Prologue (part one)

It wasn't easy growing up as me. I know that sounds super cliché, but it's the truth. Life isn't fair. I learned that from a young age. Life won't go easy on you just because you're different.

My name is Frostfire, and my dragonet-hood was less than perfect. I didn't really know my father, which was probably good, because he was executed for treason to his tribe when I was about one year old. A plain fifth circle palace guard is easy to sweep under the sand for "contaminating IceWing blood". Something tragic probably happened to my mother, too, right? Nope. Not that life was any easier with her around.

Sure, she still taught me all the things dragon mothers are supposed to, but she was a lot less sympathetic of my mistakes than I think mothers were supposed to. "Watch that tail! Coil it in like this so you don't kill someone!" and "Moons! Yesterday you were complaining that your wings aren't fully grown, and now you're swooping around like a mad Skywing! No wonder you sprained your wing!" and "Really, not even Frostbreath? I can understand not having fire since your front half plopped out an Icewing, but having nothing pretty much makes you unless."

So that gives you an idea of what living alone with my mother was like. She was pretty cold. Ironically.

As soon as she found out that father was executed, we abandoned our tiny hut in a remote oasis town and moved to the Scorpion den, because the way she figured, the IceWings would come looking for us to "purify" their bloodline. In the Scorpion Den, we would be able to hide, and be safe.

The Scorpion Den was probably not the best place to go for safety.

From a young age, life taught me that trust is a luxury, one that many can't afford in a place like that. The first day, I got stabbed in the back by someone's tail. Well, not really in the back, but you get the idea.

My mother left me alone while she went to find somewhere to live. That was something she would do. After my father died, she stopped being attached to, well, anything, including me. So if she needed to be away from a whining dragonet for the day, she would leave, to go hunt, or whatever. At least that time she had the courtesy of telling me where she was going.

Sometimes I would wonder if my mother didn't want to be around me, if my Icewing half reminded her to much of father.

"I'm going to look for a place for us to lay low until our problem with the Icewings blows over," she said. "Stay put. Don't get yourself killed. We only just got here."

That was it. No "see you later" or "be safe" or " I love you". Which I was used to. It made things easier, in a way. Not having to be tied down to another dragon.

So, being a young and naïve dragonet, I immediately wandered off to seek adventure. I didn't realize how cutthroat the city was until I started walking around a nearby street market.

To an outsider, as I was, it would seem perfectly innocent, with stalls set up in the street, selling exotic goods. But to an experienced eye, one would start to notice some oddities. Some of the stalls had more deadly objects for sale; poisons, and a variety of sharp weapons (new and used it seemed, as some of the daggers had dark stains).

I got a variety of looks from, well, just about everyone. Some looked like they hated me, some were just curious. I guess Icewings weren't really common here, but it was most likely specifically my 'unique' appearance.

Strange dragons lurked in the alleyways or behind stalls, and the occasional fight broke out, but as I looked around, no one really seemed to care.

I was walking by a stall selling some kind of shiny rocks, ignoring the sideways glances and double takes I finally just ignored when a voice whispered, "Pssst! Hey, kid!".

Naturally, I turned towards the sound, and, relatively unsurprisingly, saw three shadowy dragons standing in the ally behind me.

The one in front stepped forwards. He was tall, but not fully grown. "Hello, friend. You look like the extra tail we might need. Would you like come with us? There is something in it for you if we can get your hel-"

"Woah!," said the second one. He was slightly shorter than the fist one and seemed to be a bit stocky as well. "Check out 'is face!".

I curled my talons in the sand. It felt like a punch in the face to here someone else notice my IceWing face.

"Shut up!," said the first one. He tried not to show it, but he was slightly taken aback when he saw my face, too. I guess they saw my back half and assumed I was a normal Sandwing. The Third one in the back, didn't say anything, just looked at me.

The First Dragon turned back to me. "No need to fear, friend, we all carry strange, hmmm, attributes in this town".

Ironically, that was before I knew I had frostbreath.

"So, what do you say, uh. . . what's your name?"

"I'm nobody," I said.

"Well, Nobody, would you like to come with us?"

Seeing him up close, I realized they weren't as old as I originally thought. Maybe eight or so years older than me. The quiet one in the back looked a bit closer to my age, and I wondered why she was with them.

Defiantly considering all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, and most defiantly questioning why they were asking a young dragonet for help (hey, I was mature for my age), I replied.

"Sure."

"So here's the plan"

The four of us were crouched on a roof overlooking a courtyard to a large building. There were two buff-looking guards with spears standing at the doorway, but other than that, there seemed to be very little movement inside.

"This is the largest stockpile of food in the scorpion den that isn't controlled by the Outclaws, so, as you can imagine, it's not given out very generously.," said the First Dragon.

"Bloody Sand-Snorters!," said the Second Dragon.

The Third just rolled her eyes.

"So we are going to, ah, liberate their hoarded goods," said the First, cracking his knuckles."

"Here's what will happen. Me and him"— gesturing to the Second dragon—"will go down there and make a distraction. Something. . .dramatic. While the guards are occupied, you two"— pointing at me and the Third— "will sneak around them and find the food. Once we are done entertaining the guards, well come in and join you, and fly out of there with as much as we can carry! Sound doable, Nobody?"

"Alright," I said. "Lets do it".

The two dragons flew of the roof and around to the entrence of the courtyard, leaving me alone with the Third Dragon.

I shifted my wings.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi," she replied.

She was small and compact, but still seemed bigger than me when she turned her black eyes on me. She wore a chain around her neck with a small vial of what looked like Brightsting cactus juice. Her scales were the color of the sand below us, but. . .different. More radiant, more glowing, more alive.

She, on the other hand, was staring a little less discreetly.

"Its okay," I said when I noticed. "I'm weird-looking."

"Oh, sorry," she said, not looking very ashamed. "I've never seen an Icewing before, or a. . . uh. . ." Now she looked a little embarrassed.

"Trust me, its fine. I've gotten weird looks all day," I said. "I just got here to—"

"Wait! Shhhh!," she hissed. "Here they come".

We peeked out over the edge of the roof and saw the First Dragon walk through the open gate to the court yard. Without the acute hearing of Sandwings, my Icewing ears strained to hear what he said.

"Oy, you over there!" he said.

Only one of the guards left to go over to where he was.

"What do you want?" the guard said gruffly, passing his spear into his other hand.

"I want to get in there. Personally, I would prefer you to let me through peaceably, but I doubt that is going to happen, so I'll settle for walking over your corpse".

That was when the Second Dragon appeared from the sky, landing on the guard, shredding his wings and stabbing him in the side with his tail.

The second guard roared in fury and launched himself at the two dragons, as three more guards suddenly ran out of the building, as if they'd been waiting the whole time.

"Guess thats our cue"

I glanced up at her. I was hypnotized by the fighting, the whirling of bodies, how they looked so graceful and deadly. The flashing of teeth that glinted in the sun. Flowing shapes that threatened to sweep you away and leave you dead. Thats when I knew, I wanted to learn how to fight like that.

". . . HEY!" she practically roared in my ear.

"Wha— oh, sorry," I said sheepishly under her glare.

"They just cleared out all of the guards in the main entrance. Now's our chance to sneak in!"

Without another word, she swung herself over the roof and dropped, slowing herself at the bottom by clawing the wall as she fell. It was pretty cool. I tried to follow suit, but more or less ended up flopping at the bottom. She glared at me and hauled me up. We ran into the building while the fight was still raging behind us.

"This way," she hissed, and pulled at my arm as we ran down a side passage. This didn't give me much time to see the grand hall we entered, or the strange bird carving on the back wall. At glance it looked something like a vulture. Then hallway walls rushed by, left and right turns, then backtracking and going strait. I was definitely lost, but it seemed like she had done this before, or at least mapped it out before we entered.

We finally arrived at a medium sized room with boxes stacked haphazardly with sheets spread over some of them. Weapons of different sizes were hung on the walls and piles of cactus were scattered around the room. Part of the wall had fallen away at the top, allowing some sunlight to shine into the room, flickering as the tarp that covered the opening fluttered in the slight breeze out side.

"Alright," she said. "This has to be their stockpile. Once we grab this stuff, the other two will come through that gap"—gesturing to the opening in the wall— "And help us. We'll all escape without them even noticing." She sounded like she was reassuring herself, though.

"What's inside this stuff?" I said. I walked over to the nearest crate and pulled off the lid. There was nothing inside. When I showed her this, she seemed confused.

"There should be more than this," she said, looking in another crate. "I don't understand".

Just then, the other two dragons we had seen fighting outside half-landed, half-tumbled through the opening in the wall. They looked quite beat up, but not seriously injured.

"Having fun in here?" the tall one said.

"Oh I'd say we're about too"

We all whirled around and saw a menacing dragon standing in the door way; behind him, maybe five more.

"Looks like four little dragons have stuck their snouts in a place they shouldn't've," the one in front said mockingly. "So yes"-he raised his tail and flexed his talons- "we are going to have some fun".

Hi hi everyone! Thank you for reading my first fic! Whooooo! Also I'm sorry I had to make the prologue in two parts, but I didn't want to write too much and then make you guys uninterested. I think maybe the rest won't be this super long. I don't know. Also I don't know how regularly I can publish between school coming up and work and junk. I'll at least try to post weekly updates in my bio to keep you guys in the loop. Cool, okay. Leave comments! I want to know what you guys think! Okay! Thank you! Goodnight!