distracted by the Moonblossoms, and it took a moment for her ADHD vision to clear and allow her to see her surroundings better.

The tree up ahead of them was nearly compeltely covered in phosphorecent moss that almost reached the ground.
As she walked closer, Holly realized that on the top of the tree, was a globe treehouse.

"Whoa", she breathed.

If this isn't Lothlorion, I don't know what is!

I know only about half of that ishow it was described canonically, but I don't care!!!

6: Punishment
This was another scene that came to out of a whim while I was brainstorming. The main purpous was to make Cottonmouth more intimidating and to show that he was an egotistical manic who was slowly going insane, and I think I achieved that pretty well.

5: Starting over
In this scene, Mandrake gives Holly an earring, explaining that when they were younger, they made gifts for each other.
Having now learned that none of that ever happened in real life, he sugests they start over. Holly then goes on into a rant about her grandmother, dresses, and Richard, a boyfriend asigned to her by her grandmother.

"Actually, I think I like it better as only one earring", Holly said, finguring it lightly.
"Maybe I'll wear it to my Grandmother's next ball."

"Who?"

"Every holiday, my grandmother hosts these balls. She's old-fashioned so everyone has to wear fancy cloths. And as her granddaughter, I have no choice but to go.
"And I have to wear a DRESS, Mandrake!
And I have to dance with a bloke named RICHARD!"

This is one of my favorite HollyDrake moments, and one of the most frequently quoted among my friends and I.

4: Two authors and a wizard
Yet another great idea that came to me, instead of me coming to it.
This one popped into my head at least TWO.MONTHS. Before I started writting any of HoO.
In this chapter, Holly gets stuck in a Sundew (the plant, xd) and accidently stabs her own hip with a long thorn.
While she's resting, she has a dream in which she's human, at Barnes and Noble, and she meets Stan Lee -of Marvel fame-. Dumbledore, and a mysterious woman she calls Bird and her dog.
Aaaaaaaaaand, in case it wasn't clear, yes, Bird was really Tui T. Sutherland in all of her Sunshine-loving glory.

3: "History is written by the winning side"
This entire list proves that my best quotes have a mind of their own.
"History is written by the winning side" was one of the best chapters in HoO, and I'm really proud of myself for being able to drive the point home; that history isn't always right, and that people -and dragons, sometimes- can, and do, lie about what really happened, wether for their own reputations, or for other reasons.

2: Cottonmouth's defeat
When I start a story, one of the first questions I ask myself is, "How is this going to end?"
I don't usually press myself to figure it out right away, and tend to only have a vague image as to how things will turn out.
I usually figure it out as I go along, but when I get closer, I start thinking about the end more and more.
Here, I had a vague plan about how Cottonmouth and the Othermind were to die well into the third notebook.
I wrote three drafts for that scene before I finally got to it, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
I think going through the canon books and deciding what to include and what to add really improved my writting skills.

1: HollyDrake
Holly and Mandrake might be my favorite ship I've ever written (Busky and Clifflet are  close, even though I've come a long way since I first wrote "Of Forest and Sea").

They're a bit of an odd choice, I know, kind of like a mix between Love-at-first-sight and Friends-to-lovers.
When Holly lands on Pantala, her necklace makes everyone else in the Poisonwing village- everyone exept Cobralilly, that is- thinks that she's always been there, and even remember her, including Mandrake, who thinks he's known her his whole life.
In reality, this "Dream Holly" never existed, but "she" (or it, I should say, it was more of an illusion) had the exact same personality as the real Holly.

However, Mandrake was developing a crush on Dream Holly, so by the time Real Holly got there, he could barely keep himself from thinking about her, even though they'd never truely met.

However, when he learns that Holly isn't from Pantala, instead of taking it out on her, he believes her, but he feels as though everything he's ever known is falling apart infront of him.
He struggles to accept that she was never there before, that he never really grew up with her, and that he's beencrushing an imaginary dragon.

But, he makes an effort to continue his friendship with her, even if it means that he'll never be anything more to her -when, behind his back, Sundew is teasing Holly about liking Mandrake.

Holly has little expirence with crushes, but she feels like she knows Mandrake, but knows that's impossible.
She's tells herself that dragons dating humans is rediculous, given that- much to her dismay- dragons don't exist in the real world.
But after her dream about Dumbledore, she somehow has a little glimer of hope.
And despite her best efforts, she ends up falling in love with him.

It almost breaks her when they get seperated, and she can barely keep herself together.

During her last moments in the Mindspace, she thinks a final farewell to him, even though she knows he may never know what happened to her:

Mandrake. . .
I wish I could have seen you one last time.
I love you.

But, when they're finally reunited, they share their first kiss:

But everyone went silent when he walked in.
"Mandrake", Holly breathed.

His smile was a sweet ray of sunshine after a dark day of raining.

In one swift move, he lifted her out of the bed (she was in the hospital), talons clasped in hers.
He held her for a long moment, staring at her, and her back at him, deep into his golden-brown eyes.

Holly's heart leaped into her throat and her stomach filled with butterflies.

Their snouts met and then . . . . . everything stopped.
The others cheered as they kissed, but Holly could barely hear them.
It was as if Space-time itself stood still.

But there's a linguring thought at the back of Holly's mind- she knows her time is limited.

And when things seem too good to be true, her time at Pantala ends.

Mandrake walked up from behind her.
"Holly, you're amazing."
"Oh, ya know, I have my moments."
"You certainly do", he said with a chuckle.

His tail gently twined with hers as they smiled at each other.

But as their snouts grew closer, a loud noice stole Holly's attention.
A large portal of green light had appeared out of nowhere.
It could only mean one thing.

Mandrake let go of her.
"What is that?"
"I think", Holly said, her voice cracking, "it's time for me to go home."

This is by far, one of- if not THE, depending on who you are- the most emotional scenes in "Heart of Oak".
Holly, before she disappeared, didn't really have friends, but now, she's found friends where she least looked for them, and now she has to leave them.

No one can keep themselves together, Mandrake least of all.

(A/N: I'm getting to the important part, there's a lot more to this scene, so if you haven't read HoO yet, you should, in order to get the whole thing.)

"If you're leaving", Mandrake said, "the  I'm coming with you!"

"No, Mandrake", Holly croaked.
"You'd have to come back here at some point, anyway."

"No", Moon said suddenly.
"I-I think he has to choose - either to stay here, or go with you."

"But even assuming you got to the other side alive", Holly went on, "you'd probably turn into a human."

"I don't care!", Mandrake said feircely.
"I left you once, I'm not leaving you again!"

Think about this- even when he knows that he'll turn into a human, that he may never be able to  come back to Pantala, that he's going to live the rest of his life in a world he doesn't belong in, he's never going to let Holly down.
He's willing to sacrifice everything he's ever known to be with her.

Bait walked up to them, his skin a daft shade of blue.
Holly picked him up.
"Ready, Bait?"
He grunted sadly.

"Mandrake?"
He looked her in the eyes.
"Ready."

They approuched the portal, ignoring the wild wind that wipped around them.
Hollt stuffed Bait into her pouch and took Mandrake's talon.

They took one last look at their friends. . . . then jumped into the portal.

In the end, devotion far outshines awkwardness.
The two of them need each other and truely represent what I want in my future, if I ever get a boyfriend. (Totally not thinking about my crush *cough cough* ':))

Also, fun fact: a long two months before this year's track season started, I was planing to bring Mandrake into out world and turn him into a human, and before I got to that point in the story, I started wondering what he would look like as a human.
The conclusion I landed on, was something that looked almost EXACTLY like the friend I was going to meet at track, and who I would later crush.
Huh.
I wonder . . .

I hope you've enjoyed this list!
I know it's been a while since I last did one of these, but I'll try to do it more in the future.

Don't forget to check out "Heart of Oak" if you haven't already (why are you reading this?!!!!), and I firvently hope you aren't reading this as a spoiler.

Renx out!