The nursery was worse than anything Sunshine could ever have imagined. The other dragonets always stared at her, making Sunshine almost wish she could turn invisible. Kiwi, which was the name of the green dragonet, was not quite as annoying anymore. Actually, she helped Sunshine upon Sunshine's request to distract the others for a while. She did whatever Sunshine asked her to do.

    The hardest part was hiding from the guardians. They always seemed to stare at her not with interest like the dragonets, but instead with hatred and distrust. Again, a side effect of being half SandWing. In order to hide from the guardians, there were certain things Sunshine could and could not do. It was easier to hide inside, as far more guardians watched the outside trampoline. That was understandable, as outside you got hurt easier. It was also easier to escape from the outside. To stay out of sight, Sunshine had to hide in a corner inside and hope that the tall, leafy walls would hide her.

    The only problem in Sunshine's plan was simple and obvious; she could not yet fly. No matter how much she practiced and tried, her wings were simply not biologically strong enough yet to support her weight in the air. Yet.

    Whenever she asked Kiwi to distract the others (or in the middle of the night), Sunshine worked on her escape plan. In a small, secluded corner just out of sight from the guardians, Sunshine began to create a small hole. She would breathe tiny plumes of fire directed just at that spot and quietly dig away the charred wood before covering with leaves to hide it. Eventually, she had dug a small tunnel.

Two weeks after moving into the nursery, Sunshine had Kiwi distract the others again. Sunshine felt bad about not telling Kiwi about her tunnel and escape plans, but she knew that Kiwi would never let her go.

    Bracing herself at the edge to her tunnel, Sunshine stepped carefully onto the small ledge that she had created just inside and pulled the leaves over the top. After so long being confined in the dark of the nest and the nursery, she craved hot, dry weather, a nice, fat lizard, and a nap in her namesake. Glancing down, she surveyed the narrow tunnel she had formed by burning out a tunnel of wood and patching it up with leaves that had come loose from the nursery walls. At the bottom, she had dropped more leaves and vines she had ventured to the trampoline to get.

    Taking a deep breath, Sunshine stared down into the dark depths of her tunnel and jumped.