Hello my friends, it has been a while!
For those of you who are joining me after Finding Peace, I am happy to see you all again as we begin another adventure in The Darkest Eclipse AU! And for those of you joining now, I welcome you and hope you enjoy this story.
This story, unlike Finding Peace, will be set over a course of Six Years, set between the ending of Darkness of Dragons and the start of Finding Peace. The story will follow Winter's journey after he departs from Jade Mountain Academy and his time in Sanctuary. It will show Winter's growth as an individual, and how he comes to love himself and forgive others and, most importantly, himself. This story will also show where, and when, The Darkest Eclipse AU deviates from Canon and what the differences between Wings of Fire Canon and The Darkest Eclipse AU are.
Now, let us take flight!
"Be vigilant. Strike first. Trust nobody." These were the words of my father, Prince Narwhal of the IceWings.
These six words defined his view of the world. He believed it was harsh, ruthless, and, especially, cruel. The only way one could survive in this world was by trusting nobody and leaping at any sign of weakness. This was a view that he tried to instill in my brother, sister, and me.
For the longest time, his philosophy was one I followed dedicatedly. At least, until I met dragons who showed me that while the world was dangerous, it did not mean I had to face it alone. It took me a long time to realize just how wrong my father was, and during that time I made many mistakes, mistakes I am not proud of.
But, I have learned that my mistakes do not define me. Rather: It is what I choose to do after that matters.
Hesitation was something you rarely got over. It was a feeling Winter was always frustrated with, even at the age of eleven. That was not to say hesitation was bad, like anything else it depended on how you let it influence you. Sometimes, hesitation allowed you to pause and think about your options and weigh the positives and negatives of the actions you would take. In a way, it was a defense mechanism if you knew how to utilize it.
But, with Winter, he was regularly in positions where his decisions would impact not just himself, but others. Granted, he was by no means in the same position as the Queens of Phyrria or Pantala (and he thanked the Moons and Great Ice Dragon for that), but his decisions could impact a field of science and even relations between two very different species.
Thankfully, this particular hesitation was not directed at something huge or game-changing. Rather, the decision was a personal one he had already accepted. But the letter he had received from one of his old teachers and friends, Sunny, made him think whether he was making the right decision at all.
The decision: Whether or not it was a good idea to return to Jade Mountain Academy, six years after he left. The place that had seen his life change forever.
Sitting in his room within the Scavenger Sanctuary caretaker compound, Winter reread Sunny's letter for the hundredth time. The light from the lanterns hanging from the ceiling lit up his room, giving him a light to read the cordial letter his former teacher (likely to be his co-teacher for a month or two) had sent him.
Everything is ready, the students are aware of the next lesson so they are not taken by surprise when we resume classes after the Midterm break. All of the reading material is ready, all you will need to do is be your amazing self: and talk about Scavengers.
Even in their correspondence, Winter forgot how contagious her optimism was. It gave him a sense of excitement and adventure to walk through the system of halls within Jade Mountain again, to see the bustling of students who made their way to and from classes.
But those memories were overshadowed by a sense of regret, as he recalled the last time he had walked the halls of the Academy as a student. He had left the school shortly after the Battle of Jade Mountain. Even after being allowed to return to the Academy by his cousin, Queen Snowfall, Winter had decided that he still would not go back.
Officially, with so much work to do in Sanctuary with the Scavenger (or, Human, as Daffodil kept reminding him) Outreach Project, he did not have the time to be a student back at the Academy.
Then there were personal reasons, reasons he tried not to think about even now. Jade Mountain had been the source of many memories, many good and just as many bad, and Winter did not dare to go to the Academy and reopen old wounds too soon. As the years went by, and the first class of Jade Mountain Academy had graduated (technically he was counted among the first graduates, as he finished his assignments and papers and mailed them to the Academy for grading) Winter believed returning would not be in everyone else's best interest.
However, that was then. And this was now.
Besides, it wasn't like Swan and Silenttongue could not keep things in order here in Sanctuary while he traveled taught at Jade Mountain. They knew all of the routines, how to keep the younger members of the caretakers on task. After all, they were the ones who helped him come up with said routines.
As for whether he'd be going alone...that was not necessarily accurate.
The shuffling of little talons at the door of his room drew his attention from his thoughts, over to the entrance of his room as a tiny month-old dragonet walked right in. Normally, Winter would not have liked his privacy interrupted by dragons walking into his room without announcing themselves.
But the dragonet who entered his room was the exception...and not to mention he would not have listened anyway.
This dragonet was his son, after all.
"Papppuuuuu…" Sang Bobcat as he trotted up to Winter, the biggest smile on his dark blue freckled face.
Winter could not, and would not, stop a smile that tugged its way up his lips as he heard Bobcat happily greet him. Turning around on his cushion while still sitting, Winter raised his wing. Taking a seat next to him, Bobcat snuggled up against Winter's side and looked up at him.
"Swamon!" Bobcat said, raising his tiny talons at the door. "Wan say nuo!"
Winter stopped a chuckle that wanted to escape his throat. Leave it to Bobcat about wanting to eat dinner before it's even ready for the others.
"Wait a little bit, Bobcat," Winter smiled as he draped his wing over Bobcat and hugged him close. "Swan and the others have to let it cook first, then we can have as much salmon as you can eat."
Bobcat sighed in disappointment, but the nod the IceWing gave confirmed that he understood that Swan wasn't denying him salmon to be rude. This understanding and developing empathy reminded Winter so much of the dragonet's mother. It was a trait he hoped he could further nurture in his son.
Lifting his head to the bookshelf in their room (that, Winter admitted, was overflowing with different books, he was overdue for setting up a new bookshelf. He just needed to make room for one.) Bobcat's light blue eyes brightened. Raising his tiny talons to a specific book, Winter tried to spot which book caught his dragonet's interest so much.
"Cwicket book?" Bobcat asked, pointing eagerly to (sure enough) a book that Winter's HiveWing colleague had written. Said book was on the top shelf, shoved in between books on the History of Scavenger Theory and The RainWing/MudWing Alliance (three books laying on top of Cricket's book, each one being from Turtle's best selling series.)
Bobcat loved that book so much.
Chuckling, Winter helped his dragonet onto his shoulders while he got up to the shelf and picked out the book from the shelf while making sure Turtle's books did not fall over from one of their make-shift supports being pulled out.
Once he made sure the books on his shelf were secure, Winter made his way over to his bed, which Bobcat hopped on as he approached. The dragonet snuggled in the blankets and up next to his father when Winter sat down and opened the book to its title page.
A Forgotten Legacy:
An in-depth study into Scavenger habits, anthropology, and theories
Written by:
Winter, Founder of the Sanctuary scavenger preserve
and
Cricket, founding professor of Reading Monkey studies
Bobcat excitedly pointed his talents at Winter's name.
"Papu!" He looked up at Winter with a grin. Smiling, Winter nodded.
"Yeah, that's me," Winter laughed while pressing his muzzle against Bobcat's forehead, causing the dragonet to giggle happily.
Even though Cricket technically wrote the book, she still insisted his name be on the title page since they collaborated on the research. Despite the HiveWing doing all of the writing, she claimed he provided most of the research.
Knowing that Winter's name was on the book, always made Bobcat happy.
Flipping through the acknowledgments, Winter finally reached the preface, where Cricket went on a monologue about Sanctuary. Most importantly the preface described how the Scavenger Sanctuary started and grew.
While he read through the preface for Bobcat, Winter found his thoughts being dragged back to when The Scavenger Sanctuary truly began.
And the life he was living had truly begun.