Fix You

Synopsis

The dragonets of destiny may have cleaned up the surface rubble of the SandWing war. But fragments of glass still lie broken where nobody can see them.

Wildflower’s present is nearly unbearable, but it’s all she can do to stay there. After getting released from the army, she arrived home to a gravely injured father and an exhausted mother. She works all day, trying to get them enough money to survive. Perhaps it seems like it’s helping, but it’s eating her up inside. Her one solace is her pen pal in the Ice Kingdom, who she met during the dark and devastating war, but has nothing but good memories with.

Tempest is stuck in the past and refuses to leave. Her mother demanded for her to be a proper IceWing. Her mother raised her to be elegant, graceful, and strong. Her mother… was killed in the war’s final battle. She tries her best to carry out her wishes, even though it’s exactly what she never wanted to do. The only thing keeping her from giving up is her friend in the Sand Kingdom, who she writes letters to secretly every night.

Two former soldiers, who fought with the grace of wildcats but now struggle with their day-to-day existence. Stress and fear, weighing them down. And a fate that seems determined to throw obstacles at them until they collapse.

The dragonets of destiny may have ended the war, but there are far bigger ones still raging within.

Prologue

The Ice Kingdom was no place for a SandWing - yet here she was.

Icy chill clawed at Wildflower’s scales, and she shivered, pulling her tattered cloak tighter around her shoulders. She missed the gentle warmth of the desert sun soaking into her body, the wide expanse of gold rolling across the land. She missed her family, talking and laughing with her until her lungs gave out. She missed her home.

Cold and forbidding, the Ice Kingdom was nothing like her home.

Wildflower tipped her head toward the ceiling of Blaze’s fortress and breathed a tiny puff of flame, watching it spiral through the frosty air and dissipate. The IceWings had tried their best to make their ally’s home warm, but Wildflower had always been a little weak, especially when it came to temperatures. Oh, how she wished she didn’t have to be here, this desolate wasteland, so far away from her loved ones.

But no, she had to stay, she had nowhere else to go. Her family, poor and scrounging for money, had sacrificed their only dragonet to the army in hopes of a stable barracks and a steady income. And now she was stuck in the war, fighting to escape the tendrils of anarchy that threatened to creep in any second. Blaze had winged off to the fortress as soon as Queen Glacier had offered it, and Wildflower had been forced to tag along because Blaze liked her “pretty pink-ish scales.” So. Here she was. In the Ice Kingdom.

Wildflower stamped her feet: half angry, half trying to warm herself up. All her thoughts did here was go around in circles all day. It was so boring and so pointless and so so cold.

Every day, she stood just inside the fortress’s front door by Blaze’s “throne room,” spear planted in the ground, trying to look forbidding and guard-ly to the visitors who showed up - though nobody had ever come. It was a boring job, but easy. All she had to do was avoid getting frostbitten, and at sundown, a pile of jangling coins would be dropped into her waiting talons. Simple.

Well, simple for any other dragon. Wildflower, though, bright and talkative, was a different story.

She squinted into the swirling air just outside of the open door, thunder rumbling in the distance. If she peered closely enough, she could almost imagine a dragon approaching, angling her wings to the ground, swooping in for a landing…

An IceWing materialized out of the flurry, and Wildflower flinched. Realizing her mistake, she straightened again and barked in a brittle voice, “Halt! What is your business here?”

With a clatter of frosty blue spikes, the IceWing shook her head irritably. “I’m here to deliver news to Queen Blaze.” She tripped on the word ‘Queen’ slightly.

“Oh,” said Wildflower, taken aback. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. “Well, come on in then. I suppose.”

She stepped forward, and the IceWing swept inside without a glance back.

Wildflower strained her ears to hear what the IceWing was saying - no one ever told her anything - but the only thing she could make out was Blaze’s high soprano, wafting through the crack under the door. “Did you bring me jewelry…? No…? That’s a disappointment.”

The IceWing’s reply was too low for Wildflower to make out, but the hint of irritation was clear, and she stifled a laugh.

She stood there for a few more minutes, trying to eavesdrop but failing, and the IceWing glided out of the doors far sooner than Wildflower had predicted. She watched her extend her moon-silver wings and crouch for takeoff outside, loneliness roaring in her chest. The first dragon she had talked to in days was about to leave, just like that…

“Wait,” Wildflower blurted. She immediately felt like smacking herself with her tail - she wasn’t supposed to talk to any IceWings, under her general’s orders. But… perhaps she could break the rules, just this once…? She needed company, or else her voice was going to disappear from lack of use.

The IceWing paused to turn around, wings spread elegantly, a faintly puzzled expression on her face. Her stormy gray eyes were as distant as the clouds hovering in the sky, but just so captivating. Wildflower hoped she wasn’t imagining the note of interest in them.

“My name’s Wildflower,” she said, as boldly as she could. Her mother had always talked dreamily about meeting other tribes, and she couldn’t pass up this chance. She held out a talon. Cold bit through her entire arm as the IceWing grasped and shook it warily, but it was worth it to feel the current of electricity just beneath the chill.

“Tempest,” the other dragon said stiffly. She wheeled around and raised her head to peer at the storm again. Her wings flared outward, her tail extended-

“Wait!” Wildflower cried again. She had no idea what she was doing, but she did know that she didn’t want Tempest to leave yet.

With a twitch toward the air as if Tempest was promising to come back to it, she stepped gracefully back to her, back into the fortress. “What is it?”

“I just…” Wildflower faltered. “I just want someone to talk to.” She was fully aware that she sounded like a three-year-old right now, but she didn’t care. Her heart was bursting. She was using her voice! With another dragon! She could barely keep the delighted smile from exploding onto her rose-gold snout. “Can you stay and chat for a bit?”

Tempest shook out her wings, the snow spraying out onto the floor. “If we must.”

Wildflower laughed, riding high on euphoria, not even caring about Tempest's tone of disinterest. She let her posture relax and leaned her spear against the wall. “Thank you! Oh, thank you! You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for something like this.” She shot Tempest a bright grin.

The IceWing didn’t smile back. She didn’t say anything, either.

A blanket of awkward silence enveloped the two of them. Wildflower felt her smile melting, dripping onto the ground and fading with the snowflakes. She cleared her throat as quietly as she could, prompting the other dragon to say something. That’s how a conversation works, after all.

Tempest flinched at the tiny sound and cleared her throat too. Her eyes darted to the flurries of snow outside, wind howling madly, the thunder growling in the distance. Wildflower thought she would freeze into a dragon-shaped glacier if she even set one foot outside. 

“Um… lovely weather today, isn’t it?” Tempest said.

Wildflower burst out laughing, her wings curling in close to her body to hide her shaking chest. She didn’t know why it was so funny - maybe it was because she hadn’t heard someone else say anything remotely funny in weeks - but once the first giggle had escaped her mouth, she couldn’t stop. Her voice filled the echoing hallways of the fortress, and Tempest arranged her posture regally to stand up straighter as if she was afraid of being caught.

“Lovely?” Wildflower wheezed once she had gotten her voice back under control. She pointed at the storm outside, which was now roaring like a dying cow. “If you call that ‘lovely,’ what in the moons do you think is ‘rough?’” she sputtered, doubling over in laughter again.

To her pleasant surprise, Tempest’s mouth quirked upward. “I guess this weather is terrible, to a SandWing,” she admitted.

Wildflower wiped the last tear of mirth off her snout and tried her best to get back to an appearance that passed as normal. “Too right,” she said. “Give me a nice forecast of sun and heat any day.”

Tempest wrinkled her nose. “How do you not burn to death?”

“Let’s just consider it part of the SandWing magic.”

The smile that Tempest offered Wildflower spread slowly across her face like snow melting in the spring. Delayed, but beautiful.

“I’ve got to go,” Tempest said suddenly, throwing Wildflower an arch look as if she’d never met the desert dragon before. She looked keenly at the storm and trotted toward the open air, flashing another look that Wildflower couldn’t quite identify.

“Will you come back?” she asked Tempest, a little nervously.

“I’ll be here every morning. Same time, same place.”

“Wonderful,” Wildflower said, her chest filling up and bubbling with some emotion that she didn’t know the name for. “I’ll see you then.”

“See you then,” Tempest agreed, and she launched herself into the storm.

Wildflower watched her go, certain that she had met her new best friend.

Chapter 1

Wildflower, a SandWing, insisted that she and Tempest were best friends. And she wasn’t planning on telling her tribe anytime soon.

Sure, they had been on the same side in the war. Sure, said war was over. But did her IceWing peers think that way? No. IceWings are far superior to all the other tribes, everyone said. And for nearly all of Tempest’s life, she had believed it.

But after befriending an annoyingly amazing SandWing, “the lowest of all tribes,” her mind was maybe sort-of changed.

It was ridiculous, how often Tempest’s mind drifted to Wildflower. She’d be battle training, whirling her spear in the courtyard, and then she’d drop it and hear the SandWing’s clear laugh echoing like bells. Or she’d be getting ready to jump into the ocean, standing on the glacier and staring into the subzero blue water, and she’d conjure up Wildflower wrinkling her freckled snout. You’re gonna swim in that? Are you crazy?

Ridiculous, all of it.

“Hey!” a voice barked, snapping Tempest out of her wanderings. She started and flicked her wings back, sat up straighter, tipped her head higher. She had forgotten to sit up straight, now the general was going to rebuke her for laziness-

“Hey,” the voice said again, but now Tempest realized it wasn’t anger coating the voice, it was excitement. She turned to see her little sister scrambling across the courtyard of the palace, kicking up clouds of snow in her wake. Powder puffed up around Flurry’s talons as she skidded to a halt in front of the taller Tempest, looking up with bright blue eyes.

When their mother had died in the war, struck down by a MudWing in the heat of battle, Tempest had been devastated. Perhaps their mother hadn’t been particularly kind, but that wasn’t what mothers were for. They were there to guide their dragonets along the winding road of growing up, to show them where to step and what would happen when they did. She had felt utterly lost without the parent she had known throughout all of her life and vowed to become the aloof dragoness she had always wanted her to be.

Flurry, on the other talon, hadn’t been affected nearly as badly. Sure, she was sad, but she had only been one at the time, which was far too young to know how to cope with the crushing reality of death. So Tempest shielded her, told her that their mother was… away. On a very long trip. Back then, Flurry had adored her older sister, so she didn’t question this too much. To this day, she still thought their mother was vacationing on a sunny beach or something. Well, sort of. She was becoming more curious, more rebellious every day. If she didn’t intervene soon…

It was okay. Tempest would tell her. At some point.

“There’s a hunt today, Tempest!” Flurry said brightly, skipping around her older sister like a bouncy ball that had gained sentience. “Can I go with you?”

Tempest swatted Flurry with her wing. “Come on, you know you’re not old enough.”

Flurry pouted. “Fiiiine,” she whined, “but make sure you bring me back a seal.”

“Alright, you brat,” Tempest said affectionately. Her little sister was one of the very few dragons she felt comfortable around. The only other one was half a continent away.

* * *

IceWing hunts were held every two weeks and mainly consisted of the tribe’s dragonets attacking the outer islands in massive swarms. Contrary to what Flurry thought, they didn’t often catch much. They did, however, scare small animals to death sometimes.

But today, Tempest was going to try something different.

The group of dragonets soared over the archipelago in a neat V-formation, scanning the islands below for signs of life. Many of them had evergreen forests bursting upwards, but that only made them more difficult to hunt in. The dragonets were mostly quiet, but occasionally someone would hiss a snark to their neighbor. They felt a little bit more free up here, away from the stifling demands of their society - but not by much, really.

One by one, the dragonets peeled away and headed down their own separate courses. Tempest took a moment to calm her racing heart and plunged straight toward the solid ice by the coast, the place where only the lowest-born hunted, the only location where one could catch seals. Yes, she didn’t belong there, but… she wanted to make Flurry happy. Was it worth it, to give up her dignity in favor of giving joy to someone else?

She figured she was about to find out.

Tempest landed on the ice lightly, relishing the thrill of cold beneath her claws. She walked to the nearest seal hole and peered in, a yawning gap in the ice with deep blue water lapping beneath. She sat down a small distance away and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Just as she was about to stomp away out of frustration, a moist black nose poked out of the hole, twitching as it made contact with the air. Tempest froze, more out of surprise than hunting instincts. 

The seal dragged itself out of the hole agonizingly slowly, its flippers churning in clumsy motions. It was clear that it was far more comfortable beneath the surface of the water, rather than on land. Its motions were slow and comical.

Tempest got overly confident. She tried not to, she really did. But looking at this plump creature, wriggling feebly, how could anyone expect her to resist?

She took a step forward. The frost coating the ice’s surface crunched. A mistake.

The seal, suddenly alert, shot its head up. Its eyes surveyed the landscape and found the blurry shape of Tempest silhouetted against the snow quickly. Barking in alarm, it squiggled back towards its hole at a painfully slow pace.

Tempest sprinted toward the seal, which was drawing closer and closer to its destination. Panicked thoughts raced through her mind: if she couldn’t catch prey here, at the literal training ground for the youngest dragonets, what did that make her?

She skidded, leapt for the seal. But it was too late. It had already slipped back down its hole and into the ocean.

Tempest stood there for a moment, staring in disbelief at the now-unoccupied hole. Her ankle throbbed with bursts of dull pain, and she realized she must have twisted it while running for her prey.

Her wings drooped. I failed. I failed the easiest challenge in the kingdom.

The reflection of her glum face rippled and distorted as if it was taunting her.

What would my mother think of me?

* * *

“It’s okay,” Flurry said for the millionth time.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Tempest pointed out for what was also the millionth time.

They were at home, or what passed for it. A cramped hut with a grand total of three rooms in one of the IceWing villages, spartan in its decoration, empty in its personality. There were some rock ledges hastily carved into the walls and a few polar bear rugs sprawled across the floor, but other than that, there was nothing.

Flurry pressed the ice pack onto Tempest’s sprained wrist once again (she kept shaking it off accidentally). “You don’t need to say it,” she said with the tone of a much-older dragonet. “I can see it on your face, right here.” She pointed to the corners of Tempest’s eyes, wrinkled with worry lines.

Cursing her younger sister’s observance, Tempest tried her best to smooth out both her face and her temper. “There, happy?” she said roughly.

Flurry scowled, twitching her tail. She let the ice pack fall and stomped her foot petulantly. “Well, if you don’t want me to help you, then I won’t.” She wheeled around and stormed into her very tiny room, which would have been dramatic except for the fact that her voice squeaked on the last word.

Tempest rolled her eyes and called to the door slamming behind Flurry, “Now I don’t feel guilty for missing the seal at all.”

It wasn’t true. No matter how annoying Flurry could be, Tempest had still wanted to get her that seal she had asked for. She had no idea how she had missed it. It had been a while since she had seen Flurry’s eyes light up with true happiness, not just feigned. Of course, a simple seal might not have achieved that effect, but still.

Her brain, a record stuck on repeat, chimed in again. What would my mother think of me?

Skua had been caring in a distant sort of way, always providing for her dragonets’ needs, but really not much else. “Find your own food,” she told them. Never cruelly, never kindly, just… told them. Flurry was sweet to Skua, but not sweet enough for her to go out of her way and help her.

She expected great things from Tempest. Every day, she told her so, in a flatly neutral tone that never changed, regardless of what she did. No matter how swiftly she flew, how effectively she hunted, how many enemies she cut down in battle - it was never enough. Never. She was a soldier, but not much of one. She wasn’t enough. She had to be better. She had to be ruthless. She had to be…

Tempest shook her head like a wet dog, trying to fling away the bad memories. The war was over. She had to remember that.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to talk to Flurry right now; she’d bribe her with cookies later. She got to her feet heavily and headed to her own room, limping on her bad wrist slightly. Tempest made a beeline for the corner, where she pried up a loose rock to reveal a little pile of paper, tied together with twine, and a worn-out feather quill.

She curled up on the floor and rested the end of her snout on a few of the papers, shuffling through the rest, drinking in the words like a hummingbird with nectar. A smile crept onto her face - she couldn’t help it. As much as Tempest hated admitting it, this was her favorite part of her day (besides talking to Flurry), scanning through Wildflower’s words, looking at her energy that jostled its way to the forefront of her writing.

Can you BELIEVE that the war is over? read one of them, scratched out in a spiky, script. Tempest could imagine Wildflower lettering it, late at night, just too excited to hold in the words anymore.

And then, my mother said that she STOLE some bread from a merchant! I never knew she was so rebellious! announced another more recent one. A doodle had been drawn absent-mindedly in the margin of a dragon spitting ice crystals, their neck long and unwieldy. (Tempest, perhaps?)

She flipped to the most recent one, eyes lingering far too long on the last two lines. Miss you! -Your friend, Wildflower

Why couldn’t she get the SandWing out of her head? They had known each other for almost three years and been “just friends” that whole time. That was all they were. That was all they would ever be.

Tempest dipped her quill into a crudely-fashioned inkwell and began scrawling out her own letter.

Wildflower,

I doubt it would be a good idea for you to come and visit me. I’m still quite busy, with battle practice and such, so I wouldn’t really have much time to “hang out,” as you put it. Also, I highly doubt serenading the palace royals would cheer them up. Cheer them up by putting us in jail, more like.

I’m sorry to hear that your father isn’t doing well. Maybe you should stop singing to him, your voice can be a little scary sometimes. Oops, did I write that? Sorry again. I hope he gets better soon, I really do. I’m not very well-versed in healing, but you should take him to a doctor. Really. I’m sure they can help.

Flurry’s been a little annoying lately. Other than that, not much has been happening. Write soon.

Regards, Tempest

It was funny how as soon as she signed her name and made the decision to bring it to the post office tomorrow, eagerness bubbled up inside Tempest to see Wildflower’s answer.

Chapter 2

The tree was massive, reaching its branches toward the brilliant sky as if all it wanted to do was catch a cloud between its leaves. Wildflower sometimes boasted that it was the biggest one in the kingdom, although that was probably just wistful thinking.

She stared down, down, down, watching the tiny figures of the merchants flit about. The sea of vibrant tent roofs hid most of them from view, but now and then she would catch a glimpse of a tail barb whipping behind a pole, or a talon gesturing to another dragon. From up here, everybody in the marketplace looked like ants, tiny and dark-colored as they dashed about. She loved it up here, where she felt absolutely unbridled. She called it her “thinking place” and sometimes fantasized about the height creating extra brainwaves. Then she could be able to read so much faster than everyone else, and she wouldn’t be teased for her slowness ever again.

Wildflower liked to imagine things.

The tree creaked as she shifted her weight, rustling the leaves as her tail flicked for balance. She glanced up at the sky, spotting the sun just starting to peek over the tops of the mountains. I should get going.

She got to her feet carefully, edged to the end of the nearest branch, and spread her wings. For a moment, she just stood there, eyes closed, relishing the wind battering her relentlessly, making her feel wild and strong and simply free.

Alas, she probably never would be.

Wildflower leapt and caught an updraft with her wings, soaring upward.

She angled her body to aim toward the sand dunes in the distance, and even farther away, the silhouette of a run-down town clinging to the tallest one. As she drew closer and closer, her home shimmered into view, blurry in the desert heat, even just as the sun had some up. The worn-out roofs of the cubular buildings were very clearly old, and not-so-clearly fragile.

Touching down gently on the still-empty street, she raised her head and took a long breath of the fresh air. It was refreshing out here, and Wildflower loved it, but a dark cloud poisoned the calm: her worry for what she was about to step into.

A small alley branched off of the main street, and Wildflower turned down it, her talons pattering gently along the dusty ground. It smelled musty over here, dank and a little spooky. Unlike the wide-open street she had just been in, this space was narrow, the buildings on either side of her shooting straight up and making a sort of canyon. Square windows lined their walls.

“Father?” she called tentatively, creaking open the mold-mottled door at the end. “Mother?” It was too dark to see anything within the space, and she groped around on a nearby shelf for a candle. She found a small, waxy nub and lit it with a tiny burst of flame.

Specks of orange light danced around the walls, lighting up the cramped room. One side held a sofa and a mountain of ratty blankets. The next had a carpet laid onto the ground, mussed as if someone had been lying on it. The third was home to a three-legged table and a few chairs arranged around it with the artistic sense of a much wealthier dragon.

She hadn’t been here for a while, having lived alone ever since she came back from the war two months ago. The war, bloodshed and screams, watching Jackrabbit spiral down to the ground with burnt holes in her wing… she choked on the memories.

“Wildflower.” The voice seemed to issue from the wall, bringing her back to reality, and she wheeled around in surprise (and fear) until she saw her mother.

Jackal had once been beautiful, it was easy to see that. Her elegant, sharply-defined features were proof of it. But now, there were hollows under the grooves of her cheekbones, in between her ribs. Dark shadows painted the bottoms of her eyes. She cupped the steaming mug of tea in front of her like it was her last source of warmth in a frozen world.

“He’s gotten worse,” her mother whispered. She pointed to the mound of blankets on the sofa. With a cold shock of horror, Wildflower realized it was moving up and down, as if it was breathing… as if there was someone beneath them.

Of course, she should have been expecting this by now.

Wildflower tiptoed over to the blankets and pulled them off. Underneath was the ragged form of Saguaro. Her father. Though he didn’t look like one right now.

His chest rose and fell raggedly, his breath rattling like a small kernel within an empty tin can, his eyes squeezed shut as if opening them would lead to unbearable pain. Wildflower pressed her talons to his forehead and gasped: fever was ravaging his body.

The little family had known this was coming for a while. Saguaro had never been the healthiest individual, and when the economic downturn hit with the war, his sickness took a turn for the worse too. They tried their best to heal him, they really did, but all they were able to do was to get Saguaro to act fine for a few days and then become… decidedly not fine.

Her father stirred slightly at Wildflower’s touch, curling into a ball like a small dragonet. “I’m sorry,” he muttered under his breath, and she felt a pang of deep, shattering sadness. (Or he might have said “You’re hairy.” Wildflower wasn’t sure which. She decided to go with the first one, since it was just barely less disturbing.)

She looked over at her mother again, whose eyebrows were furrowed in an expression of intense worry now. “That’s all he does,” her mother said in a low tone. “He lies there, moves around every once in a while, says something I can’t hear clearly and then falls asleep again. He’s not responding to any of the doctors’ treatments.”

Jackal hesitated, then added, “We’re almost out of money. And time.”

Emotions raced through Wildflower: fear, anger, grief. Finally, her brain settled on determination.

“We can save him,” she said boldly, her tone reminiscent of the candle in her talon. Small, but fierce, fighting against the suffocating darkness. “I’ll - I’ll work overtime. We can make enough money. I promise. He’s not leaving us. Not yet. He won’t.” The words spilled out of her mouth, fluid and unruly. She was fully aware that she was rambling.

Her mother got to her feet, swaying slightly. Her slumped posture and dark eyes screamed one thing at Wildflower: tired, tired, tired.

“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that?” Jackal said wearily. “I’m afraid…”

They looked at Saguaro at the same time, the end of the sentence left unsaid. Jackal sighed deeply and left the room.

* * *

“Don’t be scared!”

Wildflower remembered that day like it was yesterday, despite the actual date being five years ago. Of course, with Saguaro by her side.

It had been bright and warm, the sun beaming down on them as if giving them their blessing. Little Wildflower bounded alongside her father as they scaled a hill, whose own twitching wings betrayed his excitement.

They reached the top surprisingly fast for how much Wildflower was bouncing around. “What are we doing today, Daddy?” she squealed, looking up at her father with adoring hazel eyes. She loved her father. He was perfect. She loved the world. Everything was perfect.

He looked down at her, a twinkle on his face. “You’re going to fly.”

Saguaro stepped forward, balanced precariously on the edge of the cliff, and leaped off. His wings spread and snatched at the air, letting him float effortlessly on the wind.

Wildflower gasped dramatically, even though she had seen that coming. She loved watching Daddy fly and imagining doing it herself one day. That time had finally come.

“Step off, and spread your wings,” he instructed. Wildflower hung back for a moment, naturally, and Saguaro saw her talons shaking. He cupped them in his own. “Don’t be scared,” he told her. “Everything will be okay.”

There was a bit of screaming when Wildflower first began falling, and she had thought she would never get to talk to her friends again. But when she righted herself again, flapping hesitantly, then more and more surely, it felt like heaven. She loved it. It was the best thing she had ever felt, hovering.

Then, a few minutes later, that opinion was knocked out. Hovering was fun, but flying with her father, watching the clouds and the scenery roll out below them, touching his wing tip for reassurance as they wheeled and dived… that was the best thing ever. Nothing else would ever take its place.

The memory faded away, but the feeling still remained. It clawed painfully at Wildflower’s chest, reminding her of what once had been, and what would never be again. The joy, the euphoria, it was gone, chased away by the suffocating mist of sickness.

She collapsed onto the ground, gripping Saguaro’s talon, feeling the weight sag limply in her own. “I’m scared, Dad,” she sobbed. “I’m scared.”

His voice echoed in her head. “Don’t be scared!” His voice, warm, solid, unmoving, always there for her no matter what happened. Until now.

Her breath was as shaky as his. “You kept the fear away, Dad. I’m lost without you.”

* * *

Wildflower lifted her quill over the paper and hesitated, poised to write. She wiped a stubborn tear off her cheek, thought for a moment, then touched the ink to the paper.

Dear Tempest,

We have taken him to a doctor already. Three doctors, in fact. We shoved all of their medicines down Dad’s throat. None of them worked for longer than five days. He acts like he’s cured, and everybody cries of joy, then he gets sick again and everybody cries of not-joy. It’s a real roller-coaster over here.

If I can’t go to the Ice Kingdom, can you come to the Sand Kingdom? Please. I want to see you again. It’s been so long, and I don’t want our friendship to break apart. Write soon.

Sincerely, Wildflower

She put down her quill and buried her head in her hands. She wanted Tempest to come, for company… but there was a little voice inside her head that said the IceWing’s intelligence could help too.

Wildflower left the house for yet another day of work.

Chapter 3

The soft morning light swept against her scales, sending thrills of cold through her body. She snapped to attention, leaping off her bed and getting ready for a day of war training, even though her eyes were half closed. She reached for her spear and found only empty space.

Tempest opened her eyes, seeing her childhood home, the place she had lived since birth. “The war is over,” she muttered to herself through gritted teeth. Why couldn’t she remember that? Deep down, she knew that it was far from easy to get rid of the memories. She had been hatched into bloodshed, swung her first spear at the ripe old age of two.

Today was a new day.

“Flurry?” she shouted, trying to pull herself out of the daze. “Get up! It’s time for you to go to school!”

The curtain shielding her younger sister’s part of the house was drawn aside, and Flurry stomped out, wearing a sleep-deprived scowl. “No.”

Tempest peered at her little sister. “What do you mean, no?” she asked absently.

She opened the door to their cupboard, searching for food. “Do you want trout or salmon for breakfast?”

Flurry sat down at the table, or the structure of unsteady planks that passed for it. “No.”

Tempest sighed. “Are you going to say ‘no’ to everything I ask today, or do you want to actually do something productive?”

“Why don’t you go to school? It’s not fair.”

“We’ve been over this,” Tempest pointed out. “None of the schools will accept me. My… abilities… aren’t the kind they want.” In truth, they only had money to send Flurry to school, and only just. Getting Tempest a scholarship at a school too would ruin them.

“I don’t care,” Flurry answered, and continued to stare at the extremely-alluring table.

Tempest felt her hope for today slipping and sliding away like a melting candle. Flurry was always grumpy in the mornings, but never this much. Something was wrong. “What’s going on? Why are you so grumpy? And did you really just say ‘no’ to salmon a minute ago?”

A petulant expression crossed Flurry’s face, and she lashed her tail. “I had a dream about Mommy,” she said stubbornly. “I miss her. Can you tell her to come home?”

“Well-” Tempest started.

“Write her a letter,” Flurry continued as if her older sister hadn’t even spoken. “I can’t write yet. It’s stupid. But if you write a letter, you’ll be less stupid.”

Tempest decided not to point out that Flurry’s logic was extremely weird. Thoughts battled in her head, and she wondered if she should tell her the truth or not. What if she gets angry at me for lying to her? But then she might find out by herself, and that would be horrible…

Finally, she made a decision, even though it made her go weak at the knees. “Flurry…” she started hesitantly, her voice catching. Maybe she should take her somewhere to cheer her up before she broke the news.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “Flurry, do you want to go to the forest?”

* * *

A blur of white scales streaked past Tempest, outlined against the deep green bushes of the boreal landscape. Flurry yelped with happiness as she shot after a bunny and tackled it, rolling over and cuddling the terrified creature. “Isn’t it so cute? Isn’t it wonderful? Please can we keep it let’s take it home keep it please?”

Tempest rolled her eyes. Perhaps taking her sister to their favorite place in the kingdom had cheered her up a little too much. She walked over to Flurry and pulled her talons away, letting the bunny flash into the undergrowth. There’s no way we’d be able to afford a pet.

She looked up, up, up at the towering trees, green points racing towards the sky like they had forgotten about gravity. Sure, they both liked this area, but the real reason they were here was to gather herbs. Tempest plucked one from a nearby bush. She planned on mailing it to Wildflower, in hopes of healing her father.

“C’mon, let’s keep going!” Flurry said eagerly, scampering through the brush. Tempest walked after her, brain churning, wondering how she should break the news - or if she should break it at all.

The two sisters walked past copses of bushes, groves of trees, but they finally stopped at a shimmering river, a silver ribbon winding through the land, just as the sun reached its zenith in the sky. Tempest speared a fish with her claw and they shared it for their midday meal, along with jokes and light-hearted conversations. She felt at ease with her younger sister more than almost any other dragon, ironically. Flurry didn’t judge her. She knew that she never would.

“I like it here,” the dragonet said plaintively, jolting Tempest back to the present. Flurry flopped down on the bank of the river.

“It is nice,” Tempest agreed.

Flurry stared up at the clouds dreamily. “That one looks like a polar bear cub,” she said, pointing to a cloud that did not even remotely look like a polar bear cub. She moved her talon to the right slightly, showing Tempest a slightly bigger cloud. “And that one looks like its mommy.”

Tempest squinted at the clouds. “The mommy looks like it’s eating its cub.” Noticing Flurry’s expression, she amended herself quickly. “Eating fish with its cub.”

Wide blue eyes met Tempest’s gray ones as Flurry propped herself up to look at her sister. “Do you ever miss Mommy, Tempest?”

Tempest shuffled her talons in confusion. “The polar bear? No offense, Flurry, but you know she doesn’t exist-”

Childish laughter rang through the frosty air. “No, silly! Our Mommy. The one who took care of us? The one who’s on a trip right now?” Something else rippled over Flurry’s expression, her snout trembling slightly. “You will send her a letter, right?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Tempest promised, knowing full well she wouldn’t. Flurry nodded, apparently satisfied, and settled on the grass again.

“I don’t remember much about Mommy,” the dragonet confessed. “Last time she was with us was a really long time ago, right?” Tempest nodded mutely.

“I wish I remembered more,” Flurry said, her voice holding much more sadness than any dragonet her age should be able to. “I know she gave us food, and she was nice to me. I wish she was still here.”

Tempest felt wounded at this last sentence. “Don’t I take care of you well enough?”

“Yeah!” Flurry said quickly. “Yeah, you take care of me good. I just wish…”

She hesitated, then continued. “Do you know Rime, the dragonet in my class? The one who’s super duper annoying and always tries to steal my pencil?” She didn’t wait for Tempest to affirm this before continuing.

“Well, yesterday Rime was late to school,” Flurry said. “And then the teacher got mad at him and she was like, ‘Why are you late? You’re supposed to be here before the bell rings’ all bad-faced and scary.

“And then Rime was like, ‘It’s my birthday and my mommy was giving me a present.’ And the teacher was still annoyed, but she wasn’t mad, because he said that he loved his mommy very much and she said that she understood that.” The last sentence came out in a rush, the words tumbling over each other.

Tempest stared up at the sky, noticing at one cloud that looked very much like an IceWing burying her head in her talons.

Flurry’s voice was very small now, and lush with sadness. “I just wish my mommy was like that too.”

She shook her head like a wet dog, the spikes around her neck clattering. “But anyway, thank you for taking me out here!” she added brightly, apparently having undergone one of the inexplicable mood changes that she often had.

“You’re welcome,” Tempest said quietly, expecting something heartfelt and sentimental. Maybe Flurry would thank her for everything she had done for her over these years. Maybe she would say what a wonderful older sister she was.

Flurry tossed a rock in the river. “Now I don’t have to listen to Rime brag about his pet frog, oh and also can we get one too?” she said cheerfully.

Tempest made a mental note to start teaching Flurry ‘gratitude.’

* * *

The flight home wasn’t long, but it felt like it.

Flurry swooped happily up and down, her wingtips carving trails in the mist. She did clumsy loop-the-loops in midair. “Tempest! This is so fun! I feel so graceful! Do I look like an acrobat?”

“You look like a seagull throwing a hissy fit.”

“A seagull! Great!” She flapped ahead.

Flurry may not have noticed Tempest’s statement, but Tempest certainly noticed Flurry’s reaction to it. She’s in such a good mood. Should I tell her?

Deep down, Tempest had always known she had to tell her, sooner or later, she reflected as she watched her sister dive in and out of fog banks on their way home. She just didn’t know it would have been this soon.

Why was she hesitating? Was it because she was scared of her sister’s reaction? No, there was no way. Tempest was older. Flurry knew better (at least she hoped she did). Was it because she thought Flurry wouldn’t understand? No, Flurry was smart for her age.

So what is it? she thought to herself, and a quiet voice embedded deep within her gave her the answer.

You don’t want it to be the truth yourself.

Bracing her courage, she shot forward.

When Flurry noticed Tempest’s approach, she stopped doing barrel rolls and gave her sister a big smile. She opened her mouth to say something, but Tempest beat her to the punch. “I have something to tell you,” she blurted.

Flurry cocked her head, but remained silent. She knew when something was up with her sister, Tempest thought bitterly.

The words seemed to stick in her throat, refusing to cooperate with her tongue. “Our mom… she’s… Skua is…”

Excitement lit Flurry’s face. “Mommy?”

Tempest’s heart broke as the words finally came. “Mom’s not coming home.” 

She choked on tears. “She’s dead, Flurry. She’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She watched Flurry cycle through a thousand different emotions, looking as if she had been clobbered by a much larger dragon. Grief, anger, confusion shot through her face, before she finally settled on… anger.

The dragonet swallowed hard, then said in a hard tone, “No.” Her voice was small, a sheet of anger stretched over poorly-disguised despair.

“Flurry!” Tempest cried, aghast. She swiped away the moisture from her eyes. “I’m not lying. She’s- she really is gone.”

“She can’t be,” Flurry protested again. “She’s… she’s Mommy. How can you think she’s gone?” Her eyes pleaded wordlessly, How can you not believe in her?

Tempest’s reply stuck in her throat. They flew on in silence.

* * *

When they got home, Flurry retreated into her room without saying anything to Tempest. It felt like an earthquake had suddenly rocked the ground and now a chasm yawned between them. They could still see each other, but an uncrossable distance split them apart.

Tempest plucked out the papers and quill once again. The words flowed out of the tip like water from a spring.

Dear Wildflower,

I’ve told you already, I can’t come to the Sand Kingdom. I have Flurry here to take care of, and she’s still too little to fly across the whole continent. Besides, we’re still friends, aren’t we? We must be doing something right.

She paused, wondering if she should mention what she had just told Flurry, and her sister’s unfortunate reaction.

I’m enclosing some herbs for your father in this envelope. Cloud’s breath and arctic rose. They’re known for healing properties up here in the Ice Kingdom. Of course, I’m not sure if they’ll do any good for your father since they don’t know what his condition is, exactly… But you can try them.

Good luck, Wildflower.

Best regards, Tempest

The letter felt far too short, in Tempest’s opinion. She wondered if she should scrawl a PS at the bottom. ‘PS: I miss you every day. You’re my best friend and I wouldn’t have anything different.’

She stuffed it into the envelope instead.

Chapter 4

“Candles!” Wildflower hollered over the din of the marketplace. “Candles for sale! The finest candles you’ll ever see!” She hopped up and down behind the table like a maniac, trying and failing to get someone’s attention.

She peered over the top of the banner advertising her wares, not even noticing the bony little dragonet next to her until his wing brushed her own accidentally. Whirling toward him, she spotted a small pickpocket, talons lifting her biggest candle out of its holder, eyes wide as he was caught in the act.  “Oh, no you don’t,” she said quickly, reaching for the candle. “I spent a lot of time on that, young sir, so don’t go thinking you can just sneak around and…”

Wildflower’s voice trailed away as she took in the thief. Just a tiny dragonet, probably a street urchin, his ribs jutting out from his sides as he flicked his tail upward. His dark eyes shone defiantly as he spat a word no young SandWing should know at her. But if she looked closer, noticed how his wings folded in, how his feet trembled…

He’s scared, she realized, the thought thudding dully into her mind. Scared… of me.

The dragonet hissed at her, seizing her moment of hesitation. He fled into the churning crowd, clutching her most expensive ware to her chest. Wildflower let him go. Her eyes tracked his progress until she lost him.

“I saw that,” a voice said. Wildflower spun around, a smile lighting up her face at the sight of her closest friend in the Sand Kingdom.

“Aren’t you running a shop?” Owl questioned.

“Yes, but-”

“Aren’t dragons supposed to pay?”

“Well, yes, but I-”

“Why’d you let that dragonet go, then?”

Wildflower frowned at Owl. Sweet, conscious Owl, who would never attack a dragon like this, verbally or otherwise. “What’s going on?”

Owl exhaled and touched his talon to his temple for a moment. “I’m sorry. Can we pretend that never happened?”

Cocking her head, Wildflower feigned confusion. “Pretend what happened?”

Owl looked bewildered. “The… the thing. When I said something, and then you said something else, and then I asked you to-”

“Relax,” Wildflower giggled. “I’m just joking.”

Relief washed over Owl’s face. “Oh. Good. The joking.” He visibly smoothed his features over. “I am relaxed. Relaxing. Yep, that’s me, relaxed.”

Wildflower noted Owl’s stiff-looking stance, the way his mouth kept twitching downward, as if it wanted to escape the smile it was being forced into. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Well…” Owl stalled, but when he saw Wildflower’s concerned expression, he seemed to push his worries down. He let out another gusty sigh. “I got fired. The business went bankrupt. Now I don’t have a job anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Wildflower managed to get out after a moment of crushing silence, brushing his side with her wing. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not really,” Owl said mournfully. “I just have to look for a new job. Though that’s going to be difficult. I just wish…”

Jackrabbit was here, Wildflower’s brain chimed in when he didn’t finish his sentence. Owl’s older sister had fought in the war alongside the two of them. Wildflower had loved Jackrabbit’s company, how the dragoness could ease a smile out of anyone on their darkest day. They had been a perfect trio together. Fast friends, balancing each other out. Until Jackrabbit lost her life in a battle against Burn’s forces, and everything started to fall apart.

“Here,” Wildflower said, snatching up a wild assortment of candles and shoving them into Owl’s arms. “Take these. You can sell them to stay afloat for…” She eyed the wares. “Two weeks, maybe?”

Owl looked taken aback. “Wildflower, don’t you make these yourself? Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely,” she said firmly.

“I don’t know about this,” he muttered worriedly, but he allowed Wildflower to shoo him away from her stall.

“Goodbye!” she called. “And good luck!”

“Luck is a myth!” Owl bellowed back before being swallowed up by the crowd.

* * *

“Dad? Can you hear me?”

Wildflower paced nervously across the floor, back in her small house as her mother looked on worriedly. She squeezed the small bottle in her talons anxiously, remembering what Tempest had said in her letter. I’m not sure if they’ll do anything good for your father…

“I followed the doctor’s instructions exactly,” she said nervously, turning to her mother. She held up the bottle and swished the liquid inside around. “Let the herbs dry, crush them, dissolve them in boiling water, mix in some honey. If this doesn’t work…”

Jackal said nothing, the dark circles beneath her eyes more prominent than ever. Wildflower could read her expression like a book.

“This is the fourteenth medicine we’ve tried, Wildflower,” her mother said wearily. “I just want you to know… if this doesn’t work…” She swallowed. “It might be time to give up.”

Wildflower pinned her mother with an uncharacteristically fierce glare. “It has to work,” she said, “because Tempest sent it to me. We’re going to go flying later, I’m sure of it.”

She steeled her nerves and dripped the medicine slowly down her father’s throat.

Wildflower waited for his eyes to flash open, for his warm smile to wash away the faint frown and her eternal worries. She waited for his voice to fill the room, warming her and her mother’s souls. She waited for the ending that all scrolls rhapsodize about to waltz into her own life and make everything better.

It didn’t come.

Her wings slumped in defeat as she watched her father lie there, his body just as still as ever. From the corner, she heard rather than saw her mother sigh defeatedly. Wildflower turned away, unable to bear her father sprawled lifelessly across the couch anymore.

And then she heard it.

Such a small noise, but unmistakable.

A cough.

Immediately, Wildflower shot back to the couch, staring at her father with desperate faith. Jackal was there too, hopelessness gone, face wide open and vulnerable.

Like a mountain shifting, rocks tumbling one by one until they crescendoed into a landslide, her father opened his eyes for the first time in a week and a half. They were bleary and unfocused, but they were there, and seeing the world once again, and Wildflower sobbed with joy and clutched his talon like she would never let go. Her mother pressed her body to her husband’s, shaking with tears and unrepressed love.

Saguaro cleared his throat, a rusty, rumbly sound. His smile lit a fire in Wildflower’s heart. “Did someone say flying?”

* * *

Jackal and Saguaro looked like two love struck teenagers. They giggled and whispered inside jokes and fell all over each other in bursts of laughter. Wildflower watched them reunite at the table, hovering quietly in her own bedroom doorway with a smile stretched across his face. The house was still small, but there was one difference: it felt warm.

Finally, after listening to her father call her mother ‘Jackie’ for the millionth time, Wildflower decided to enter the scene. “Father!” she cried, throwing himself into his arms. He grunted under her weight slightly, and she flinched backwards. “Sorry - I’m sorry-”

“It’s all right,” he said with a valiant smile. He lifted his wings as if to show off their elegant sandy color. “I’m all better now.”

Jackal cocked her head at her daughter. “Where did you get that medicine anyway?”

“From my friend Tempest,” Wildflower said eagerly. “She’s an IceWing, and she’s crazy smart, but she’s also super nice and she’s my best friend-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Saguaro interrupted. “An IceWing? Your best friend? Listen, Wildflower, IceWings aren’t exactly the best tribe to make friends with…” He quailed under her defensive glare.

“Tempest,” she said again calmly, “is my best friend. She’s thoughtful and funny and one of the best dragons I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t trade her for anyone else.”

“Well… alright,” Saguaro relented, but he still looked a tad uncomfortable. Even though they had been on the same side in the war, it was clear that he didn’t completely trust them. And that was fine. Tempest was Wildflower’s. She wouldn’t give up being friends with her, no matter what he said.

She tried to physically fling the thoughts away, giving a small shake of her head. Her father was awake, and here she was thinking rebellious things like a horrible daughter. “Well?” she asked. “Can we go flying now?”

Jackal’s eyebrows drew together in apprehension. “Well, I’m not sure if he’s strong enough to do that just yet…”

“No worries,” Saguaro said charmingly. He stood up, wincing slightly as his joints creaked. “I’m ready to go.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Wildflower’s mother said anxiously. “This isn’t a good idea-”

“It’ll be fine,” her father reassured her, sweeping his wing along Jackal’s back. She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder for a moment, then lifted it.

“Alright then,” she said, relenting. “Go on, let’s go.”

The three of them trotted through the streets, chattering about all the things Wildflower’s father had missed and then some. It was ridiculously hard for Wildflower to keep a straight face when fireworks of joy were exploding inside her, when she felt like she was in heaven because she was seeing her father again. When she knew exactly where they were going: the family’s favorite spot, ever since she had been a dragonet.

They crested a hill, the buildings falling away around them, and felt a wide-open sky on their scales. The cliff dropped away, sheering steeply downward to a river below. Other families wheeled about, riding the wind, teaching their dragonets to fly. Wildflower was far older than many of them, but she lifted her head and inhaled the crisp breeze, smiling anyway.

She spread her wings and leaped into the open space, air caressing her scales. Swooping around for a moment, Wildflower dove back to her family and hovered in front of them, an uncontrollable grin on her face. No matter how many times she tried to squash it down, it just popped back up again. “Hurry up!” she teased her parents.

Jackal burst off of the ground easily, but Saguaro spread his wings and angled them slowly as if it hurt to do so. He lumbered down the path and flapped laboriously into the air, offering his worried family a tight smile. “I’m fine,” he insisted, and Wildflower decided to believe him for now.

As they soared in cheerful loops, reuniting for the first time in forever, her parents seemed to loosen up - both physically and mentally. She made a wish: to remember this perfect moment, bathed in rays of serene light as they swept over the landscape, forever.

* * *

When they returned to their house, windswept and free, they piled through the front door and went back to their lives, just as it had been before. Jackal darted into the kitchen to prepare lunch. Saguaro began dusting the shelves. And Wildflower ducked into her room to write a letter.

Dear Tempest,

Thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU. You know why I’m thanking you? Because your medicines worked. THEY WORKED. Now my dad is awake! And it’s all thanks to you! I’m so happy, Tempest. I can’t thank you enough. I want to fly up to the Ice Kingdom and hug you right now. I’m that happy.

Sorry this letter is short! I’m going to talk to my dad now. Write soon.

Love, Wildflower

She dropped the quill and raced into the main room to talk to her parents once more. For the first time, Wildflower understood the word ‘overjoyed.’ She felt like happiness was bubbling up inside of her, overflowing, spilling golden drops, creating a smile that was impossible to hold down - no matter how hard she tried.

Chapter 5

Love.

Tempest stared at the word inked on the page, her eyes refusing to process it.

Love.

Love, Wildflower.

She smacked the letter into her forehead, frustrated with her own dawdling cognitive senses. “Toughen up,” she ordered to herself. Her sister had just gotten the worst news of her life, and here she was, mooning over two words from her friend.

Her best friend. Nothing more. Just friends. Yep, that was it, there was nothing else between them and…

But what if there was? a mental voice chimed in, disrupting all of Tempest’s thoughts. Visions barreled in, tinted with the rose-colored shade of fantasy: Wildflower flying to the Ice Kingdom, the two of them embracing, declaring that they were…

“No, you idiot,” she said out loud. Why in the moons was this happening to her? What would her mother think of her? She had to be strong, independent. This couldn’t be happening to her. She refused to believe it.

The rest of Tempest’s morning passed uneventfully. She flew Flurry to school, though the dragonet refused to talk to her - barely even looked at her. The only acknowledgement she got was when Flurry’s teacher chirped in an aggravatingly cheerful tone, “Say bye-bye!” and her sister yawned in Tempest’s general direction.

Even though the war was over, Tempest still trained every day, flying and fighting and keeping her body fit. The whole time, she heard her mother’s voice echoing in her mind. Faster. Stronger. Better. She tried her hardest to measure up, practicing for hours on end.

Today, she winged her way to the courtyard with her spear in talon. At the corner of the village’s gathering place was a small shed filled with practice dummies, one of the only places that she felt she could truly relax in.

With smooth movements, Tempest swept her spear in circles, stabbing them into the dummies and watching them bleed feathers onto the packed dirt ground. The spear connected with solid strikes, sometimes shoving deep into the burlap, sometimes simply bouncing off. The shed was silent except for her weapon’s scattered impacts. Tempest was silent too, holding in her exertion as she worked her body to the point of collapse.

She was so deep in her trance that the other dragon saw her first, an unusual occurrence. A loud knock sounded on the grimy windows, and Tempest’s heart rate jumped. She crouched, not even knowing why, hiding at the base of the wall as another IceWing peered in. After a few moments, his footsteps moved away and receded, Tempest letting a breath whoosh out that she didn’t know she was holding.

She returned to her practice, but her mind wasn’t on the movements anymore. It was far away, lost in the past, misted over with foggy memories.

* * *

“Mom!” Tempest cried, skidding into the house. Skua stood at the table, leafing through papers with her face growing increasingly worried. Flurry babbled baby talk in the corner. “Mom! I have good news!”

Skua unknit her eyebrows and turned to Tempest with a clearly-forced look of serenity. “What is it?”

Tempest had to stand still for a moment, panting hard, before she could get any words out. “Today… we had a race… I got third fastest in the class!”

Her mother fixed Tempest with a look: pride and disappointment and a will of steel all at once. “That’s nice, but only third? Why not first?”

The dragonet faltered. “I, um… got distracted,” she confessed. “There was a little bird, and I stopped to look at it…” She looked up and beamed hopefully. “But this is still the best I’ve done! Aren’t you happy for me?”

“Of course I am,” Skua said. Her supportive tone was obviously forced, even to such a young IceWing, whose expression was crumbling more by the millisecond.

“Wasn’t it good enough?” Tempest asked nervously, talons ripping into the dust on the ground anxiously.

“Next time, just try harder,” her mother answered with finality. She turned back to their papers. This conversation was over.

But it wasn’t to Tempest, who fled to her room and sniffled pathetically for an hour. The whole time, she could imagine her mother standing next to her, wiping away her tears from time to time as she looked on with disapproval. This would only make Skua even more disappointed, that her eldest daughter was crying, a pointless display of weakness.

No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn’t shake her mother’s words. They had wormed into her brain and found a place to nest there, spreading, proliferating until they were amplified into every one of her thoughts. I’ll be stronger, Mother. I’ll be better. I’ll be as good as you want me to be.

This was no longer about a simple race between friends, she thought. It was about making her mother proud of her, so she would never have to tell her to try harder’ again, ever.

Tempest vowed out loud, “Next time, I’ll win.”

* * *

She flung the spear to the ground of the shed, a movement powered almost purely by frustration. No matter how hard she tried to focus, she kept drifting away, away from the things she had swore she would accomplish all those years ago.

Stomping out of the shed, she peered up at the sun, and a jolt of surprise rocketed through her. It was mid-afternoon, the time when Flurry’s school ended. She was going to be late for picking her up if she didn’t get there soon.

Tempest winged through the air, drawing closer and closer as the sun sank lower and lower. She touched down at the doorway of Flurry’s classroom and thundered in, remembering the last time she hadn’t gotten there before the parents. Her sister had been standing all alone in the middle of the room, looking lost and alone as her friends funnelled out, all with their perfect, complete families. “Flurry, I-” she started.

She stopped short. Twenty-five dragonets and one teacher stared at her.

“You’re early,” the teacher observed in a slow voice.

A hot flush of embarrassment crept up Tempest’s body. “I - I’m sorry - too early- ”

She fled.

Tempest dashed into the hallway, where throngs of parents milled around, waiting for the final school bell to ring. “That’s the sister,” she heard one hiss to another one, saying the final word like one would say ‘rotting rabbit.’ “Poor thing. Their mother died.”

She bit her lip, but said nothing. She was already nervous around so many dragons, her heart fluttering like a caged bird. To be looked at like this, though, as if she was a china doll about to break, made her feel even more self-conscious. She drew her wings closer in towards her body anxiously, her scales prickling with discomfort.

After what felt like an eternity, a tinny bell rattled the building. The dragonets poured out of the doorway, some dashing into their parents’ arms, others trying to appear aloof by avoiding them. Flurry was somewhere in the middle. She ambled out of the classroom slowly and stood next to Tempest, not saying a thing.

“Let’s go,” Tempest said, trying to force a cheerful tone. Even though Flurry wasn’t looking at her face, she knew that her sister would see right through her facade.

The two of them exited the building, flew home silently. Flurry’s wings were stiff and unmoving as she glided above the arctic landscape, not even a trace of her joyful loops that had been displayed a couple days ago. It made Tempest uneasy, to see Flurry like this. Usually, unlike other siblings, the two of them were best friends, because they were all they had. But now… without her closest confidant in the Ice Kingdom, everything felt lonely.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears to stay inside. Crying is weakness. “I don’t like fighting with you,” she confessed.

But her words were spoken to an empty sky. Flurry had flown ahead.

* * *

Once again, Flurry holed up in her room almost as soon as they stepped in the house. Tempest watched her go, loneliness tightening her chest. Had she completely ruined their relationship by lying to her? Oh, she felt guilty now, ashamed, lost. This was her fault. All of it. Flurry, Skua. She should have made her mother prouder. She should have been better while her mother was still alive.

Tempest dug her claws into the ground, shredding the surface nervously before she was able to pull herself back to the present. She’s gone. There’s nothing I can do about it, she reminded herself in an attempt to calm down.

A new thought struck her, something that had never occurred to her before. Driven by pain, but ringing with truth. Then why am I still trying to be the dragon she wanted me to be?

The door opened. Flurry glared at her, though there was no force behind the look. “Stop worrying,” she said in a small voice. “I can practically hear you yelling at yourself.”

“How did you know that?” Tempest asked, confused, but Flurry was already back in her room. She darted for the closing door and let herself in before her little sister could lock it.

She found herself in an aggressively organized room, everything in such a right position that it felt wrong. Dragonets Flurry’s age shouldn’t be doing this. Either her sister was incredibly mature, something Tempest doubted, or she was seriously stressed.

Flurry curled up in a small ball of icy scales on her rock ledge, looking very vulnerable. For the first time in a while, the brittle hardness in her eyes was gone. Tempest could still see it fracturing, falling away. “Is it true?” she asked quietly.

For a moment, Tempest was frozen, lost in a moment. Then she crossed the room in two quick strides and sat down next to Flurry, spreading her wing over the smaller IceWing. “It is,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t… understand…” Flurry choked out. Her frail body was trembling like the last leaf on a tree in a storm. “Mommy… she was perfect…”

“Nobody is perfect,” Tempest said gently. “Certainly not Mother. But she took care of us, and she was a good parent. Even though our father was never with us.”

Flurry nestled into the space between Tempest’s wing and side. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, sounding a little stronger now.

“I guess… I wanted to protect you,” she admitted. “I didn’t want you to have to deal with that. I wanted to carry the burden, so you wouldn’t need to.”

“It does feel bad,” Flurry said. “It feels like everything is falling apart, even though it was there a second ago.”

A tear slipped out of Tempest’s eye. “It sucks, I know.”

“So she’s really gone?” Flurry asked after a beat of silence. “Never coming back?”

Tempest swallowed hard. “Yes, she’s gone.” Take a breath. “We won’t get to talk to her again.”

Flurry leaned against her sister and cried. Her tears, unlike her scales, were warm, collecting on Tempest’s talons like raindrops. She let them. She wrapped her wings around her sister until Flurry’s breathing steadied and she fell into sleep.

* * *

Dear Wildflower,

That’s wonderful, I’m so glad to hear it. To know that your father is up and moving again brings me deep joy. It must have been hard, having him so close to death for such a long time. I’m sure that your family will be so very happy to have him back. Take him flying all the time. It’s helpful for dragons’ lungs.

Perhaps I’ll visit you soon. I’ll let you know. Write soon.

She hesitated before putting the sign-off, looking at the ‘Love’ Wildflower had inked on her previous letter. She settled for Sincerely, Tempest.

For a moment, she listened to her sister’s peaceful breaths, and then she curled up on her bed, imagining her mother’s reaction to tonight. She would have scoffed at the amount of tears shed, calling it unfitting for an IceWing, unlike the warrior that she should be.

But for some reason, Tempest didn’t mind as much as she did before.

Without Flurry’s energy, their residence had just felt hollow, the shell of a dragon without its heart. But she could feel it coming back, one beat at a time. Coming back to life.

Chapter 6

Waking up was very strange when Wildflower felt like her whole life was a dream. And a very good one.

It had been a week since her father had been revitalized, and every day was paradise. She didn’t go to school - she hadn’t ever since she had returned from the war; they were far too poor for that - so she had seemingly endless hours to spend with her family. Every day, they roamed about the city, Wildflower showing her father all the things that had popped up while he was too ill to see. And every day was better than the last.

But she knew today was going to be exceptionally good.

“Father!” Wildflower burst into her parents’ room at the crack of dawn. Saguaro and Jackal stirred sleepily, the morning sunlight kissing their scales lazily.

“Do you know what time it is, Wildflower?” Jackal muttered blearily.

She smiled brightly, hovering in the doorway. “The early bird catches the worm!”

“The early bird falls asleep while flying and falls down onto the ground and dies,” her mother observed, flopping back onto the bed and promptly starting to snore again.

“Don’t mind your mother,” Saguaro said, grinning hazily. “She’s extremely snappish when she wakes up.” He stretched, clearing his throat and flashing her a smile. “Why don’t we go alone? Just you and me?”

Wildflower didn’t hesitate. “Yes, please.”

* * *

“How are you?”

Her father leaned forward, steepling his temples with a serious expression on her face. The sweet smell of the cafe wound around Wildflower and into her mouth as she opened it to answer. “I’m good, how are you?” she said curiously, thinking this was a very pointless question but replying nonetheless.

Saguaro pushed his glasses further up his snout, suddenly looking very much like a father. “No, no,” he said. “How are you? Or should I ask, who are you?”

“Dad,” Wildflower teased, “I think you’ve been asleep too long. Because this is not a normal conversation topic.”

“Of course it’s not,” her father agreed. “But I want to know you, Wildflower. You’re my daughter.” He smiled. “I want to understand you.”

Wildflower shrugged. “What is there about me to understand? I’m just a normal SandWing. I work a normal job. I’m friends with another normal SandWing and a normal IceWing-”

Saguaro held up his talon. “Let’s stop there. Tell me about your IceWing… friend.”

A waiter slid a plate onto their table, and Wildflower took her time answering, thinking over her words as she bit into her cookie. “Well, her name is Tempest,” she said after swallowing. “I met her when I was stationed in the Ice Kingdom. We talked every day.”

“Tell me more,” her father prodded.

Wildflower sighed dreamily. “She’s quiet at first, but she has a killer sense of humor. She’s observant and she picks up on everything. I can tell she wants to be more than she is, which is ridiculous, because Tempest is perfect and I’m basically in…” She caught herself. “In a friendship with her.”

Her father snorted. “Wildflower, you’ve always been so good at reading others’ emotions… but never your own.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. Not at the meaning his sentence implied, but at the ring of truth inside her, as if her conscience was admitting to what Saguaro believed. “I’m not in love with her!” she almost shouted before lowering her voice at the waiter’s curious stare.

“I’m not in love,” she said more hesitantly, but this time, it was to herself. The skipped heartbeats whenever she opened a letter… the fluttery feeling inside her stomach whenever Tempest had appeared out of the snow… the joy she felt at seeing her happy too… were those signs of love? Or friendship?

“Aaaaargh,” she groaned, pressing her talons to her forehead. “Why are emotions so complicated?”

Saguaro twiddled his talons. “Well, I don’t mind that she’s a girl,” he said, “but falling for an IceWing? Really?” He took a breath, as if to launch into an essay complete with five examples and a conclusion on why IceWings were bad. But Wildflower stopped him.

“She’s different,” she told him, shrugging slightly. “I don’t need to provide evidence for my feelings. I just know it.”

He fixed her with a stern gaze, unflinching and firm. “My brother strayed into the Ice Kingdom once, accidentally,” he said. “The IceWings slaughtered him without asking any questions. Back then he was young, foolish. But they didn’t take that into account.” For the first time, he looked away. “They’re merciless, Wildflower. They think they’re better than us. You can’t build a life with that kind of dragon.”

For the first time, she had nothing to say.

“What do you see in her?” Saguaro asked after a moment of silence. “What’s so special about this Tempest that you’d be willing to risk yourself for?”

The way she laughs a little when she smiles, like she just can’t help herself.

The way she pauses before speaking, thinking through it carefully.

The way I could get lost in her beauty, both outside and within.

“Everything,” Wildflower said quietly. “She’s everything.”

The cafe breakfast they had ordered sat on the table between them, eclipsed.

She had to hold her breath for a moment, watching Saguaro turn this over in his mind. For all her spirit, Wildflower was family-oriented at heart, and she was desperate for his approval. This was the make or break moment, to see if he’d okay their relationship or… not.

He held up his talons, smirking slightly. “Well, if you like her that much… you do you.”

China clattered to the ground as Wildflower launched herself for him, knocking over the table in a tackle hug. The other customers stared and pointed openly, but Wildflower didn’t care. She relaxed into her father’s warm, wrapping her wings around him. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

He smiled gently. “Oh, I think I do,” he said. Wildflower followed his gaze to the cafe’s doorway. Her mother was standing there, silhouetted in rosy morning light, smiling back at him.

A disgruntled cough interrupted them. The waiter. “By all means, stare into each other’s eyes all day and ignore the mess on the floor, why don’t you?”

* * *

After a few words of conversation and a lot of broken plate shards, Jackal left them alone. According to her, she had gone to the cafe to get breakfast, though Wildflower suspected she had wanted to make sure they weren’t doing something idiotic. (A pointless gesture. She lived and breathed idiocy. She was always doing something idiotic.)

“Have some father-daughter time,” she had said. Wildflower nearly laughed out loud at the cheesiness, though she restrained herself when she heard the actual sincerity in her mother’s voice, and in her father’s nod too.

So now, the two of them were rambling through the streets as the sun came up, Wildflower chattering on and on and on. “Today, I’m going to take you to Acai Peak. It’s right over there-” she pointed- “And it’s one of the highest mountains in this area. I heard that the top is wonderful this time of year, and I’ve never seen it, so I thought we-”

“Wildflower,” Saguaro interrupted kindly. “I have ideas too.”

She winced, guilty. “Sorry, I’m just really excited to have you back.”

He brushed her wing with his, a gesture that said I’m here. “It’s a bit far away, but I’d like to take you to the university,” he said. “To show you your future.”

Wildflower tried to protest, but her father shushed her. “We’ll get you enough money to send you there. I promise.”

* * *

Her wings were weary, but as Wildflower alighted on the pavement, she thought she had never seen a place with so much energy.

It was beautiful, the school. Cleverly-constructed classrooms, blending in with the grass of the Sky Kingdom’s outskirts. Glass windows and doors, giving it an elegant, transparent air. And dragons, everywhere, bustling around the campus, carrying books and bags and even telescopes. There was a chaotic energy everywhere, weaving in through all the gaps and holes, giving Wildflower an unmistakable excitement.

“Wow,” she breathed.

Saguaro grinned like a young dragonet who had just won an argument. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Can we look around?” Wildflower asked eagerly.

“Of course! We can visit the library, the observatory, the…” He looked up from counting on his talons. His daughter had already jetted off in the direction of the main building.

* * *

The day had been perfect, far better than anything Wildflower could have planned.

They were at home now, sitting around the kitchen table as they ate dinner. “We walked all around the campus as visitors,” Wildflower explained to her mother excitedly as her father rubbed at his throat. “We went into almost all of the buildings, like the science center and the cafeteria and the observatory. That was my favorite.” She gestured to an unassuming telescope on the sofa with a childlike energy. “We got that, so now we can do the same thing as the students at home.”

“That’s lovely,” Jackal said. But she was looking at Saguaro, not Wildflower. “Are you okay?” she asked her husband with a worried face. “You look…” She surveyed the dark shadows beneath his eyes, his deflated wings. “Tired.”

He jumped to his feet, as if to prove a point. “I’m fine!” he said charmingly, then glanced at Wildflower. “Why don’t we go outside and test that telescope?”

Wildflower peered at Saguaro, then grabbed the telescope. Was his voice hoarse from weariness or illness? “You don’t have to come with me,” she called back as she darted out into the streets. But he was right behind, trailing her as she flapped up and landed on their roof.

She looked up. Her reprimand caught in her throat.

Above her rolled a dome of stars, like precious gems scattered across folds of midnight velvet.  They weren’t glittering or twinkling, just… shining, carving out beams of light among the dark. They glowed with an unearthly silver light, the color of a lullaby winding through her home. It made her feel calm. It made her feel at peace.

Wildflower grasped the telescope and zoomed in on a particularly bright series of stars. She traced its shape, giggling slightly. The view had awakened her childish side. “This constellation looks like a heart,” she pointed out lightly. “And that one like a wing.”

“Dad?” she asked, her eye still pressed to the telescope. The word felt good, solid on her tongue. “What do you think?”

When he didn’t answer, she turned around, saw him. Saw him lying still on the rooftop of their home, chest heaving, struggling for air, eyes glassy.

Panic seized her, cold and unflinching as she scrambled over. “Dad! What’s happening?”

He wheezed for air. The sound clawed at her, made her sway on her feet. “The illness… it’s back…”

She fought down the swell of horror. Her talons were shaking. Nausea swirled in her stomach. “No, there’s no way. Tempest’s herbs worked. They worked. This isn’t happening. Please, get up, please…”

Saguaro’s smile was as distant as the moons. “My brother’s here,” he said deliriously. “He’s taking me away.”

A horrible cough racked his body, and he curled up like a tiny dragonet. “Listen,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry I couldn’t see you grow up. Wildflower, my beautiful daughter, I love you more than I can say.”

She sobbed. Wrapped her wings around him. I won’t let you go I won’t I won’t. “Dad, no… I want you here… you can’t do this! Please!” She gripped him tightly. Roared to the sky. “Don’t do this! Stop it! Don’t go!”

“Tell your mother I love her too,” he murmured. His talon in hers slackened. It fell to the ground, no trace of the life once there.

“No!” Wildflower roared. Her blast of fire lit up the dark night, illuminating her father’s still chest, his glassy eyes. His serene smile that said he was done fighting with his lungs. He was at peace.

Come back, she thought, or maybe screamed. She didn’t know. She couldn’t think. Frozen, paralyzed, because how could anything continue working when her father wasn’t? How was this happening?

Wake up. Wake up. 

He wasn’t breathing. He was still. He was gone.

She howled her grief to the moonlit stars, once so beautiful, but now only cold.

Chapter 7

Tears spattered the letter.

Dear Tempest,

My father’s gone. You probably saw this coming. I should have too. Your medicines worked, but not for long.

It’s my fault. I’m sorry.

Wildflower

Tempest clenched the letter tightly, feeling it wrinkle wearily in her talons. What did Wildflower mean about it being ‘her fault?’ If anything, it was Tempest’s. And who was the SandWing apologizing to?

Her brain churned. What to do, what to do? She had never been good at things like this. Emotions, friends, unfamiliar territory, all of it was a minefield, ready to blow up in her face at the slightest misstep.

Perhaps she should fly to the Sand Kingdom. Talk to Wildflower. Her thoughts shied away at the very notion. It had been a long time since they had exchanged words. What if it was awkward? What if the SandWing didn’t like her anymore?

She got up and paced the length of her room. She definitely couldn’t do that. Besides, Flurry was here. She couldn’t leave her sister alone, right?

That was out of the option, Tempest decided. All her thoughts pointed her in the opposite direction, in being a good little IceWing, in staying here and writing letters instead of abandoning her home for a friend. She sat down, picked up her quill.

Wildflower,

I’m so sorry for your loss. It sounds

No, that was stupid. Tempest crushed the letter into a ball and shoved it to the edge of her desk. She had to write something else.

Wildflower,

That’s terrible. I hope you

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Her words weren’t coming out right. She wanted to pour her heart and soul into the paper, tell Wildflower how her heart skipped a beat whenever she thought of her sun-warm scales, tell her how there was no one in the Ice Kingdom anything like her. She shouldn’t. She couldn’t.

Could she?

Dear Wildflo

Tempest shredded the paper into bits, her face burning. Wildflower had been her greatest source of joy once, the chink in her silver armor. Now that she was hurt, all of Tempest’s protection was down, too. Grieving with her for a dragon she didn’t even know. Weak, her mother scoffed. Foolish. Do better.

Tempest dropped her head into her talons. What to do? The question thrummed inside her. Unceasing, unforgiving.

“Tempest?” said a sleepy voice from somewhere else in the house. She stretched and strode toward Flurry’s room, opening the door to see her sister curled up on her rock that passed for a bed.

Something must have shown on her face, because Flurry cocked her head, looking curious and maybe a little worried. “Are you okay? You look…” She traced her talons across her own little forehead, drawing out a wrinkle of concern.

Tempest snorted. She was still stuck on the letter, her thoughts streaming straight out of her mouth without a filter. “How are you immature half the time and way too grown-up the other half? But always annoying?”

Flurry tossed her head. “It’s a gift.”

The dragonet peered closer at her sister, her joking manner suddenly gone. Something passed over her face, a calculating shadow far too dark for her age. And then it faded, quick and striking as a lightning bolt.

“Can you get breakfast?” she asked cheerfully. Tempest tipped her head in confusion, but she nodded. Flurry was far more emotionally intelligent than her. If she thought food would cheer her up… she probably wasn’t wrong.

Two fillets of salmon later, Tempest searched for her sister and found her, of all places, in her room. “Flurry,” she said, voice low, “what are you doing here?”

“Reading your letters,” Flurry said brightly. She held aloft Wildflower’s tear-splashed letter and a stack of the other things she’d sent. Oh, moons.

“Put those down!” Tempest cried. “I’ll-” She lunged for the bundle, but the dragonet ducked. Tempest sprawled onto the desk, getting exactly one throbbing snout and zero letters.

Flurry hopped onto the rock ledge and held the letters as high as she could. Tempest swiped for them, but kept missing. “What are you doing with those?” she said angrily.

“You looked worried about something,” Flurry answered simply. “I told you. I knew something was wrong, so I came in here to find out what because you’d never tell me.”

Tempest made one final bid for the letters before settling for glaring at Flurry. “Put those down,” she said warningly. “We can talk about this outside.”

Seeing the real annoyance in Tempest’s eyes, Flurry seemed to shrink. “Okay.” She scampered outside, Tempest right behind her.

The salmon sat on the table, untouched. Tempest snatched the letters and put her talons down on the papers.

“I just wanted to help,” Flurry said defiantly. “How come you never told me about this SandWing?” She didn’t spit the word like other IceWings did. She was far too young to understand the rivalry between their tribes, running deep beneath the surface of the war. It was refreshing, yet foreign, to hear someone speak the name of the desert tribe with so little emotion behind it.

Tempest lifted her wings in a half-hearted shrug. She hoped Flurry’s reading skills weren’t good enough to entirely comprehend the letters yet.

Slumping, Flurry looked like she was melting. “And in that last letter… did her dad go away? Like our mommy?”

“He did,” Tempest said, fighting to keep her voice calm. “She’s grieving.”

“She sounds really sad.”

“How do you know? You can’t even read that well.”

Flurry stamped her foot petulantly. “Well, I have friends, and I know that when they’re sad, I should go help them.”

Tempest had a retort ready before it faded on her tongue. Should she? Being around Wildflower electrified her. It made her feel energetic, valued, alive. It made her say stupid things in attempts to look cool. She wasn’t sure if that was what her friend needed right now.

Then again, being physically there could never be replaced with writing, she realized. All these months spent apart, exchanging nothing but words on a paper, had made them drift apart. With a dull shock that reverberated through her body, she registered that she couldn’t quite remember the color of Wildflower’s eyes anymore.

Technically, there was nothing really holding her back from flying to the Sand Kingdom. Flurry could stay over at her friend’s house. Tempest was an IceWing; they had natural stamina. Could she do it?

“Well, if you really want me to,” she said hesitantly, feeling something leap in her chest at the spoken words.

“It means I’ll get to sleep over with my friends,” Flurry said with a mischievous grin. Tempest wasn’t fooled by her innocent act, though.

“I’m really not sure about this,” Tempest said. Her brain was racing ahead, making plans she desperately wanted to go through with. “I’d have to leave you alone for days! Can you even handle that? And Mother would disapprove of this so m-”

“Mommy,” Flurry said quickly, her demeanor shifting, “is gone. You told me so.” She paused. “I don’t know why you still want to follow her rules.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Tempest’s heart hammered wildly away, and she wasn’t even sure why. She couldn’t even comprehend seeing Wildflower again. After all this time away, the SandWing had strengthened into something as beautiful and distant as the sun.

“Go talk to your best friend,” Flurry said earnestly, seizing the break in the conversation. “I’m sure she’s missed you.”

Tempest steeled her nerves. She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

* * *

“Be good,” Tempest said to Flurry, seizing her talons urgently. “No blabbing about the crazy NightWing witch or whatever you did that got you kicked out of the last party.”

Flurry pouted. “The crazy NightWing witch is totally real.”

“Don’t joke with me,” Tempest said. “Don’t step a talon out of line while I’m gone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Her sister waved goodbye as if the older IceWing was simply off to the marketplace and not an entirely different kingdom. “Have fun!” the dragonet chirped as she dashed away.

The owner of the house, the mother of Flurry’s friend, surveyed Tempest cautiously before she walked away too. The disdain was apparent in her eyes: how could Tempest abandon her sister like that? The shame stung like needles. But the thought of Wildflower pushed the piercing pain away, as if her biggest weakness had become her greatest strength. How could she depend on a SandWing like this? Was she even a true IceWing anymore?

I will find her, she vowed silently, and she wasn’t sure if she was talking about her friend or herself.

* * *

Night was falling. Tempest winged through the dusk, the purple glow kissing her scales and painting her as an ice-white spirit, soaring on the wind. She held the envelope close to the chest, which was marked with Wildflower’s city and address. According to the map she had consulted, her friend was only about half an hour away. At the prospect, her spirits leaped, and she flew forward even more resolutely.

How would Wildflower react to seeing this apparition from her past? Would she even want Tempest there? She hadn’t sent any letters ahead, her limited talons not cooperating with the infinite thoughts in her mind.

The desert sands rolled out beneath her, sheets of hammered gold languishing as far as she could see. Heat beat doggedly at her scales, something the IceWing wasn’t used to. And yet, she felt free, freer than she had ever been. Away from the rules of her home.

Tempest knew this was wrong, leaving everything behind for a friend - a SandWing friend, too. Her mother would probably disown her for this. She wasn’t being a proper IceWing. She had morals, she had dignity, she had… 

Her wingbeats faltered for a moment as something hit her. Wasn’t this - what she was doing right now - ‘proper behavior?’ Reliable, for answering her friend’s call. Strong, for doing what she had to do. Independent, for following her own gut instinct. Was this so wrong? Why did she think others would look down on it?

Because nobody else is doing it, said a little voice inside Tempest’s head. If convention wasn’t on her side, the rest of her tribe wouldn’t be either.

A wry laugh escaped her. This friendship was anything but conventional.

As the stars blossomed, Tempest felt something growing inside her, her spirit shaking off its chains and getting ready to rear its head for the first time in forever.

If her mother wouldn’t have liked this, then so be it.

The lights of a town came into view.

Tempest flew on.

Chapter 8

Wildflower had never heard the word ‘condolences’ spoken out loud before, but she heard it today, over and over and over. My sincere condolences. I offer my condolences. I extend my condolences. 

It was funny how something she had experienced before could become such familiar territory in this short time. And yet, it was happening right now. Gentle whispers and comforting words, they swirled around Wildflower, dense clouds that she couldn’t part. She was lost, blind, wandering in a place she had never been before.

They were too poor to afford a proper funeral, though her father wouldn’t have wanted one anyway. No. He would have wanted a cremation, his ashes scattered over the hill they loved so dearly, left to float on the wind. But instead they were here, watching the undertaker roll his body into the dirt and shovel him away like he couldn’t care less.

Wildflower watched the dust close in on him, this dragon who had loved her first, taught her how to fly, taught her how to love. She felt like she was choking. It took all her willpower not to turn away as she listened to the traditional SandWing vows recited in an old, creaky voice.

“May the sun be warm and ever bright,” the dragon at the front of the bedraggled group intoned, finishing the speech. “May you find an oasis in every storm.”

The mourners dispersed, a sorry cluster of SandWings clustered together, weathering out the grief. Wildflower felt a tap on her shoulder and mustered a wan smile. When she turned, all she could imagine was icy scales for a moment, but the vision dispersed as Owl let out a sob.

“I’m so sorry,” he said in a choked voice. “This is just so unfair, and… and…”

Wildflower reached out to brush his talons with her own. “I’d like to be alone right now,” she said, drifting away. Owl gaped after her. He was right to be surprised. She didn’t think she had ever said that to anyone before, always choosing to spend time with her closest confidant. But now, things were different. That confidant was…

She couldn’t even bring herself to think about it.

She bowed her head, looking at the fresh bed of dirt. Someday, flowers would grow here, crane their buds up to the sun. They would search for the light just like her father had, reaching for a better life, for desperate hope in the endless night.

But that day wasn’t today.

Today, Saguaro lay curled up beneath the pebbles, in the most closed-off place he had ever been and would ever be in. Such a far cry from the wide, rolling deserts that all SandWings loved. The heat, the warmth, it couldn’t reach him where he was.

Today, Wildflower was shaking, trying to cling on in a world turned upside-down.

Her mother put her wing over her daughter, silent as a ghost.

They were refugees from a disaster, drifting on a shattered sea, lost in its icy depths.

* * *

Wildflower didn’t know what to do.

Ever since her father had woken up, her existence had centered around him. Flying, laughing, exploring the world with Saguaro. Some of the best few weeks of her life.

She had always wanted to be independent. Strong. So many dragons believed that females didn’t make good soldiers. Wildflower had set out to prove otherwise. She had dedicated her life to it. Victory, glory, she sought it out like a hunter to its prey. Strange, for such a gentle dragoness. But she had wanted Blaze to win, not because the princess would have been a good queen, but because it would have brought so much happiness. A world, untorn by war, peaceful and healthy and whole. Wildflower had wanted it so badly.

And then the war ended, and she was lost once more. Nothing left to fight for, twenty years of bloodshed and heartbreak resolved in one night. She picked up the pieces, and set herself a new goal. Fix her family. Make them the happy unit they had once been.

She had been almost there, reaching out, close enough to practically taste the perfect life she had always dreamed of. And then death struck, sweeping in swiftly, taking her future, taking her father away too. Just like Jackal. Her best friend.

Her family had been what kept her going all this time. Wildflower had envisioned flying in the sun, racing through the city with her parents by her side. But now her father was gone, her vision was shattered, and everything felt weird and wrong. Like she was stuck in a nightmare, unable to wake up.

She was aimless again, a dead leaf drifting on the wind without any semblance of a goal. All she had wanted was a happy family. At home. Together.

Wildflower wasn’t sure if two broken dragons counted as a family anymore.

* * *

Her father had not been perfect, of course. He had been strict and judgemental and irritatingly old-fashioned. He had been frustrating and annoying and closed-minded.

But he had loved her. And Wildflower couldn’t have asked for anything else.

* * *

She found a notebook under the sofa. It was labeled in Saguaro’s handwriting. Wildflower could tell.

There were pencil sketches covering the pages. They weren’t very good, but she could see the resemblances. Here, Jackal laughing, her smile pure and sweet. There, Wildflower reading a scroll, her eyes trained on the words, her mouth quirking upwards slightly. The pencil strokes were rough and shaky, making all the drawings look like they were about to fall apart.

Wildflower closed the notebook and went into her parents’ room, where Jackal was nestled inside the blankets like a baby bird. “Mom? Did you know about-”

She stopped. Her mother was crying. She had never seen her mother cry before.

Jackal reached out for the notebook and flipped through the pages. “He always wanted to be an artist,” she said. “I joked that he wasn’t good enough.” She smiled, but it was bitter without the sweet, sadness and anger and frustration roiling beneath the surface. “In hindsight, I guess that was a bad decision.”

Wildflower hesitated for a moment, then moved closer to her mother and sat down on the bed. “He wanted me to tell you that he loved you. Before- before it happened.”

Her mother barked a hollow laugh. It scared Wildflower. It was the laugh of someone who’d lost everything. “We can’t even say it, can we? Can’t even think about it?”

Wildflower opened her mouth, confused, but her mother continued rambling. “It doesn’t feel real, you know. It’s been four days, four days of grieving and mourning and puddles of pity.” Jackal shook her head. “Never thought our lives would come to this.”

“Father wouldn’t have wanted this,” Wildflower pointed out. Some strange, unsettling feeling had seized hold of her, and now it was seeping into her thoughts. “I bet he had a vision for us.” Like me.

Jackal looked offended, hurt, almost. “How am I supposed to know what to do?”

I don’t know what to do. The words hit a little too close to what Wildflower had been thinking about earlier.

She shrugged, condensing all of the emotion swirling inside of her into one simple movement. “He…” Wildflower tried, but the words came out frustratingly tearfully, and she swiped her talons across her face. “I don’t think…”

A drop slid down her snout, and she turned away. “I miss him,” she choked out. She missed her mother, too. For these past few days, they had been so distant, exchanging only a few superficial words at a time. Their conversations barely scratched the surface. Wildflower wanted her whole family back. It didn’t feel like she had only lost her father to this.

Then a warm wing pulled her close, and she collapsed onto the bed, curling into her mother’s body. “I miss him too,” Jackal said softly. “I guess I didn’t make that clear enough.”

A moment of silence blanketed them.

“We were never meant to be together,” her mother said finally. Wildflower held still, afraid of breaking the spell.

Jackal seemed to fade into some faraway fantasy as the words kept spilling out of her mouth. Fluid, as if they had always wanted to be free. “Our families hated each other, for whatever reason. He was rich, I was poor. And so we ran away.”

Wildflower was enthralled. Her parents had always followed the rules. At least, in her eyes. She felt unsteady. Not sure why.

“We moved here,” her mother continued. “And then we had you. Saguaro gave up everything to be with me.” Her mouth smiled wistfully, but her eyes didn’t. “I hope he didn’t regret it.”

Wildflower was so surprised that she almost laughed, a small sound that lit up the room. “Right until the last second,” she said, “he was thinking of you. You were his everything. You meant the world to him.”

“That’s…” Jackal said softly. Her words failed her, but her glowing face said it all. There was sadness there, of course, but there was happiness too, and pride in knowing that she had been enough.

They nestled into each other, quiet, grieving. Sunlight fell across the bed in golden shafts. Loneliness was quite different from being alone, Wildflower realized. And right now, she was neither.

Maybe she didn’t have a goal right now, but together, they would find her. Her and her mother. Facing the world, together.

Sometimes, silence speaks the loudest.

* * *

Stars speckled the sky, a painful sight to look at. Wildflower gripped the telescope tightly as she watched evening settle in gracefully, reminding herself that it wasn’t the dark that had taken her father, that she could live and she could breathe and she could be all right.

She had been here with her father, just a few days before. It had been perfect, until it wasn’t, and everything fell apart, and-

Her chest was heaving. She felt dizzy again. In some faint corner of her brain, she registered that this wasn’t healthy. But she couldn’t stop.

Throat tightened. Pressure building. Trembling, shivering, shaking. The world was distorted, everything curling around her, the buildings going up in smoke and twisting toward the cold dark sky.

A bird was beating its wings inside her chest. No, that was her heart. Should it be going this fast? She had to run, hide, from the terror surging inside her. What was wrong? What was happening?

Think, think. She was Wildflower. She was a SandWing. She was going to be okay. She latched onto the phrase, feeling it thump metronomically inside, right next to her heart. I will be okay. I will be okay.

Slowly, her breathing returned to its regular pace. Wildflower inhaled the cool night air, trying to ignore the chills undulating over her scales. What had that been? Panic attack? Anxiety attack? She wasn’t sure which.

At least it was over.

Wildflower raised the telescope, gazing at the heavens. It really was beautiful. Colors splashed onto the celestium, silvers and blues forming a jigsaw of the skies. It was overwhelming.

She set the telescope down for a moment, letting her lungs calm completely. I will be okay. I will be okay. I will be okay.

She looked through the telescope once more, taking in the beauty of the stars, the moons, everything from the smallest speck of dust to the largest nebula. But she squinted suddenly, wheeling the telescope to another part of the sky. Something was coming! She peered at it closer. And it was coming fast.

Silver scales glinted in the moonlight, graceful spikes came into view. Wildflower watched, open-mouthed, as a gorgeous IceWing soared toward her, windswept and wild. The figure grew bigger and bigger, more and more realistic.

This was happening. This was real.

The dragon landed on the roof beside her, shaking out her wings. Tempest offered the shyest smile Wildflower had ever seen.

For a moment, they stood in silence, grinning foolishly at each other.

“Are you okay?” Tempest asked finally, dipping her head with the weight of the words. It was a simple question, but Wildflower couldn’t bring herself to answer.

I will be okay. I will be okay.

I am okay.

Wildflower didn’t say anything, just threw herself into her best friend’s arms.

Chapter 9

Whatever Tempest had been expecting, it hadn’t been this.

Ever since she had met Wildflower, the SandWing had been a constant rock in her life. Tempest had known she could count on her kindness and energy in any situation. When the storm had raged around them, she had held onto Wildflower, a light in the darkness.

Now, though, her friend had come undone. There was a hollow look in her eyes and her talons were dull. She drifted around the house without a destination in mind. Tempest hadn’t heard her laugh ever since she had arrived.

Wildflower’s mother had disguised her surprise well when an IceWing showed up, fresh from the northern tundra and cold as ice. She had let Tempest in graciously, offering her a room, but Tempest wasn’t fooled by her happy charade. She heard the sobs at night through the walls of the guest room she stayed in.

Tempest spent her days exploring the town, searching for… what? Happiness? A sense of purpose? She tried to ignore the whispers, but that didn’t get rid of them. They cascaded down her scales like water, dragons wondering about the moon-silver IceWing in their dusty little town, smirking and murmuring and spreading all sorts of rumors.

The town was lovely in a quaint sort of way. The dragons were nice enough, but their facades were like mirrors: convincing until you got closer. Everything felt cozy and comfortable and lonely and painful at the same time. It was Wildflower’s home, but it wasn’t Tempest’s.

She had come here to spend time with her friend. The same friend who now shut herself in her room for days on end. The same friend who had once laughed so easily and now didn’t even seem to smile at all.

Everything was twisted and Tempest was stumbling blindly through the ruins.

* * *

“Wildflower?”

Jackal knocked on the door to her daughter’s room. The box beneath her arm was weighing her down, and she shifted it nervously as she waited for the door to open. When it did, it was a slow movement, and it creaked like a whiny young dragonet. Jackal shoved her way in without waiting for it to reach the end of its swing.

It broke her heart to see her daughter like this, disheveled and tired, black circles shading the hollows of her eyes. She had lost weight since Saguaro left them, and it was painfully obvious. Yet Wildflower forced her wings upward and out at the sight of her mother, obviously trying to make herself look happier.

Jackal cleared her throat and eased herself onto the bed, the afternoon sunlight falling on her scales in languid golden shafts. She placed the box reverently next to her. Wildflower’s eyes narrowed at the little brown chest, old and about to fall apart.

She had been practicing this. She could do it. Jackal reached for the box, her talons poised to open it. Her breath caught in her chest.

She closed her eyes, let herself heal. I can do this. I can do this.

Jackal unlatched the lid and flipped it open.

Wildflower looked dumbstruck at the necklace inside, dripping with diamonds and sparkling elegantly. It was long and heavy, not practical at all, but Jackal lifted it out with the utmost care.

“Your father gave it to me,” Jackal said, looking anywhere but her daughter’s eyes. “I threw it right back at him and laughed. I didn’t care about diamonds, I told him, and all he did was latch it around my neck.”

“So you just… had this? In the back of the house?” Wildflower said incredulously. It was the first real emotion Jackal had heard from her in days.

Jackal swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to let it go. I couldn’t bring myself to.”

Stamping out the emotions, she closed the box clinically and handed it to Wildflower. “Sell it,” Jackal told her daughter. “The money you get should be enough to send you to university. Not the one your father took you to, of course, but a relatively good one.”

“You’re sure about this?”

Inhale. Exhale. “Yes.” 

The necklace was a symbol, and only that. Jackal could hold on to the recollections, gilded in a kind of gold they could never truly afford. She carried Saguaro in her heart, and that was enough.

“I thought we were poor,” Wildflower mumbled, overwhelmed.

“If you’re talking about money, yes,” Jackal admitted. “But in any other way…”

Saguaro’s laugh, Saguaro’s smile, Saguaro swearing to love her until his dying breath. The memories flooded her, and she let them.

Jackal smiled through the tears. “I’m the luckiest dragon in the world.”

* * *

The house felt different when Tempest returned from that day’s ramblings, soaked through with sun and buzzing with some unknown energy. When she peered inside, a shock jolted through her body at the sight of Wildflower, smiling just like she used to. It electrified her. It terrified her.

She tore her gaze away from her best friend and looked at the ground instead. It had been like this ever since she’d gotten here, a dance of wits and charged gazes around each other, close enough to touch but never really doing it. Today, though, something was off. The air practically crackled with it.

“Tempest!” Wildflower squealed at the sight of her in an unnaturally bright voice. She glided over to the IceWing and offered a bright smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, having to look up slightly because of the height difference.

The SandWing gestured to a red-checkered bundle on the ground. “We’re going to the forest for a picnic,” Wildflower told Tempest. “Just you and me.”

One of the table’s three legs fell off. It toppled to the floor with a crash.

Wildflower grinned that strange, stretched grin again. “This is going to be so much fun!”

* * *

So far, this was not fun.

Tension hovered in the air as the two dragonesses watched the sun set, heavy with the weight of words they didn’t say. Tempest was acutely aware of Wildflower’s presence next to her. She kept having to tear her eyes away from the SandWing’s side profile, silhouetted with warm light. In that moment, her friend was more alluring than the sky itself.

Tempest looked closer. Wildflower was crying.

“Are you okay?” she said. The same words she had said upon her arrival, the ones that had lit up Wildflower so brightly. Right now, though, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect.

Wildflower swallowed, curled her tail over her talons. “I just miss him, a lot,” she said in a small voice. “I keep expecting him to say something, and then I look over my shoulder, and… he’s not there.”

Comfort her. Talk to her.

Slowly, Tempest’s cold wing found Wildflower’s warm back, a bird settling into its nest. Her heart skipped a beat, and skipped a beat again. The physical contact and Wildflower’s tentative smile gave her the energy to fly across the continent and back again.

But she would stay here, right here, even as the sky went dark. For Wildflower.

“I’m here for you,” Tempest whispered, and the uncomfortable quiet faded into a gentle one. She felt peaceful. She felt home.

It was long after the first stars appeared that Tempest gathered the courage to speak again.

"Thank you," Tempest said, her words falling in the silence like a pebble into a still pool. She swallowed, her breath suddenly catching in her throat. Had Wildflower's eyes always been this alluring? "For fixing me."

The SandWing laughed, surprising Tempest, reminding her of the day they first met. Her voice echoing through the halls of the fortress. Bright, cheerful, fearless. "Oh, you didn't fix yourself," she said. "You found yourself."

The moonlight glinted off Wildflower's scales, carving her into a perfect sculpture of rose and silver and gold. Tempest couldn't speak, for whatever reason, and Wildflower must have mistaken her stunned expression for confusion instead of... whatever she was actually experiencing right now.

"Look," Wildflower said softly. "We're not machines. Dragons are not automated. We don't have 'parts.' We're alive. And we don't break, never."

Her eyes were pools of gold, deeper than the ocean, brighter than the sun. "We don't ever need to fix ourselves," she said.

Wildflower plucked a morning-bright dandelion from the soil and tucked it behind Tempest's ear. Her smile lit up the shadows, chasing them away, leaving room for the other flowers struggling toward the stars to flourish. Tempest could have lived on that smile.

"We only grow into something more beautiful than before."

The words were like a healing balm, spread over Tempest’s scales. She could feel them sinking in, assuaging the aches and pains that had gathered there over her life. Wildflower could never erase Tempest’s scars, but she could certainly stand by her as the IceWing did so herself, and Tempest was certain she would never walk away.

“And I want to grow with you.”

Tempest looked up from the ground at Wildflower, surprised to see her change in demeanor. A moment ago, the SandWing had been so sure of herself. But now she was hesitant, and Tempest could feel her quick heartbeat through her scales.

Then Wildflower’s words sunk in. “Come again?” Tempest said blankly.

“I want to grow with you,” Wildflower repeated, her voice shaky. “I want to be here with you. I want to stand next to you, no matter what happens.”

She looked at Tempest. “Because here’s the thing… I like you, I think. I like you a lot.”

Some strange feeling had risen inside Tempest as Wildflower talked, and for once, she was speechless. She didn’t quite understand what was happening with her feelings right now. She felt euphoric and confused and smitten all at once.

Again, the SandWing must have noticed her silence. “You don’t have to feel the same way,” Wildflower said quickly. “It’s just that, uh, I’ve wanted to say that for a really long time. And if you don’t like me like that, we don’t need to try it or anything, or we can-”

“Yeah,” slipped out from Tempest’s mouth. The word hadn’t been filtered by her brain; it flowed straight from her heart. She steeled her nerves.

“I think I like you too,” she said slowly. “And… we can definitely try being together.”

A relieved sigh escaped Wildflower. “Amazing. I’ve wanted to say that for ages.”

A doubt nagged at Tempest, and she chewed on it for only a few seconds before she spit it out. “I’ve never been with someone before,” she blurted out. “I don’t really know how to do this, and I might mess-”

“You won’t,” Wildflower interrupted. “Just be yourself.” She covered Tempest’s talon with her own.

“What if I’m not good enough?” Where was all this vulnerability coming from? The words kept forcing their way out of her mouth when she hadn’t even realized it yet.

“You are,” Wildflower said quietly. “You are so much more than just ‘good.’ You’re thoughtful and clever and kind. You just don’t see yourself.”

She paused suddenly, cocked her head and laughed slightly. The sound came easily to her again, music to Tempest’s ears. “Moons, am I in love? I sound just like all those cheesy scrolls I used to read.”

“We’re not soulmates or anything,” Tempest said impulsively. “Maybe we don’t have a fairytale romance, or a glorious tale. We’re just… us.”

Wildflower grinned. “That’s the best thing we could be.”

The stars emerged from the darkness as they sat together, quiet enveloping them like a blanket. They wouldn’t fall again. Because now they were flying, winging their way through the starlit dark, and they would find the light. Together. No matter what happened.

Epilogue

They were never destined for a fairytale ending.

The money from the father’s necklace, his last hurrah, was enough to provide for an outstanding education. At least, when whole. But they split it in half anyway, those two desperate dreamers, and each had enough to pay for “just an average” stint at university.

They move to a town by the Great Five-Tail River, a melting pot of dragons from all seven tribes. There, they get their educations, the IceWing in philosophy and the SandWing in medicine. Together, they hope to make the world better someday.

School is hard and neither of them were ever academically inclined, but they work through it steadily. They laugh and they cry and they make mistakes, but always by each other’s side. On the short nights, they go to bed in the dormitory they share and whisper until the early hours of the morning. On the long nights, they sit side by side and stumble through homework together, each one bringing tea when they see the other beginning to tire.

During those nights, they sneak glances at each other by the glowing candlelight, the warm gold lighting them up inside. Love is unfamiliar to both of them, but when they pull each other close and waltz to a melody only they can hear, they couldn’t ask for anything else. They think of their futures then, and although their visions are different, they share one common thread: they are together.

It is a far cry from what either of them ever expected. One dreamed of untainted perfection, the other of a whole family. Today, they have neither.

Yet their life in this town is a beautiful one, nourished by love and laughter and the dream of their futures ahead. It may be quiet, it may be plain, it may not be a perfect fairytale ending. But it is enough.

They are enough.