Title: i will be here
Rating: K+
Characters/Pairings: Queen Battlewinner, Mastermind, and Greatness; no pairings.
Disclaimer: Title from "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins. I don't own Wings of Fire.
Authors Note: I wanted to write this because I thought about it, about how Queen Battlewinner was stuck in the lava and is never able to touch or be around her daughter, Greatness, anymore - she can hardly talk to her - and I made myself really sad. So, I wanted to write it! Not my best work, sorry, but I rushed through this because it was taking me like, four hours to write.
Summary: "She'll never be able to be a mother to her dragonet, not like she's heard Queen Coral or even Queen Scarlet doing. She'll always be this: stuck in a pit of lava, never being able to crawl out even two inches before crumpling to the floor, submitting to the coldness inside of her."
Words: 1,127~
"She wants to see you," Mastermind tells her in a low, worried voice. "She's been pestering Morrowseer day and night for the allowance to see you, and not even that Deathbringer dragonet can distract her at this point."
She's laying in her lava pool, her dark scales warming themselves back up to a more bearable temperature after one of Mastermind's "tests" to see how far she could go without the lava before she'd freeze. Queen Battlewinner had risen to her shoulders before the chill, the crippling, awful coldness, had clutched her scales, and she had thrown herself back into the molten liquid.
(Apparently, she had scattered a few droplets that almost hit Mastermind, but it's not like that would've been a bad thing.)
Queen Battlewinner lets her snout rise of the lava, just enough so she can speak without it spilling into her mouth. "I...," Speaking has been so hard; it's like stones grating together in her throat, making everything from eating to simply breathing difficult. "...can't."
Mastermind blinks at her, a frown sliding across his snout. "Your Majesty," he begins, and Queen Battlewinner holds herself back from snarling at the intelligent NightWing. "Princess Greatness wants to see you." He pauses, looking at the lava for a few, long moments, before hesitantly looking back into her eyes.
"Your daughter needs to see you."
Queen Battlewinner closes her eyes; she imagines her daughter, her little dragonet, with eyes shining just like stars in the night sky,
(although those have been hard to see as of late, as the smoke from the volcano has begun to block them out)
sad and alone, whimpering and begging for her. She's never been a motherly or soft dragon; she's excelled in battles that would normally kill an average solider, she's the Queen of the NightWing's. She defeated her own mother at a young age, younger than most daughters do when they challenge their mother to the throne.
She knows that Greatness is vapid and trusts too much; it's one of the things that made her so much more comfortable around her daughter than she expected to be. She doesn't have to worry as much about Greatness flitting from the shadows, proclaiming she wants the throne, and slaughtering her for it.
"She can help you," Mastermind continues; Queen Battlewinner opens her eyes, watching as the NightWing shuffles his talons, as if terrified that he's pushing his limitations on how to speak to her.
He's lucky I can't leave the lava.
"She can speak for you. We can say your identity is a secret; that can coincide with the scrolls about our powers and how much more powerful we are than the other tribes," He swipes his tongue across his snout. "It'll make it more easier for the other tribes to accept that we're a force not to be reckoned with."
Queen Battlewinner hesitates; what he's saying is true. Greatness can help them, she can be of aid to them, but...
"Greatness...weak." She says, thinking of how her daughter reacted upon seeing their home and how much worse it had gotten. Greatness had fluttered back to her, clutching her foreleg and pressing her snout into it, saying it was frightening and awful. "Doesn't...understand."
Mastermind sighs. "That may be," he tells her. "But she's still your daughter, and she loves you."
She knows he's right; Mastermind usually is.
She closes her eyes again, heaving out a weak sigh, and nods, opening her eyes again to glance to the door. "Get her," she croaks. "No...one else. Just...her."
Mastermind nods, dipping his head and bowing out of the room; she hears murmuring on the outside, probably Mastermind telling some passing NightWing's an excuse for why he was heading from a twisted section of hallways.
Queen Battlewinner is holding off her emotions on the matter; she knows that, deep down, seeing Greatness will be so much more heartbreaking than she had planned. She knows that Greatness loves her, that she cares for her.
I can't even-
But then there's a small knock on the door; she hears Mastermind's voice, the dragon her that it's him, that Greatness is beside him.
And then the door slides open, and a small, confused female dragonet walks into the room, dark eyes taking in the stone room around her.
Greatness is looking around, puzzlement apparent on her young face, before finally, she looks to the lava pool. It's obvious that she wasn't expecting this, for her mother to be submerged in the molten liquid that every dragonet is taught to stay far away from.
"Mother?" Greatness squeaks out, eyes widening and talons scratching against the stone floor as she stumbles back. "What are you doing in there?"
Her little daughter creeps forward, slowly, and she frowns. "Why aren't you burning up?"
Queen Battlewinner blinks slowly at her daughter, raising her snout just a bit more over the lava. Greatness is peering at her, worry and fear in her eyes, and her daughter takes a few steps forward, glancing down to the lava.
"Stop!" she barks out, wincing as her throat aches with a new onslaught of pain; she hasn't tried to raise her voice this high.
Greatness practically jumps in the air; she tucks her wings in closely, ears pressing close to her head and the small black dragon wrapping her tail against her legs.
"Can't...leave," Queen Battlewinner murmurs, curling her talons against her palms. She really, really hates IceWings now; she had no clue, not even a hint of one, about IceWing's trying to freeze dragons from the inside out.
Greatness's eyes water, and her lips tremble as she stares down at her. "You can't leave?" she asks. "Ever?"
She numbly shakes her head, watching as her daughter lets out a terrified squeak, shaking her head and tears building up in her eyes as she stares down at her mother.
Queen Battlewinner has never been a soft-hearted queen, nor will she call herself the most attentive mother, but. Seeing her daughter, her young, soft and trusting daughter, sobbing, tears running down the breaks between her cheek scales, without Queen Battlewinner being able to rise up and comfort her, breaks her heart.
Never again will she hold Greatness, she can never read scrolls to her. She'll only hear about her daughters successes through the words of Mastermind, and even then who knows if he'll be telling the full truth or not.
She'll never be able to be a mother to her dragonet, not like she's heard Queen Coral or even Queen Scarlet doing.
She'll always be this: stuck in a pit of lava, never being able to crawl out even two inches before crumpling to the floor, submitting to the coldness inside of her.