Hope / Foeslayer’s reference is complete!!! I debated a LOT over her color palette but eventually settled on a muted purple for her :) I’m also playing with the idea of stars along NightWings’ bodies that are only bright (white, yellow, silver, etc.) in the presence of moonborn powers, so a normal NightWing’s are dark :)
I mentioned before that I might be doing these out of order, but we are well and truly off the rails now. Meow.
It's been a headcanon of mine for a while now that Sandwings are particularly flexible. They are good at contorting and flattening themselves, making it very difficult to keep them out of narrow openings and nooks. They use this ability to hide between rocks and ambush prey/enemies in areas where the ground is unsuitable for burying oneself.
INT. An Ice Kingdom Prison; time unknown
> ICEWING GUARD, PRINCESS ICICLE
ICEWING GUARD:
(talking to someone outside)
Yes, she's in here.
...
A few minutes, that's all I can give you.
ICICLE:
You.
...
WINTER:
... ...
ICICLE:
What do YOU want?
Did you come to gloat? About how, after all these years, the silver child rots in a hole while the eternal screw-up triumphs?
Or how much kinder and nobler you were when you rescued Hailstorm after I messed everything up?
WINTER:
I came here to see how you are doing.
ICICLE:
I'm in a prison cell, you idiot! How do you THINK I'm doing!?!
ICICLE:
They locked me up in this disgusting ditch for killing ONE Nightwing! After I was almost murdered TWICE!
And what for?? Being a soldier in the war!?!
And that Mudwing, the one who tried to do that to me? SHE gets to walk free!?! HOW is that just??
How many of OUR people has SHE killed??
Does THAT not count for anything!?!
WINTER:
I'm not blaming you for what you thought you had to do.
ICICLE:
(snorts derisively) "THOUGHT" I had to do??
WINTER:
I'm not trying to moralize. Everything you chose to do makes sense to me.
But I also don't think Scarlet would have ever let Hailstorm go. No matter what you, me, or any of us did.
She was too cruel for that; I learned that when I met her myself.
ICICLE:
Oh, of course! You've spent a few days with her and suddenly you are the expert! That's you! Winter the
Scarlet expert!
You think you know ANYTHING about what Scarlet is like!?! You didn't have that deranged shrew living in your head for MONTHS!
ICICLE:
You didn't spend every night waiting, fearing she would seek you out again… Seeing her gaunt, decaying face leering at you out of the darkness under your eyelids…
Jeering.
Taunting.
Telling me all the things she was going to do to HIM if I didn't do what she said…
And you DARE stand there and lecture me about what she is really like… as if you know her better than I
do.
WINTER:
Wait, but… she contacted you while you were at Jade Mountain, didn't she? She wouldn't have been in
your head for more than a week or so?
ICICLE:
Of course YOU would think that! No, she has been in my head since long before that. It first started a
few weeks after the war ended.
Did you think I begged Queen Glacier to send me to that rotten mountain hole because I WANTED to live in a dirty underground dump and cuddle up to the people who just a while ago were trying to kill us!?!
I only did that because Scarlet ordered me to! I hated every wretched minute of it!
WINTER:
I'm sorry Icicle. I had no idea.
ICICLE:
Of course you didn't! You NEVER have any idea!
I'd like to be as carefree as you, running around with my head wedged up my own backside! Content to be the screw-up and never having to live up to anyone's expectations!
WINTER:
Is that what you think my life is like!??!
(sighs)
All right, whatever, we don't have time.
I'm not in the mood to fight with you, Icicle.
ICICLE:
Well, that is too bad! I guess you shouldn't have come here then!
ICICLE:
Leave me. I tire of talking to you.
WINTER:
There is something else I wanted to tell you.
ICICLE:
Whatever you have to say, I am not interested.
WINTER:
This is about father.
...he is dead.
ICICLE:
WHAT?? How??
WINTER:
I don't know how much of what has been going on made its way to you. I see you're wearing one of Qibli's earrings so you know about the Animus plague at least.
Darkstalker is real, and he came back. There was a battle between our people and the Nightwings, and father died in it.
ICICLE:
And Hailstorm? What about him??
WINTER:
He is alive. Mother is with him right now, they are at the palace.
She blames me for what happened and publicly denounced me as a traitor. I've been banished and so I'm currently on my way out of the country.
This is my last stop. I wanted to see you one more time.
ICICLE:
… …
WINTER:
So just this one time, Icicle. I beg you. Can we drop the hostility?
I don't want the last conversation we ever get to have be spent tearing each other's throats out.
ICICLE:
… …
All right.
WINTER:
I brought you something. Here.
ICICLE:
What…
WINTER:
Do you remember it?
ICICLE:
My old brush…?
WINTER:
When we were little, you would always use it to brush your spines before father took you hunting.
I thought maybe you could use a small piece of home right now, so I went to the house and grabbed it before getting chased out of the capital.
ICICLE:
A whole lot of good a brush is going to do me in a dirty cell.
...
ICICLE:
Why are you doing this?
WINTER:
Because you are my clutch sister. and maybe this is stupid, but I care about you.
In all those years I grew up in that terrible house, mother and father always hated me.
But I thought maybe the three of us--you, Hailstorm, and me--maybe we could come out of this not hating each other.
ICEWING GUARD:
That's about all the time I can give you, Prince Winter.
Please leave! If anyone finds you here, I'm going to be in trouble!
WINTER:
Goodbye, Icicle. I'm sorry this is how it all happened.
ICICLE:
…
Live a good life for me, brother.
(END OF SCENE)
........
Am I just using these skits to get closure on a couple of things I missed in the story? It may be more likely than you think.
Nevertheless, a final conversation between Winter and Icicle is something I would have welcomed. She is just kind of dropped after Scarlet exits the plot and the story careens towards Darkstalker (I don't know if she reappears in arc 3).
Today, we have asked 6 randomly selected dragons the following question:
"As an Animus, how do you go about moving an object without touching it? Please explain your method!"
The answers we received were... well, I don't know if I would call them "shocking", but they probably have some quality that could be described with an adjective. I guess you'll just have to find out yourself and make your own judgment.
Princess Orca
Prince Turtle
Princess Anemone
Prince Albatross
Darkstalker
Stonemover
~~~~~
Yup. I am still writing that thing about animus magic, and one question that came to mind while doing so was "What if rather than something that works the same for everyone, magic was instead very personal and required every animus to find their own way and discover their own process to cast spells?" So since I haven't posted in a while, I thought I should do a little something with that.
I'm sorry for the silence, by the way. I have been working on that JMA Files thing and also some other, unrelated nonsense.
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