'Moorhen' is an adult female MudWing who was introduced in The Brightest Night. She is
the current queen of the MudWings and the bigwings of her troop. She was
allied with Burn and the SkyWings, and formerly Blister and the SeaWings
during the War of SandWing Succession. She currently resides in the
MudWing palace located within the Mud Kingdom.

## Description

Moorhen is huge, as big as Morrowseer, and much taller than any of her
four siblings. She has russet-brown scales and has embedded gemstones on
her ankles and head.

## Personality

Moorhen is a protective queen, both of her tribe and her siblings. She
seeks for the option that most ensures the safety of her tribe. It is
seen when she joined Burn's side of the war when Burn threatened to
attack the MudWing tribe if Moorhen refused to fight with her. According
to Sora, Moorhen is a good queen and is greatly respected by her MudWing
subjects. In The Brightest Night, she fretted over how many dragons were
dying and how it was her fault she did not protect them well enough.

Moorhen also appears to be skeptical, stating that Sunny's plan to stop
the war with no more dragons dying sounded like "a tale from one of the
SeaWing queen's silly romantic scrolls".

Coral stated that Moorhen has "such interesting ideas." She is logical,
and would not want to put her tribe through more war. Fatespeaker
described her as nice and only a little bit intimidating.

## Biography

### The Dragonet Prophecy

left The Dragonet Prophecy (book)|The Dragonet
Prophecy
While in the Mud Kingdom, Clay met his sibs, who
were soldiers in Queen Moorhen's army.

left The Lost Heir

Moorhen's army helped the SkyWings with the Plants#Dragonflame
cactus|dragonflame cactus attack on the Summer Palace, carrying burning
logs and dropping them into the palace. Her spy in the Talons of Peace,
Crocodile, was the reason they were able to find the Summer Palace.

left The Hidden Kingdom

When the dragonets of destiny and Webs were walking through
the Rainforest Kingdom, Tsunami noticed some MudWings heading their way
but noted that they could not possibly see the dragonets in the fog.
Starflight suggested that they should hide because they were only a
day's flight from Queen Moorhen's palace and that they would not want to
get caught and be imprisoned. Glory also sarcastically said that Moorhen
probably would not give them tea and send them on their way if they met
her.

left The Dark Secret
In the prologue, Pheasant asked why she and her siblings had to fight
in the War of SandWing Succession, and Reed replied that Queen Moorhen
must have a good reason to ally with Burn and the SkyWings.

left The Brightest Night

Moorhen gathered her army to prepare for an invasion of the
Ice Kingdom along with her SkyWing allies, in which they planned to wipe
out every last IceWing. Sunny visited Moorhen during one of her
nightmares using a dreamvisitor to warn her about the battle. Sunny
managed to convince her not to go through with the invasion because it
would kill too many dragons on both sides, then told Moorhen to arrive
at SandWing stronghold|Burn's stronghold a few days later for the peace
summit. Although Moorhen did agree to try, she was still unsure it would
solve anything. She was present at the stronghold when Thorn was crowned
queen of the SandWings. Also, while this was unbeknownst to all but the
IceWings, the Ice Kingdom#Great Ice Cliff|Great Ice Cliff would have
slaughtered the entirety of Burn's attack if Moorhen had not believed
Sunny.

-----

### The Jade Mountain Prophecy

left Moon Rising
Umber
mentioned to the rest of his Winglet that his siblings Reed and Pheasant
were working for Moorhen in her palace. Later, Anemone mentioned she had
not eaten since she left Queen Moorhen's palace.

left Winter Turning

Winter briefly mentioned Moorhen when he thought about the location of
the Indestructible City|scavenger den he and his friends stopped by
while looking for the talons of peace.

left Escaping Peril

When Scarlet arrived at Jade Mountain Academy|Jade Mountain, she threw
the decapitated head of Queen Glory at Queen Ruby, her SkyWing guards,
and the dragonets of destiny before fleeing. With the help of Turtle,
the group discovered that the head was actually a MudWing head enchanted
to look like Glory, and Ruby decided to contact Queen Moorhen and let
her know that Scarlet had killed one of her subjects and therefore must
have been around her swamps to get to a MudWing.

left Talons of Power
While flying to the rainforest, to defend Darkstalker and the
NightWings, Anemone asked Turtle to imagine if Coral had died, and all
the SeaWings had to go to the Mud Kingdom to be bossed around by
Moorhen. Later, when Turtle was thinking of how to deal with
Darkstalker, Turtle wondered if Moorhen, along with the other queens,
would listen to him and help.

left
Darkness of Dragons
Bog claimed that
Queen Moorhen and the MudWings were the ones setting off bombs in the
Kingdom of Sand, which Qibli could tell was a lie. Later, Queen Thorn
mentioned Moorhen, saying that she should send a dragon with an earring
enchanted to protect her from Darkstalker.

In the epilogue, Coral mentioned in her letter to Turtle that she was
rebuilding the Summer Palace and hoped it would be a center of trade and
diplomacy, especially with Queen Moorhen and Queen Glory.

-----

### The Lost Continent Prophecy

left
The Dangerous Gift
Snowfall
mentioned Moorhen while complaining to herself about the other queens
going on and on about unity and "that sort of nonsense". She also
mentioned that Moorhen was her favorite out of all other queens because
she was calm and the least annoying of the other queens. During the
queens' meeting, Moorhen said that there was not enough room in the Mud Kingdom for the refugee dragons and later sent Bullfrog
as the MudWing representative to go to Pantala.

-----

### Winglets

left
Assassin
While never appearing, one
of her generals, Swamp, and at least two of her guards met with Tempest,
Blister, and the SeaWings at the time of Tempest's murder. One of the
guards reported the news of what happened and subsequently, she broke
off her alliance with Blister. Due to these events, Burn was able to
threaten her into allying with her.

-----

### Field Guides

left
A Guide to the Dragon World
Moorhen
was depicted outside the MudWing palace in a portrait at the beginning
of the MudWing chapter of the guide. Moorhen was later mentioned in
Fatespeaker's letter to Starflight where she gave Fatespeaker two
scrolls for the guide from the library in the MudWing palace.

## Quotes

Here? Now? […] Can't you see I'm in the middle of a campaign?
And everyone's dying and it's all my fault and I can't save them? […]
No. No, I command you not to die.
to Sunny, in a dream The Brightest Night
246

-----

But then the war will be over, and perhaps that'll be worth it.
Burn has promised us immunity from attack for the next hundred years if
we help her win. If we don't — she'll destroy us. She is a powerful
enemy, little SandWing. A lot more powerful than you, and she's an enemy
I don't intend to make.
to Sunny about the war
The Brightest Night
247

-----

Good luck. You're very small to be in charge of saving the
world.
to Sunny The Brightest Night (book)|The
Brightest Night
249

-----

You want us to send our soldiers all the way to the other side
of the ocean. To fight in a war that — I'm so sorry, but — it has
nothing to do with us. Our dragons are safe here. That thing over there
doesn't even know about us. If we go rile it up, it might come back to
attack us and we could lose this continent, too. At least right now,
this is a safe place — for us and for you.
to Hazel and Qibli
about the othermind
The Dangerous Gift
205

## Trivia

  - Tui accidentally made Queen Thorn refer to her as Mudhen in Darkness
    of Dragons. This was corrected in the e-book and later printings.
  - Queen Moorhen's sister looked so much like her that Queen Snowfall
    almost "bowed to the wrong dragon."