Chapter Text
Today was not a particularly good night to die, Gemini mused.
The thought made enough sense, considering the fact she was on the front lines of the Nightwing-Icewing War. The night was Gemini and her fellow Nightwing’s domain, and by definition it meant that no night would be a good night to die, but this night was especially awful. Dark, cold, the faintest touch of moonlight on her back as she patrolled over the frozen wastes that laid out the hundreds of miles of border between the Ice Kingdom and Sand Kingdom.
Enlistment was never even on the list of Gemini’s plans, not that living in the shadow of Queen Vigilance’s palace was particularly fulfilling. Still, Gemini never believed the unending propaganda from Queen Vigilance about how it was their moon-given duty to war against the Icewings. She was just barely old enough to remember the Night Kingdom before the war, having been born a year and a half before the former-Prince Arctic had absconded south with his new beloved. While the formulative memories felt a bit like a dream at points, it was a warm dream, the dream one could only have when young and unaware of the harshness of the world. But it was - ultimately - just a dream, one that she kept tucked in the corner of her mind to retreat to whenever she felt alone. This Night Kingdom, this reality, this modern faulted version of her home 20 years into the future was far different than those cozy old dreams. And so when she joined the Night Kingdom military it wasn’t for high minded ideals, or glory, or fame or yadda yadda yadda, it was for the sheer fact the military could provide a consistent meal and bed.
She had expected a quick death, as what other road would a military life lead? She had expected her life expectancy to be in the range of a couple of months, but she found out, paradoxically enough, that the front lines might have been the safest place to go to. The war was still in full swing, but in the long two decades since its inception it had become a largely unwritten agreement that the front lines were not the avenue to win the war. There was a blood price paid for each inch of land, a cost paid by thousands of adolescent Nightwings sent away to die for a future they would never see and each kingdom was dreadfully tired of paying it. The war would still be fought and bled for, but on other avenues: deception, threats of animus magic and political power projection.
But the Night Kingdom still needed soldiers to defend her, and so that left Gemini with the duty of patrolling thousands of miles waiting for an attack that would never come.
That’s why tonight was a bad night to die. The night wasn’t remarkable, besides for being miserable, it was the fact that she would die for a cause that doesn’t care about her in the slightest for a kingdom that would forget her tomorrow.
Damn honor. Damn duty. Damn the corrupt nobles lounging about in the Night Kingdom while her and thousands of Nightwings were sent off to die. One day - perhaps a decade from now - if Gemini was still alive, she'd retire. She could imagine it in her mind, more clearly than the world in front of her: a nice beachfront property. Seawing pina coladas clutched in one paw and maybe a nice scroll in the other. She’d be on her own, far away from the Night Kingdom, any Nightwings and their infernal sense of duty.
“Ooooooh,” a voice cheered from beside her, joyfully stabbing through the frigid midnight air, “oh isn’t tonight simply just beautiful,” Astra squealed. Astra was the newest private sent to their scouting team, purple glimmering scales unmarred by war and polished steel armor as young as she was naive, “Gemini, do you see that mountain! Look how it reflects the stars!”
Gemini has seen the mountain hundreds of times, it’s the exact same mountain - Night in, night out - But she nods.
“Private!” Here comes the whip. Lord Sergeant Vex, the thick-scaled ebony-colored Nightwing sergeant, fell upon that little bit of joy like a leech to a scavenger. Even in the middle of flight he loomed over Astra like an ominous cloud, “Guard your tongue closely. The wind here has teeth, the very soil will sprout ears when you turn away. Any word might be the very spark that brings down an entire battalion of Icewings upon us.”
Gemini normally couldn’t have mustered up the care to talk back to Vex but something about the way he put down Astra spurred her on, “Moons above sergeant, there’s no Icewings for hundreds of miles. You know that as well as I.”
“It’s our job as soldiers to remain vigilant,” Vex growled, “I did not bring you so that you could forget your duty.”
Gemini could have said a million things about Vex’s ‘duty’ and where he should shove it, but she chewed on her scaly lip and moved on, “No, you brought me out here so that I could do my job, and I’m telling you that there’s nothing out here but us.”
“Your job,” Vex utters the word with a short jet of flame, “Is to protect the Night Kingdom, Knight Corporal. Protect the weak and innocent, and if you don’t have the discipline to do so then perhaps being a soldier is not for you.”
“I don’t think that-” something glinted off in the distance, catching her eye just enough for her to pause. For all intents and purposes Gemini shouldn’t have seen it. Shrouded in night and a single speck on the endless ocean of white, but something about the moon reflected off of it at the perfect angle, catching her attention as if the very moons themselves wanted Gemini to witness it. She couldn’t tell much in the darkness other than the fact it was… blue, dark blue. “Sergeant, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Vex peered off in the distance and nodded. “Keep in formation,” Vex ordered, “We’ll check it out.”
As Gemini approached she realized what she had been seeing. Icewings. A battlefield, a graveyard, 10-15 maybe even 20 dead Icewings scattered upon the open snow, long gashes and entire chunks of flesh missing from the dead. The blood. Their blue blood, that was what she noticed, so much of it that it had painted the ground black like the deepest night.
“Moons above,” Astra exhaled, “Something tore them apart.”
Gemini never really hated the Icewings the same way most Nightwings do. She doesn’t hate the Icewings because of some long founded foundational belief that they’re amoral monsters that need to be rid from Pyrrhia. She just doesn’t like them. She disliked in the same way one would dislike a natural disaster that destroyed your den. She hated the damage they do, hated the fact that friends and strangers were taken by them, but she didn’t hate the Icewings as wreaking destruction is simply what they do.
When the monsoons came for the Night Kingdom every year the Nightwings don’t go to war with hurricanes. You don’t hate the wind for blowing you off course. They’re a backwards tribe, so sequestered off in the frozen north that the chill stole away what warmth was in their hearts and left only violence.
But that’s simply just their nature.
Vex remained impassionate, he surveyed the massacre in the same way one does a field of rather mundane flowers, “Keep your eyes to the sky and your wings ready. Whatever did this to them might still be lurking nearby.”
“This wasn’t us. There aren’t any Nightwing patrols out in this direction,” Astra said, but her tone wavered. She turned to Gemini, “Right?”
Gemini shook her head, “No, there aren’t.”
Astra poked a corpse. A middle-aged Icewing male with scales so drenched with blood that the few spots where his pearly scales shine through make him look like he’s covered in polka dots. “What could’ve done this to them then?” she asked.
Gemini examines the same corpse. Most of the blood seemed to come from a cut at the throat. Clean. There were more wounds but the blood was already dried and coagulated, those were given after he was already dead. “Sandwings most likely.”
“I thought Queen Scorpion was neutral.”
“Queen Scorpion is officially neutral,” Gemini answered, “But that doesn’t mean much for the villages under her control.”
Astra stepped away, further into the center of the bloodbath. For a normally bright and happy recruit she’s unusually solemn, “But… these Icewings aren’t soldiers, they’re… civilians,” her pleading eyes met Gemini’s jaded own, “Why… why would someone do this? Moons above, some of these Icewings look like they were dragonets yesterday and - THREE MOONS!” She shrieked so loudly the moons themselves probably heard, “PLEASE HELP, SOMETHING JUST MOVED.”
Gemini readied her spear. Her instinct kicked in, swift and silent as the night itself. She stepped over, and examined the body. “Astra,” Gemini exhaled, “This Icewing’s dead.” Still not quite believing her own words she poked the body with her spear. No breathing, no blood flow, just empty pale blue eyes staring out at nothing.
“No,” Astra fervently shook her head, “I… I saw something… I know I did.”
Gemini poked the body again. Still dead but…
Did her wing just move?
No, she’s dead right? Impossible. No way.
But her eyes weren’t lying. The corpses’ wings shifted. Not much, even breathing would seem like flailing in comparison, but it did.
Gemini leaned in, the tip of her spear went under the Icewing’s wing and lifted it up to reveal…
An Icewing dragonet.
Gemini blinked once, twice. She was trained to stab Icewings. That was 99% of what her training was: stick them with the pointy end and when that doesn’t work light them on fire. So when she saw the dragonet - something she very much should NOT kill - her mind just kinda froze.
The dragonet, the Icewing, was positively pathetic. Even for dragonet standards. About the same size and threat of a scavenger, the Icewing stared up at her with wide green eyes, his jaw quivered, the spikes along his spine sticking straight out, while each and every rib in his chest flexed with each shaky breath. But the thing that stood out was the tuft of ivory fur that started on top of the dragonets head and ran down the length of his spine.
“Gemini I…” Astra strolled over and her eyes went wide, “Oh my, by the moons above! Gemini! This is the cutest little demon I’ve ever seen.”
The Icewing dragonet’s spine was hunched, his tail thrashed around behind him, “G-Get away from me,” his voice was shrill, hoarse, like a trickle of air through a drowning whistle.
Gemini frowned, she looked down at the dragonet. Was he the only survivor?, “What happened here?” she asked, “Was it Sandwings?”
“Moons Gemini you’re interrogating the poor thing,” Astra crouched down, slowing her movements, “Hey little guy, I’m friendly, okay? We’re not here to hurt you.”
“Back off!” he said the same shrill voice.
“Poor guy.” Astra stepped back enough distance so that she could whisper to Gemini. “Gemini, we have to take him in, right? There’s no way we leave him out here on his lonesome, right?”
Gemini steeled her heart. “Astra, he’s an Icewing.”
“Three moons he’s a dragonet,” she leaned back towards the Icewing, cooing as she did so, “Hey lil’ guy, you’re not a psychopathic mass murderer are you?”
“L-leave me alone!”
“Close enough,” Astra gave her best pleading smile to Gemini, “I promise. I’ll take care of him. We just need to bring him to safety.”
“Astra…” Gemini grimaced, “We can’t. He’s an Icewing. We’re soldiers. Regardless of whether or not he’s actually harmless we can’t bring the enemy into our camp.”
“Why?”
The question was stupid, Gemini could have given a million answers as to why not. It should have been easy to just say no. Say, ‘because I said so’, that’s the exact same answer Vex would give when he eventually strolled over. So why was it so hard for Gemini to open her mouth?
She made the mistake of looking back at the dragonet again. His eyes were green. Green like the spring forests just outside the Night Kingdom. Green like the fields of grass she used to play in when she was a dragonet his age. In that moment, for the briefest second while she stared into his eyes - she forgot that she was looking at an Icewing.
And in that momentary lapse of attention Vex returned. “Private!” he bellowed, “I heard you shout, are you alright?”
“Yes, yes,” Astra waved him away, “I’m fine…”
“Good,” Vex looked at the body of the Icewing the two of them surrounded and the spear that Gemini used to prop the wing up. “Ah, I had heard tales of honorless Icewings playing dead,” he didn’t see the dragonet yet. “I applaud your reactivity Gemini, clearly martial training was not lost upon you.”
“Eat my ass.”
He ignored her remark, “I should have expected the Icewings to lay such a trap though. In hindsight perhaps-” he froze midsentence. He stepped to the side, and craned his serpentine neck around to glance just enough past Gemini to see the dragonet that cowered under the other Icewing’s corpse. “Ah,” he sucked in air through his fangs, “They laid a… different kind of trap.”
Gemini sighed, “Astra wants to adopt the poor thing.”
“I see.” Vex, for his usual stoic rigidity, spoke quietly, “That can’t be allowed to happen.”
“Sergent Vex, please…” Astra pleaded.
But Vex cut her off, “The imperial mandate is clear. No quarter, no mercy.”
“Lord Sergeant Vex!” Astra dropped the pleasantries, “You can’t be serious! We’re absolutely NOT dragonet killers.”
Vex shook his head, “It’s a mercy, the least we can do. Saves him the trouble of growing up to become an Icewing.” His words may have been sweetened to lessen the blow to Astra but his tone was as cold and hard as the limestone they forged Queen Vigilance’s palace from. “It is as it has been.”
Astra turned, “Gemini, please. You know this is wrong. You’re better than this.”
Gemini wavered. Her jaw remained clasped shut as if her skull was working against her. Her teeth ground together so hard she thought they might split. She closed her eyes, tilted her head up so that she could feel the snowflakes fall on her face in between the tight steel helmet.
“Gemini,” Vex said, “You made a promise to your kingdom, a promise built on trust. You know your duty.”
She froze.
Duty.
The word echoed in her skull.
Duty.
D.U.T.Y
…
D
U
T
Y
Such a small simple word. So innocuous. So forgiving. So pleasant and plain.
Gemini hated it.
How many times had she heard it? Duty. In the Night Kingdom, while dragonets starved in the slums and looked upon the towering spires of the royal palace all they received in consolation was duty. While Shade, and Dusktail and Ceres - all fellow soldiers - died for their kingdom it was all for duty. Duty. It was strong enough to build entire kingdoms and slaughter entire families but each time Gemini searched for it all she found was the empty space where it should have been.
The word was losing meaning now, the same fuzzy feeling when you say the same thing too many times and suddenly the word just turns into nonsense gibberish. But more than that it had always been that way. Queen Vigilance had made sure of it. Duty everywhere and nowhere. Duty was the shadow of the royal palace and the fearful whispers best left unsaid. A buzzword, a concept. So thoroughly used and abused that it had long gone past having no meaning and still gone past that.
Duty
The word flooded her mind with fire.
“We’re taking in the dragonet,” Gemini declared before she even knew what she was saying.
“Yay!” Astra squealed.
“What?” Sergeant Vex growled, “Knight Corporal Gemini. This is foolish.”
“I made my choice,” Gemini stepped in front of the body and the dragonet, confidence growing with each second, “Should you disagree you may slay me right here for treason. Otherwise, my mind is made.”
Astra proudly joins Gemini, “Yeah! Me too!”
Vex stood gawking. Then he rubbed the sides of his head with his talons, “Queen Vigilance grant me patience,” he uttered. “Gemini, you’re asking me to ignore standing orders,” he dropped the superior officer act, adopting a more pleading tone, “Don’t do this. There’s no way this ends well.”
“You were the one who told me our job is to protect the weak and innocent. In that case what does that make you?”
Vex looks at the dragonet, “He’s not innocent.”
“Neither are you.”
The wind quieted. The dragonet shifted, whimpering, a lonely sound in an otherwise frozen abyss. “If…” Vex’s voice came out slowly, “IF we take him in, then he’s under my command.”
Gemini barely reigned in the smile before it showed on her face, “Of course Sergeant,” she grinned, “We could never have anyone undermining your authority.”
He didn’t react. “The dragonet is yours to care for Gemini. Anything he does will reflect upon you. There are no ifs ands or buts here. He remains contained, he remains not a problem, no exceptions, no second chances. If he does something, anything, to make me believe that he is a threat to the Night Kingdom I will dispose of him myself, understood?” He shook his head, as if he didn’t fully believe what he’s saying, “By Queen Vigilance’s grace if this dragonet compromises our unit…”
“He won’t.” Gemini replied, “I’ll make sure of it.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I’ll find a way. Somehow.”
“I hope you do,” Vex sighed and started walking away, “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to gather the Icewing, but we need to leave before any other dragon shows up.”
Gemini crouched in front of the corpse, letting her wings droop as she closes on the dragonet. Astra pushed past, leaning in with a wide smile. “Hey there lil’ guy.”
The dragonet squirmed as far into the Icewing corpse as it’ll allow.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Gemini pushed her spear away, took off her helmet and held her hands up placatingly, “You heard us talk, right? I’m not here to hurt you, I just want to help.”
Astra poked in as well, “Trust me. You’ll love getting to know us. Gemini’s an absolute blast and Sergeant Vex is the funniest Nightwing I know!”
The Icewing shook his head. He’s calmed down, albeit just enough for a somewhat coherent sentence to come out, “You can’t,” he whispered, “You can’t help me. Just leave me be.”
Gemini smiled, “I’m not quite sure about that,” she reached around, fishing a piece of dried fish-jerky from her chest-pouch. “Here. It’ll taste a bit like old fishy leather but it’ll keep you going.”
The Icewing hesitated, but his stomach rumbled and only seconds later he relented, reaching out to snag the fish jerky as he started nibbling on it.
Gemini pressed her paw to her chest, “I’m Gemini. This is Astra and that over there is Vex,” the Icewing followed her pointing but didn’t say anything. Gemini continued, “What’s your name?”
Something shifted in the young Icewing’s eyes. Like the clouds parted for just a moment and underneath, in the moonlight, she saw… something. “I’m… Goose,” the Icewing said, “The Icewings call me Goose.”
“Goose?” Astra snorted, “That’s your name?” she laughs, “I…” she suddenly focuses herself, “It’s a great name actually. Very… strong and…” she trails off.
Gemini held out her paw, “I think it’s a lovely name.”
Slowly, carefully, the young Icewing - Goose - pulled himself from the shelter of the dead Icewing. He looked at the paw, and then placed his own in Gemini’s.
“There we go,” she smiled, “Y’know. I have a feeling we’ll change the world together.”
~
7 Months Later
It was a long night, but I’m here. Ready. Waiting.
The Nightwings never left their camp during the day. Too dangerous they said. It never really made sense to me, but I’m never one to question a weakness for me to exploit. There’s a lone guard outside the compound. Well, ‘compound’ is a bit generous. It’s more a collection of tarps and tents loosely formed into a circle underneath a rock slab large enough to shield it from the winter winds. No walls of course, because they’re useless against enemies that can fly, so it looks a bit more like a small village than a war camp.
The guard yawns as she draws nonsense shapes in the snow with the butt of her spear. She’s completely unaware. If she had turned her head about 70 degrees to the right and focused on an unusually lumpy mound of snow she would’ve realized that I was right there hiding. But she didn’t. They never did. My lessons from back in the Ice Kingdom unpleasantly rattled in my head: Quieter than the northern wind, as still as ice.
The guard yawned again. Her eyelids flittered, her tongue danced along her fangs as slowly her eyes closed and…
“Oh hi Astra!” I jumped out from the snow.
Astra shouted and leaped nearly her own height in the air. “Three Moons,” Astra laughed, “You scared me Goose,” she opened her wings as she steadied herself, “When did you get back? I didn’t even see you there?”
I gave a lopsided smile, “If it’s any consolation no Icewing notices me either.” I fished for a warm leather pouch slung around my neck. It was a nice weight, a signifier of a job well done, “Got you some dinner,” I fished out a couple of snow-hares, clean kills, the neck snapped and no other wound. “Is Gemini on patrol?”
“She got back a bit ago,” Astra shrugged, she yawned again and leaned on her spear, “Went to the sergeant for a debrief. She’ll probably be busy for another 10 I’d say.” She grinned and patted me on the head, “You’re turning into quite the little hunter though, I’d say.”
I frowned. I hated being treated like a child. “Stop that. I don’t think catching bunnies is the mark of an apex predator.”
“Kid, when I was your age I was hunting rats in the sewers of the Night Kingdom. It’s good to bloody your talons a little bit, get those hunting instincts primed and ready.”
“I’m not even-” hunting them. I’m just using a trap. I shrugged, “Whatever. I’m going to drop this off. I hope your guard duty is boring and cold and miserable.”
Astra laughed and poked him in the butt with her spear as he walked past her, “Thanks for the breakfast, loser.”
I glared at her, to which she only laughed more. There were days I almost missed the first months when every Nightwing in the camp despised me. The first weeks were rather… tense. The Nightwings had cordoned me off to a breezy tent which had been retrofitted from the unused prison. It was supposed to suck but ironically enough the solitude was exactly what I needed. While they may have physically put me in a jail my shackles were far more scaly in nature. I still despised this new inhuman body with a burning passion, but the month of alone time finally gave me the chance to understand this new form. The screaming overstimulation of a set of wings and tail that shouldn’t be there became a dull buzz while I took the time to finally become acquainted with my knees that bent the wrong way and the disgusting fact I have to walk on all fours. It took a handful of weeks for me to stretch my legs outside the tent and another couple before I said anything longer than a sentence. While I may have mellowed out at this point just about every Nightwing was ready to get rid of me, so without a word one day I disappeared off into the wilderness. They probably would have celebrated my departure had I not returned later that afternoon with enough food to feed the entire camp.
Poisoning accusations aside, it became hard for most Nightwings to dislike me when I brought them dinner.
And from there it only spiraled out of control. Vex was quick to realize two very important things about me: I knew the local terrain well, and the terrain knew me even more so. Whereas a Nightwing could range for days, scouting Icewing positions and risking being spotted and ambushed from miles away, I could get it done in a single afternoon while never being spotted. So within the space of a week I went from basically being the camp outcast to having near no free time. Scout, hunt, sleep. Scout, hunt, sleep. It became my mantra, dare I say my job, albeit they still don’t pay me. Bastards. But the busiwork gave me something to focus on other than the agonizing aspects of this existence and increasingly dread filled thought that I may never find a way back to Earth.
But… damn it. As much as I really tried otherwise these dragons… these Nightwings… these people had started growing on me.
I had almost forgotten that they were soldiers in a warzone. Welllll, technically these Nightwings weren’t soldiers, they’re scouts. On the first sniff of trouble they’d pack up and be gone. If that didn’t happen, every couple months or so they’d pack up their camp and head to the next location they were assigned to. It was like being a part of a giant scaly circus troupe.
My 4 digitigrade feet were carrying me through the camp aimlessly. There were a few Nightwing soldiers huddled around a small fire playing dice on a piece of lacquered wood, “Hey Goose!” one of them called out with a friendly wave, “When’s breakfast?”
Another soldier bopped that one on the back of the head, “Moons above Jet, if you worried about gambling half as much as your fat ass worries about food I wouldn't have rinsed you.”
There’s more jokes, more laughing. One of them invited me to gamble with them, but I politely declined. Even more jokes, even more laughing. One of them called me a ‘Joyless Icewing Prude’ for declining to play dice and I in turn called them a ‘Degenerate Nightwing Peasant’, making sure to nail the holier-than-thou tone of voice I heard basically every waking second while I still lived in the Ice Kingdom.
They found that endlessly hilarious, and while they’re busy poking fun at each other I snuck away towards the large brown tent centered in the exact center of camp. Obviously being in the center of camp made it the most important thing here, except it isn’t the armory. Or Vex’s private quarters or a shrine to the Three Sister Moons. This tent was the camp kitchen.
A hot stew was already brewing over a steady fire as I entered. Compared to the frigid wastes outside this tent was thick like a sauna, condensation collecting on the old muddy tarp that sheltered the pot of stew that was large enough for me to bathe in. The chef, Malachite, grunted as I entered, “You’ve been gone for a while, Frostling.” His left forelimb was cut off at the elbow, supposedly from an encounter with an Icewing’s frostbreath.
“Don’t pretend you missed me too much,” I leveraged the pack of food onto the counter, “I got a couple rabbits, some onions and some little baby-carrots.” There’s not much counter space here, but I dump it all out.
Food was a rare commodity in war. The supply drops from the Night Kingdom, if they ever did arrive, were often times half the size it should have been with maggot laden meat and blue mold speckled bread, and while the cold of the frigid north was a gift in preserving what did arrive it wasn’t enough. Many soldiers would idle away the hunger by gnawing on roots, rocks, and bones. When things got especially bad supposedly there were tales of Nightwing soldiers raiding neutral Sandwing settlements for whatever they had stashed away. While these Nightwing soldiers seemed like a nice bunch I got the impression that they were only a bad week away from things I didn’t want to think about.
Truth be told, the pickings I brought back were slim, even if it were just for me. With the lizardly slow digestion dragons had, this meal would only last me a couple of days, much less camp of 53 young and active Nightwing soldiers. Malachite removed the ladle that was tied to his missing stump, put on his peg leg and walked over to examine the catch. “That’s less than usual.”
I huffed, “Yeah well, you aren’t the one being sent into a warzone to scavenge.”
Malachite propped his wings on the ground and used his one remaining arm to string up and skin the rabbits. “Ya just gonna stand there gawking?” the aged cook growled.
I shrugged and grabbed an onion, somewhat unsuccessfully Gordon Ramsay-ing it with my talons. The silence is deafening. “It’s getting harder and harder to find actual food. I keep on having to venture out further. I like it but… I’m afraid of what will happen if I tell Gemini, I’m worried she’ll freak out and convince Vex to stop letting me go out on my own.”
If Malachite listened to me he didn’t show. “Your form is off, frostling,” the cook said, “You’re trying to yank your talon through like a novice butcher; you’re gonna injure yourself that way. Saw-ing motions, like this.” Malachite took an onion, and in a series of ivory flashes diced it in and tossed it into the stew, “Clean motions. Swift and sure as the night.”
“I know what I’m doing.” I tried it again on my own, my talon cut a long jagged spike through a carrot. I grimaced and just tossed it into the stew.
“For one bringing me breakfast you sure seem to not want my help.” In the time it took me to poorly cut a carrot with both paws Malachite had already diced up two onions with one.
“I mean… I’m sorry,” I clapped my talons on the wooden cutting board. It sounded like a gunshot, “I appreciate the help it’s just… I can handle myself.”
“I never said you couldn’t.”
“But you thought about it. Every Nightwing here does. I don’t want your pity, I just want…” the words trailed out of my mouth, “I like y’all - even though it’s stupid - but would it kill y’all for a bit of respect every once in a while?”
The cook grunted, “You’re a dragonet. Either we coddle you or kill you.”
“Well,” I snorted, “I do quite enjoy not being dead.”
“You’ve a soft heart for an Icewing.”
“Fuck you, you’ve got a weird amount of legs for a Nightwing.”
The cook chortled as he decapitated a rabbit, “A word of advice, Frostling, from an old fossil like myself. You’ve a dragon’s hoard most would kill for and you’re complaining it shines too much.”
“I don’t need your life lessons,” I dumped the last onion in the stew, “But… thanks.”
From there our conversation kinda died. The grizzled Nightwing cook never was a dragon of many words, so we sat there in silence as Malachite stirred the stew, occasionally he’d grunt out a “salt” or “rosemary” and I’d fetch it for him. My thoughts drifted to Gemini. She’s probably still in her meeting with Vex and the last thing I wanted to do right now was deal with the grumpy sergeant.
A ladle was shoved in my face, Malachite’s impassioned eyes behind it as it dripped with boiling stew. I lapped it up, “Needs more salt, as always.”
“Then I know it’s done. Here,” he fetched a bowl and filled it up till it was nearly overflowing, “Take extra, you’ll need it.”
I stared menacingly at the wooden bowl. “This is more than the average soldier gets,” I stated, “I don’t need this. I’m not hungry, I’m fine as is.”
“Frostling, if you don’t shut your yapper and eat all your scraps the next soup I make is gonna have you as its base,” Malachite walked over, whapping me on the top of his head with his wooden spoon, “Now, get out. Kitchen’s gonna be packed in 20 minutes and I don’t want ya scurrying about causing issues.”
I stepped out into the night, the bowl clutched in between two talons. Even this far south the wind had teeth, I hugged myself with my wings, the entire length of my spine down to my tail jittering in the cold.
Something was squirming in my stomach, enough for the thought of food to be unappealing. My feet carried me through the camp, and by the time I considered where I was going I found myself at the far end, at what had been my abode for the last several months, the thick sewed purple prison tent.
Except it wasn’t mine anymore. I stepped through the flap, bowl in paw, and was greeted on the other side by an Icewing.
Even chained the Icewing managed to look regal, this trained and practiced court etiquette that kept her head tilted up just enough to make you feel less than her. That’s the main reason she was still alive, because she is so important. Part of some noble house in the first or second circle that’s a perfect amount of relatives removed from Diamond to be important, but not enough to not get sent out to war. Naturally in such a gentleman’s conflict she’d be spared and eventually traded for some Nightwing noble who was captured by the other side.
The wealthy get to play war while the average person dies for it.
“Ah, Snowflake,” Nunatak crooned, “You’ve returned to me again.”
“I told you to stop calling me that, my name’s Goose,” I cradled the scalding bowl in my talons, “I brought you dinner.”
She had a carefully kept facade but as skilled as she might be it was hard to hide the ravenous glimmer in the glint of her fangs. “You have my deepest gratitudes, Snowflake,” Nunatak bowed her head down, but her eyes were still locked on mine. She loomed over me, twice, nearly thrice my size, like staring down a spiky iceberg. “It’s a shame such kindness cannot be fully recognized, as amongst Queen Diamond’s court such generosity in one so young as you would be applauded.”
I pawed at the ground, “I don’t care what Diamond’s court thinks,” I handed her the bowl, scooting it across the ice just out of reach of her.
“Queen Diamond,” Nunatak corrected, “Even as… confused as you are, you ought to defer proper respect to a queen, you would not find me disrespecting Queen Vigilance.”
“I don’t care, alright?” I shrugged and found a nice warm spot in the corner of the room to sit, “I brought you dinner and I’d really appreciate it if you’d save me the lecture.”
“Manners make us what we are Snowflake,” Nunatak looked down at the stew at her feet, her mouth watered, tongue flickered across her talons, but she hesitated, “This is your sup, is it not?” With a single talon, elegant and precise, she pushed the bowl back to me, “It would be dishonorable for me to covet the meal of a hatchling.”
I scoffed. “Listen, I get enough shit from the Nightwings about what I should do, and trying to protect me and all that BS,” I leveled my gaze with her own. My fangs grit, the little human in the back of my mind screamed to back down - to look away - but I held my stance, “But I remember what it was like back in the Ice Kingdom. I was not nobility, you royals practically spat on us whenever we were. Wartime necessities, trickle-down wealth. I remember it all. Don’t suddenly play all kind and nice now that you’re a prisoner and I’m not.”
Nunatak remained as steely as ever, whatever she thought I could not tell under the opaque sheet of her face. She didn’t say anything, just curled her tail, pulled the bowl back to her and in a single motion swallowed the entire contents, practically flinging it into her mouth. Something about the way she did it put me on edge, as much as she exudes fine manners there’s a feral necessity to the way she scarfs down the meal. As elegant and eloquent as they are, I cannot forget that these are still dragons and they’d kill at a moment’s weakness.
“Loyal as I am to the Ice Kingdom I will not admit it without fault,” Nunatak’s voice softened, she sat down on all fours, “You’ve been wronged and I would ask for your forgiveness, I would give you my word - the Great Ice Dragon as my witness - that I would see the wrong righted if you would return with me to the Ice Kingdom, but I fear you would not find such a contract binding.” She exhaled a steady plume of morose ice, “However, I do not wish for your return out of base ego. I cannot stress the dangers you are currently in, you traipse in a field of those infernal dragonflame cacti. A warzone is not the place for a dragonet, and amongst the Nightwings doubly so.”
“I’ll be fine. I don’t need your help.”
A dark shadow swept over her eyes, her next words were laced with frost, “Do you know what they do to Icewings in the Night Kingdom? They toss you into a cage fit for a scavenger and hang you from the parapets of Queen Vigilance’s palace. The sun bakes you alive, the iron bars heating up until wings catch on fire and scales blacken. They dehydrate you like a fish until you’re no more than scales and bones,” she looks down at me, her eye twitched, “well, at least more so than you already are. Regardless, that’s how Nightwings show generosity, that’s the hospitality you should expect.”
“I…” something cold brushed along my back. The tent flap, it was open, and someone was stepping through. I turned around and my heart froze.
Vex’s, the camp sergeant, filled the entrance to the prison tent with a long dark shadow, his gaze pinned me in place. With my head barely up to his belly he could glare down at me like an obsidian mountain, “Goose, what did I tell you about coming here?”
From the other end of the prison cell Nunatak’s shackles clattered, she was on her feet in an instant body poised and ready to strike if Vex came just a step too close, “How gracious that my captor has come to greet me,” her voice was frigid, “The weather’s been good, I hope? Not too cold? I…”
“I’m not talking to you.” Vex leveled his gaze back on me, “Now, explain yourself.”
“Ah, but you are,” Nunatak responded before I could say anything, “You were just talking to me, and now I’m responding. A back-and-forth, a dialogue, see how it works? Excellent. Now that you’re listening, I’ll dispense with the pleasantries. You should run to your superiors - mutt - and tell them that I grow tired of waiting for their arrival,” ice dripped from her maw, her fangs glistened scarlet in the lamplight, “The sooner you get me out of here the sooner we can both work towards our shared goal of making honorable and goodhearted Nightwings die for their kingdom.”
While Vex may have been in a teacherly mood towards me he was positively fuming against Nunatak, I heard his teeth grind together, and by the glow that climbed up his throat I imagined he was just a picosecond away from setting Nunatak alight. “You,” he pointed at me and then towards the tent flap, “Outside.” He then turns to Nunatak, “We’ll finish this conversation later.”
I flee outside and into the bristling winds and active snowfall, manually folding my wings in tight on my body. Vex follows me moments later. Stoic as he is he shivers in the midnight wind. “To my tent,” he ordered, waiting until I started walking before he marched behind me.
The inside of his tent was sparse to say the least, a desk with scrolls laid neatly in a pile. Boring. I had seen more interesting prison cells back on Earth. It was barely as I finished looking around, as rare as it is for me to be in here, that Vex ducked in through the tent behind me, blocking any exit from the tent. “I ordered you to not talk to the prisoner, again, and you disobeyed my order, again.”
As afraid as I was, something more pressing was on my mind, “Is Gemini here?” I peeked at the dark corners of the tent as if she’d jump out, “Astra said you were just talking to her.”
He gritted his fangs while smoke leaked out his nostrils, “Perhaps if you had listened to what I said and not talked to the prisoner then you would have caught her as she left for a mission.”
I whipped around, “She’s gone? On another mission?” I hadn’t slaved all day long hunting for scraps just for Gemini to be gone.
“You forget that this is not your daycare, this is a warcamp, I am its sergeant and Corporal Gemini is a soldier who needs to go on important missions that I cannot share with you knowing that you’re talking to a prisoner.”
I remained steadfast, “No, wait, you can’t just…”
“Silence.” He ordered, “Goose,” he looks down at me, stern, unmoving, any emotion hidden behind a steely layer of scales, “You’re a smart boy, so answer me this: Can I trust you?”
I blinked, “Yeah, of course.”
He sighed, “You don’t seem to understand the question if you can answer so easily. Once again I must remind you that this is a warcamp, trust does not come with exceptions. If I am to trust you I need you to swear to me that you’ll listen to what I tell you and not flounder it, like you have blatantly done just moments before. Trust is more than just a word. It’s a duty, to each other and yourself. So once again: Can I trust you?”
I looked away, totally not from the intimidating glare he gave me. “I get what you’re saying, and if it means anything, I’m sorry. I really am,” I managed to leverage my eyes to meet his once more, “but I’m not as helpless as I seem. I know this is 90% of what I ever say to you but I put myself in danger for y’all. I risk my life on a daily for all y’all. I know what I’m doing, and I’m not going to risk any incredibly worldshakingly vital military secrets - that you don’t tell me anyways - because I’m bored and I want to talk to the Icewing you keep chained in the back.”
He doesn’t say anything, just continues staring me down.
I continued my rambling, “Listen, I’m sorry, again. I want you to be able to trust me, but it’s kinda like - y’know - a two-way bridge. I get it, I’m an Icewing, and you’d rather see me dead or gone and I’m probably responsible for every misfortune that you come across on a daily basis. But I think I’ve been able to prove myself.”
“Goose…” his anger grew and grew, fire in his veins, his eyes like beams bearing down on my soul. It continued growing, up and up until…
It just vanished. His wings deflated, and for the first time in the conversation his eyes looked elsewhere. He regained his composure a moment later and walked around the tent to his desk where he sat down on the cold floor, “I do not have issue with what you are, it’s who you are.” He fished through the scrolls on his desk, finding one that he unwrapped onto the desk. “And as it stands, regrettably, who you are is getting in the way of my duties,” his eyes met mine, “Were you taught how to read?”
“Yeah.” Is he trying to get rid of me? “What’s that letter?” I asked, creeping fearfully over.
“Nothing malicious.” He unrolled it and beckoned me closer. “Tell me, does the name Foeslayer mean anything to you?”
I racked my brain, “News never got to my village consistently, is she some famous Nightwing soldier or something?”
“Yes, she is. However, her notoriety comes from a source other than her combat prowess - though those are to be commended - she’s the one that absconded with Prince Arctic.”
“Oh, yeah, her.” Everyone in the Ice Kingdom knew of Prince Arctic. The Traitor Prince. He Who Is Ungraced by the Great Ice Dragon. The Icewing who was lured by a foul seductress from the Night Kingdom using black magic and witchcraft, “Most of what I ever heard described of her made her out to be...” dragon Hitler. I propped my front paws up on the desk and read the scroll. Upside down it was like reading another language… manage the prisoner … send forth a representative.
“She shares the same issue that plagues Gemini: a gentle heart,” Vex continued, “And within a couple days time she will arrive to this very camp with a royal inquisitor to discuss the terms of release with the prisoner you just talked to.”
“What, do you want me gone while they’re here?”
“The opposite, actually. I’ve sent word ahead of their arrival, Foeslayer is aware of your presence and has agreed to help sponsor you to the Night Kingdom proper so that you may become an official citizen like Prince Arctic.”
I frowned. Nunatak’s threats of what would happen if I went to the Night Kingdom was heavy in my mind. “I… thank you, I guess, but I don’t want to become a citizen.”
“The citizenship means little, what it allows you to do is have safe passage from the Night Kingdom to wherever you would want to travel,” he raised the scaly eyebrow ridge, “That is what you’ve been talking about wanting, is it not? To be treated like an adult and given the opportunity to make your own choices. And if it is Gemini with whom you wish to spend more time with then perhaps you may wait your time out in the Night Kingdom for her tour to end.” He rolled the scroll back up with a withered finality, “Unfortunately the Nightwings under my command have grown a lecherous liking to you. Dare I say you’ve grown to feel the same way?”
“I mean, yeah.”
“And that’s the issue. You’re a distraction, one I cannot afford in a warzone. I need my men focused, and love - unfortunately - begets poor soldiers. So I return to my original question: Can I trust you?” He leaned over on his desk, not in an intimidating manner but one of equal respect, “Can I trust you, to do the right thing and leave this warcamp for good?”
I stared at him, through him. All I’ve ever wanted was a nice spot in my corner of the world where no one could bother me so I can figure out ways to return back home, and in many ways that was exactly what Vex was suggesting. However, that could not cover up the feeling of some hidden danger, I’d be willfully tossing myself into the clutches of another (probably) lunatic dragon queen who has plenty of really racist reasons to turn me into a wet meaty splat in her city streets. There were snakes hiding in the brushes of the deal, or as my orphanage archlectress would say, the Nightwings lurking in the shadows.
“I don’t know…” I finally answered, “I mean, the offer’s nice but…”
“You have until Foeslayer arrives at the camp to decide,” he tittered his talons along the desk, grabbed another scroll and unrolled it onto the desk, the implication clear. It’s time for you to leave. With his long draconic snout buried in the scroll he said, “I’ll trust you’ll make the right decision.”
I stood there, on the cold floor, just staring up at the dark scales of Vex silhouetted by the sputtering lamp behind him. In my mind I couldn’t quite tell if he is threateningly looming over me, or sheltering me.
“Thanks for the… talk,” I moved over to the tent flap, holding it open and letting a bit of the winter air in, “I guess.”
And I stepped out.
There’s almost a different feel to the camp now. Vulnerable, naked. The three sister moons of Pyrrhia loom overhead, only Perception is full tonight but I can’t help the feeling that they’re watching me, taunting me with their wrongness. Perhaps Vex is right, I’ve grown too acclimated to the danger present. In my long couple of years stuck in the Ice Kingdom I had grown to accept the idea that I would simply never be accepted for the mere fact I was not born a dragon at heart. I closed my heart off to the land of Pyrrhia, for she did not love me, and I did not love her.
Emotional claustrophobia, for lack of a better term.
But despite me trying everything otherwise - like the mold growing on the leftovers in the back of your fridge - what was a spore of love had grown into full blown admiration, and that’s the crux of the issue. Voidstuck is right. I can’t stay here, even if not for my own safety, then I should leave for the security of the other dragons.
There’s a time where this comes to an end, and I need to be ready for it.
But in the meantime I’m not ready to let it go.
With the entirety of the camp having been navigated tonight I found myself at the final - and best - location. The barracks.
As I entered, one of the young scouts smiled, a wide predatory grin on his face, “Aye, Goose!” I make the mistake of making eye contact, “Come over here. We have a running bet that we need your help solving.”
“Moons above Jet, leave the Icewing alone. Can’t you tell he’s sulking?”
They let me pass.
I found the spot in the back of the barracks. A sectioned off part of a tent with a frayed tarp as a wall and enough space for a mat on the floor and a chest with her belongings. Gemini’s bunk. The cloth is cold to the touch. Right. She’s out on a mission for likely another couple of hours. My nose twitches, it still smells painfully like her though: Like a warm summer’s afternoon, like a field of flowers and the promise of safety. My thoughts are still an anxious jumble, but somehow I knew that Gemini would know. She’d have a proper answer. She always did.
I laid on her bed, Gemini’s scent a warm blanket. Time slowly melts away, anything else outside my immediate periphery vanishes from existence. It could have been a minute, could have been hours, I would not know. And as the night deepens and my mind wanders, I slowly find myself drifting off.
And then came the dreams.
They came in flashes, memories blitzing by that I wouldn’t quite understand until I was awake. I found myself on a cliff’s edge, with a forest sprawling out below me, human once more with flesh and bone and no wings or tail. In the briefest moment I could almost imagine that I was back on Earth, a soil and oxygen that somehow felt right, however, as I looked into the sky I spotted the issue.
The same three moons: Imperial, Oracle & Perception. The three eyes of night, the Three Sisters, watching me, looming over me like gods playing chess.
I did not see the cold steel enter my back, nor did I expect it. But it felt familiar, the old wobbling handshake of death, the feeling of ice in my heart. The fiery pain swimming through my body, the gradual realization that my heart is injured and I feel my heartbeat slowly weaken and die. My blood - my red blood - flowed into the dirt next to me and flowed down the clifface, reaching out into the horizon as the moons drank it up.
And then came the fire. It entered through the stab in my back, filling my very marrow with madness as it coursed through me, igniting every nerve and vein with agony. The soil crawled up the skin, the tides coming in, it wrapped around my ankles, grasping me like the cold earth swallowing me down. The moonlight crawled up my leg and by the time I looked down I realized it’s not earth. At least not anymore, it calcified on touch, solidifying itself into hardened weight that looked almost like… scales.
The scales. So many of them. They climbed up, up, and up; ascending up my body like a legion of stony leeches, my bones cracked, muscles tore, my skull fragmented into a billion pieces and all plunged into his brain. Three lightning strikes struck me, two for the wings, one for the tail, I was drowning in his own skin, in the sensations, in the endless noise, I am crying, weeping, wailing, and everything in between as in the half-sleep state my mind was endlessly tumbling over emotional cliffs.
“Please…” I whispered, defaulting to English in the cacophony of sensation, “I’m sorry… stop… please…”
Something struck through infinity. It took my brain to process it, a balm speaking in the draconic common of Pyrrhia, “Oh moons above,” it caressed me with its warm tones, something physically wrapped itself around me, blanketing me in warmth, “You poor little thing. It’s okay, I'm here. Everything will be okay.”
The unending assault on my own body continued, “I’m scared… please, please, please… don’t let me go…” my voice quivered, “I don’t want to go…”
“It’ll be okay,” the voice cooed once more, “Listen to my voice: Be as strong as the moons, as swift and sure as the night. Let the dark not hold dominion over you.”
Sleep retreats, I slowly find myself drawn back to reality while my mind shudders, I’m too lost in the void to have any actual sense of what’s going on. “Mom,” I whisper in draconic, delirious and lost, “They… made me into a monster.”
“I know, I know,” the voice croons, “But it’ll be okay. While I’m here, everything will be just fine. As long as I’m here, there’s nothing to fear.”
My eyes opened, my mind returned to reality. I was wailing, flailing on the ground, tears running down my white-scaly face, but Gemini - having found me in the middle of my nightmare - had bundled me up in her wings in a tight bear hug. But if the dream was scary then reality was even more terrifying, finding myself stuck back in purgatory while adrenaline and terror roamed my body and became my king. I couldn’t help it, I started crying once more, too tired to fully weep, I just sat there, twitching in Gemini’s grasp as I cried into her chest. “I’m sorry…” I whispered hoarsely, “I must look like an idiot.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed about,” Gemini whispered back. I looked up, catching her dark-blue eyes on my own, “You’re perfect, just the way you are.”
I want to say more. I open my mouth, but there’s no more words to be said, my lungs are empty and my throat raw. So with little else to do, I press my face into Gemini’s warm scaly chest, let her wrap her wings around me, and cry the rest of the night away.