A Crimson Invasion is the first book in the Moon of Venus arc, written by EaglesOfAdrestia. Adrasteia is featured on the cover.
(scroll down to read)
Cover was drawn using The Dangerous Gift as a reference.
note from adrestia: updates may be a little slow!! i will try to add at least one new chapter every few days, but just note i juggle schoolwork + being on the swim team + my own other projects so updates will be slow sometimes!
swim season and final exam season are both over so i'm getting back to working on this now
Moon of Venus arc[]
- A Crimson Invasion
- ???
- ???
- ???
- ???
Dragon Allegiances in the War[]
Pyrrhia[]
MudWings[]
Alliance: themselves
Queen: Queen Paludine
SandWings[]
Alliance: SkyWings
Queen: Queen Ankh
SkyWings[]
Alliance: themselves
Queen: Queen Burgundy
SeaWings[]
Alliance: MudWings
Queen: Queen Lyonsia
RainWings[]
Alliance: Unaffiliated
Queen: Queen Vibrant
IceWings[]
Alliance: MudWings
Queen: Queen Brumal
NightWings[]
Alliance: SkyWings
Queen: Queen Darkrider
Pantala[]
SilkWings[]
Alliance: Unaffiliated
Queen: was Queen Swallowtail before the HiveWing-SilkWing war, now ruled by the HiveWing queen Vespula
HiveWings[]
Alliance: Unaffiliated
Queen: Queen Vespula
Rulers of the Hives: Queen Vespula (Vespula Hive), Lady Damselfly (Damselfly Hive), Lady Caddisfly (Caddisfly Hive), Lady Honeycomb (Honeycomb Hive), Lady Milkweed (Milkweed Hive), Lady Horntail (Horntail Hive), Lady Midge (Midge Hive), Lady Leafhopper (Leafhopper Hive), Lady June (June Hive).
LeafWings[]
Alliance: Unaffiliated
Queen: last known queen was Queen Maple, though tribe split up during the HiveWing-SilkWing war. The leader of the PoisonWings is General Larkspur and the leader of the SapWings is General Deciduous.
Maps[]
Prologue[]
A blizzard was stirring up in the Ice Kingdom, which meant better protection from outsiders for the IceWings. The tribes were preparing for war, knowing that the tensions between the SkyWing queen Burgundy and MudWing queen Paludine were stirring faster than ever. Queen Burgundy set out one of her soldiers to trade items with the MudWings, but was killed by one of Paludine's soldiers who suddenly betrayed his queen, killing Queen Burgundy's soldier then himself. Burgundy argued that it was Paludine's fault since she didn't condemn him in his kingdom cage, thus allowing him to roam free to kill her soldier, while Paludine argued that she herself was fully innocent, as she couldn't control the actions of the soldier that killed hers, and refused to take any further actions. The SeaWings were involved, claiming that Paludine was innocent and Burgundy shouldn't blame her. Knowing that the tension between the two tribes spread to the SeaWings, it's possible it could mean political war for the other tribes. To protect themselves, the IceWings began to build a protective fortress around their borders with the Kingdom of Sand and more defenses near their oceans.
Frigid was in charge of making sure that the construction of the IceWing Wall was under control. The role was assigned to him by Queen Brumal while she assigned soldiers who were going to be in charge of protecting the Wall, called the Defenders. Frigid was the leader of construction, but once construction was finished he would be the Lead Defender. Frigid was a well-respected politician in the Second Circle, the highest ranking of most of the construction workers, who mostly consisted of IceWings from the Seventh Circle. He was stern towards the Seventh Circle workers, who were trying their best, only to get scolded. Frigid didn't exactly want to act as stern as he was— he was just obeying Queen Brumal's orders.
Frigid walked over to an IceWing who was constructing part of the Wall from ice. "Have you tested how strong the ice is?" he asked. "We want strong ice that's been in the cold for quite awhile so a dragon's fire can't easily melt it."
"It should be as strong as you want it to be," the IceWing said back to Frigid. "Shiver used her frostbreath on a bunch of gathered ice earlier before we started putting it up to make it colder. So it should work fine if it were already cold in the first place and then another protective layer of frostbreath was added."
"Good." Frigid assumed that if construction, the hardest part of the job building the Wall, was going well with the construction workers, then everything else should be going well. The Wall was similar to the shape of Queen Brumal's palace, though more longer and didn't have any rooms. The Wall would stretch from the borders of the Ice Kingdom with the Kingdom of Sand to the east of the Ice Kingdom where it meets the ocean. The Defenders would be on top of the wall, on the lookout for dragons passing by. Their orders would be to allow any IceWing to enter without question, though to begin attacking other dragons. For now, Frigid was in charge of leading the construction of the wall and making sure things were working appropriately, but when the Wall's construction was finished he would be the Lead Defender. Frigid flew past the wall to enter the Ice Kingdom to see Queen Brumal. When he arrived at the Ice Palace, Brumal was there as if she were waiting for him.
"I had a feeling you would come eventually," Brumal said, looking to see Frigid fly into her palace. "How's construction going along?"
"I'd say it's going well," Frigid explained to his queen. "The construction is near finished. Just making sure that all the ice is put into place."
"Good, because I feel like we have enough soldiers already and I want to see how they all look placed like chess pieces to see if I should hire any more or if that's enough."
Queen Brumal appointed two groups of IceWings to be Defenders, Day Defenders and Night Defenders. The Day Defenders would protect the Wall from sunrise to sunset, and the Night Defenders would protect the Wall from sunset to sunrise. Frigid, being the Lead Defender, would take two shifts, serving a couple hours during the Day Defenders' shift and a couple hours during the Night Defenders' shift.
"I don't think there's a thing of hiring too many soldiers," Frigid said to her. "The more soldiers the better. Besides, we have two separate groups of soldiers who will be working. I'm sure an excess would be fine enough. The top part of the Wall looks big enough to host many soldiers so the Defenders don't need to fight over who gets to fly in the air the whole shift and who gets to rest their wings."
"True."
Brumal and Frigid were going to continue their conversation when Shiver, a construction worker for the Wall, rushed in, panicking. "My Queen!" she yelled, stopping for a bit to pant and take some breaths.
"What's wrong?" Brumal asked Shiver as she tried to recover some of her breaths.
"The Wall, the Wall!"
"Calm down, Shiver," Frigid said to her as Shiver's panicking panting got more intense. "What's happening to the Wall?"
"We're being attacked!" Shiver yelled. "I know it's a RainWing, but I don't know who they are! Please, can you guys do something? They're terrifying and we don't know what to do! If we don't go, the RainWing will destroy the Wall and we'll lose all our progress!"
Frigid turned to Brumal. "Come on, let's go." He saw Shiver leave the Ice Palace frantically, and he followed her as Brumal followed him shortly after. Shiver lead the way to the Wall, which was still in mostly good condition but many soldiers were leaving to escape the attack from the RainWing. The three dragons flew over the wall to see a couple construction workers trying to fight off the orange-scaled RainWing that neared the Wall midair, though were melted by the RainWing's venom. After spraying the IceWings with their venom, melting them, they landed to be on a lower level than the three IceWings she saw.
Frigid was tempted to rush down and attack the RainWing, but Shiver snapped at him before he could. "Don't," she said. "You'll get yourself killed. You didn't see what she did to the construction workers?"
Frigid didn't hold back and rushed in to fight the RainWing, provoked. Frigid tackled the RainWing down before they could prepare their venom and shut their mouth with his front arms to contain them. "Help me out here, will ya?" Frigid yelled at Brumal and Shiver, turning his head. His grasp weakened when turning his head to yell, allowing the RainWing to break their snout free from Frigid's grasp. They fired venom, but Frigid was able to dodge in time as the two female dragons headed over to assist him. It was easy to dodge, but he didn't realize that the direction of the venom was going for Brumal, not him.
The venom hit Brumal in her eye. Brumal didn't focus on her flight and plummeted to the ground as she focused on her eye that was slowly being eaten away by her venom. Like an instinct, Frigid made his way over to Brumal instead of focusing on the RainWing, who got away. Brumal was too busy screaming over her eyes to respond to Frigid or Shiver.
"Are you okay?" Shiver asked.
"What must we do?" Frigid questioned.
But they didn't ask the vital question in time: "Who would take the IceWing throne?" before she never responded to any of their questions before her death. Queen Brumal had no children nor no mate and was completely on her own. No one knew who would succeed her, as her death wasn't expected. But she died before she could answer the question, leaving the Ice Kingdom with no leader nor someone to replace them.
When Brumal stopped responding to them, Shiver looked at Frigid. "What must we do?" she asked.
Frigid took the First Circle necklace from Brumal's neck, but didn't put it on his neck. "Take her back. We'll think of something eventually."
Chapter One: Adrasteia[]
Adrasteia was a well-respected SkyWing guard and soldier under Queen Burgundy, but because of the political tension she didn't know who to side with. Queen Burgundy, because she was devout and loyal to her queen, or Queen Paludine, who was technically correct?
The SkyWings were split on who was correct. A majority of the guards believed that Queen Burgundy's acts against the MudWings were justified in name of the killed SkyWing soldier. On the other talon, most of the SkyWing citizens though that Queen Burgundy wasn't justified and that Queen Paludine was in the right. Adrasteia was torn between serving her queen and allowing her to believe freely.
Queen Burgundy always treated dragons differently based on how she sought them. A well-respected dragon like Adrasteia she would hesitate to argue with and obey her, though other dragons wouldn't get the same respect that Burgundy would give well-respected dragons like Adrasteia.
In her early years of being a SkyWing guard, Adrasteia was given the nickname The Chain Breaker from how she would constantly go out of her ways to serve her queen, even if it meant crossing the continent on a dangerous journey. But the chain The Chain Breaker could not break was the chain confining her to the service of Queen Burgundy. Regardless of how she felt, she had to stay with Burgundy. She was by her side until the end of time.
Adrasteia deep down didn't want to face the anger of Queen Burgundy when she, one of her most loyal guards, was against her. She wanted to do something without being called out by the queen for being against her. The MudWings were on low contact with the SkyWings. Any MudWing, politically involved or not, would be terrified to step near a SkyWing. There was no hope trying to be the savior SkyWing to the MudWings, for because she was a SkyWing, they would simply not listen to her. But Adrasteia wanted to try. If she had the necessary abilities to assist the MudWings, then she should use it to help them. Her queen didn't necessarily had to know unless if they found her. If she didn't do anything to help even though she was able to, she'd feel guilty knowing a war was started that she had the power to prevent.
Adrasteia entered Queen Burgundy's palace. The walls were made from stone and were covered in gold. The bloodline of the SkyWing royalty had gotten richer and richer over time. Even the minor royals who lived in the palace wore amulets and earrings made from genuine gold. Queen Burgundy was adorned in gold: earrings, bracelets, jewelry, you name it. The colors didn't necessarily named for her burgundy scales that she was named after, but she was for sure a terrifyingly rich SkyWing. Adrasteia bowed to Queen Burgundy, who was laying down on her golden throne in a lazy manner. "I need some information," Adrasteia began.
"What's going on, Adra?" Burgundy replied. She got up from her laying back position and returned to a serious one.
"Can I have a discussion with you about the tensions?"
"Sure thing. Come here."
Adrasteia went next to her queen, sitting next to her as her queen sat on her golden throne and she sat on the stone ground the floor was made of. "Do you plan to attack the MudWings?"
Because Adrasteia was cared for by and loved by her queen, she always answered genuinely to her questions. "Indeed. I want you to fight on our side. You'll be like a representative of the SkyWings, after all. A devout and loyal soldier is a dragon that every army wants, and you're completely fit for the role."
Adrasteia nodded. "When will we be leaving, Your Grace?"
"I plan a week at minimum," Burgundy said. "I want to find out more information about the MudWings first. Perhaps there's something else that they're concealing from us that I don't know about. We can use that information against them in our fight."
Adrasteia understood Burgundy's point of view. If the MudWings had a terrifying secret that affected her, then she would be willing to fight against them on Burgundy's side. But with all that is known so far about the tensions between the two tribes, she didn't want to. She felt coerced into a belief that she didn't believe in. "Have you sent out any spies?"
"A few. I just hope they come back alive, unlike Andes."
Andes was the SkyWing soldier that was killed by the MudWing soldier, who first killed Andes before killing himself. They were both found dead when SkyWing soldiers went to investigate the disappearance of Andes and found the two dead. Andes's job was to trade between tribes, so when he was exiting the Mud Kingdom after getting the MudWing goods he obtained, he was on the way back to the Sky Kingdom when it was suspected that he was attacked and killed by one of the MudWing soldiers, as Queen Paludine recognized the dead MudWing as a soldier of her army, and the MudWing soldier either killed himself or died sometime later from an unknown cause.
Adrasteia remembered Andes. He was a good friend to her when her husband died when her daughter was young. After a couple years was when she realized how effective it was. Adrasteia felt truly at peace with Andes, much more closer than a friend. His death was devastating news. She wanted to fight for him, but she thought that a continent-wide war wouldn't do justice. The justice that Andes deserved was to be honored by the SkyWings, not to try and blame the master of his killer.
"I agree," Adrasteia said to him. "But shouldn't we consider what the citizens will think about this?"
"I've already considered them."
"Do their opinions not matter? They're still angry and protesting as far as the Sky Kingdom stretches. Surely you have to do something about it."
"They just don't realize that I'm doing the right thing because I'm involved more in the situation than they are. They only just have a slight idea of what's going on. I agree that at first it would sound bad, but it's all for Andes's sake. If only they understood everything about what happened to Andes and the things that have been going on with Queen Paludine and I, I'm sure they'd be on my side. Perhaps continuing is the only way to persuade them."
"They know everything alright," Adrasteia said. "Have you not seen their protests? They're demanding that you stop trying to get yourself into the MudWing's situation." Adrasteia knew she probably said too much to defy Burgundy, as Burgundy glared at her.
"I told you continuing would be the only way to persuade them what's right. Have you not been listening?"
"Apologies." Adrasteia had to lie in order to not start a fight with Burgundy. She tried to talk herself out of the situation. "Do you need me to get you anything to support you?"
Burgundy's glare went away. "If you could prepare the soldiers for the planned fight against the MudWings, that would be great. Thank you, Adra."
Adrasteia nodded. "When would you like me to do so?"
"Tomorrow afternoon. I gave most soldiers a day off today because of everything going on. I'll call everyone here tomorrow when noon strikes and you will begin training."
"Understood. See you then," Adrasteia said as she left.
The Chain Breaker could not break her own chains against Burgundy, and fire would not be able to easily melt them away. What she would have to do is persevere until she ends up in a situation where she can freely break her chains. But for now, she would be imprisoned in her master's chains, forced to show gravitas when clearly she did not deserve it.
Chapter Two: Hyacinth[]
The children of the Poison Jungle were forced to take after their parents' lives. Hyacinth was no different than the other LeafWings who followed their parents' path: same organization of LeafWings their parents were a part of. Hyacinth's parents were PoisonWings, so Hyacinth naturally was as well, being raised to fit their lifestyles.
Hyacinth possessed leafspeak, so naturally her parents wanted to pair her with a LeafWing that also had leafspeak, that LeafWing being Snakeroot. He was kind— one who didn't care about her abilities or looks over everything. Snakeroot seemed happy to be with Hyacinth. Hyacinth didn't have much self-doubt and was more confident in herself than other LeafWings. So naturally she seemed excited to be with Snakeroot. Everyone else was excited as well, that being for the leafspeak dragonets.
Hyacinth arranged a rendezvous for her and Snakeroot to meet at midnight. Hyacinth's parents occupied her often with duties, and she wanted some more time to get to know Snakeroot before her marriage to him. After all, who wants to marry someone they know absolutely nothing about? Not Hyacinth.
She told Snakeroot the day before: "I want you to meet me tomorrow at midnight in the center of the village," she said firmly to Snakeroot. "That way we can spend some time together. I just want to get to know you. As for my parents' arrangements of my schedule, this will probably be one of the only times, if not the last time, we properly see and interact with each other before marriage. Deal?"
"Deal." Snakeroot's words confirmed the meet official. The soon came out of its hiding place and shone upon Pantala, and Hyacinth began to hear Snakeroot's words of confirmation echo in her head.
Deal. Deal. Deal.
Hyacinth's parents were already asleep, so leaving temporarily should be something easy for her to do. They were sound sleepers, the only thing being able to easily wake them were loud sounds close by them. If a sound of screaming would wake up her parents up like an annoying alarm clock, then they probably wouldn't hear her being gone from their presence. Hyacinth left the little hut that she and her parents stayed in and ran a little bit the way there before the hut was out of sight before taking flight in case the sound of her wings flapping would cause someone to worry, scream, and wake up her parents, where they would realize she was gone. Hyacinth took flight to reach her destination faster.
Hyacinth arrived at the arranged place, though Snakeroot had not yet. It looked to be around the middle of the night, so she was ready to expect Snakeroot to appear at any moment. She was near a river, and decided to look down in the water. She saw her reflection— an obedient LeafWing daughter who pushes everything out of her mind for the sake of her parents, and a few fish. She caught one of the fish for a midnight snack and ate it while awaiting Snakeroot.
Pantala was not going to descend into war, at least not a continent-wide one, but even Hyacinth could not think of any conflicts that would spread nation-wide to continent-wide to worldwide. When it came to war, the Pantalans were safe from conflict. The only times they were in danger of conflict arising would be between their personal life and their families. If Hyacinth didn't agree to marry Snakeroot, she would be forced into a war she couldn't even win. If she didn't like Snakeroot in the end, she was going to make herself like him so she would be happier with the choices her parents made for her.
After about ten minutes of waiting, Snakeroot showed up. "Apologies that I'm late," he said. "I was just trying to leave effectively without getting myself into trouble that would delay our rendezvous."
"Oh, ahaha," Hyacinth chuckled. "Same for me too. I know my parents can't be easily woken up, but I don't want to find out if their hearing levels got worse or if they're too grumpy to wake up."
"Understandable." Snakeroot began to walk to the river Hyacinth caught a fish from. "Come sit here." He wanted to set the scene for a romantic discussion, and Hyacinth was up for that. Hyacinth nodded and followed Snakeroot as the two sat down near the side of the river. Their wings touched and their eyes were both fixated on their reflections in the river, though it was slightly harder to see due to the sun being asleep, but if they tried hard enough to look for it, they could see it. "So, what exactly did you want me to come here for?" Snakeroot had a feeling it would offend Hyacinth, so he continued to speak. "I don't want to offend you, but I'm just wondering if you wanted to talk to me about something."
"Yes, indeed," Hyacinth said to Snakeroot, nodding. "It's about the arranged marriage between our parents."
"What about it?"
Hyacinth spoke only the truth. "I don't want it to be just for the purpose of leafspeak offspring. I just want to feel like this is something I want to devote myself to."
Snakeroot nodded. "I always felt like your parents were a little insane for a PoisonWing dragon. Everything you do is controlled by them. You'll only be free if you're with someone else, and even then I won't even know if you'll be free from them."
"You're the only one who can get me out of here, Snakeroot. I'm counting on you for that."
Snakeroot had an idea. "Traveling across the continent would be a good start to escaping your parents. To Lake Scorpion, then we can decide what to do from there."
Hyacinth knew where Snakeroot was going, but didn't seem to be fond of the idea. "I feel like that's a good start and we could go there if absolutely possible, but I know there's probably better locations than that."
"You mean like Pyrrhia?"
"Yes." Hyacinth only was speaking the truth.
"I mean, we could." Snakeroot stopped himself. "I think I should go. My parents aren't sound sleepers like yours, so maybe they've already discovered that I'm asleep. I don't know. I just don't want to disappoint them."
Hearing Snakeroot speak of his parents reminded her of her own. "I should go too. Can you come back here tomorrow night at the same time so we can discuss further?"
"Yes, yes indeed!" Snakeroot turned to fly back. "I'll come back for you, I promise, Hyacinth."
"Thank you, Snakeroot." Hyacinth saw Snakeroot turn to take flight, and she did the same shortly after. By her plans to travel to Pyrrhia with Snakeroot, she would be breaking the chains from her parents— that is, if she would be able to in the first place. She was an only daughter, and being the only dragon other families would judge her parents for, she had to be a good role model. But if she were to leave, what would be of her parents? The PoisonWings? But they could figure it all out on their own, because thinking about leaving only made Hyacinth want to do it more.
Chapter Three: Frigid[]
Brumal was dead.
Brumal had neither any children or a mate, but most importantly no living family members willing to take the throne. She had a cousin, Ghiaccio, who left the Ice Kingdom years ago in search of a better life, his current residence being unknown. They made many attempts to contact Ghiaccio to see if he would be willing to take Brumal's place after his cousin's death, but because they never found out his residence, the attempts couldn't go through. No known living family members of Brumal were alive that had a known residence.
The IceWings were promoting the idea of having smaller families to the tribe to conserve the amount of resources in the Ice Kingdom, knowing that other than the outside world, who had much better conditions of non-dragon species living, had much more resources due to the warmer weather. The Ice Kingdom was the perfect temperature for creatures that had a large coat of fur, while those of the opposite would thrive in the Kingdom of Sand. Those creatures were beginning to become scarce food sources, so the IceWings had to do the best to preserve them while making sure that all the citizens were well-fed. To promote the idea of having smaller families, the royalty and nobility had smaller families as well, thus reducing the amount of backup heirs incase the declared one by the queen dies, or in this situation since Brumal had none at all, getting rid of the possibility.
Frigid wasn't sure what to do. He was mostly well-respected by the IceWings, so he was sure that taking the throne would probably be the best idea since no family members of Brumal would. But that would cause a huge uproar, as no dragon could simply just do that. He either had to find someone that the IceWings could agree on being placed on the Ice Kingdom's throne, or do so himself.
Frigid first decided to focus on rebuilding the damaged areas of the Wall. He ordered an investigation following the escape of the RainWing culprit who killed Brumal with their venom, though finding the RainWing wouldn't exactly be easy since the RainWings could change the color of their scales and the main detail that they got of the RainWing was its orange scale color. Luckily they did not completely damage the Wall, though some major areas had to be rebuilt. When the RainWing attacked, the RainWing didn't attack the Wall themselves but killed some of the workers, then threw their bodies into the Wall to destroy it.
Construction was doing alright overall, but the workers were pressured to work harder and harder. Frigid assigned Shiver to be in charge of construction as he desperately tried to figure out who should inherit Brumal's throne. While Shiver was in charge of leading the reconstruction, Frigid was talking to one of Queen Brumal's advisors, Neige.
Neige served Queen Brumal when she first took over as queen years and years ago. She was a friend of Queen Brumal's mother, Queen Nivial, who eventually became a servant when she became part of the Second Circle. Nivial did what Brumal didn't— declare an heir before her death, that heir being her only daughter Brumal. Nivial had a cousin who was the mother of Brumal's cousin Ghiaccio who died from illness. Sometime after his mother's death, Ghiaccio left the Ice Kingdom in search of a better life. He left suddenly during the night, left behind a note saying that he was departing from the Ice Kingdom, and was never seen again. Nowhere on his note did Ghiaccio say where he planned to reside.
"What should we do?" Frigid asked Neige. "Queen Brumal never declared who she wanted to take the throne, did she?"
"Never have I heard her say anything about it," Neige replied. "There will be a massive uproar if any non-royal takes the throne, so in order to prevent those future disputes we need to find Ghiaccio again."
"That's the issue. We don't know where he is and we've been trying to track him down for years. Everything's failed because we don't know where Ghiaccio resides."
"Well if we don't find Ghiaccio and ask him to take Brumal's place we're going to have to fight battles and protests against the citizens because this isn't how the IceWing royal family's succession is supposed to work."
Frigid declared his plan based on what he knew. "Fine, then we're going to search for Ghiaccio. I will lead the search party to find him. If we don't find Ghiaccio after awhile, then I will take over the IceWing throne myself. Neige, you can just act as the replacement while I'm gone. I will either return with or without Ghiaccio, and give the Ice Kingdom its new ruler."
"But what if you die without finding Ghiaccio? What will you do then?"
"Then I will request you to be the queen. Technically you will be right now while we search for him, just temporarily."
"I see. Well, why don't you begin to form your search party? Are you going to use the IceWing army or bring with you recruits?"
"I plan on some sort of combination between the two. Members of the army for protection, and dragonets who will be ranked in the lower Circles when they reach adulthood who are desperate to increase their ranks."
"Well, good luck, Frigid."
"Thank you, Neige. I will bring back either myself or Ghiaccio to be the new IceWing king, and while we're out I'll search for clues about that RainWing who nearly destroyed the Wall. I have left Shiver to be in charge of construction, so just make sure you check up on her and the construction every once in awhile. But nevertheless, I'll return with someone to take the throne."
Secretly, Frigid wanted to be the king himself. He hoped that he wouldn't find Ghiaccio and then show up with himself being the new ruler. By proper royalty rules, technically he should already be the king.
Frigid and Brumal were in a secret relationship with each other. The only two dragons who knew about their relationship were themselves. Frigid and Brumal's eggs were concealed from the public and were being kept in secret by Frigid, as he lived in a concealed room of Brumal's castle, reason being because he was high-ranking and his job was to work for the IceWing royal family. Frigid didn't know how to break the word of their secret relationship to the public, because then the search for Ghiaccio would be for nothing as Queen Brumal's heirs were basically already alive.
An appropriate search length would be at least a couple months, which would be a perfect amount of time. Dragons eggs took about half a year to hatch, and the two eggs were laid a couple days before Brumal died, meaning they'd be about a week old. A few day long search would be too short, a year would be too long, but around a month or two would be the perfect amount of length. Frigid planned to assign soldiers to kingdoms, where they would search for Ghiaccio. He calculated an estimate amount of time that it would take for the search to be complete, and he came to around a month or two.
His plans were set on searching for Ghiaccio with details included, but when it came to hiding his secret offspring that were mothered by Queen Brumal, he didn't know how to approach it.
Chapter Four: Ares[]
Ares was practically a replacement father to his younger sister, Hera, after they lost two dragons that they considered father figures: Andes, then their own biological father. Ares was a father to himself and his younger sister, the only parental figure around when their mother, Adrasteia, was out at work.
Hera's wing membranes were the reminiscent same color that their father used to have. Her scales and the additional scales that ran down her back were a very similar crimson shade to one another, MudWing brown horns, spikes, extra scales bordering her underbelly, and claws, and a light peach underbelly with her yellow eyes. Ares had the same eyes, MudWing brown colors among his body, and the additional scales that ran down his back, that she did, with the wing membranes the same light orange as his mother's, orange scales, and yellow extra scales boring his underbelly. The two siblings' eyes would rarely focus on something else other than each others', as they were usually always together.
Ares never tried to be strict unless if he had to be, considering his sister's perspective in a situation, knowing how curious his little sister was. His mind was trained to be vicarious and mindful of others. When his little sister wanted to do something on her own, he was reluctant, but in the end usually let her go as long as he could be involved nearby or he trusted her going with someone else.
Adrasteia returned back home to her children after her work day where she spoke with Queen Burgundy. Stressed from the work she put herself through, she returned home grumpily. When she came back to their cave, both Ares and Hera instantly noticed her vexed face when they saw her enter and instantly became worried about her, as it wasn't a feeling their mother would usually feel.
Whenever Adrasteia would return from her work, she would get everything done at her work and was passionate about it, so she would be excited to go back to her cave and greet her children, but this time she seemed vexed and stressed from the war situation.
Hera was the first to speak up about it. "Are you alright?" she asked, keeping her question brief.
"I am," Adrasteia said firmly to her daughter. "It's just political issues."
"Political issues?" Ares asked. "Like what? What's going on? I know a war is being provoked to start around Pyrrhia and all, but what political issues? Are there more SkyWing issues that could worsen it if it were widespread like the MudWing and SkyWing queens' argument?"
"I just thought political issues would be the correct term," Adrasteia said. "But I guess not now that I think about it. Burgundy and I are just having an internal conflict."
"Please don't spread it across Pyrrhia or Pantala, please," Hera said, trying to give an effect by reminding her mother to not make mistakes that other dragons have already made. "Just keep it between you and Queen Burgundy."
"I'll definitely keep it to myself," Adrasteia assured her children. "But Queen Burgundy on the other talon may not keep it to herself. This conflict is showing the true side of Queen Burgundy— she's ignorant and self-absorbed. Unfit to be a queen!"
"If any SkyWing dragon should be the queen, it should be you!" Hera said, trying to bring the situation to a brighter scenario. But the real scenario was war, and optimism simply wouldn't work when your life was possibly on the line.
"I appreciate your confidence, but don't get to excited over it."
"Mother isn't going to be the next queen," Ares added. "It'll most likely be one of Queen Burgundy's daughters, but that's not what the war is going to be about. That is, if it actually starts, but now that I think about it has started since the SkyWings already started attacking the MudWings. But my point still stands that the war won't be about who takes the throne and who dies."
"Indeed," Adrasteia said. "So far it's only between those two tribes, but not continent-wide. So official as in between two tribes, not official as in a widespread fight."
"What should we do then?" Hera asked, beginning to understand the true conflict around her. "We could fight?"
Adrasteia seemed nervous. "I'd be reluctant to let you guys do that."
"Why?"
"You're just young dragonets, not trained fighters like me. You'll need experience for that. That's why I'd be so reluctant to let you guys go out and fight— you're simply not qualified in terms of the queen."
"We can prove her wrong!" Hera began to get excited.
Ares began to try and calm down his curious little sister. "Do what our mother says," he said to her. "If she says we can't go, we're not going. You obey me and we both obey her. If she says that one of us can go and the other not, the one of us can go and the other will not. Obedience is a simple concept that's so hard to grasp. You're just practicing that concept. One day you'll master it."
Adrasteia nodded, giving her son a 'thank you' gesture with her talons. "Did you kids eat?"
"I took her out hunting for birds sometime before you came," Ares said.
"Thank you," Adrasteia said. She began to walk to a deeper part of the cave. "I'm going to get some rest. Ares, would you be comfortable with continuing to watch your sister?"
It was a question that Ares couldn't say no to, not because he enjoyed it, but simply because he obeyed his mother with no question. "Yes, of course." He turned. "Hera, come with me." He walked to a deeper part of the cave as well, though not near where Adrasteia would rest. "I'll tell you a story to ease this situation."
Hera was intrigued and instantly followed her brother. "Yes, please do!"
Sometime later both Hera and his mother were asleep. Ares was resting too shortly before, but he woke up due to feelings of hunger. He exited the cave quietly, wanting to go out to quickly hunt a bird in the night to please his feelings of hunger. When he walked outside, he felt a cold breeze under the luminescent moon as he walked carefully in hunting mode. Ares approached behind a bush, watching in front of it to see if he could find some night prey beyond it. He did find a night creature, but it most certainly wasn't prey.
A NightWing stood in front of the bush, looking as if it were spying around the area. Ares quickly ducked behind the bush in a panic, accidentally rustling the bush. The NightWing was alerted by the sound and began to walk closer to inspect it.
Chapter Five: Hyacinth[]
The previous night Hyacinth returned home safely to her parents with them having no speculations that she left. Hyacinth made sure to not knock everything over or majorly change the position of an object. She came home safe and unharmed with no angry parents, and based on their behavior it didn't seem like her parents noticed that she left at all, but the thing that remained in the end was her guilt.
Ricinus and Cassava were LeafWings whose lives were based around strict orders from the PoisonWing leader, General Larkspur. Their ways of living were passed down to the lives of their children, daughters Hyacinth and Arnica, though they were the only ones who lived the longest. Hyacinth was just about of-age and they were planning to marry her off to Snakeroot, while Arnica was only a few years older and already married to Larkspur's son, Foxglove, as per the two families' agreements.
In one word, Foxglove was strict, just like Hyacinth and her sister's parents. Being the son of the PoisonWing leader, Foxglove learned and adapted to the strict PoisonWing life at an early age and began to oppress his behavior on to everyone. He was respected everywhere to the point where every merchant would give him anything he wanted, free of charge, knowing that they didn't want to deal with his suppressive abilities. Sooner than later Arnica would probably get those privileges as well thanks to Foxglove being her husband.
Arnica used to be so kind to Hyacinth, giving her the best advice she could ask for and always helping Hyacinth solve the problems that she faced, whether it be with their parents or with anything else. But now she married Foxglove Hyacinth noticed change in Arnica. She adopted Foxglove's behavior, becoming stern like their parents, and would refuse to look to Hyacinth's side, with the excuse being that she wasn't a baby anymore and neither was herself, so the problems they dealt with were more serious and weren't over a silly game.
Change hurt Hyacinth deeply, so she tried to stray away from it. But it was inevitable, certainly if you were a PoisonWing. Hyacinth missed when Arnica's dark-green wings were used to cover her from the harsh sunlight in the middle of summer instead of being used in a defensive stance towards her or when she would open her mouth excitedly to go lead her deeper into the forest to explore instead of baring her fangs when Hyacinth's opinion contradicted hers.
The sun shone down and Hyacinth was still asleep, using her leaf-green wings to shade the light away. Cassava woke her up with a tap to her head with her claws. "Wake up," Cassava said to her daughter. "We're going to visit Arnica and Foxglove today to discuss your marriage with Snakeroot."
"Will Snakeroot be there?" Hyacinth asked.
"Indeed he will," Ricinus stepped in. "Now get in, let's go. We're going to leave as soon as possible." Her father's voice was condescending, so Hyacinth got ready as quickly as she could and followed him to wherever they were going to meet her sister and her husband.
Hyacinth's parents took her not all that far, but a well enough distance that it couldn't be classified as a distance that could be reached after a few minutes of flapping wings. Arnica, Foxglove, and Snakeroot were there, all looking forward to seeing each other. Arnica and Foxglove were looking forward to seeing Ricinus and Cassava, while Hyacinth and Snakeroot were just glad to see each other rather than the other four.
It was a place that Hyacinth had never been before within the Poison Jungle. It was reminiscent of a Pyrrhian stone cave used by SkyWings, but was completely made from strong wood from trees. The dragons all entered inside it to discuss, forming a circle as they all sat down to discuss with each other.
"So," Foxglove began. "Hyacinth and Snakeroot are going to be married within the next month, correct?"
"Correct," Ricinus said. "Next month both Hyacinth and her betrothed will be of-age to marry and we will marry her off instantly to Snakeroot."
"Hyacinth has leafspeak," Cassava added. "Snakeroot has stronger leafspeak than hers, but their levels are around the same on the same spectrum of the strength of leafspeak. I think the leafspeak offspring would have around the same abilities that they have."
"Good to know," Foxglove said. "Though Larkspur told me that there was another option if Hyacinth weren't interested in Snakeroot."
"Never heard of it," Cassava said. "Who is this other option?"
"Mayapple's son Frangipani. His wife recently died. I know his leafspeak is around the same level as Hyacinth's, though Snakeroot's is still stronger."
Considering the new alternative, Hyacinth began to worry that her parents would say yes to the new marriage offer. Frangipani was older than both Hyacinth and Arnica, and she didn't want to marry someone older than her by years when she became of-age. She remembered him in her childhood. He was both strict and annoying, eager to make sure things went his way and would melt down if things didn't go his way. She had no thoughts of marrying him at all for his childish behavior, and didn't want to start thinking about it now it was possible it could be a reality.
"No, we already have a partner for her," Ricinus said. "Plus, we already paid the dowry to Snakeroot's father and we don't want it to go to waste."
Hyacinth was relieved as she watched the conversation continue further.
"Alright, so it looks like we'll be sticking to her being with Snakeroot. Good to know. Any questions before I proceed?"
Hyacinth nodded. "I don't know why I was brought here. Is it marriage-related? Because you were talking about partners and my marriage life and everything. I just want to know what this is all about, because all I was told was that it was marriage-related. Did you guys need me to sign something? Agree to anything? What am I needed for here other than to participate in discussions?"
"We will need you to sign a contract to make your marriage to Snakeroot official," Arnica said to her little sister. "But that's near the end of all of this. We're going to go over what will be expected of you so you will be able to learn what is expected of you to act towards your future husband."
Hyacinth nodded in agreement, but deep down she wasn't content.
"Shall we begin, Hyacinth?" Ricinus asked his daughter.
Everyone else began to look at Hyacinth, expecting the answer that they were given instantly. "Yes, let's begin."
Chapter Six: Ghiaccio[]
The lost city of night was secluded from society, making it a perfect place to hide if one wished to escape from societal horrors. The prey there was free to live, belonging to one dragon who would never have to worry about starvation.
Ghiaccio was merely just a backup royal IceWing back in the Ice Kingdom. He would only attend to political matter if his cousin needed to leave and could not be there, which was not often. He couldn't leave the borders easily unless if he wanted to be lectured by General Frigid about what lies beyond the borders and what it could mean if he died, even though he was just insignificant when it came to the royal IceWings.
He got the courage to leave the Ice Kingdom sometime before the possibility of war arose. He was just so tired of being treated like a backup dragon, and living on his own or somewhere else would give him freedom. That is, if he learned how to live.
Living on his own first came with struggles, but eventually became easy. All that Ghiaccio had to do was eat adequate-sized meals while observing the wildlife and their habits. Doing this he could know if they were common or not across the land and do his best to preserve them so he wouldn't eat a species to death. He would then study their reproduction and growth so he could know who the newer members of a species are to keep track of their population.
Ghiaccio was of IceWing blood, but he got past Darkstalker's Teeth by taking the long way. He lived temporarily in Pantala with the HiveWings and enjoyed the delicacies that the SilkWings sold in the bazaars before he decided to return to Pyrrhia. Ghaccio knew that eventually they would discover his disappearance, so he decided to flee to Pantala for nearly a year before returning to Pyrrhia, living in the lost city. He left Pantala after having to be involved in Pantalan politics and the fact that the dragons there weren't exactly fond of him. He didn't take the route that would require him to pass through Darkstalker's Teeth, so he was unaffected. The effects were slowly deteriorating anyway, so passing it would probably be easier than it was long ago.
Ghiaccio did not seem to care about the old stones that were all over the place and the moss that grew on it, as he was just happy to be free from politics and away from everyone else. Though recently he began to notice more activity from dragons, specifically from the Sand Kingdom that bordered the lost city. The SandWings never occasionally went through or near Darkstalker's Teeth, but he heard dragons making their way into the city. Ghaccio was not aware of the upcoming war, making him confused why the activity increased.
Ghaccio was easily recognizable for his colors as an IceWing. His main scales and wings were colored an icy blue with a white underbelly and spikes, though what made him recognizable were the subscales that ran down his back that were colored a dark sea green similar to what one would probably find on a SeaWing. No other IceWing royal or well-known IceWing had those deep green subscales except for Brumal, though hers was lighter to the point where one could easily tell the difference, so if the SandWings found him and saw his coloring they knew it would be the missing Ghiaccio and report him to the IceWings.
Him not wanting to return to the IceWings was one of the reasons that he hoped the SandWings wouldn't discover him, but he found something that would most likely change the course of Pyrrhian history: a simple golden amulet.
He discovered the golden amulet in the ruins of the NightWing palace. Everything in there was in mostly perfect condition. If he sold everything in the palace ruins, he would be perhaps the richest dragon to have ever walked the earth. Though for now he primarily used the palace as his own residence, leaving to hunt and storing leftover food within it. The NightWing palace that could be imagined as only dust and ruined was now being reused by Ghiaccio to live his life away from other dragons, using the windows to spy outside. When he walked into the NightWing palace for the first time, he went to the throne room when looking around and saw the golden amulet sitting atop of the throne that was covered in dust. Ghaccio picked it up and held on to it in his pouch. He fell in love with the design: a black dragon sigil carved into a ruby bordered by genuine gold.
That night when he took the amulet away he began to dream of war terrors. Dragons lost their families, dragonets were lanced in the throat with the spears of corrupt soldiers, forced labor among dragons, dragons were starved to their deaths, and most importantly the corrupt dragons winning over the wise. He didn't think that the amulet would cause it, as it was only an amulet. Just an amulet. A simple amulet wouldn't cause a whole massacre that could lead to extinction or anything.
After that dream, Ghiaccio woke up frantically. He didn't know if his mind was playing tricks on him or if something was happening to him. But he never suspected the amulet would be the cause for it, because why would it be? It's an amulet that was lost to the lost city and has never been touched nor worn for a long time. He did his best to clear his thoughts before going back to sleep, and surely enough the dreams never came again and were buried from Ghaccio's memory. Never forgotten, but didn't easily resurface.
Ghaccio was looking out from one of the windows when he saw a couple SandWings fly in close to the area. They didn't go directly toward the palace, but scavenged throughout the area for reasons Ghaccio was unclear of. He could return to the lost city when the SandWings were out of the area, but for now he had to leave. He wasn't sure. Back to Pantala? Easiest option if he wanted to lower his chances, though he wasn't really well liked by the inhabitants and had to listen to their politics. If he could deal with it, he could get all the food from the bazaar he wanted without having to worry about the population of nearby animals and get a place of his own to stay.
Ghaccio got his pouch from Pantala when he exchanged it with a HiveWing, so he would have a Pantalan pouch and the HiveWing would have a Pyrrhian one. He wanted to keep a memento of his adventures trying to leave IceWing society, so he used the pouch as his memento for Pantala and would use the golden amulet for his Night Kingdom memento. Before he decided to look for a safe spot to escape, he checked to make sure that the amulet was in his pouch like he left it.
The amulet was gone.
Chapter Seven: Radiance[]
There wasn't exactly anything to worry about in the Rainforest Kingdom. All that everyone cared about was sunbaths, sleeping, overall having fun. Nothing about being part of a war, and that was the point of it; they didn't want to be involved. At least Queen Vibrant couldn't care less about being involved in the war, so she stayed out of it, as well as the rest of her tribe.
Prince Radiance wanted to be involved in the war knowing how dangerous everything is for outside of them. The battles could be brought to their kingdom and they'll get involved anyway, so what was the point if they chose not to ally in the first place? The other tribes pressuring the RainWings could also lead them into being forced to join the war, so sooner or later it would come.
Radiance already asked his mother to be involved or if at least he could be involved, but Queen Vibrant said no to both requests. Instead of disobeying her answers, Radiance chose not to leave since his mother knew he would try to, hiring several bodyguards to keep watching him so he wouldn't leave.
His other bodyguards clearly didn't want to be there, but it was the queen's orders, so they couldn't just say no. The strictest of all was Kudzu, who obviously had feelings for his mother and didn't even try to hide it. Kudzu knew Radiance's father was dead, leaving Queen Vibrant single. Though not every tribe needed a king, it was definitely an open position for who could woo Queen Vibrant, and Kudzu was insistent on taking the position. He even told it to Radiance himself.
"Better start obeying me now, because in the future I'll be your stepfather." Were Kudzu's exact words, and they stuck with Radiance ever since.
Radiance decided to find a plan on how to escape and join the war himself, while giving Kudzu what he deserved. He wanted to attack Kudzu when the two were alone with each other, then fly off to join the war. He had a close SeaWing friend, Dolphin, so he knew that she could back him up and help keep him hidden as he fought on their side.
His first instinct was to go to the SeaWings, but he knew it would be obvious because his mother knew of his friendship with Dolphin, so he would have to journey elsewhere. He supported Queen Paludine like the SeaWings did, so he knew he wanted to go to a kingdom that supported Paludine, both so the dragons wouldn't try to kill him for being a Queen Burgundy supporter and so he wouldn't have to face Dolphin in war. He knew that the IceWings supported Queen Paludine, but the terrain was too cold for him and they were strict towards outsiders, so he decided that he wanted to flee to the Mud Kingdom.
Could he stay hidden in the Mud Kingdom? He could just camouflage his scales and claim that he was a hybrid. By default usually Radiance's scales were a bright yellow with the round scales that went down red, his wings and ruff orange-red, the thin line of scales that separated his main scales from his cream underbelly a bright orange, slightly darker bright orange secondary scales, simple orange horns, spikes, and claws, and deep blue eyes. With camouflage, he could just change his scales to the shades of brown MudWings usually have and claim he was a hybrid.
Radiance as a MudWing name wouldn't be all that smart unless if he decided to change his scales to a lighter brown color, but he knew he would think of something eventually.
Radiance had his plan set to flee to the Mud Kingdom and planned to leave that night. He would get alone with Kudzu like he usually did every night when Kudzu was "protecting" him, then attack him and flee. He could claw his wings or his eyes, or both, but he wasn't sure which of the two were weaker than the other.
Later in the night when the moon illuminated the rainforest, Radiance was alone while his mother was at the pavilion, dealing with the NightWings in the NightWing village. Alone in spirit in his hut that was highly elevated on a tree, but not when Kudzu was around. Kudzu being extremely large and his dark green scales with vibrant green spots, crimson wings and ruff, black spikes, horns, and claws, grass-green subscales, and light green eyes never went unnoticed despite how dark in appearance he could be, but that was about to change.
"Hi, Kudzu," Radiance said politely to him. "Have you been up to anything today?"
"Not exactly," Kudzu said. "What about you?"
"Not much."
Kudzu nodded. "Not much means sleeping all day, haven't you?"
"Yeah," Radiance said. Surely he did sleep most of his day since he didn't really have anything better to do, but he did think about wanting to injure Kudzu so he could escape.
Kudzu sat back down and relaxed himself. "Well, you won't be doing anything till at least tomorrow, because I'm in your presence, meaning you can't leave unless if I'm with you. Your mother's orders, and your mother is the queen afterall." Kudzu was sitting down, his wings spread out, making him an easy target for what Radiance was planning. There was a window large enough for Radiance to escape, though too big for Kudzu, so he would then make his way out there.
Radiance got closer. "But did she say that I could leave and you come follow me? Not at all!" He clawed Kudzu's left eye with his sharp claws and then bit his neck, quickly slashing a part of his left wing too, tearing it slightly, before bolting out the window. It took a bit for Kudzu to process what just happened and recover enough to get himself up, but Radiance was gone.
"Where did you go?!" Kudzu lost his temper continuously with his voice. "Radiance! I know you're camouflaging!" Kudzu ran out of the hut to try and look for him, thinking that he ran out of the hut.
Radiance camouflaged a different color to fly away so the other dragons would think that he was someone else and not report him to his mother. He successfully flew out of the Rainforest Kingdom and decided to take the long way: northeast towards the scavengers den, then to the west to get to the Mud Kingdom.
Queen Vibrant returned back to the hut, seeing blood from Kudzu's left eye and one of his wings having a line-shaped hole from a scratch in them. She was worried and immediately came to Kudzu's side. "Kudzu, are you okay?" she asked in a panic. "And where's my Radiance?"
Kudzu looked at his queen. "I'd say that after a little bit of rest I should be fine. Your son, on the other talon, has fled."
Chapter Eight: Jet[]
Jet was patrolling around parts of the Sky Kingdom in service for the Valkyries. She could easily blend in with the night, with her jet-black scales and midnight wings giving her an advantage midair in the night sky. Though on the ground, not so much unless if it were completely dark.
The Valkyries were a group of NightWings in service to Queen Darkrider, lead by Commander Brynhild. The Valkyries were the spies of the war, reporting information and spreading it to the other NightWings. The high-ranked Valkyries would tell the lower-ranked members like Jet what their missions were and what their job was. The high-ranked Valkyries wore genuine gold earrings on both of their ears while the lower-ranked members wore pyrite earrings on both ears.
Jet's mission was to scout the Sky Kingdom for clues. The NightWings were completely on the side of the SkyWings due to their alliance with Queen Burgundy, though Queen Darkrider was strict and was worried about the SkyWings using them to their advantage in the war and wanted to make sure. The Valkyries immediately covered the queen and sent their lower-ranked members out to spy on the kingdom.
Jet approached nearby a cave after going in further to the Sky Kingdom. It was getting dark, so she would have to find somewhere to stay until morning. She was on the verge of falling asleep, so she decided to remain in a small area of bushes nearby and feast on the berries that the bushes had. Jet went to a berry bush and ate a raspberry that she picked. The raspberry was sour, and knowing that she wasn't the hugest fan of sour tastes, it nearly woke Jet up from her disgust and put her back in to patrol mode.
She was completely on-guard, hearing every sound and watching every footstep that her eyes would let her see. She turned around to look behind her to make sure that nothing was there before she would be able to rest out in the open. She stared for a good while, making sure that not even the animals in the trees were moving. While she was looking, she heard a slight rustle from bushes the bushes behind her, but her ears heard every sound, allowing her to detect the slightest movement from the sounds it made. When she heard those sounds, she immediately turned back, where the bushes rusted again, though more noticeably louder.
Jet approached the bush slowly and looked behind it to see an orange-scaled SkyWing ducking in fear. Jet snarled at the sky dragon. "SkyWing, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?" she asked.
"I'd like to know what you, a NightWing, is doing here first," the SkyWing said. "The queen will be notified about this if you don't give a reasonable answer."
Jet came up with a lie. "I got lost while hunting," she said to the SkyWing. She didn't want Queen Burgundy to be notified and think the wrong way, knowing that the Valkyries would surely kick her out and Queen Darkrider would possibly force her to exile. "I've wandered so far I don't even know where I am."
"You're in the Sky Kingdom," the SkyWing said to her.
"Oh, thank goodness. Now I just need to know where to go to get back, but it's too late for that now." Jet sighed. "My name is Jet. Do you have somewhere I could stay?"
"The name's Ares, and possibly, but I'd have to check in with my mother first."
"Well, could you talk to your mother for me? I need somewhere to stay?"
Ares turned to leave. "Yes, come with me. Since the SkyWings and NightWings are allies she'll probably be more lenient to letting you stay. Unfortunately it's not a guarantee, but there's a high chance."
Jet nodded to Ares and followed him to the cave him and his mother and sister stayed in. It was dark, so Jet couldn't notice the details on it all that well, but her sight allowed her to see two resting SkyWings within the cave. She saw Ares tap on his mother's shoulder, awakening her.
"What is it?" Adrasteia said tiredly. She looked around and saw the NightWing before Ares could respond. "What's a NightWing doing here?!" she said in shock. Her voice woke Hera up, who awoke and began to watch what ensued.
"I found this NightWing outside who got lost while hunting," Ares said to his mother. "She's looking for a place to stay. Her name is Jet."
Adrasteia nodded and looked at Jet, noticing how dark her scales were as they blended into the night. Her scales were harder to notice than her earrings as she stared at the pyrite earrings that she wore, though Jet was turned so that Adrasteia could only see a single side of her head, being unable to see her other ear. She wasn't completely sure, but didn't want to say no at the same time. "Alright," Adrasteia said. "You can stay for just this night."
"Thank you so much," Jet said. "I'll be sure to repay you if possible."
"No need to do anything to repay us," Adrasteia replied. "Just don't betray us or use us to your advantage in any way."
"Why would I do that?"
Hera stepped in to the conversation. "Because things are getting worse right now in Pyrrhia and we don't want you to betray us or anything."
"Relax, Hera," Adrasteia said to her daughter. "The NightWings and SkyWings are allies with each other. It's not likely that they'll split up."
Hera nodded and went back to sleep, feeling that there wasn't anything worth staying up listening to. Adrasteia allowed Jet to stay, though she had to sleep in the back of the cave. Adrasteia and Ares slept near the front to keep watch on Jet, where Adrasteia could now see both of Jet's ears. She had pyrite earrings on both ears, indicating that she was a lower-ranked Valkyrie. The SkyWings were aware of the existence of the Valkyries and tolerated them, though one wandering into another kingdom's territory claiming to have gotten lost from hunting sounded off.
A sharp eye was kept on Jet and was never taken off. Even after Jet left, a the sharp eye would have to remain, as Adrasteia was now aware that the NightWing her son found was a member of the Valkyries.
Chapter Nine: Earthquake[]
Earthquake entered Queen Paludine's palace as the MudWings outside were preparing in case the SkyWings planned an invasion and were coming for their innocent lives. "My lady," Earthquake said to his queen, "the citizens are anticipating an attack from the SkyWings. and are hiding from them"
"What makes them think that?" Paludine asked, glaring at Earthquake's chunky body.
"I'm not fully aware, but I will take a look."
Paludine nodded. "That would be a good idea."
Earthquake flew outside, his beige wings spread far out throughout the air. Earthquake was quite chunky for a MudWing, so it took him a little more effort than the average MudWing to be able to beat his wings enough to get himself high in the air and stay that way. His dark brown scales and light brown underbelly, covered by his tan shield-like scales on his back, were enough to get the attention of the MudWing citizens as they scrambled into their homes.
"It's Earthquake, get inside!" Earthquake heard a MudWing mother say to her dragonets, ordering them to get inside their mud bunkhouse. Her voice was oddly familiar.
"But why?" asked the dragonet. She was the largest from a glance of all the other dragonets, so Earthquake assumed she was the bigwings. "What is he going to do to us if we don't?"
"Just go inside!" the MudWing mother's voice was demanding, and he knew it for sure. Briar broke the stereotype of a female MudWing, actually taking part in raising her children. He had formerly been in a relationship with her but broke off with her at some point after breeding season, so he assumed that the dragonets she was taking care of were his, but there wasn't exactly a way for sure.
Earthquake landed in front of Briar's bunkhouse as she was about to get in. "Briar," he said formally. "Are you trying to make your dragonets afraid of me?"
Startled, Briar turned around. "Why the hell are you here?" she asked condescendingly. "Aren't you supposed to be working for Queen Paludine and her army in this stupid war caused by your own damn ally? Morass, wasn't he?" Briar spread out her wings, showing off her dark brown inner wings to Earthquake.
Earthquake glared. "Our army despises Morass just as much as you do with that attitude. We hate that he started all these conflicts, and we had no warning that he would ever betray the MudWing army and the SkyWings."
"Tell that to Queen Burgundy." Briar turned her back on her former partner once again. "That is, if she'll ever listen to you." Briar was about to enter her bunkhouse when a small dragonet peeked its head out of the bunkhouse to see Earthquake. Earthquake could see that the dragonet shared his tan armor-like scales on her back, with Briar's brown scales.
"Who's he?" asked the dragonet.
"Mallard, get back in the bunkhouse!" Briar snapped at her dragonet.
Another one of the dragonets peeked its head out as well just like its sibling, this one having Briar's bark brown armor scales on his back with Earthquake's dark brown scales. "Oh, is that Earthquake?" the dragonet asked. "He looks very friendly; I don't know why you're telling us all these really mean things about him."
"Slough, I'm kindly asking that you get yourself out of this." Briar turned to Mallard as Slough's head disappeared from Earthquake's view into the bunkhouse. "Mallard, order your siblings to not interact with Earthquake or even speak of him. He is a dangerous dragon, and I'm sure that one day he can prove that to you himself."
"Of course, Mother," Mallard said slowly and reluctantly as her head disappeared into the bunkhouse like Slough.
Briar turned her head slightly. "If you dare come back again to see my dragonets, I'll cut your throat with my own talons."
Earthquake truly felt intimidated by Briar. "But aren't they my dragonets as well? I broke off with you sometime after mating season and I never found out if you had eggs or not."
Earthquake could see Briar nod slightly. "Biologically they are your children, but I wouldn't even think about considering you their father." Briar immediately began to bury herself into the bunkhouse.
"Stop, stop!" Earthquake yelled to Briar, but it was too late, as Briar couldn't care less to respond to him and none of his efforts would be worth it in the end, as she wouldn't do anything to make things work in his favor. Earthquake gave up on trying to interact with his ex-partner and flew off west of the Mud Kingdom.
Instead of being greeted by the MudWings that lived in the more western Mud Kingdom, he was greeted by dead bodies of MudWings and their blood spattered, with the alive MudWings rushing to get to safety. Earthquake assumed that the citizens heard of the attacks and that's why they were rushing to get to safety, thinking it were the SkyWings attacking. But it wasn't the SkyWings, the MudWings were being monsters themselves.
A MudWing grabbed the neck of a dead MudWing with his jaw before handing it off to another MudWing much larger than they were. The large MudWing noticed Earthquake. "Hello, General Earthquake," the large MudWing said as he took the dead MudWing into his talons.
Earthquake snarled. "Shale."
Shale took the dead MudWing's neck into his talons. "We'll be taking this," Shale said. "And next will be Queen Paludine's."
Chapter Ten: Hyacinth[]
Arnica had been lecturing Hyacinth for what felt like hours to her about how to be a dutiful wife to a male LeafWing. "You are to provide him with leafspeak dragonets. If he is satisfied with the level of leafspeak of his dragonet, then you shall be fine. If he insists to try again for a dragonet with stronger leafspeak, you try again. Understand?"
"I understand," Hyacinth said. "I agree with those morals as well, and Snakeroot and I will put those in effect starting from when we are officially declared as married. Right, Snakeroot?"
Snakeroot nodded. "Hyacinth is correct. I will make sure that she follows those morals until her last breath."
In truth, neither Hyacinth nor Snakeroot agreed with what Arnica said, but agreed with them so they wouldn't cause controversy.
"Good," Arnica said. She turned to her and Hyacinth's parents. "When you married me off to Foxglove, we had this exact same meeting with Foxglove's family. You all agreed on allowing us to talk to each other before we became husband and wife to allow us to bond with each other. That would be our last meeting before tomorrow afternoon, where we became husband and wife. Would you two like to talk to each other?" Arnica looked to the two dragons who were engaged.
"I would like that," Snakeroot said. "I would like to know my betrothed a little more."
"We'll give you some time," Rincinus said to his daughter and future son-in-law.
"This room will be yours temporarily, and we'll come back when the sun sets completely," Cassava said. She looked outside, seeing the sun looking like it was nearly done setting, with the moon almost ready to take its place as in the sky's dominion. "We'll all come back for you two in half an hour, understood?"
Hyacinth looked at her mother. "Where will you all be?"
"That's a good question!" her mother said with delight. "We'll be getting ready for your wedding tomorrow. A celebration of the union between Snakeroot and Hyacinth! To leafspeak dragonets we'll have in the future!"
Arnica smiled at her enthusiastic mother. "Now, now, Mother, we should prepare for my baby sister's big day tomorrow. Let's go." She lead the way, her dark scales intimidating Hyacinth as she turned to her slightly as she left. "We'll be back soon, baby sister." She and the others left, giving Snakeroot and Hyacinth some time alone.
Hyacinth immediately came close to Snakeroot once she felt like all the other dragons were gone. "We need to leave," she whispered to him. "Not now, but as soon as possible."
"We do," Snakeroot whispered. "But how will we get out without getting caught?"
Hyacinth thought for a moment. "I could probably think of something, but I won't be able to know for sure if it'll work."
"Well, let's think of what we can do. First, we can stay behind and get married. But then our families and the generals will be watching us every moment they can, and if we had dragonets they would probably be raised in a life of vigorous training rather than a life of love from their parents. Or we can flee and head somewhere else and live our lives how we want, though we'll have to live in fear of our families one day finding us."
"We will risk it."
"Risk what?"
"Being found by our families. We are fleeing from here. I don't want to live like I'm imprisoned and forced to do things against my own will! We are leaving as soon as we can!"
"Well, where would we go? The Hives might seem like a good place to go to at first. The nearest is June Hive, so we could try and go there first. Or well, I'm sure it's still called June Hive. They always change the names whenever the Hive's lady dies and the Hive is renamed to whoever the new lady is, and I've heard nothing about Lady June dying, so it should still be called June Hive."
"We'll go to June Hive before we discuss things further. Meet me tonight at the river once again, and be prepared to fly long distances. Because we're escaping this cycle of torture."
Chapter Eleven: Frigid[]
Frigid was in the Sky Kingdom, searching for Ghiaccio. He adopted the thoughts that if the Sky Kingdom was warmer and IceWings preferred colder temperatures, then Ghiaccio might have came to live in the Sky Kingdom since it would be the least likely option that would come to one's mind.
The mountain range covered the Sky Kingdom, where the life of the SkyWings revolved mainly around the mountain range in their large kingdom. Them owning the wing of Pyrrhia for their kingdom gave them a wide range of land to live in, yet most SkyWings preferred the mountains.
Before leaving, Frigid took Queen Brumal's eggs and put them in a little, black pouch that he carried with his supplies while exploring. Neige was cleaning out Brumal's old things as she served as the regent queen, so if he didn't take the eggs they would be discovered by Neige at one point, and he didn't want turmoil to break out over him being in a secret relationship with the queen, knowing how IceWings generally disapproved of secret relationships. Perhaps he could one day confess his sins, but now was not the time.
Frigid was exploring the cliffside, searching if dragons lived within them, when he came across a cave with three SkyWings and a NightWing. The NightWing's jet black scales nearly blended in with the cave itself, but her white underbelly and other parts of her body were colored differently to where it stood out. The NightWing noticed Frigid and got on guard. "Who are you?" the NightWing asked, speaking loudly to bring the three SkyWings' attention. Frigid recognized one of the SkyWings: Adrasteia the Chain Breaker and Queen Burgundy's forever loyal dragon.
"Commander Frigid," Adrasteia said to him, unsheathing her talons. "I just finished my daily training not long ago, so my claws are sharp and ready to dig into your neck."
Frigid stepped back. "Now, now, Adra, we're here to look for a dragon."
"The SkyWings and IceWings are enemies in this war, so I would think otherwise." Adrasteia turned behind her. "You three. Stay back, now." She came closer to Frigid and began to circle around him, her wings up as a defense mechanism. She hissed. "I'll slice your throat if I have to in order to protect my children."
Frigid huddled his pouch closer to him. "You have an adoptive NightWing?" he asked to try and distract her.
"Jet is seeking a place to stay, so she's here temporarily." Adrasteia bore her fangs. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was just wondering." Frigid backed away. "I will be departing. I have my team to meet up with." He held his bag closer and began to fly away, but nothing stopped Adrasteia the Chain Breaker. When he was higher in the air, he had a sudden feeling that he was being followed and looked back to see Adrasteia following him. "I told you to get away!" Frigid insisted, opening his mouth to showcase a bright, harsh light that emerged from his mouth that became frostbreath. Adrasteia immediately combated it with her fire, canceling out Frigid's intended effects.
"Your pouch," Adrasteia said with rancor. "Show me what's inside. You must have stolen from the SkyWings."
"I did not!" Frigid snarled. "These are my supplies for my team!"
"What team?" Adrasteia scoffed. "Show me what's inside your pouch this instant!"
Frigid gave up trying to retaliate, knowing that the SkyWings and IceWings were already enemies. Adrasteia might have thought that Frigid had stolen something from the SkyWings, most likely from Queen Burgundy, and if she didn't see then it could impact their conflict terribly. Frigid took the pouch from his neck and handed it to Adrasteia. Adrasteia took off the cover of the pouch that was protecting what was inside and took a look. "See? I didn't steal anything from the SkyWings."
Adrasteia inspected the two eggs she saw inside carefully. Both eggs were a pale blue, though one had a dark blue swirl and the other had a dark blue pattern like freckles on the shell. "I see these IceWing eggs," Adrasteia said. "Have you taken anything from the IceWings, not the SkyWings?"
"Those are my eggs," Frigid said.
"Who's the mother, then?" Adrasteia looked at him deep in the eyes. "A respected IceWing wouldn't dare have a secret relationship."
Frigid made up a fake name for the mother of his unhatched dragonets. "Her name is Snowdrift."
"Snowdrift." Adrasteia put the cover back on the pouch and handed it back to Frigid. "I see. Well, good luck on being a father when they hatch." Adrasteia returned to below, leaving Frigid by himself. Frigid put the pouch back on his neck where the two eggs were safe.
"Excuse me, Commander?" asked an IceWing who was behind Frigid.
Frigid turned behind him. "Frore," he said, startled. "Do you need anything?"
Frore looked at his pouch. "I didn't know you had eggs, and I've never met anyone named Snowdrift."
"Oh," Frigid said to Frore. "I was using fake information. I don't want Adrasteia to know the mother."
"I didn't even know you had a mate in the first place."
Frigid stared at Frore. "If I tell you something, would you promise to keep it just between us? Not even anyone else? Not even a scroll?"
"I promise."
Frigid came closer to Frore. "I was in a secret relationship with Queen Brumal," he whispered to him. "These eggs are hers."
Chapter Twelve: Radiance[]
Radiance had arrived in the Mud Kingdom after he successfully escaped the Rainforest Kingdom, finishing his long journey. He first started by heading northeast towards the scavengers' den and then making his way towards the Mud Kingdom, going the long way in case someone had an idea of where he was going beforehand. He had camouflaged his scales to make him look more like a MudWing, with his horns and talons being a dark brown and the rest of his body following a mostly tan brown and russet color scheme. So far, nobody had questioned his appearance, but he did receive some looks. Radiance assumed that those dragons thought he was a hybrid or actually knew, but he never got punished for it. After all, he could easily fake his identity if they asked who he really was.
A MudWing flew above Radiance, heading for Queen Paludine's palace. Radiance decided to follow the MudWing to hopefully obtain information about the war, assuming that the MudWing was delivering information. Radiance wasn't completely aware of whose side he should be on, but was willing to disguise himself to see both sides and then decide on one. He kept himself distanced from the MudWing, though fair enough so he could see the MudWing's directions.
Eventually Radiance had found himself at the corners of the palace, camouflaging himself with the background so he could sneak inside. Queen Paludine's palace was adorned with fascinating jewels that looked like the teardrop scales of the NightWings, filling him with awe as he saw them glistering on the walls.
"Your Majesty," the MudWing said. "While I have not found any signs that the SkyWings are about to attack us, the threats have mostly been coming from the MudWings themselves."
Paludine glared. "Who's doing this? Do you know, Earthquake?"
"Shale, the leader of that MudWing gang within that village from the west. He killed Alder and took her body."
Paludine sighed. "We don't have time to deal with another conflict right now. First we have Queen Burgundy starting war, and now we have Shale starting war within the Mud Kingdom. We're going to need someone to annihilate Shale on the side, because I'm too busy trying to handle the MudWings over the war with the SkyWings."
"Perhaps we could divide the army and have part of it fight off Shale and his gang while the rest fight the SkyWings."
"No, the SkyWings are too powerful with their army. We can have some soldiers go out, but we can't have too much go out."
"Prioritize the ones with fireproof scales to fight the SkyWings. We can have a separate expedition group head out to fight Shale. I will lead them if possible, as I've been the one to have to keep up with him for awhile."
Radiance stepped in front of the two MudWings, camouflaged back as MudWing colors. "I would like to join your expedition," he said.
Paludine looked at the RainWing disguised as a MudWing. "What are you doing here, RainWing?" she asked. "Aren't you supposed to be back at home?"
"My tribe won't join the war, so if they won't, I will. I'll fight off Shale with you guys." There was no use camouflaging himself with MudWing colors anymore, but he kept the colors on anyway so they wouldn't easily be able to tell that he was, in fact, the RainWing Prince Radiance.
"Well, that's great. You can come." Paludine looked to Earthquake. "How many members are in Shale's gang that you need to fight off?"
"I don't know for certain, but last time I saw his gang, he had at least five members. Though when I saw Shale not long ago, it was just him, so the other members of his gang could be anywhere."
"I see." Paludine went silent as she came to an agreement with herself about what she wanted to do. "Earthquake, I will give you and this RainWing five more MudWing soldiers, and you will all go on a mini expedition to defeat Shale's gang."
"Got it, my queen," Earthquake said. He looked to Radiance. "RainWing, what is your name?"
"Treefrog," Radiance said.