A class full of young dragonets were pretending to pay attention to Winter's lecture on inter-species communication while he pretended to not be thinking about the fact that they could die a horrible flaming death any second now.

Except, that wasn't a fact. It was just a very annoying, ridiculous little thought that Winter needed to drown out with his memorized speech about the similarities between the humanic and draconic written alphabets.

"The fascinating thing is that the two alphabets have similarities, especially in early post-scorching documents, implying a common linguistic origin. Which means-"

Winter kept talking, but he was thinking about fire. Fire, fire, fire. His memory looped over and over again. Screaming and fire and smoke and fire and dead dragonets and fire and-

It was all completely unnecessary. These dragonets were perfectly safe. Jade Mountain Academy was much safer now than it had been when Winter had attended about twenty five years ago. There were animus enchanted gates from his friend Turtle, and well trained guards from Queen Glory, and a population of students who hadn't been forced to fight in wars since they could fly.

He still remembered the bomb, though. The explosion that had shook the stone that had seemed so sturdy under his claws. The smell of smoke chewing up and spitting out the cool cave air that he had breathed moments before. Carnelian's burned corpse, who had talked to him as just another annoying member of his winglet but still so so alive only just then. Winter remembered trying to save her, trying to share the protective core of cold that lay in his chest, breathing ice breath onto the dragonet who was already a corpse.

"-so the research lends itself towards the hypothesis that before the. The. Sc-" Winter's voice faltered, remembering the scorched bodies. "Scorching, there may have already existed some form of inter-species communication. And so-" Winter wet on with his lecture, shooing the unwanted thoughts out of his mind in a hurried way.

It didn't seem as if any of the Jade mountain students noticed his little slip up. Their eyes were, of course, all focused on the guest speakers that every dragonet actually signed up for this lecture to see.

Winter's friends Sky and Wren stood a little bit off to his left. Or rather, Sky stood and Wren sat on his shoulder, as was often the case for the odd SkyWing and scavenger pair.

All the students were looking at Wren with a wrapt fascination, but Wren was looking at Winter. He realized that she must have noticed his little verbal slip up, because she was giving him a curious expression.

The icicle horns all along Winter's spine bristled ever so slightly, which only made her narrow her eyes at him further.

Winter had spent a lot of time with Wren and Sky in the past few years. Almost everyday since they had moved to Sanctuary, actually. The funny thing that he had learned about them over the years was that Wren was much more socially perceptive with dragons than Sky was, and for the most part Sky was much better at reasoning with humans than Wren. She was the "claw first ask questions later" sort of character. Winter figured that it made sense though, considering that the two had grown up with only each other for company. They had learned more about inter-species communication than just the words.

Despite having lived in Sanctuary with Winter for so long, Sky still seemed to be figuring out dragons. He still always asked Winter to come with him when he went to the market place, and Winter always obliged. Sky was friendly to most dragons, in fact seemingly incapable being unfriendly, but being in crowds of dragons made him uncomfortable sometimes, and a few of the times he had gone anywhere alone he always ended up in trouble somehow. Winter probably would've found it annoying if he wasn't also quite a bit concerned about the smaller dragon. He sort of liked being the bigger dragon who could step in and get snappy seal brains to back off if necessary. It certainly felt better than being the dragon who was the snappy seal brain, which he still was sometimes, although not as much as he had been.

Winter couldn't do anything about these students though, as long as Sky insisted on coming with Wren to these lectures. Sky was looking out over the room with that sort of nervous, shy expression he always when the talked to crowds. He seemed to be trying to avoid meeting any one dragonet's eyes, whipping them around wildly. But then his eyes wandered over to Winter, and he noticed the ice dragon looking over at him.

Sky's face lit up instantly, his shoulders relaxing. He shot his huge, sort of silly smile straight at Winter. Like he was an igloo in a blizzard. Sky looked that way at Winter an awful lot, and to be honest it always made him feel a little awkward. The way Sky acted around was like he thought of himself as a seventh circle dragonet admiring a first circle winner. Which always made Winter want to shake him a bit and ask him if he was crazy because Sky was the one who had grown up speaking scavenger! Winter had learned so much from him. About their societies, their language, their sentience. He hadn't even realized Scavengers had any of those things before he met Sky! How could he not act like he was the cooler one in this relationship?

Wren poked sky in the face and said something in their mixed up dragon-scavenger language. Winter wasn't exactly fluent in scavenger yet, but he could make out her saying the word "moony" in dragon.

Whatever it was she had to say, Sky didn't seem to like it, because he gave a startled look before turning his face the other way very quickly.

Which was a shame, because Winter had been about to smile back at him...

Winter may have been raised by dragons himself, but age and experience had lead him to realized that they had been very emotionally stunted dragons. So much of his early years had been spent trying to convince himself that his duty mattered more than his emotions. Or anything at all, for that matter.

He remembered the last time he had spoken with his mother. Before the diamond trial. He remembered the exact way that she had looked at him. He hadn't realized it at the time, but she had known that it would be the last time they spoke together. She had been saying goodbye to her dragonet. He hadn't known because she kept it all inside her head.

When he thought about it with what he knew about dragonets now, he decided that his mother had loved him. He hadn't thought so when he was five. He thought the only explanation for his mother and father casting him aside was that they didn't care about him at all. Hated him, even. And maybe they did. And he had been angry at them for that as a dragonet. But mostly angry at himself. Angry that he couldn't be a better dragonet, someone that they could actually love, like his brother Hailstorm.

But now he didn't think so. Cold anger had melted over the years into a blood deep sense of tragedy when it came to his family. He saw now that his mother had been raised the same way he was. Taught that love didn't matter. Winter had spent his entire life up to now unlearning that noble, IceWing Raising. He wished that he had managed better before his mother died. Pushed down his pride and sent a letter to her as Hailstorm repeatedly suggested.

He was still working on it, though which was why he was always looking for little opportunities. Where he felt in his bones "make a noble expression or you'll lose everything" but he would let himself smile anyway.

He wasn't going to smile at the back of Sky's head though, that would be stupid. So he just faced his audience again.

When he announced that Wren would be answering questions, he got another opportunity.

The little talons shot up in the air so fast that Winter held back a snort of amusement. But then he remembered that he didn't have to and let it out!

It was a little thing, but he felt pretty good about it while he swapped places with Wren and Sky, so that they could stand in the center front of the cave while they answered questions. He stepped back a bit so that they could work with the dragonets alone. It wasn't their first time with a class at Jade Mountain Academy. Sunny was always inviting them to come over and give different kinds of scavenger talks. The tentative understanding that was beginning to grow between the dragons and scavengers (or humans, as they called themselves) in Sanctuary was something that had always interested her.

Although, Winter also thought that it might just be that Sunny would be invested in whatever her former students were doing these days. She always got this very proud look in her eyes when she saw Winter. A sort of, "Oh! he's grown so much!" kind of look. Which was very peculiar because she was just about his same age.

He sort of got it, though. It made sense to him, at least, if he remembered what it had been like to be here as a dragonet. When he was five, all the Jade Mountain teachers had seemed quite a bit older than him, but looking back at it it seemed almost appalling to him that a seven year old SandWing had been teaching his winglet of five year olds their Inter-tribal differences class.

It was a different time back then, Winter reminded himself. Dragonets had to grow up quicker then. IceWings hadn't always been soldiers as soon as they could fly like he had been. The war had killed of enough adult soldiers that it had seemed necessary, but they didn't do that now. Dragonets were so much safer now than they had been when Winter was young.

He still couldn't manage to feel safe in this cave, though. Not this one.

He had always managed to schedule these talks in the outside classrooms, but it had begun to rain just before they started and then Fatespeaker had told them they only had one empty classroom and of course it was the one he had been trying to avoid all this time and he almost said no but all of these dragonets excited about scavengers had been looking at him with big eyes and also Sky had been giving this look like "Winter will know what to do about this" and obviously Winter couldn't bring himself to be the rotting fish in everyone's Walrus right? Not over something so ridiculous.

"What's wrong with you!?"

"Don't go in there."

"She's dead."

... It wasn't silly at all. It was awful. Carnelian and that NightWing... Shame twisted in him, bringing the memory of panic and fear to the surface with it. He had been so horrified of their deaths and he hadn't even really known them and he had been disgusted with himself for being bothered by the death of two dragons outside - against, even- his own tribe. But now he was ashamed of that. That he had let his IceWing societal sensibilities outweigh his horror at another dragon dying in front of him. Like so many threats to his life, the bomb had come with little to no warning at all.

Winter found that his nostrils were flaring, trying to detect any faint trace of smoke. Which was not really necessary at all, of course. No need for that at all.

He shook his head, trying to clear this nonsense out of his brain.

Or wait... maybe a healthy, emotionally adjusted dragon wouldn't call his feelings nonsense.

What else was there to call them, though?

"Post-traumatic stress!" Kinkajou had once exclaimed while pointing at him. Winter had been visiting her and Turtle in their little hut by that river in the rainforest, where they had been setting up that adult RainWing reading school.

Winter had just been reading one of Turtle's latest publishings, a story about Panntala and the legend of the Hive, when he had come across the chapter where the main character realized he had been mind controlled by the very dragon he had been fighting. For some surely very strange reason, reading the chapter had made Winter suddenly and violently ill.

Despite having just yurked up the fishy meal Turtle had so courteously provided for lunch hours before, Winter had done his best to look down at his RainWing friend imperiously. "What in all the stars and scales is that supposed to mean?" He had asked.

Kinkajou blinked at him. "You mean you don't know?"

He frowned impatiently. "Why would I ask if I knew?"

Kinkajou had shrugged. "There's just been a lot of scrolls about it, now that the wars are all over and all."

"I'm not reading a lot these days. In dragon, that is."

"Yeah yeah, sure thing mister scavenger-obsessed."

"Did you know that they call themselves-"

"SHHH!" Kinkajou had interrupted him. "You tell me things I don't know about scavengers ALL THE TIME. Let me tell you something you don't know about dragons."

She had proceded to explain to him that post traumatic stress was a term that, according to Moon, seemed to fall in and out of popularity in medicinal scrolls, depending on the frequency of war in each era. Since RainWing Healers are always trained by word of mouth, they seemed to maintain a vague concept of it even when it wasn't prevalent, and that was where Kinkajou had heard the term first. They had used it to refer to the phenomena where life threatening situations, which for RainWings meant things like dragons who got bit by jaguars, would develop fears, such as fears of jaguars.

But in the case of RainWings who had been imprisoned on the NightWing island like Kinkajou had come back to the rain forest, the term began to regain its original meaning.

Some of those who returned couldn't trust the NightWings at all, even a little bit. Some would have horrific flashbacks where they felt as though they were still on the island, after something had triggered them such as the smell of smoke or the absence of the sun. Others had nightmares that woke them up screaming even during Suntime.

"When it all becomes too debilitating for a dragon to live happily, they call it a disorder." She had said, explaining how the same phenomena was observed in dragons who fought in the war.

Winter thought it was kind of odd for other tribes to have healers that were willing to call something a "disorder" just because a dragon wasn't happy. But then he thought for a moment about how few happy IceWing faces he had seen in his lifetime and he got sad for a moment that he had thought that at all.

"Isn't that kind of normal, though? Having nightmares and bad memories, I mean. It'd be weird not to be scared of life threatening stuff."

"Hmm... Maybe you only say that because... you have it and so it's normal to you?"

He had frowned at her. "No, obviously not. I'm perfectly fine. Getting queasy about mind control when I've... When creepy, evil dragons have... It's just reasonable, my reaction, is what I'm saying. Getting a little queasy at all that. I don't have a disorder."

Kinkajou shrugged again. "I mean, I'm no healer, I've just read some scrolls about it. I think they only say you have the disorder when you can tell that a dragon's entire way of processing fear has been fundamentally changed by past trauma, and it causes a significant decline in their quality of life. So there are some dragons like that, but that doesn't mean that everyone who isn't like that doesn't have trauma either. I mean, I know that I managed to deal with the whole... being abducted by a bunch of smokey lizard brains thing a lot better than some of the other dragons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still affect me. I... You know, I still see some of the NightWings who were guarding our cells around sometimes... And I don't like going near the tunnel to their island if I don't have to... And I get a little queasy when I smell some of the dragons that still have that awful bacteria breath and think of all the gross, decaying meat I had to eat..." She shook her head. "Your trauma can still affect you, shape you and your brain in some ways, and to undo it you have to be able to recognize it and work at trying to make life safer and happier for yourself."

Winter felt something ache in him a little. Kinkajou grew up here, in the rainforest where dragons... Where dragons got to know that it was normal to want things to be safer and happier. Where everyone agreed that safer and happier things were good. Winter had never had that before meeting his friends. He wondered how much happiness he could have had if he had known from the start that he didn't need to jump through circles to earn it.

He had been so angry at himself back then.

He had said to Kinkajou, "I know what you're talking about now. In the Ice Kingdom we... They. They call that going soft."

That's how Winter felt about his thoughts right now. They were entirely too soft and silly for his liking. Thoughts like scooping all these dragonets into his safe, cold wings where no fire could get to him.

But of course there wasn't going to be a fire, he was just being extra ridiculous today.

While Winter had been lost in his head, thinking about a fire he had entirely made up, Sky and Wren had been wrapping up.

Winter heard the distinctive sound of the Jade Mountain "end of class" bell ringing through the tunnel that lead to this cave.

"It's lunch." He declared. A few dragonets ran out of the cave eagerly as soon as the bell rang, but some lingered as if hoping to ask Wren some more questions.

Winter usually would applaud other dragons for interest in scavengers, but Sky was making a face like he would rather not be here anymore, so Winter came over to save him.

"Go eat." He ordered, shooing the dragonets out the door. They obliged, but one gave Winter a sort of haughty look before doing so. He should've found that annoying, but it was hard to take such a little snout so seriously.

Was I really that little once? Winter wondered. Obviously he had been, this cave was so much smaller to him now than it had been when he was a student.

"What's wrong with you?" Winter heard Wren speak in dragon. He assumed Sky was about to answer her, but when he turned around to look at them he realized they were both looking at him.

"Me?" He asked, blinking in surprise.

"Yeah." Wren had one of her little furry eyebrows raised at him. "You keep giving those kids like a tragic, soulful look. Like they're all about to get eaten or something."

"Oh, don't say that, dragons don't eat other dragons." Sky chided her, but he shot Winter a nervous look as if thinking Oh no, what if I'm wrong, that would be awful!

Winter scowled. "No of course not." He said, trying to clearly show his disdain for the idea. "That's not- Nothing's wrong with me at all." Except, wait, was that the emotionally healthy thing to do? "Just remembering a bombing that happened here."

Sky blinked at him. "A bomb-ing?" He sounded out the word.

Oh, yeah. Sky didn't know a lot of war words.

"A bomb is like..." Winter stood up a little straighter. He liked explaining words to Sky. He used to have a lot of trouble not snapping at dragons who asked him obvious questions that were only obvious to him because he had been raised as an IceWing. But Sky hadn't been raised as anything and Winter had gotten used to explaining lots of stuff to him. It made him feel like a kinder, more patient dragon than he really was. He felt that way in general, with Sky. In Winter's family he had always been the weak screw up, and he knew that among his friends he would forever be "the grouchy one" no matter how much they rubbed off on him. Hanging out with Sky... it made him feel different than that. Better, somehow.

Winter squinted his eyes, "I suppose you wouldn't, know much about the dragon flame cactus, would you?"

Sky shook his head.

"It's a cactus that when a dragon lights it on fire, all of the seed pods go flying out with immense force, spreading the fire everywhere. So, it's an explosion. Bombs explode, basically." Winter remembered teaching Sky "explosion" when they went to see that firework show in the Sky Kingdom.

Sky nodded. "Okay, yeah, like the _ at the Indestructible city." He said a scavenger word in there that Winter would have to remember to ask about later.

He just shrugged for now. "Sure," He said. "So, bombing is the noun form of the verb 'bomb.' When you bomb someone you set off a bomb to make it explode on them. So when I say, 'There was a bombing,' I mean, someone blew up the cave."

Wren's eyes widened, but Sky squinted.

"Wait, maybe I'm misunderstanding. The cave is still here, so it couldn't have blown up, right?"

"Yeah." Winter nodded. "The cave didn't blow up, but the stuff in side did. A. A Mud wing was trying to kill my sister, but she got two other dragonets instead." Winter's patient explanation voice broke at the end, when Sky's expression started to get kind of horrified.

Winter looked away quickly, cursing himself. That was definitely over sharing! This was a terrible plan. Winter was absolutely awful at figuring out whether something was emotionally vulnerable or entirely too personal and awful to have a conversation about.

He stopped himself from snapping "Well you asked!" at them.

"Don't worry about it." He said instead. "The school is safe now, that happened when I was five. So like, 25 years ago."

Winter risked a glance back at them.

Sky was frowning as if he did not find what Winter had said at all comforting, and he was about to say something. Winter ducked away from them, heading quickly outside the cave to signal the conversation was over. Wren nudged Sky to follow him.

Ugh, I'm so old now. Winter thought to himself, Worry-warting about all these little dragonets for no reason. He should just stick to worrying about the one dragonet he was supposed to.

"I'm going to go check on Freckle," he announced. "Are you two going to the prey center?"

Sky shook his head right away. "Nope."

Winter tilted his head. "Why not? Dragonets know not to eat scavengers these days, if that's what you're worried about."

Wren frowned at him like it was an insult to think she would've been afraid of getting eaten.

Sky just shook his head again. "No, that's not it." He said. "I just... They let those animals run around sometimes and so I get attached to all the cute little things and then..." Sky trailed off, looking so deeply sad that Winter couldn't mistake what he was saying.

He nodded. "Oh yeah, gotcha."

He was used to Sky's weird vegetarian habits at this point. Winter always told him he'd probably like living in the rain forest, but a lot of the animals and plants there were far more dangerous to Wren than to dragons and Sky wouldn't want to even visit without her with him.

"I'll just meet you at the entrance, then."

"Yeah, okay." Sky smiled at him again.

Winter wondered for a moment what he had done that was so great, but then he remembered that for some dragons smiling was a normal thing to do when you were happy and not just something you secretly do while your son isn't looking just so he can say that he's never actually seen you smile before so he feels like a failure his entire young adult life.

Winter smiled back at him, but then he got worried that his smile was a bit too toothy, so he turned away again, walking quickly over toward the dragonet dormitory caves.

He'd only turned a few corners of the tunnel when a little ball of black and gold scales barrelled into him.

"Uncle Winter!" The little dragonet who had wrapped her wings around his neck exclaimed. "I found you!"

"Hello, little golden scales." Winter rumbled affectionately, folding his wings around her.

Freckle was a wonderful little dragonet who just so happened to be Winter's Goddaughter. Her mother, Moon, had been doing some diplomatic missions in Pantala before Freckle's egg was layed, and after the egg was nested she came down with a sickness that Pyrrhian dragons didn't have the right antibodies for.

Qibli had to take Moon to seek treatment in Pantala, but the egg had already nested, so he asked Winter to take care of it until they returned.

Winter had been so completely sure that he couldn't do it properly, and he almost wasn't able to when one of Qibli's creepy family members came looking for it. But Winter had fought tooth and claw to protect the egg that would become Freckle and he now found himself very attached to this little dragon who called him Uncle.

Moon and Qibli liked to travel occasionally, and since Winter's work basically required him to be in Sanctuary 100% of the time, he was almost always home and free to babysit. He was also one of Freckle's emergency contacts for Jade Mountain Academy, since he lived a good deal closer to the mountain than either of her parents.

Freckle pulled back from him, giving him a delighted look, and Winter knew that he was returning the expression equally without even having to try.

Winter always thought of the moment she had first hatched when he saw her face.

Moon and Qibli had returned from Pantala just in time for the hatching. Qibli was still catching his breath and Winter himself was still covered in dried blood. Moon had been fretting about not having chosen a name ahead of time, and Qibli and Winter were taking turns giving hurried reassurances, but as soon as the first crack in the egg appeared, all of them went silent and still.

A little, black nose cracked through the top of the egg.

Moon gasped.

Is it going to look mostly NightWing, then? Winter had wondered. Like Darkstalker? Will Qibli mind? He better not.

Qibli had looked a little worried, but when Winter asked him about it later he revealed that he had been running through his head all of the millions of horror tales he had heard about hatchings gone wrong.

The nose retreated back into the egg and there was some more wiggling from inside. The nose came out once more with a bigger noise and started snuffling, except... was the nose golden now?

"Two noses?" Qibli had muttered. "Do you think it has two noses? Can it- No, no, it doesn't matter I love it no matter what. Yes, I could have a dragonet with two noses. I-"

Winter nudged Qibli with his wing, half saying "it's okay," half saying, "shut up, wingbeat brain."

Then, the full snout of the dragonet burst through, and the egg fell on it's side, revealing the face of the dragonet wiggling out.

The dragonet looked a lot like Moon, dark scales, straight horns, a sort of gentle face shape, and big grey green eyes. But not all of her scales were black. She had a smattering of gold colored scales all along her snout. As she wobbled out of the egg, she revealed a neck, shoulders, and eventually a whole little hatchling marked with the same distinctive gold scales. They were like-

"Freckles." Qibli said.

Winter made a face. "I was going to say they were like gold coins floating in a puddle of ink. " He said.

Qibli wrinkled his nose at Winter in that amused way of his. "That's a bit too long for a name, fancy scales."

"You want to name her Freckle?" Winter had asked.

"Well, I said Freckles- but wait, actually Freckle is cute, isn't it? It sounds less like a rude nickname and more like a proper name."

"Not a very proper name at all, is it?" Winter had asked. "Don't SandWings name their dragons after... I don't know, desert stuff?"

"Hey, you can find freckles in the desert." Qibli had pointed to the little brown scales scattered across his own face. "And besides, she's half NightWing, and all NightWings have names that are a little 'on the nose.' And Guess what's on this little nose?" Qibli had said this last line to the little hatchling, folding himself around her and Moon, lifting his claw to wiggle it in front of the dragonet's nose.

The baby dragon cooed in delight, and Qibli shot Winter this big grin that was partly "Aren't I so clever?" partly "OH MY GOSH I'M A FATHER" and entirely "I've never been so happy in my entire life."

And Moon was smiling too, in a gentle, tired way.

And before that moment, Winter had been worried about how this would feel. Worried that there was some awful part of him that would pause for a moment and be bitter about this moment of happiness his friends shared. But in that moment, his worries melted away, seeming entirely ridiculous. What would he have to be bitter about? An unrequited crush from when he was five? His friends having a happiness that he was excluded from? None of that really mattered at all to Winter just then. Because all that mattered was that two dragons he loved had just become three dragons he loved and they were so, so happy and that was something he was going to protect with his life if he had to.

The dragonet he embraced with his wings in the present day had grown so much, but she was still so little. Her face still looked a lot like Moon's, but the way her lip quirked upward and her eyes sparkled with mischief was all Qibli.

"Hey..." Came a soft spoken voice.

Winter blinked, looking up to see a small IceWing dragonet standing a few feet away, as if she had been following Freckle.

She looked at the dragonet in Winter's wing accusingly. "You said we were going to the library..."

"Sure we are!" Freckle reassured her, "I just thought I could introduce my uncle on the way! You see? He really is an IceWing! His name is-"

"I know who that is." The IceWing dragonet still spoke quietly, but Freckle didn't try to talk over her. "He's not an IceWing."

Ah. Okay. Her quiet voice had made him think below third circle, but Winter realized he recognized this dragonet.

"What do you-" Freckle stopped mid question as Winter withdrew his wings from his goddaughter and put himself into a low, IceWing bow. Even after all these years he had the form memorized completely.

"Princess Frostbite." He acknowledged.

His cousin's youngest daughter looked startled at the sudden formality, as if Jade Mountain Academy had made her unaccustomed to it.

The common IceWing practice would be for the higher royal to acknowledge to bow to let the other dragon know they could get up, but Frostbite hesitated.

"I-I'm." She took a breath and puffed out her tiny chest. "I'm not supposed to talk to you!" She declared.

"Okay, but you totally just talked to him though." Freckle pointed out.

Frostbite gasped and then clamped over her jaws with her talons, a horrified expression on her face as if her mouth had just betrayed her into committing a great sin.

This poor dragonet, Winter thought to himself. Does she really think just talking to me will get her demoted?

Winter speculated that the little IceWing was ranked in such a way that she was teetering on the unacceptable for her mother. Winter had never been Queen Snowfall's biggest fan, but he had respected her choice to name one of her daughters after the animus who gave the gift of light. Although, having a name that essentially meant "light bringer" to other IceWings had to mean high expectations. Which didn't seem to be working out for this particular dragonet.

Winter's back began to ache a bit, and he decided he cared more about his spine than about royal IceWing tradition at this point.

When he rose, Frostbite balked at him like he had just murdered somebody.

Freckle was looking at him with a furrow in her brow. "You didn't have to do that." She told him. "I know she's a princess, but really, she's just my clawmate here."

"Um. He kind of does have to, though." Frostbite frowned at Freckle. "That's the rules in the Ice Kingdom. If you don't have a rank you have to bow to aristocrats."

"Well, I don't have a rank." Freckle declared, "And I certainly don't have to bow at you."

"Well... I mean, you're not an IceWing, so..."

"I thought you said he wasn't an IceWing either?"

"No, not at all," The little dragonet looked at Winter frightfully. He felt the anger and despair in him somewhere at those words. But time had worn away at those wounds and he certainly wasn't going to bare his teeth at any dragonets about that snow in the water. He tried to not let the hurt show in his face either. "He broke too many rules."

"So if I'm not an IceWing and he's not an IceWing, and I don't have to bow to you, he shouldn't have to either."

"Well, but I mean, you, you're..." Frostbite looked very troubled by this line of questioning.

Freckle persisted, "You don't believe in every rule you've ever been told, do you?"

"Y-yes!" Frostbite insisted frantically, as if she were being tested.

"What do your rules have to say about hybrids, then?"

Winter felt something in him tense.

"W-well... I mean... I know that IceWings aren't technically allowed to have any, but I think you're really-"

Freckle growled at her, "How can you- you-"

"Freckle," Winter pulled up his tail to lay on her shoulders. "Breathe for a moment."

She looked up at him defiantly, and he tried to convey with a look that he agreed with her, but that name calling wasn't going to help.

"I-I usually think you're quite nice." Frostbite told her clawmate.

Freckle snorted. "Well too bad you have to follow the rules, then." She said icily, "I guess you'll just have to go back to thinking I shouldn't exist. Here. I'll make it easier for you."

She stormed past Frostbite back the way the two dragonets had come down the hall, not giving her clawmate a second glance.

Frostbite did look at her, though. The little white dragon watched Freckle go with a completely crestfallen expression. There was some part of him that wanted to snap at her for that. For being so completely crushed and doing nothing about it. Get angry! Fight !back! Or else don't say those things at all, snowflakes for brains. Think for yourself!

A lot of the same things he would've said to his past self, if he could. But he wasn't his past self anymore. He was the adult here and after that blow up he felt like he should have done something sooner to de-escelate.

But Frostbite was still here, maybe he could help her somehow, like he wished someone had helped him. He knew that nothing mean would have worked on him as a dragonet, it would've only made him angrier.

What was something that he had always needed to hear, growing up as an IceWing?

"... You are worthy of love."

Frostbite startled so bad at his words that she almost fell over.

"W-what did you just say?" She looked at him with wide, dark blue eyes.

Witer took that as an invitation to speak.

"When you grow up in the rankings, you learn about conditional love." He put to words what had been stewing in his mind for a long time. "Everything feels like a pass or fail test. If you fail enough times, you feel like you've lost the love of your family, your tribe, everyone, and it's all your fault for the mistake you made."

For all the fuss she had made about talking to him, Frostbite seemed to be listening to his words intently, as if they were telling the story of her life.

"But the kind of love that really makes you happy doesn't rely on a pass/fail system. Friends who love you understand that mistakes aren't instantly disownable offenses. Mistakes are opportunities to learn why you were wrong and be a better dragon the next day." Winter remembered how quick to anger he had been as a dragonet. So many times where he had assumed his limited view of the world should come before any other opinion or point of view. He knew better than to assume that now. "Freckle will forgive you if you manage a sincere apology. Her friendship isn't a test you get only one try to pass."

Frostbite looked very hopeful for a moment, but then wariness crossed her expression.

"I, um. Shouldn't talk to you." She glanced behind her once more, as if to check if Freckle had come back.

She had not.

Frostbite looked resigned, turning her face forward and walking around Winter towards the library.

Winter felt that twinge of annoyance again, a little bit of outrage towards the dragonet who had just argued with his goddaughter. But even though he loved Freckle, he could see that she wasn't perfect all the time. She was an exceptionally clever little dragonet, but she wasn't always compassionate about how to use that cleverness. She had decided that her conversation with Frostbite had become an argument and used her brain to win it, but she hadn't understood Frostbite's whole story like Winter could.

Winter frowned. He hoped she hadn't gotten that temper from him somehow. He always tried to be the best him he could be when he was around her, but sometimes that him still argued with shopkeepers when she was around. And Scavenger nippers... but they were just so obviously in the wrong weren't they?

Maybe this tiff with Frostbite would help Freckle grow in some ways. Her and her clawmate were both so young, and Winter wondered at how much they could still learn from each other.

Winter wondered again at how the Jade Mountain staff always seemed to pick the perfect clawmates. Everyone he knew from Jade Mountain who hadn't died or tried to kill their clawmate because of a war grudge had ended up being best friends with them. Winter himself had ended up friends with basically every dragonet that had been in his winglet. Turtle had made them all these little message tablets that sent instant letters when you wrote on them, and Winter still exchanged messages with Qibli practically every day.

Qibli was one of the dragons who had definitely helped Winter figure himself out the most when they were dragonets. Not that Winter would ever tell him that, that little smug scales.

Things are going to be alright here. He thought to himself.

It was time for him to head home.