Winter couldn't sleep.
It had been a while since he'd been– well, emotionally stable.
He just kept thinking of Moon, and Qibli, and his parents, and how he'd failed them all.
How he'd always failed– failed, failed.
(There was never any victory, or peace, for him.)
(Not his family, not Jade Mountain, nowhere.)
(Not even here, in Sanctuary, where he occupied his days researching scavengers, was peace found. Sanctuary itself was a painful reminder– a painful reminder he'd driven his friends away, that he wasn't accepted anymore.)
(That he was an outcast.)
He sighed, getting up, walking to the window.
"The moon glows softly tonight, my dear," he murmured.
(Winter found the phrase sad, wistful, in a graceful way, like the longing for a place forever out of reach.)
"Oh, and how the stars dance," he whispered.
Walking out of his hut and to the large lake he'd found, nestled in the mountains, Winter plunged into the cold water, and begun to swim.
It helped him forget about his troubles.
Once his muscles burned and ached to stop, Winter emerged from the water, gazing at the snow-capped peaks of the Claws of the Clouds, the moonlight giving them a silvery outline.
(It was beautiful.)
Winter found himself just thinking. His mind had never been one for the artistic, but he found himself working through phrases.
"And how beautiful they all are, singing out a harmony of perfection as they paint the earth in light!"
He didn't know how long he sat there, in a mystical spot within the mountains, watching the moon glow and the stars dance, until the sun came up and illuminated the peaks in soft light, sky burning orange.
But he smiled, for the first time in so long. A true, genuine smile, one that made him feel at peace.
(One that made him feel… well, not happy. But one that let him take a break from feeling horrible.)
Hi! This is a pilot and I have no plan. Also, I haven't read Darkness of Dragons ;)