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Post by kingfish on Feb 1, 2021 18:55:06 GMT
“Beetle, you just don’t understand-“
“I fully understand.” he breathed, voice set.
His brother sat in his pool of water, scales vibrant and eye-piercing as always as steam rose off of them lazily, as if the water didn’t understand how precarious of a situation it was in.
The SkyWing flicked his tail to the side as he circled his brother in the pool like an angered predator, pain evident in his eyes.
Wildfire let out a hot breath, shaking his head as he pinched the bridge of his snout, covering his face in his talons.
“Beetle, you weren’t supposed to see that-“
he pleaded.
“I wasn’t supposed to?” his brother looked eerily dangerous in his hurt, voice cracking like shattered glass, “I wasn’t supposed to see you kill dragons? Burn them?”
“They signed up for that, they’re paid, Beetle-“
“What’s the difference between them and me, Wildfire? Hm?” Beetlekill stopped in his pacing, claws clicking in finality on the floor, “Between them and Missus Smoke down the street, her dragonets?”
“I would never hurt you.” Wildfire shrunk underneath his twin’s glare, a flower wilting into ash.
“Well, it’s not about me.” his brother said, looking away quietly, a huffed laugh breathing from his teeth. “It’s about all of the ones who died. How many dragons have you killed, Wildfire?” Beetle lamented, a deadly quiet coming over him.
The firescales slowly swallowed, sighing, “A lot, Beetle.”
“..I know.” his limbs felt like gelatin, and the fireless dragon slumped over, leaning on the wall.
“I-I just wanted to help us. They pay me so well, and I was just- I want us to move out of here-finally build our dream, we could use it to help dragons.”
Beetle didn’t meet his brother’s hopeful gaze.
“Was it worth it?” he asked, voice almost ragged.
Wildfire dropped his gaze, shame infiltrating his scales as he realized there was no right answer.
No meant that he shouldn’t have done that in the first place, yes was as much a trap.
“You don’t get to choose who lives or does, Wildfire. I-I won’t let you kill dragons. Even if it means...what it does.” the fireless SkyWing couldn’t meet his twin’s gaze. Blazing blue eyes pierced his scales like his fire had spread to his vision.
Wildfire sat back in the pool, shock on his face, as well as the crumpled nature of hurt. Emotion stung in his nose and mouth.
His baby brother. The little thing who was glue to his side, the little crisp who adored him-threatening to kill him. Beetle could hardly kill a mouse, much less Wildfire, who had provided so much for him, who had worked his ass off-
Righteous anger grew in his chest, flames roiling to overcome the hurt.
“You’d kill me, Beetle?”
The fireless brother recoiled, tempering his heart in water.
“If it meant that you couldn’t hurt another soul? Yes.”
Smoke began to rise from Wildfire’s nostrils and ears as he took a step out of the water.
“You know that’s not possible- you wouldn’t. My little brother wouldn’t hurt me-“
“We’re twins, Wild,” Beetle said flatly, still looking at the floor as his brother lashed his tail, “We’re the same age.”
Wildfire stared him right in the eyes, and he felt compelled to meet his gaze. Watery blue met its counterpart.
Who looked..heartbroken. Angry.
Wildfire had pain and confusion written all over his face, not even trying to hide it. Beetle tried his hardest to have nothing.
Wildfire opened his mouth to say something, an apology, perhaps, but Beetle beat him to it.
“That SandWing those few days ago. Do you even remember her? She was terrified, Wild. Maybe a bit older than us. And you looked at her and smiled and rushed her. You didn’t even-you weren’t protecting yourself, you were happy to sear talons into her flesh and you were smiling as her blood burned-“ he said, dropping his gaze and allowing the shock into his voice.
“I didn’t know you could boil the blood out of someone, Wild.”
“Beetle-“ his brother started softly.
“But you did. You-you did these things and didn’t care, Wild-“ Beetle’s tone began to grow in anger, “And you justify it because you think you’re better than everyone else-“
“I AM, Beetle! I did all of that for you, for us, because that SandWing would have happily killed me given our situations switched! But-we’re not, don’t you get it?” Wildfire stepped forward, voice starting to echo off of the walls, “Beetle, I’m a god among dragons, I’m-I could rule any kingdom I wanted, do anything we wanted-Beetle, we could be kings,”
“I don’t WANT to be a king!” Beetle shouted, voice growing hoarse, “I want my brother, I want him back and not a monster-“
“I am your brother, Beetle.
I’ve always been like this-please; listen to me, I’m not a monster, Beetle, I’m your twin, I’m your brother, always have been.”
Beetle physically shrunk over those words, eyes closing as he leaned on the wall further; wing groaning over its weight. Perhaps he had hoped for an murderous alter-ego, anything that would make his brother his brother. Yet the more the dragon’s husk said, his hopes were smashed more.
“Only a monster would do what you did. I don’t know what that makes you, but I hate you. I hate you]/i],” he snapped again, eyes flickering open with resolve as he turned, and with a large push, barreled right into his brother, knocking him backwards and into the pool.
Wildfire’s eyes snapped open, talons letting go of his smoking twin as Beetle forced him further into the water, talons heavily around his neck, choking him more as he thrashed, trying to get a breath in but failing as Beetle’s mass and claws stopped him.
Wildfire would have cried if he could as his talon reached up to cup his little brother’s cheek, face breaking into sorrow.
The last thing the firescales saw were water and the depths of his brother’s eyes, pain and fear and a deep-flowing hate deep within them. And Beetle looked back as love stared back.
As soon as Wildfire went limp, the fireless let go, gasping in a breath as he looked down towards the sinking body, still visible in the shallow pool.
Muted grief surged through him as he contained a sob, scrabbling out of the water as he looked down on the mass that used to be his brother.
It was then when the burning started. He touched his neck, familiar sensation coming to fruition as he felt talon marks along his chest and forearms. They must have been when he first collided with the flamescales.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out to the corpse, grief wrapping her ebony wings around his heart as immediate regret filled his chest. But all Beetle could do was rush away, dripping wet, past the hallways, past the rooms, past the other gladiators and their families, and into the sky, cool air soothing burns but not his heart.
It had to be done, he rationalized. Had to. Monsters were meant to be slain...weren’t they??
(Lol Uh judt posting this now for word count!)
(1262 words)
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Post by kingfish on Feb 16, 2021 17:31:34 GMT
TW: BLOOD, MURDER
Beetle couldn’t sleep. As always. In a few scant months, the bags under his eyes had worsened and his youth had seemingly slipped from his eyes, a hollow look replacing a naive innocence butchered too soon. His scales turned from vibrant brown to a flat off-reddish due to lack of sun, claws splitting as he obsessed over the little device in his claws.
He even rested with it-not slept, no, for then the Ghoul that haunted him would feed.
The contraption was made of wood and iron, drawn from a scavenged scavenger ballista, and the hundreds of bolts he had made for it were close at hand. It could pierce through an adult dragon’s body in less than a second at point-blank range. And he would know.
It’s trials had tasted blood.
Yet the blasted, blasted thing dared come back to haunt him. Had his vanquishing of it in life come to no fruition?
“You falter, child, in your rest.” the Ghoul’s voice was calm and quiet.
“Perhaps it is due to you, wretched beast,” he snapped at it.
The Ghoul sighed, a low chuckle wisping from a nonexistent mouth.
“Perhaps it is due to your unrestrained guilt. Rightful guilt.”
“I feel no such guilt. I owe dragons-I owe them the freedom from *things* like you-“ he rasped.
The cold cave air wasn’t too good on the lungs.
“..things. How easily do you paint us as monsters,” the hated Ghoul shook it’s head, looking around the caves, “This place..it is a school. Under one. It is where you should be, perhaps if you chose a kinder path.”
Beetle laughed in disbelief, weakly struggling to his feet, “I know you to be monsters. Only monsters could boil out someone’s brains through their ears.” he snapped, “There is no kind path. Only the right one.”
The Ghoul shook its head in pity, “The right path would not have done this to you. Child, blood of my blood, your scales fade as you cower in the fortress of your own guilt. Rocks do not imprison you here-“
“QUIET! I will not be lectured by a mere spectere, who will not give a dragon peace!” Beetle cried, voice as rocky as his surroundings.
“You speak only to yourself, dear Nephew.” the Ghoul said, staggering into some light, revealing grey scales and a face that looked remarkably far from Beetle’s. A steel bolt protruded from her chest gruesomely.
“How do you justify yourself, child, when you have done this to me?”
The young dragon was the night as it scaled the side of the tall spire. The tower touched the clouds, as if to impale the white behemoths itself. Windows made it possible to stop and rest for a few minutes before continuing up the mountain’s peak, claws digging into the stone as the thing continued its journey.
The moon was the only witness as the dragon squirreled itself into the ledge of the tallest window, scurrying onto a tall balcony and slithering onto the topside.
It moved through the home as if it were a mouse.
Spires were a favorite of wizards, yes, but aging SkyWings often found solace in always being enveloped in the endless expanse of Sky that they so loved.
It moved towards the light as if it were a moth.
His claws almost bled as he scurried though the spire, and he winced as a particularly sharp stone hurt his claw. Strapped to his back was the prototype. If it failed, he died, if it didn’t, he lived. A perfect game of Russian Roulette to play with himself.
The bolt, primed and ready, was gleaming and lusted for blood.
The light was emanating from a warm fireplace that crackled from a haughty elegant hearth, the low clicking of stone knitting needles like a cicada’s chatter in the night.
At the sound of the click of claws, the occupant of the chair next to the fire turned to look, standing from her stony chair just in time for the bolt to catch her in her chest.
Beetle’s eyes glazed over, his body frozen, as she gurgled a scream, clutching her pierced chest as blood poured from it. The bolt had pierced her heart, destroying lungs and ribs as it did so, and the firescales could do little but burn the fletching of the bolt as she staggered over. Fire could not cure the hole in her heart, no matter how much her scales blazed.
There were no beautiful words, no grand soliloquy to mark the end of the dragon’s life.
Only the frozen claws of the murderer, whose talons lay idle as blood stained his talons.
The cold rock of a dragonet only stirred long after the body had cooled.
“...Mommy?” came the whisper, uttered from the mouth of an innocent. She clutched a stuffed animal, wide blue eyes staring over at the dead.
The inncoent claws moved over to the murderer. Taller than her, with brown scales stained with the odd red substance. Eyes unfocused.
The monster’s head slowly tilted down to her as the child’s tone grew more frantic.
“M-mommy-what’s-where’s-“ she got out, small wings flapping nervously. The child started forward, but was stopped by a wing.
“I-“ he was cut off as emotion roiled in his throat.
A second later, he was out of the window, and he was falling, falling, falling, a demon cast out of a cloudy paradise, falling too fast to hear the child mourn her mother. Yet no matter how fast he plunged, the emptiness was there.
Why didn’t he feel better about it?
He-this was helping dragons, so why did he feel- this wasn’t how he was supposed to feel, he couldn’t shake that dragonet’s look- he-
The ground rose in front of him, and Beetle scrambled to snap open his bloodstained wings, wincing as his muscles groaned yet not minding as panic grew within his chest.
Why did he feel dirty? Evil? He wasn’t evil, they were, they were the monsters and they deserved to die, they killed and they didn’t care, they, they were evil, not him; not him not him-
Why was there guilt?
As the spire became a shadow in the distance, he breathlessly sobbed, eyes affixed open. Beetle clawed a circle in the dirt from his pacing as the blood dried on his scales, talons shaking.
Why?
Why was he burdened with this feeling?
Did the slayers of the Darkstalker feel this way? Albatross? Did the others feel this guilt, this shame, this..utter vileness at the center of their very being?
Yet he was justified...right?
...he wanted Wild.
He wanted his brother. Because Wild always knew what to do, because he would hug him best he could and tell him that he was doing the right thing, that he was a *good person*.
But he was dead, and the world was better for it.
And the world seemed to taunt him for that.
With a whirl, Beetle took off, eyes screwed shut as if he could ever erase the memory of Wild’s eyes.
The killings got easier.
Nine sets of blue eyes were easier to handle than eight, which were easier than seven. And so forth.
Blood did not make him queasy anymore.
Four moons after he started to live in the cave, the voices started. They evolved into fully-fledged ghosts soon after.
Beetle was never able to tell whether they were hallucinations, brought on by a shattered conscience and sheer loneliness, or real. Maybe a mix of both.
The dragoness was the most prevalent of them, her annoying words driving Beetle into raving rants that left his throat sore.
The five other adults often quietly stood behind her, offering snippets of advice.
The dragonet’s haunted the corners of his vision, their betrayed looks permanently scarred into their faces.
And Wildfire was the worst. His scorching abuse was hard to bear, yet Beetle lived, and Beetle’s hatred snarled within his chest.
The self-righteous fury still burned within his soul, that passion to do the right thing. It would not be hindered by mere ghosts and ghouls.
His mission would soon be realized. He already had a small cult of followers, what was the whole continent? He could help dragons, he really could, and he was helping them.
Already the Sky kingdom was bristling at the thought of firescales, and when enough of his wanted posters were turned into ash damn well he knew that he would be out in the streets again.
Sometime.
“When?” the Ghoul asked, ghostly entourage staring down at his prone figure.
“Shut up.”
“You’ll never be free again. No, no, you’ve committed too grave a sin. I do well hope you’ll forever be trapped in this dank place, blood of my blood.”
“And you along with me, monster.” he croaked, tail lashing.
“No. The dead cannot be bound by your feeble bodies. We are Sky unbound.”
“Quiet.”
The dragoness huffed, looking nine to happy to do that.
“If you are Sky unbound, you imply that you were Sky at all, and you were not, you foolish creature,” he snarled, “Dumb brute of an excuse for a dragon, you are and always will be a horrid monstrosity that deserves to drown a hundred times over, you hear me? YOU HEAR ME?”
A fox peered into the cavern, head tilting as it surveyed the dragon. No, this one did not look like it would give him scraps. It was ranting, raving to itself, head tilting about a wobbly skinny body as it shouted at an invisible foe.
No, this not look like a kind one after all. It hopped down from the stone, traveling a long path back to the green freshness of the side of the mountain.
It sniffed, hoping no one else would ever find that din, not knowing that the next to find it would not mind the screaming in its sleep or manipulation. It would care only for claws willing to kill.
-
Cod’s talons caught on the ice of the street as he laughed and bounced away from the other dragonet, who struggled to get a grip on the cold cobblestone of their tiny fishing village.
“I’m Blaze, you can’t kill me-“ he yelped as his sibling bowled him over.
“Yes I can! You’re DEAD!” they crowed, poking him in the chest with a sharp claw before getting off of him, “And not you have to help me get Blister!”
He rolled his eyes, wiggling off of his back and scurrying off after his sibling, throwing a look at them and-
His face crashed into the massive white leg, tiny excuses for horns almost seeming to prick the thing.
Two massive blue eyes stared down at him.
“Why hello there,” the dragon rumbled, a small smile adorning their face.
“...You’re so BLUE,” he said, eyes practically sparkling as they rumbled a chuckle.
“You’re pretty blue yourself, kid.” they said, obviously a bit amused.
Cod’s gaze shot behind the dragon. A pale blue, utterly beautiful IceWing was tilting her head at them. That’s when he noticed- he was basically surrounded by sleek blue and white dragons, though the one in the middle had a..special aura. Maybe it was the diamond crown that sat upon her head, maybe the armed guard.
“Woah..” he breathed.
Just then, his father was there, scooping him up roughly before bowing lowly to the pretty dragons.
“Your majesty, I’m so sorry-“ he said, hiding his face as he scurried away, Cod wiggling to wave over his shoulder at the guard, who happily waved back, smiling, until an igloo obscured them from sight.
“Da, they were nice-“
“Cod-buddy, look,” his father said, setting him down.
His dad was always smeared with dirt and fish blood, though once he had been blue as well.
“Da, was that the Queen?”
“Yes, bud, and if your dad got recognized by her, bad things would happen, okay? Please, just stay away from them.”
“Why, dad? She looked nice..”
His dad flicked his tail nervously, taking Cod’s talons in his own as he knelt down to have a heart-to-heart.
“Your dad loves your mom, so, so much. But your mom lived here, and your dad lived up in the Ice Palace. Your dumb ol’ dad gave that pretty place and those pretty dragons up for your mom, and some dragons just don’t understand true love.”
“So you’re like Prince Arctic and she’s Foeslayer?”
“..yes, just like Foeslayer, but ten times as pretty.”
“Dad, Foeslayer was WAAY more pretty than Mom, she was a NIGHTWING!”
“Okay, well, your mom is...at least just as pretty.”
Cod nodded to that, looking satisfied.
“Do you think that maybe one day my scales will look like that?”
“Why do you ask that, Codster? Your scales are fine just as they are.”
“But Dad, my scales don’t shine like theirs..” he said, frowning deeply. “I wish I looked like them. Could I grow up and be a blue IceWing??”
His father smiled, “Maybe. Gotta keep your options open, bud.”
Cod’s eyes lit up, nodding. “And when I’m big, I’m gonna tell them to let you and mommy be happy!”
“Whatever you say,” his father noted with a smile as the dragonet hugged his legs.
“And PLEASE don’t tell your siblings about this..”
-
The SilkWing doctor frowned as she looked at his wrists and prodded one, causing the aristocrat to wince.
The office was much more dingy than any he had been to before.
“These scars...this is odd..” Lacewing noted.
“What?” he asked, looking at his wrists for the millionth time.
“They look like silk-gland removal scars. We sometimes have to do it for SilkWings whose silk is being overproduced and such.”
“I’m not a SilkWing,” Viceroy snapped, flicking his ears back.
“I know, but that’s my area of expertise.” Lacewing snapped back hotly, causing the HiveWing to recoil.
“I’m a noble, there’s no reason to talk to me in this way-“
“And I’m a Queen in this room, so shut your trap.” the SilkWing growled, causing Viceroy to mumble about SilkWings.
She decided not to hear it, again peering at the wrists.
“Did your parents have wrist stingers? Perhaps were they descended from SilkWings?”
“Yes, my mother has them- what? No! Why would you suggest such a thing?”
Lacewing shot him a glare, “It’s suggested that we actually evolved very closely to each other, so it could be a vestigial trait.” she snapped, “Anyways, it could be a venom gland or two. Any number of things. Normally venom glands only are sore when they first come in, though silk ones only do before metamorphosis and..I don’t think that’s happening,” she said snidely, shooting a pointed look at his lack of wings.
Well. She didn’t have to say it like THAT.
“So they’re venom glands?”
“That’s my..working theory. I’d currently say that someone probably botched a removal surgery when you were young, and that’s why you don’t have the actual stingers.” the dragoness said; shrugging.
“Okay, cool, and what can I do about the pain. The whole reason I came here?”
She shrugged, “Either get them removed fully-which I couldn’t suggest, considering that they could accidentally poison you, or just deal with it; maybe get some painkillers.”
“So you can’t fix it.”
“Not really.”
He huffed and stormed out of the office, ears flat.
ooo wordy words plz giv treasure
2634 words!
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Post by kingfish on Feb 23, 2021 22:35:27 GMT
Coronation.
(THIS IN NO WAY IS CANON-THE GIFT DESCRIBED DOES NOT EXIST LMAO)
“Moth-”
Perhaps it was the funny part about it all-dying, freezing, a sort of cosmic comeuppance dealt by the universe in response to her crimes.
Esker lay dead upon the ice, a mother that had fostered and raised her, yet Moraine felt absolutely nothing. A sort of hollow feeling in her chest, yes, but real mourning, the screams when a loved one died, were absent. The queen’s eyes had frozen over, jaw glued in a soundless scream of death, scales stuck to the ice of her dinner. Moraine supposed the gruesome scene should have been more surprising to her, but in her 23 years, the princess had seen enough gore to not be phased.
She quietly looked around, walking out of the room and mumbling for a servant to fetch the royal doctor from their sleep as she moved back to the corpse.
“The Queen is dead,” she added to the servant, who took off even faster.
Esker was a dragoness who Moraine had suspected would rule forever. She was absoultely massive, cloudy blue-green scales radiant even in her death, old scars both light and dark over her body. Her tongue dripped out of her mouth, face blue and colorless as her talons gripped her frozen neck, keeled over the table. Long since had the meal frozen in the night, the polar bear meat and other countless deiclacies served on crystal platters coated in frost and practically solid.
The only thing of note was the shattered crystal glass in her grip, blood from the shattered pieces the only spot on her.
The expensive wine splattered across the ice was frozen. Moraine’s eyes furrowed, and she turned and stormed out of the room as three or four scrambling IceWings flew into the room, frenzied.
Moraine walked alongside quietly as the queen’s body was carried out of the palace by an honor guard, laid upon a clear sheet of ice, defrosted so that she could look almost peaceful in her death, the light of the morning warm upon her dead corpse. The procession was utiitarian and dead quiet, dragons mutely bowing to the dead and saluting the living. She walked behind her mother, the thin crown of the IceWing throne tucked behind a wing. Esker had taken the diamonds out of the crown, now just a small ring of silver set in iron was all that remained.
Her mother’s body was taken to the queen’s cavern with little hesitation, moon globes illuminating the surroundings of the ice cave, set into the side of the mountains and ice.
The bones of generations of queens rested here, some much more decayed than others. The oldest of them had ice fully covering her great skeleton, melted by each successive summer and dripping drop by drop until her largest bones were basically ice themselves.
No one but queens were allowed to be buried in the sanct site, regents and children had a separate cave.
The souls of the dead IceWings practically haunted the place, and Moraine could feel eyes that were not tangible slipping over her scales as they put the ice block in place, the dead queen sitting eteranl vigil as her little jewelry froze to her scales.
Only those in the First Circle would ever see the grandeur of this frozen memory, and the ones who could crowded around Moraine.
For a second, she looked at her mother, than strode over to the corpse, looking down at it. The small crowd all stared at the young dragon, before the princess bowed to her mother a last time.
“You taught me to be strong. You made our kingdom strong. May your bones rest.” Moraine said. These were not words of ceremony, really, but it was custom to thank the dead queen.
A noble, a storm-grey dragon, led the others to bow, before saying, in unison, “May your bones rest in the ice. May the snow see your strength preserved. Hail!”
They turned their mouths towards the ceiling, hurling frostbreath. Finally, Moraine added hers, finishing off the ice that would surely melt and preserve her mother’s bones.
She had practiced her frostbreath every day of her life for this.
It was time to start pracrticing something else.
The nobles then turned to her, bowing deeply as the leader of the ranks, the storm-grey one, stepped forward, taking the crown from Moraine as she took her place on the dias at the center of the room.
“Long live the new queen.” he said, and Moraine closed her eyes and the cold metal hit her head-
She was in the dark when she opened them. No moon globes, no sunlight, just the fuzzy darkness of the back of her eyes-but her eyes were open.
Her scales glowed with soft light, and as she readied her talons she discovered they were half-transparent.
The first queen to emerge from the murk was dark, a dim dragon, small in stature. Moraine bowed as a half-dozen others also emerged from the darkness.
“I-“
“Rise, Moraine. Art thou a queen, now that she is dead?”
The voice was deep, a gravelly tone, coming from a pale queen, obviously ancient.
“No, ancestor. W-“ she looked around, “Why is she not here?”
“Did you want her to be?” the lead queen asked. Moraine frowned, searching herself.
“She fought for our kingdom. Made it great. Rid it of undesirables.”
The tall specter curled an eyebrow upwards, until one of the other queens spoke.
The queen was..to Moraine’s suprise, half blue, with pale fins going down her spine, and small glow markings under her eyes. She was almost fully translucent, annoyance in her eyes.
“Do you mean to say that I was an undesirable?” she spat.
“Brinicle-“ the lead queen reprimanded, yet the other snarled.
“Listen now, Moraine of the IceWings. Your mother stained ice with blue blood for no reason. She killed and murdered and left your dragons weak and alone. A single IceWing, of any blood, is not strong alone.” Brinicle imparted, stalking off into the darkness.
“I-“ Moraine tried, looking around defensively.
“Quiet. Your mother is not welcome among us yet. She will not protect you, Moraine.” another said, shaking her head.
“No need to be defensive. She is here, is she not?”
Her mother had never utilized the Gift of Memory…
The lead queen lashed her tail, making a cracking sound like a whip, silencing the other queens.
“We impart wisdom, not insults. Now. What wisdom do each of you have to impart?”
Tell your stories.”
A pink IceWing stepped forward first, “My name has been lost to time, but I was a warlike queen. This was a mistake. In the end, all I had conquered was useless land and my ego. Remember, Moraine. Greed is not ambition.” with that, she faded into the darkness.
Another took her place, a young white dragoness, “I loved my mate, my dragonets. I could not protect them from poisonous words of my enemies. So I am died. Remember, Moraine, a queen’s vigil is a one spent alone.” and she, like the other, burst into light and disappeared.
Two dragonesses stepped into the pale light of Moraine’s scales, twins, “Vengeance drove our claws into each other. Remember, Moraine, that anger is useful as a tool, but can just as easily be turned against you.
Now, only the lead dragoness stood, sighing, and looked down at the new Queen.
“I am Queen Diamond. Though my madness does not afflict me here, my power drove me to insanity. Remember, Moraine. Your power is your dragon’s, and you cannot control them.”
And she shattered into a thousand peices of starlight, and her eyes opened.
She burst out of the IceWing palace, wings close to her side as an advisor, Penguin, hopped alongside her.
“Check the south tower for my father,” she barked to a guard, the moon still high in the sky as she awoke them from their near-statueness.
“My lady, please slow down-” Penguin begged, trying to keep up.
“I want all dead dragon parts buried respectufully” Moraine snapped to the advisor, “I am queen now, and that’s what I order of you. Do you understand?” the dragon said, snapping her ears back to the advisor and wildly gesturing.
“My lady, you’re not queen yet-”
“But I am first in line, so I hold emergency powers. Let it be done.” she snapped.
Heads adorned the Ice palace, some new and some just skulls on icicles, result’s of Esker’s fasciation with Burn. And because of this, the palace stunk of rotting flesh. With a final glare, the young queen took off, wings snapping open and taking flight, turning in the direction of the north tower.
Penguin could only watch as the dragoness vanished into the night, her presence only indicated by the light of the moonglobe that hovered over her shoulder, as if the full moon itself avoided her.
Moraine alighted on the pale tower’s balcony, tail lashing as she stormed into her father’s study. He did not like the royal rooms, preferring to, as he put it, ‘be closer to the stars’.
Everest looked up from his paper, quill still in hand as his glasses slid down his face slightly, globe casting dramatic light over his face. He was larger than Moraine, though not as large as Esker. The dragon was in his eighties or nineties, slightly older than his now-decesed wife, and it showed in the wrinkles in his scales and stained claws.
“...Yes?”
“Mother is dead.” Moraine deadpanned.
He took the news..well, leaning back in his seat, “It’s the middle of the night. Could she not have common courtesy to die in the morning?”
The new regent’s eyes narrowed, “Why are you awake, father?”
Everest slowly put down his quill, looking up at his daughter from his seat, “You suspect me,” he breathed, chuckling lowly, “How did you know?”
Her eyes widened, than narrowed, taking a pacing step to the left, blocking escape, “Her wine did not freeze. For a fact, something with such high concentration of alcohol should not freeze-because it was from the north, her oldest bottle.
So someone added water. Water that carried poison best distilled-”
“Diamond’s Kiss, they call it.” Everest finished, “I never doubted you would know, Moraine. You always were my brightest dragonet.”
Moraine shook her head. There was the truth, plain and simple.
“Father. I cannot be a good queen and allow you to get away with murder. I cannot show..favoritism.”
He smiled happily, looking over the crown on her head.
“Oh, my beloved dragonet, always you were so..noble. Don’t worry, my dear. It is your duty, none more. None less.”
Moraine could not attend his execution.
It was so odd that IceWings could cry-her tears froze to her cheeks nevertheless.
Once upon a time, she had believed that queens never felt.
No, queens felt.
So much it hurt.
(1846 words)
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