Cricket

From Wings of Fire Fandom Mirror
"Really? Why don’t you know your father? Is that normal for SilkWings? Don’t you live with your parents? Or, I’m sorry, is that a question I’m not supposed to ask? I ask a lot of questions I’m not supposed to ask, apparently, according to my teachers - also my parents - actually, according to pretty much every grown-up HiveWing. Too many questions, Cricket! Don’t you know what happens to nosy little HiveWings? They lose those noses! Which is silly; I’ve never seen a dragonet without a nose and I’m sure I can’t be the first one with this many questions. What’s your name? Oh, that’s another question. Sorry. I’m Cricket."
— Cricket, meeting Blue, in The Lost Continent.

Template:Charbox Cricket is a young female HiveWing who is the main protagonist of The Hive Queen. She is interested in fields of science such as invention and botany, and is one of the only known HiveWings who is immune to Queen Wasp's mind-controlling ability. She currently has a crush on Blue.

Personality

Cricket is extremely interested in science and invention, always eager to learn something new and constantly asking questions. She is slightly rebellious, and is often frustrated by the strict laws of HiveWing society. Although Cricket is not often portrayed as dignified or authoritarian, she is extremely empathetic and compassionate, demonstrated when she rescued Blue from her own tribe in The Lost Continent and later helped him search and rescue Swordtail. Cricket carries little of the usual HiveWing smugness and haughtiness, and is kind yet firm, not pushed around or convinced easily. She dislikes violence and conflict and wants the best for most dragons. Cricket is also extremely intelligent, as proven in The Hive Queen when she found a library key hidden upon a statue of Clearsight with nothing more than a few very vague directions.

Appearance

Cricket has palish orange-gold scales[1] speckled here and there with black scales that looked like tiny inkblots[2] (although on the The Hive Queen cover she has dusty black spots), golden yellow talons (Although she has black talons on the The Hive Queen cover)[3], and warm, dark brown eyes[2]. She is smaller than Blue[3] and has small, sharp claws like a leopard’s, as well as an open and curious face. She wears gold-rimmed, hexagonal spectacles[2] and a bag tied sideways across her chest [4]. She is said to smell like books, apples, and weird cinnamon by Blue.

Biography

The Lost Continent

BLUE AND CRICKET ARE IN LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE AND THEIR FUTURE CHILDREN ARE TURQUIOSE AND BUMBLE

The Hive Queen

At the beginning of The Hive Queen, Cricket is in the cave with the cocooned Blue. She has a flashback to her past when she first found out that she was immune to Queen Wasp’s mind control. She was reading a book that belonged to Cadelle, her mother when she heard her and Katydid speaking in strange unison. When Cricket’s mother and sister left the house, Cricket rushed into her mother’s office to look outside. She saw the mind-controlled HiveWings arrest a very old HiveWing. After the scene was over, Cricket waited for Katydid to come home. When Katydid was home, Cricket asked her about the zombified HiveWings and Katydid figured out that Cricket was somehow immune to the “whole hive command.” The flashback ends and Cricket wishes that she had brought a book with her. She reflects on the time she promised to stay by Blue’s side and describes the moment as romantic. She hears a dragon in the caves, which turns out to be Sundew dragging an unconscious Swordtail behind her. When Swordtail wakes up, he says that he could not find Luna. Sundew introduces a plan that she has to the others and says that she wants Blue to burn down the hives. Cricket objects to this and says that Blue would never do that. However, Swordtail agrees to the plan and questions Cricket’s knowledge of Blue’s personality, since she had only known him for a few days. This makes Cricket miserable. Time skip and Blue comes out of his cocoon. He is happy to see Cricket and successfully guesses that she was bored while waiting for him. Cricket wonders if Blue can see how much she adores him and wishes she knew what he felt. The group agrees to find the Chrysalis in one of the nearest hives. Due to Cricket’s experience with Jewel Hive, which was not pleasant because it is where Cadelle went when she left Cricket and Katydid, the group decided to go there. Cricket, Sundew, Blue, and Swordtail get into a couple of shops early in the morning to steal disguises. Blue leaves some flamesilk behind to pay for what they stole, and the group travels to the Glitterbazaar. The statue in the Glitterbazaar contains a hidden message that says “Midnight. Library. 5.” As Cricket and her friends are hiding out and waiting until midnight, Cricket sees Katydid and Lady Scarab creeping into Cadelle’s house. Cricket goes to talk to her sister, who reveals that Cadelle is not her mother and “father” is not her father either.

Cricket and her friends sneak into the library where they meet Morpho, Tau, and Cinnabar. At first, the other SilkWings are stressed at Cricket’s presence, but when they learn that Cricket is immune to the mind-control, they somewhat accept her. Then Sundew reveals herself, and Morpho agrees to assist her in taking down the HiveWings. Then the group is hiding due to mind-controlled HiveWings breaking into the library in their search for them. Afterward, Cricket wants to go search for her sister to warn her about the Queen. She visits Lady Scarab’s house where her sister has already been taken by the queen. Lady Scarab reveals that Cricket’s mother is Katydid and her father is Malachite. Cricket then forms a plan to expose the Queen’s secrets to all of Jewel Hive. Cricket hands out flyers that tell the truth about the Book of Clearsight and gets caught by Cadelle, who then becomes mind-controlled and sees Cricket. Cricket is arrested and taken to the Jewel Hive prison. She is visited by Lady Scarab and Lady Jewel, who let her escape. Cricket uses a string of flamesilk to burn a hole in the ceiling and is assisted into the kitchen by Tau and Cinnabar. On the way out, Tau has to bring Treehopper away from the exit before Cricket can escape. Cricket then flies to the hatchery and she notices strange markings on some of the eggs. She takes an orphaned egg with only one marking and hides, where she observes Queen Wasp injecting venom into the other eggs. She predicts that Katydid must have traced the markings onto Cricket’s egg so that Queen Wasp ended up injecting her only once or never. After Wasp leaves, Cricket takes the egg she had rescued and flees from the hive. She meets up with her friends again and they all escape to a cave. The next day, the rescued egg hatches, and therefor Cricket and the others (Blue and Swordtail) name her Bumblebee. The four then watch as Bloodworm hive is burned to the ground. Sundew then sniffs Bumblebee’s egg and recognizes the smell from the greenhouse she used to live in with her parents. The group burns down the greenhouse that housed the plant and decides to go to the Poison Jungle.

Family Tree

CadelleUnnamed
KatydidMalachite
Cricket


Quotes

"You sure are. Oh dear, I'm sorry, I bet you've heard that one before." - To Blue about his name.

"That is reassuring. Thoroughly utterly reassuring, except for how it's exactly what a dangerous criminal would say." - To Blue after he tells her he is "thoroughly utterly incapable of harm doing".

"I hope that's a good sign. Do you think you could smile and stand up at the same time? I would love to let you sleep more, but I think we really need to move." - To Blue

"She doesn't know what it feels like for me to have to hide from her." - To Blue about Katydid.

"We're not barbarians, Blue. The queen's a little scary, but she's not a murderer." - To Blue about Queen Wasp.

"Oooo, the perfect title for my memoir. 'Right about almost everything', by Cricket."

"Neither can I. I should write a paper about this! No, a book! I mean, it's a real scientific breakthrough, right? We could - Oh . . . no, I guess I can't do that." - To Blue about the plant stimulant freeing Swordtail.

"I promise we won't hurt you, little monkey! What are you? Please come back!" - To a scavenger

"Mystery animals in a cave under the savanna - who can READ! Blue, this is the biggest scientific discovery of our lifetime! I wouldn't have to be a gardener if I told the queen about this. I'm sure she'd let me change disciplines so I could study them. Don't you think?" - To Blue about the scavenger.

"Magic is just science we don't understand yet." - To Blue about Clearsight's powers.

"They won't be OBVIOUS questions. They will be VERY SUBTLE. I am an EXCEPTIONALLY subtle dragon, sir." - To Blue about her plan to ask about where the flamesilks are kept.

"I'll be right here, Blue. I'll be here the whole time. I'll be here when you wake up. You'll be safe, I promise." - To Blue before his Metamorphosis.

"No! I mean, I don't know what it was, but I sure didn't get all super possessed and freaky-looking and mean like everyone else I could see. Your eyes were totally white, Katydid! And you were growling at that old dragon! Couldn't you see how scared he was?" - To Katydid, after being asked whether Queen Wasp's mind control affected her.

"Blue wouldn't help you burn cities. He would never do anything to hurt anyone." - To Sundew and Swordtail about Blue.

"Killing off all the HiveWings- or trying to- won't solve anything. It'll just cause another war that'll be even bloodier than the last, and this time Queen Wasp will hunt you to the very ends of the continent to make sure you're gone. And maybe all the SilkWings too, if she thinks some of you were in on it." - To Sundew

“Katydid. My mother. Katydid is my mother.'' - To Lady Scarab about Katydid.

Why are you here? Aren't you that dragon with the telescope? How old are you really? Do you ever eat little Hivewings? IS THAT WHY YOU'RE PLEASED THAT I LOOK HEALTHY? - A young Cricket's thoughts after Lady Scarab says she looks healthy.

Relationships

Katydid

Cricket is shown to have a close relationship with her "sister", who, unlike her, isn’t immune to Queen Wasp’s mind control. Before she met Blue, Katydid was the only other dragon to know of Cricket’s mind control immunity, since after realizing that Cricket was immune she encouraged her to hide it out of fear of what Queen Wasp would do upon finding out. Cricket also states that though she often goes missing during and after the periods of time in which Queen Wasp takes control of the other HiveWings, Katydid always covers for her. In The Hive Queen, Katydid is revealed to be Cricket's mother and not her sister.

Bombardier

While Bombardier believes Cricket is in love with him, the HiveWing never had any loving feelings for him. She describes him as awful and arrogant and also comments that there isn’t much difference between his normal self and his “brain-dead”, mind-controlled self. Cricket does say that if she had the power to save the HiveWings from Queen Wasp’s mind control, she would save Bombardier, but perhaps last, after all the others.

Blue

Cricket and Blue became close, fast friends throughout The Lost Continent. She and Blue say they are best friends, with Cricket saying she would be Blue's best friend even if she knew every dragon on Pantala. Blue values her friendship and is also in love with her. Cricket does describe him as being one of the most colorful (and handsome) SilkWings she'd ever seen, calling him "beautiful" at least twice. She even repeats in her book that she thinks that his face and wings were handsome. In the The Hive Queen, Cricket looks back to in The Lost Continent when she promises to stay by his side until he wakes up, and describes the moment as romantic. Later on in the book,  it is revealed that she returns Blue's romantic feelings, and wonders if he likes her back.

Lady Scarab

Lady Scarab comes up in a conversation between Blue and Cricket. In The Hive Queen, we learn that Lady Scarab helped cover for Cricket's egg. Lady Scarab often scolds Cricket, but it is unlikely that she hates Cricket. Lady Scarab also abnormally tangled in Cricket’s history.

Sundew

Sundew hates HiveWings more than Swordtail but seems to be okay with Cricket, acting a bit more friendly and open around her in The Hive Queen. 

Bumblebee

Bumblebee hatched from the egg Cricket rescued from Queen Wasp's poisons, so she and Bumblebee have a naturally close relationship. It seems like Bumblebee has slightly imprinted on Cricket, as she was the first dragon she met.

Swordtail

Cricket thinks that Swordtail somewhat dislikes her, but changes her mind when she says they need find out what was wrong with her and right with the rest of the tribe. However, Swordtail corrects her and says they need to find out what was right with her and wrong with her tribe.

Cadelle

Even though Cadelle is Cricket's grandmother, they don't get along. Cadelle resented Cricket since her hatching as the former is mean and had no wish to raise another child even if the dragonet was her grandchild. According to Lady Scarab, Cadelle would rather have drowned Cricket as an egg than raise her as her own dragonet.

Trivia

  • Cricket is a leaping insect closely related to the katydid and the grasshopper. There are approximately around 2,400 species of crickets in the world. Male crickets are known for their chirping.
  • Cricket is the third dragon known to wear glasses or spectacles, the other two being Thoughtful and Lady Scarab. The fourth dragon mentioned to wear glasses or spectacles is her father, Malachite.
  • Though trees no longer are widespread on Pantala, Cricket somehow managed to grow a small tree in her terrarium in her botany class, having found the seed on a gathering trip, and not having known what it was until it started growing.
  • Cricket is the third dragon seen in the books with scientific aspirations, the other two being Winter and Mastermind.
  • Like Winter, Cricket has expressed interest in studying, and learning more about scavengers, which she calls "reading monkeys."
  • Cricket is the second character in the series to be depicted on two book covers (The Lost Continent and The Hive Queen), the first being Turtle.
  • However, she is the first dragon to have her full body appear on two covers.
  • This also makes her the first dragon to have two different designs, as her black scale pattern differs between the covers of TLC and THQ.
  • On page 125 of The Lost Continent, Cricket says that "My own two wings work perfectly fine" when in reality, HiveWings have four wings.
  • She is the first main POV dragon to wear glasses.
  • Cricket is the first HiveWing ever known be immune to Queen Wasp's powers in series, the second being an unnamed male HiveWing in Cricket’s flashback in the first chapter of The Hive Queen. It is later revealed that the Royals are currently immune as well.
  • She is the third dragon to have her mouth closed on a book cover, the first being Moonwatcher, and the second being Darkstalker.
  • She and Blue are the first two Pantalan dragons shown to be illegally in love, the second two being Treehopper and Tau.
Show/Hide Gallery

References

  1. ↑ The Lost Continent, page 143
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Lost Continent, page 66
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Lost Continent, page 63


HiveWings
Queens

Present: Cochineal • Jewel • Wasp
Historical: Cicada

Royalty

Bloodworm • Cicada • Hornet • Mantis • Scarab • Tsetse • Vinegaroon • Yellowjacket

Other Dragons

Aphid • Bombardier • Bumblebee • Cadelle • Carabid • Chafer • Cricket • Dragonfly • Earthworm • Earwig • Inchworm • Grasshopper • Hawker • Glowworm • Katydid • Librarian • Lubber • Malachite • Midge • Pinacate • Rootworm • Sandfly • Treehopper • Weevil

Kingdom

Bloodworm Hive • Cicada Hive • Hornet Hive • Jewel Hive • Mantis Hive • Tsetse Hive • Vinegaroon Hive • Wasp Hive • Yellowjacket Hive

Society

Book of Clearsight • Tree Wars

de:Cricket fr:Cricket

Retrieved from "https://mirror.wingsoffire.wiki/index.php?title=Cricket&oldid=145123"