Ice on the Horizon

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Authored by BronzeRattle
Complete! Started on late May 2022 (exact date unknown) as a doc, moved on June 1 2022, and technically finished on January 19 2023. Last important edit was on November 28 2023 to slightly alter some text for canonical reasons.
This is the new location for ; see writing history there. Additionally, visit the for a summary of significant changes.
Indirect sequel to "Scales", next related story is In Death, Sunshine
Please ping (@BronzeRattle) BronzeRattle if you want me to see your comment in a reasonable time span.
=== Summary ===
Deep down in the dungeons, a cold killer sits caged, punished for his father's crimes committed against the tribe. When a mysterious dragon from the far lands arrives, chaos entails over the search for a story unknown.
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ICE ON THE HORIZON
Extended Mooseblight Cut
There was a sort of music outside. And Mooseblight hated it.
Small dragonets were playing. He had no idea who they were, but they were certainly bold seeing that he could hear them deep underground. He clenched his talons furiously as the clamor stomped on his white ears.
How he wished they could SHUT UP. But Mooseblight couldn’t do anything about it. The guards wouldn't listen to him. They would stab him with spears and pointy bits if he even opened his mouth. He was a danger. No one trusted the dangers in the basement. A dragon might as well be serving their heart on a platter should they ask anyone in the dungeon.
In some ways, Mooseblight liked it. He was feared by everyone he’d ever met. The sheer mention of his name sent shivers down the spines of IceWings. His presence radiated glacial fury. And attempting to fight him was a one-way ticket to blue death. He was a murderer. A soulless fighting machine.
The reputation was great, but it made asking simple requests, such as nailing the dragonets outside with a breath of frost, hard.
Through the slot in the wall, he could see that the IceWing across the hall was staring at him again. Her snout was unreadable in the dim setting. Mooseblight didn’t know why she was here—she got here recently—but her scales were plastered in faint pink, pocked with small scars here and there. It was the odd primary color that made Mooseblight wonder if she was a hybrid.
Ooh. That would be an interesting conversation, if he could ever pry off her clamp. It wouldn’t be hard, but then the challenge would be breaking down steel slippery walls.
Plus, even through the tiny glimpse he had, she was much prettier than any IceWing Mooseblight had ever seen. Even with the battle injuries interrupting those IceWing scales. He decided at that moment that if he made a break for it, he’d help out the IceWing stranger.
But that would have to be soon, he realized immediately with a jolt. Mooseblight had been down in the prisons for as long as he could remember. Every once in however long a while was, a new IceWing would come thrashing down the hallway, sometimes to a degree not unlike him. In a few days, the cold sounds of metal scraping against the ground would resonate in the bleak night, and in the following morning, no trace of the prisoner was left. At first it confused Mooseblight when he was a young stupid dragonet, but soon after he came to the conclusion that prisoners were taken here to later be executed.
He wasn’t sure why he was never on the chopping block. The IceWing anomaly was clearly more disruptive than anyone else in the kingdom, so that should have made execution a first priority. Perhaps he was so scary no guards wanted to ever take him out of the cell. Or maybe this was a lifelong punishment meant to teach him the “errors of his ways” and to “value the aristocracy”, somewhere along those lines.
The other IceWing prisoner had turned her back on him, hopefully not in a “I hate you” way and preferably in a “Would it kill the queen to make this place more entertaining” sort of way. The pink spikes on her back leaned against the heavy wall, dull and scratched here and there. She was not a meticulous First Circle member, clearly. Mooseblight curled his talons, desperately wanting to scrape open the slot for a better view.
And THREE MOONS, those dragonets need to eat their tails!
== In Session ==
Despite the IceWing cacaphony far upstairs, he somehow managed to doze off sooner of later. He woke up to the sound of someone hilariously fumbling with the lock of his cell. After a long moment complete with muffled cursing, the door screeched open as if it was the terror being contained in the frozen dark space. In its place was a strange IceWing who was simultaneously light blue and gray depending on how the light felt like hitting his scales. Mooseblight clicked his tongue, quickly scratching the IceWing's name on the stone below: GLAUCOUS.
Glaucous sighed before yanking on the chain on his neck collar. "Queen Cumulus wants you, so can you save your clawing for when there's more IceWings in the room?"
Mooseblight snorted in indignation. Queen Cumulus? He could take her on in a fearsome one on one.
The IceWing gave him a look. "Is that a challenge or...?" He tied the chain around a bar. "Hold tight while I unlock the other prisoner's cell."
That came as a surprise. What did she want with the pink IceWing? And more importantly, what did the prisoner do? His ears perked in excitement.
Some lock opening later, a rosy head stuck out of the open door snarling as her whole form was revealed. Mooseblight would've sucked in his breath if it weren't for the lousy muzzle preventing him from talking. She was wondrous, with a sleek, deadly frame the color of early dawn that radiated pure menace. He noticed her large pointy frill flaring up—it was probably her way of expressing anger where her muzzled snout couldn't—and a strangely long tail plated in heavy armor that dragged weakly across the smooth stones undertalon. She was absolutely a hybrid, of what, he didn't know.
"Aw snow hares, stay still!" Glaucous roared as he struggled to control the reckless hissing beast. Her bergundy eyes were purely focused on the task to regain control that was locked away in her chains. As she tugged, Mooseblight noticed she was in a worse state than he thought. Every single space possible had red or blue staining pink, splashes of the latter on top of healing angry red scratches that were still oozing scarlet. Only one of the hybrid's wings, a color similar to walrus tusks, fully opened. Her left wing seemed unable to unfurl all the way, and he realized that it exhibited lengthy slashes so severe it made him shiver. Its membrane was torn to shreds: The entire wing hung loose in a crooked position, as if it was about to fall off her body. Despite all of the horror and metal restraints on her small body, the hybrid fought with massive force against Glaucous, and he knew for certain that she was a master fighter who would not give up.
Finally, the guard managed to grasp the restraining chain on her neck and slam her body down on the floor in an enormous show of strength. Glaucous wiped the sweat off his brow, his sparkly gray eyes catching sight of Mooseblight's own curious dark ones. "I think we found a prisoner worse than you. Thank goodness we wrapped up her tail: Mooseblight, she could whip her tail at the speed of light!" He took ahold of a lengthy narwhal tusk that Mooseblight hadn't noticed before. "Behave you two. Me and the guards have been instructed to stab you however many times it takes to get both prisoners to Queen Cumulus whilst keeping us in one piece. That could mean 'to death', so I wouldn't try it." Glaucous whistled a low series of notes, inviting two wings of heavy-bodied older IceWings to snatch their chains, secure all excessive cuffs, and just as Glaucous had informed, poke them all over when they moved too slow. The deadly prisoner was quickly marked with inflamed points, some of which drew his own blue blood.
Ugh. He hated that, dripping his vital fluid where his thick scales weren't enough to deflect hits. And as he tilted to his left, he grew to detest it even more seeing her expression studying him, putting two and two together. She was most definitely detained by the queen. What had Queen Cumulus said about him? Had she described him as a nasty monster who inhabited the nightmares of IceWing dragonets, stalking through the night and killing them like the hybrid tribal legend Darkstalker? Had she named the amount of IceWing guards he had grappled with his own black claws and snapped their necks in a swift jaw movement?
Mooseblight wasn't usually too conscious about that. An IceWing was an IceWing, all snotty and haughty about themselves. Guards were replaceable, arriving like snow on a cool morning, and were a pure annoyance. That was all.
So why when she stared at him he glanced at his own murderous claws and wished he hadn't done any of that? Why was it that he wished he could be anyone else, the queen even, as long as they hadn't killed as many dragons as he had? It was a ridiculous thought that made the IceWing part of his heritage, the parts that were predisposed to the monotonous rules of IceWing society, want to light the other tribal part on fire (if he breathed it) and lock it away so he could feel good about it. Except he couldn't. Not this time.
He was beginning to shuffle in disappointment at himself and only noticed it when a tusk jabbed at a back leg. This time though, the weapon dug deep into his scales straight into blue hamstrings. It stung horribly in a way that made Mooseblight limp, and his eyes flashed something fierce at the IceWing's narwhal tusk now coated in a talon's length of blood. They were slightly off white with short gray tufts down the length of their body starting from the neck and fading at the tail. He couldn't tell what the true intent was there, but he thought he saw the smallest grin posed on their jawline in a way that only he could interpret. The very vision made the hybrid want to pounce and tear through the IceWing's pointed snout, back in forth in a hacking motion, until it had painted itself deep blue and the IceWing seen white.
Would the other definitely-a-hybrid like that? Mooseblight turned again to examine her, delighted to see no new marks, at least any he could differentiate from her wide array of jagged broken lines where claws had torn through pink scales. Either she was up to their speed (which was a first for anyone), or the guards didn't have any room to poke her because of her injuries. From what? There was the possibility she was only defending herself from whatever onslaught she was part of, receiving all her wounds in the process, or there was something bigger behind it. A new pink nightmare strolling down the streets of the ridiculously named IceWing towns accompanied by the older death machine.
For some reason, he really liked that image. He didn't want to tell the hybrid that yet in case she was disgusted by his thoughts. Mooseblight had a built in repulsion device in his genes able to wrinkle the snouts of even the most hardened IceWings; This was the one time he wanted someone to stay. He was entrenched in the idea that when the sun existed, it was too late.
"Urrrg!" It was all Mooseblight could mutter when he was blinded by the brightness of it all. It was like the thunderbolt that had shook the whole palace a year into his tenure, but if it kept its whiteness everywhere instead of dissipating instantly. The sheer color accosted his peasant eyes accustomed to dim darkness. His talons rattled in their metal sheaths freezing him in place.
Blind as they were, the guards didn't see any of this and only yanked him forwards as if a huge snowball looming down the hill would smash him flat. They hadn't been locked in 5 years of unending shadow in the queen's jewelry box whose only company were the deranged screams of the walking dead.
He only somewhat adjusted to the brilliant sunshine (and the relentless poking of spears) when they all arrived in a strange bowl-shaped basin in the snow. Up on the seats through rapid blinking and squinting, he distinguished dozens of IceWings in all the light colors imaginable. He could probably figure out who the ones in royal armor were, but knew there were more important things at talon. Such as, for instance, grovelling Queen Cumulus sitting at a throne at the other end of the bowl.
Of course, she had her diamond crown of "look at me I own this place" perched on her horns. According to some IceWings(specifically Lion and Fir whom were his feeders), the crown had been destroyed by the previous queen because it was tainted in enchantments, but Queen Cumulus sent IceWings to meticulously hammer the fragments back together. When it looked too small for her massive ego, she had it expanded several times. The result was a glittery, crooked, tangled mess of wire and diamond which Mooseblight always thought resembled a frozen spider web more than a crown. If other IceWings had that opinion, he didn't know them. She wielded a ridiculous number of light blue and white diamond bling that blinded him whenever she shifted. There was nothing on her claws besides silver rings, a sure sign she hadn't been crunching up IceWing prisoner skulls in her free time.
"Here they are! My two favorite guests!" She announced with an eager rasp in her voice. "Unlock their limb restraints and remove Mooseblight's muzzle.
Glaucous had the briefest expression of worry on his snout, but motioned to the guards anyway to do just that. Bands clicked and a few seconds later he was free. He growled at the tyrant. "What do you want?"
The queen smiled. "Giving my citizens the satisfaction they want. You see, the SkyWings had a sport back in the days of the SandWing war where prisoners were forced to kill each other. I've only put my own spin on the idea." She stood on her back legs and expanded her wings. "Entering the arena are the two most horrible prisoners of the era! Introducing poison-spitting pink hybrid and the famed killer Mooseblight! Now, fight!"
"Fight?" he echoed just before he was thrown to the packed snow as hard as ice. He glanced up to see the hybrid on top of him, snarling so loudly her muzzle rattled. Unlike him, she wasn't given the liberty of speech, and he was pretty sure it had to deal with the spitting-poison crime she had committed in the queen's presence.
Mooseblight normally shrugged off attacks, but with such a public audience, he also didn't want to look like a fool. He attempted to raise his back legs to defend himself, and the most sickening prickling pain he'd ever had transformed his would-be-fearsome kick into dragonet's play. What was he thinking, he was already the fool! Trying to kick with a limping leg!
The hybrid's front legs suddenly remembered they had a use and he tore the pink wonder off his chest like a wild scratching polar bear. She wasn't that much smaller than he was, but her surprising lightness threw him off. For a second, the two just stared at each other as his claws dug into the snow.
"Listen, we don't have to fight," he huffed.
He hesitated just a beat too long to miss her long thin tail that whipped him so powerfully in the belly that it knocked him aside. The second hit was just as bad as the first. By the third hit, he knew where to grab. Mooseblight resisted the temptation to scream, yanked the hybrid over, and vaulted right on top. He needed her to speak. Without considering any possible effects and to avoid another incoming attack, his claws slid under the buckles and immediately undid her muzzle.
The effects of the action were immediate. First, the prisoner opened her right wing to scrape his bottom jaw so he lost his grip briefly. Second, with the speed of the a viper, droplets splattered on the queen's chest.
The arena broke into panic. Queen Cumulus filled the air in a horrendous scream that made Mooseblight want to frostbreath his ears. IceWings flew after Queen Cumulus, shouting commands at one another. Mooseblight realized this was his one shot at escape and began to take off when he stopped.
The hybrid. Queen Cumulus would kill her if he didn't do anything, like now.
Was that really necessary seeing her venom? And plus, just 5 seconds ago she was trying to kill him...
Forget it. He fetched the awestruck hybrid through the basin of war.
== Heads or Scales ==
"Queen Cumulus said you ate IceWings for breakfast," the hybrid broke her spell.
Mooseblight had scampered off behind a large snowbank towards a forest of pine. It wasn't as far as he would've liked: He could still hear the otherworldly shrieks from the queen even at this distance, and IceWings flapped everywhere. It wasn't safe in the slightest, but it was the furthest he could get with a bag of dragonet and a satchel of injury strapped to his leg.
"Did she now?" He muttered, a little miffed and amused at the same time.
"Yes, although I took some creative liberties." He could feel the slight brush of her frill as she leaned forward. "Are you saving me for the main course?"
"No, you've had enough spilled today." The blue hybrid deposited her on the snow as if she was a mere hatchling learning to walk for the first time. With how much she weighed, he would probably forget she was on his massive shoulder if it weren't for the fact his wing buds were so sensitive to touch and gnawed at him to stop. The bewildered hybrid gazed at him, dark eyes lingering on his stance. It was the same look she'd given before the basin o' death thing. He didn't like it.
"We should do something about that leg," she concluded, frill fluttering. "You really must be a bad dragon if they did that to you without warning."
Now that caught him offguard. Mooseblight righted his posture despite his back leg protests. "I am not a bad dragon. Goodness no. Listen hybrid, all the IceWings around us treat our hybrid lineage like trampled snow. No one wants me here. You remember those cells beneath the palace? I've been stuck in the same one for 4 years now. I barely have memories of my original home of humidity!"
She tilted her head in surprise. "You lived in the Rainforest Kingdom?"
"That's the name of the blasted place?"
"Of course it is!" She shouted. Mooseblight caught a glimpse of two curved fangs the length of two claws but disappeared before he could get a better look. "I came from there. Lived there my whole life! Thought I was a pure RainWing who couldn't change her stupid, tacky, humiliating scales for years..."
She buried her snout into her talons. He took a step forwards in a lousy attempt to comfort her before she suddenly shot up again in renewed anger. "Then I found out only yesterday that I'm an IceWing! A hybrid! And now I hate myself because my IceWing-ness means I can't change colors properly and my RainWing-ness means I'm too pink to be an IceWing! WHY?"
At that last word, her jaws gaped open wide—so enormous that Mooseblight jerked back from the alien angle—and spat a spray as dark as his nighttime cell outwards. The drops splattered on a fir tree. Immediately, the bark underneath began to sizzle noisily, the drops boring into the bark like claws into scales. After about 5 seconds, the sizzling died and where there was smoke before were now holes that shone eerily black at the bottom. The hybrid sunk back in her talons of despair.
"Woah. That's not IceWing." Now that Mooseblight knew what she had spat straight at the queen and the effects of it, he was sure glad to not be on her bad side. At least for now.
"What made you realize, the jaw or the magical death spit?" She growled straight at him; He realized he had made his previous judgement just a few seconds too soon.
It was actually the color, but the IceWing blend knew that saying that would make his head suddenly dissipate in smoke. This had to be played smart. He bit his lip, deciding on something else he'd noticed. "You're a lot nicer than other IceWings."
Mooseblight braced himself for the venom. Instead, she found an opportunity to compliment the snow. "RainWings are always nice. We were called pacifists for years. I'm not nice. My father Terrace always complained to me. 'Silvana, no fighting the other dragonets. Silvana, no throwing papayas at the hatching center.'" Her eyes had their full attention on him now. "This is a first. And I like it."
He wasn't 100% sure what a papaya was, but he sighed a breath of relief internally. "The name is Mooseblight. Mooseblight the...uh, I'd rather not discuss my mother."
Silvana nodded in understanding. "I get it. I've never seen my mother. My father told me about her just before I was captured. Her name is Civic, a RainWing, and her scales corresponded with the colors of the sky. She's the reason why I'm all messed up! And that's why I need to find her so that maybe she can tell me how to RainWing properly." She gave him a look of longing as she gently gripped his shoulder. "Will you help me find her?"
He hesitated. "That's...That's a momentous task Silvana. Judging by her nature, we would need to scour the entire continent to discover where she might be. But perhaps in the process I can find my mother and my father Aeolis. I only know him because I've been accused of being his son forever."
Silvana was taken aback. "Hey, they said that I was his dragonet too. But it can't be—I've lived with Terrace all my life."
"Hmm. Aeolis apparently did some really terrible things to the royalty that makes him such a criminal. It would be smart of him to give your egg to someone he trusted so you wouldn't be in danger. Terrace may not be your real father."
"I don't believe it. We will find my mother, and ask her about it!" She bared her fangs.
He was pretty nervous about her spitting venom again, so he relented with a sigh. "Sure, let's go."
== Untrustworthy ==
Silvana wanted to lead, but Mooseblight wouldn't let her. He argued that she was too light and any guard would be able to snap her neck in a quick moment. She took great offense to that statement, resorting to staring venom at his spikes from behind. He was pretty accustomed to rude death states from IceWings, but it was significantly scarier when it was done by a hybrid who could spit what was basically acid in the blink of an eye.
He took in the brilliant sights of the kingdom between groves of pine trees. Every time he was within the reach of forest he felt that he could relax and take in the fresh air his nostrils had been deprived of for years. Of course, Mooseblight kept on the lookout. Whenever he thought a wing was imminent, the hybrid dragged Silvana into the snow. She gradually grew weary of the action, evident by her deep growls. When he turned around to grab her for the 7th time, she slapped him with pink talons. "Listen, this is ridiculous! No IceWings are here!"
"But they can be here any time. Silvana, IceWings can ambush a lot faster than we can. Also, remember that you're on death row," He reminded her.
"I can deal with any IceWing!" She puffed up her chest to demonstrate her might, but it was a lot less powerful when she was bleeding and naturally scrawny.
"Well EXCUSE ME!" An enormous IceWing, even larger than Cumulus landed right in front of them. He was strangely yellow, like the color of sand, with upturned horns and an amber drop drooping from an earring. Mooseblight caught a glimpse of sparkly white scales under his wings. He was so big he needed to arc his neck to see the hybrids. "You're disrupting my lesson!"
"Lesson?" Mooseblight echoed like an idiot.
"Yes, lesson! I'm teaching some young dragonets animus magic on my hill and they can't focus if you two are yammering in the woods. Especially you." He leaned forward and poked at Silvana—who was now extremely light blue to his surprise—with a claw that was easily four times the length of Mooseblight's. The hybrid immediately felt an urge to kill this extraneous dragon for touching her. "You're a bold dragonet for your age, although I say you need more fatty walruses to eat. You're very skinny."
"I'm a vegetarian you brat!" She scratched him above his nostrils, leaving streaks of bright...red? The dragon recoiled, touching the tip of his snout. "Ow! I am terribly sorry, you must be part of the vegetarian movement over in the east."
"I am n-"
"Yes she is!" Mooseblight took over before she attempted to fire a volley of venom. "Silvana is a diehard vegetarian. She gets very angry if you mention meat. I'm her non-vegetarian friend Fractal."
He smiled despite the red lines of anger. "Nice to meet you two Silvana and Fractal. We're planning on having a hunting party in just a few minutes to find food. Would you two like to join us? We can find some food friendly to Silvana's diet."
"Sure. Say, we won't be a bother right? Silvana can't fly and I was born with a defect."
He laughed in a way that was eerily similar to another dragon Mooseblight couldn't recall right away. Was it Lion? Coontail? "I'm large enough to carry both of you in my claws. You won't be a bother—we get newcomers who come and go all the time. I will recruit my sister to help your injured friend and do something about your own wounds too."
Mooseblight couldn't believe their luck. The IceWing hadn't noticed they were hybrids and they had something to do that wouldn't look suspicious. He turned to Silvana radiating excitement. "See Silvana? In this way, we can stay safe from trooWOAH!"
He was lifted off the snow through an upwards force. A second later, he heard Silvana yelp as well. He looked around, noticing light talons all around him and her that separated them from the already far grove below. Mooseblight abruptly felt sick. The humungous IceWing chuckled as he soared through the crystal clear sky. "Not used to flying, I see."
"Don't let go!" he hollered.
The IceWing threw his head back. "I have a good grip, as long as neither of you move too much. I'm feeling your friend wrap her tail around my claw.
"I heard something about IceWing guards. Are they messing with you? I had that issue at the border where I'm from—hey forced me and my sister to declare loyalty. We became generals, although halfway through the war I quit and became an council member. Now I teach in my free time. Don't look down."
Mooseblight shut his eyes as the IceWing plunged in a rush of frigid air. He heard him open his wings to slow down their descent, and when the hybrid heard a thud in the frosty snow he opened his eyes. There were 5 IceWings of varying sizes. The tallest of them, lanky and slightly taller than he was, cleared his throat. "Cornmeal, who are these two guests?"
"And why don't they have spikes on their tails?" the smallest one squealed.
The enormous IceWing Cornmeal gave her a look. "Hey Otter, we've talked about commenting on other dragon's differences."
The purplish dragonet shyed away. "Sorry."
He released them. "Meet Fractal and Silvana. They will be joining us for our hunt. Get up and fly."
The IceWings cheered and took off into the sky. Cornmeal snatched the hybrids into flight again, yelling commands at his disciples. "Thundersnow, don't go off on your own. Otter, grab my horns. And for the last time, Nevada, don't fight Overcast!"
Once he tamed down the crowd, he puffed smoke in exhaustion and looked down at them. "Dragonets get wild! I'm glad to see neither of you have caused problems so far."
Silvana looked up, wisely choosing to keep her frill back. Mooseblight still wasn't sure how she'd turned blue. "If I were you I'd sp-"
Mooseblight looked at her. She nodded slightly and continued. "I would've breathed frostbreath a long time ago on them."
"Oh, well I'm an old dragon. I've seen a lot in my life and I breathe fire rather than frost. You can defrost frostbreath, but not burns," He noted. The pale yellow dragon stalled in the air. "Moonstone, is this spot alright?"
Moonstone, who was the same IceWing that had first spoken, sniffed around the site on the ground. He rose his grayish head. "Lots of prey here. I think it should be fine. I'll get Otter off your head."
"Can you monitor the IceWings for a moment and introduce them to Fractal? Silvana has different diet needs and I said I would help her especially." Mooseblight suddenly felt a pang of worry and sadness he hoped wasn't evident on his snout.
The dragonet nodded. "I can handle it. Land so I can help him and Otter."
Cornmeal did just that. Ten seconds later, Silvana and the huge IceWing were on their way. Mooseblight looked up at them as they flew away. Just like that, the perky, strangely violent pink hybrid wasn't by his side anymore.
"You like her, don't you?"
"Huh?" He turned around to see Moonstone just behind him, looking on with curiosity and a severity to the likes of the ultimate IceWing warriors. Now that the hybrid was on the ground for longer than 10 seconds, he realized Moonstone was definitely an adult warrior. That was clear by the way his trained muscles bulged and the amount of tiny scratches ingrained into his body. There was a large flashy blue stone shaped like a disc that clunked on his chest whenever he moved.
"I know that look when I see it." Moonstone fingered the disk gingerly. "I liked an IceWing around 9 years ago. The love I felt was so intense I dropped everything for her and was almost sent to a faraway outpost because I wasn't doing my job. I don't blame you for liking her—the IceWing's beautiful. But be careful with how far you'll be willing to go with her. It may cost you everything." He began walking towards the forest. "Come on Fractal and Otter!"
Otter scurried off into the grove, clinging onto his tail. Mooseblight remained close by.
"So," he continued after a pause, "hopefully it's not too awkward of a question, but to get my daughter's likely thoughts about you out of the way, have you never flown before?"
That was indeed an awkward question. Mooseblight never really thought about flying—he'd gone his entire life wingless and thought of flight as a cheap way to escape problems. What thrills were there to be found in the air when he had it all on the ground? "These two flights with Cornmeal have been my first. I was born with wing buds that sit just above my shoulders. Don't touch them, they're very sensitive to touch."
Moonstone flicked his tail forwards to address the dragonet. "You heard that Otter! No touching!" Otter smiled happily, causing the IceWing to groan. He relieved his disappointment by tearing two rabbits out of the snow and handing one to Mooseblight. "Here's your lunch Fractal."
Mooseblight reached out his talons but hesitated. The older IceWing noticed his pause. "Not a rabbit prey kind of dragon?"
"No, um..." He kicked himself with his injured leg, immediately regretting it a second later. "I've...I've had a rough dragonethood. Food isn't always so...secure."
Moonstone placed the dying rabbit in his claws. "I see. I bet you're from a far north community. I heard from my friend Sapling that they beat up their dragonets over growing up to be warriors. Sure, we get a lot of fine guards, but that region's dirt poor I tell you! IceWings dying left and right of hunger simply because they're too stubborn to stick claws into the Gift of Sustenance! I've been talking to Cornmeal about it for years so we can fix their morals."
Otter tugged on his spines. "Dad, when can I get food so I can groooow strong!"
"In a minute Otter. Listen Fractal, I need to grab some grub for my daughter. Can you sit here while I do that and check on the other IceWings?"
"Is it Nevada?" Mooseblight guessed.
"Everything about Nevada. Always trying to pick a fight with Overcast." He sighed. "Don't wander off too far." And then he left in a wake of snow.
Mooseblight wasn't sure what to feel. He was accustomed to endless barrages of insults by every IceWing in Pyrrhia. Then there was this IceWing, who was strong enough to support a cackle of dragonets, a daughter, and advocate for massive economic changes that the hybrid was pretty sure would end badly if Moonstone told Cumulus directly. He wasn't rude in the slightest. But still, as friendly as he was, Mooseblight couldn't allow him to sit too close into his comfort zone. He already let one hybrid wreck havoc through his morals for a day: He didn't need an enemy to dispense treacherous advice.
Where was Cornmeal? Silvana was under his protection. She didn't need some creaky bones IceWing to take care of her. And yet, Mooseblight gasped, he had a suspicion. The loyalty. His tannish color. His fire breath...
Without thinking any further, Mooseblight threw the rabbit into his throat and charged out of the forest.
== Two Blood Siblings ==
His mind raced with worry. Where could that treacherous SandWing thing be? Probably going to the border, but where was that? He didn't know about the kingdom's geography in the slightest, and definitely could not ask an IceWing for help. He could already imagine that conversation with Moonstone: "You're 5 years old, why don't you know where are enemies are located? Are you even a real IceWing?"
No. Trusting anyone was not an option. Mooseblight had let his guard down for just 10 minutes and in that time already lost the one dragon he liked being around. The absolute worse series of events that could've happened. Silvana didn't know about the SandWing war. She probably thought Cornmeal was as trustworthy as her father—he felt a twinge of an emotion he didn't recognize as he thought it. 
Mooseblight was so unbelievably stupid. He slammed his talons in fists into the snow in pure frustration. "Arrrgh!"
"What's with you?" someone spoke with some minor disgust. He flinched in surprise from the proximity and looked upwards. An IceWing. Her scales were grooved in odd places and old scratches were everywhere. A particularly blue sinister one slashed just over her brow.
Mooseblight's muscles froze. "You're...Nevada."
She showed off her diamond head. "I needed distance from the rest of those horrible dragons. I didn't need the newcomer here."
He forced himself not to attack her. "I needed to get away too." The hybrid took in a deep breath, seizing the opportunity. "I...I need to know which way the border is."
She bursted into unfriendly laughter. "Ha, I'm not the only IceWing who failed geography! Here's the rule with the sun bub: It rises in the east and sets in the west." Nevada raised a talon to demonstrate. "The border is south, and we're way up north away from the grubby multicolored spawns of Darkstalker. Glad to see a brave IceWing going to enlist in Cumulus's war by his own accord. You'll get crushed by the SandWings for your feeble lack of wings, but if that's your death wish I guess that's how it is."
The hybrid took a step in the indicated direction. "Uh, thanks Nevada. Between you and me, can you keep this a secret from the rest?"
Nevada snorted. "You have no idea how many secrets I hide newcomer. This one will blend in with the pile. I'll come up with an excuse."
Mooseblight sighed in relief. He was about to leave when he heard a last statement. "Good luck out there Fractal. You'll need it." She cackled and sprinted into the woods.
~
When sun fell down and Mooseblight just about regretted not eating anything more than a lousy rabbit, there was Cornmeal.
He was lying down, but was somehow more terrifying in that way. His tan form sprawled all over an empty hill taking up the whole contour of the landscape. Luckily for Mooseblight, he seemed to be asleep, whitish belly rising up and down slowly like ocean waves. Wings laid flat on the snow beside him.
But where was Silvana? Had he killed her already, stuffing her lifeless slim body into the snow where he knew Mooseblight would never find it? Had he traded her off to his SandWing cronies? The possibilities were endless and most of them ended up with her dead. He had to know the truth before his anger got the best of him.
As quietly as he could, the hybrid crept towards Cornmeal. Mooseblight couldn't wrap his head around it: He was just so much dragon in one place. Not even Cumulus looked so large. The places where the sun couldn't reach Cornmeal were left in foreboding shadow, and the little light that remained made his scales twinkle in the typical flashy IceWing way. There was something else about his scales too: Many had a slight white fringe completely unlike anything he'd seen before. There were a lot of old claw marks along his sides, most of which had large diameters. Not IceWing claws. SandWing kerfuffles. The hybrid wondered what he was getting himself into.
As he rounded the corner to where his head was starting to show, he saw her. Silvana. He bolted over to her curled up form. She was a bright peachy color—he guessed that her scales had done the thing again where they changed color. She lightly snored, head buried under her tattered wing, and looked so serene Mooseblight almost felt bad for having to wake her up. But he had to.
"Silvana, wake up." He whispered into her ear.
She didn't react.
"Silvana, we have to go," he tried again, louder this time. His talons nudged her head. She resorted to to shoving it deeper under her wing, tail draping over it all. In frustration the blue hybrid jostled her head out and spoke loudly. "Silvana, it's me!"
Her bergundy eyes burst open in a fit of rage. Her frill expanded outwards—Mooseblight realized what she was going to do before she did it. In a fraction of a second he directed her head upwards in time for black venom to shoot over his horns. He released her once her jaw was back in place. Her frill relaxed and she looked at him quizzically. "Why would you do that?"
"I came to save you!" He argued, out of breath from how close she came to killing him.
Silvana stood up regarding him nastily. "I don't need saving. Cornmeal has been so nice to me; He isn't a threat. I was having blissful sun time and you came rocking in here to get your head blown off." Her scales were back to their lovely pink hue and she flared her frill in a manner Mooseblight was beginning to realize was frustration.
"Silvana, Cornmeal is a SandWing-IceWing hybrid! The IceWings are in a war with SandWings! He's taking you to the border to get killed." He shuffled in the snow, now aware of the heat Cornmeal's scales produced.
She looked unconvinced. "I know, he told me he was a hybrid. But he wasn't taking me to the border. He took me to the hill he and his sister shared on good days. He called it the Outlook. But, I must've slept a while for it to be sundown already. I was fed fruit before you ask." She sligtly unhinged her jaw to release a quiet hiss.
"I don't like it when you're in the talons of other dragons. It worries me, especially when you're dealing with a dragon who might not be as loyal as he says."
"Mooseblight!" She started with an anger that made him leap. She took his talons into hers and squeezed hard. Uncomfortably hard. "If he wanted me dead I would've spat venom on him already. He's safe, okay? He gave me advice and guidance, from hybrid to hybrid. If anything you should be trusting Cornmeal more than anyone else because his lineage is as twisted as ours. You liked me because I'm part RainWing. Why don't you like him if he's part SandWing?"
She let go and turned around. "Cornmeal was right. You just want to control me. That's why you really came back. You don't care about what I say or want to do. If you had the option you'd keep me locked up in the dungeon where you can see me deteriorate from every command you give me until I turn into bones the same color as Cornmeal." Her scales rippled into horrible red as Silvana approached him. "So give it up prisoner! Say it! Tell the truth! Let out your sins to the world, before I aim my venom at you with all my intention to kill you this time."
"Silvana..." Mooseblight began backing up, sweat running down his beat-up scales.
"The time is ticking Mooseblight!" She shouted.
Cornmeal shifted slightly. Mooseblight's eyes flickered over to him. In a quick movement, he raised his talons and jabbed his claws straight into his side.
"CAMEL SNAKES!" Cornmeal shot up, slapping both dragonets with a long tail. His enormous head looked down. "Oh my, I didn't expect you Fractal."
"You're an idiot!" She roared at him. "You just can't admit it after all!"
"What's happening? Why are you so angry Silvana?" He asked in an annoyingly drippy voice. Mooseblight felt like killing him in that instant.
"Mooseblight! He's being abusive to me!" She pointed.
"Of course he is." Cornmeal placed his talons on him, nailing him to the hill. "You're the Mooseblight! You don't make friends. You make opportunities for yourself to escape." He smiled. "Lucky for you, she's here. Ecru!"
"You found the queen's missing prisoners!" A terribly familiar voice rang out of the sky, followed by a large landing of a tan, long dragon. A SandWing...IceWing.
"You're... Cornmeal's sister." Silvana gaped. All the violence left her body and pea green fear replaced it.
Ecru giggled. "Darn right I am. We're from the same clutch. But Cornmeal, we're going to need something for the wiry one."
"No! You won't take me!" Silvana sprinted and took a mighty lunge. Mooseblight saw the barb slipping out from the depths of ebony darkness unbeknownst to the IceWing-RainWing hybrid. "SILVANA NOOO!"
He forced himself to stare at the spike of death as it ripped straight into her stomach like teeth. She shrieked a blood curdling scream as Ecru swished her off her barb as if she was a mere pest, sending her hurtling over the side of the hill. The latter SandWing-IceWing just stared at where she flew over.
"Our job here is done, Cornmeal. You better come with me or Queen Cumulus might punish me for killing her before she could be executed. You do a better job at storytelling than I." Ecru shook drops of blood onto the snow. Let's fly."
== In Agony ==
Mooseblight couldn't concentrate.
He couldn't stop relieving the moment over and over in his head. Ecru's barb poised to kill. Silvana's last act of ferocity. Ecru's indifference to the fact she had just killed the only good dragon in the world.
What was the point in living in it if all there ever was is violence?
He had no will for anything. He barely reacted when the queen apprehended him, glad to have him back in her clutches. He cleared the walk to his dungeon in record slow time and end up in a thousand more pinpricks. He slumped down in his cell, keeping his head under his ridiculously short tail as well as he could.
No one cared about him. He was always destined for failure and life in his cell. No one trusted the dangers in the basement.
His eyes reached over to see bergundy eyes giving him all their interest through a pitiful slot in the wall, but there were none. He hoped for a shape to move and give him her "Would it kill the queen to make this place more entertaining” gesture complete with dull pink spikes, but there was none. He wanted the stranger to go out with him, to go kick some IceWing spikes, to tell him she liked her and for Mooseblight to tell her the same back and live happily away from all the IceWings in the world where finally, finally he could know what love really felt like since his loony toon father went out on a suicide mission.
But there was no one.
No one!
No one at all!
All because a dirty SandWing-IceWing stabbed her!
Killed her!
Treated her like complete and utter uselessness!
Right in front of him!
Him! The angriest murderer, soulless fighting machine, and one-way ticket to blue death, fighting to right a completely undeserved wrong!
The next few minutes were a blur. Chains snapped as if they were measily icicles. Metal clanged until it collapsed in on itself. He was running, running, killing, killing, and running once more. Anything in his path was being sentenced to death. He was pure poison to the touch.
After barreling through all the disruptions, Mooseblight saw the evening stars. When the sun arose, only ice would be on the horizon.
== Epilogue ==
A shadow loomed over the hills.
Cornmeal flapped his small wings quickly. He knew he had to get to her before anyone else did. If any other IceWing found her, it would be bad. Shapestealer would most certainly be upset and he didn't want to make it worse. He would already have to apologize over and over for his sister's actions. The dragon might stab him in his sleep if he wasn't convincing enough.
He reached his darkened hill, wrinkling his snout at all the blood. Why did Ecru have to make such a mess? Why couldn't she talk it out the way he did? There was a reason he was part of the council and she wasn't.
He peered over the crest and there! A small, now depressingly grayscale dragon laid on top of red snow. A dragon that would never wake up. It seemed like the blood drained all the pink out of her. Cornmeal flapped down to investigate.
He really wished he didn't. The IceWing-RainWing hybrid was marked in all kinds of scratches, including some particularly nasty ones on her wing. No doubt she couldn't fly. They all seemed new, which matched with Ecru's storytelling the day before.
The hybrid almost didn't want to make the call. But he had to.
Cornmeal pinched the amber drop. "Shapestealer, I've found someone interesting..."
== (Trivia) ==
* The name Ice on Horizon refers to IceWings always being around to badger Mooseblight and his fury for them being ready to be released at any moment.
** The "long" name of this story (that I don't use and neither do you) is Ice on the Horizon: Extended Mooseblight Cut. This is because the story was isolated and continued from the original Ice on the Horizon which was intended to be part of a longer story featuring multiple PoVs like Darkstalker. It was boring and the Extended Mooseblight Cut was the salvage.
* Ice on the Horizon has taken the longest for completion, taking 233 days (64% of a year) to be considered completely done. In that time, the whole plot was rewritten once and had 4 parts taken out for various reasons.
* While Mooseblight's temporary name Fractal was used, I consistently kept typing Mooseblight instead of Fractal in dialogue, only correcting it a moment later.
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
Category:Content (BronzeRattle)