Queen Glacier was in a thunderous mood. After ordering the guards to cover the coast she'd continued heading south, towards the Kingdom of Sand to visit an old friend. She did her best to ignore the hurricane of emotions twisting inside of her, instead focusing on each methodical wing beat, and the slow, steady rise of the morning sun.
It didn't take long to reach Jerboa's hut, the familiar dusty brown shape and scattered hunched palms shortly come into focus as she left Icewing territory.
This isn't Icewing territory anymore,
She reminded herself. After 20 long years of occupation, it certainly felt familiar enough to call her own, but after Thorn's ascension to power the Icewings had gained none of the promised land from Blaze.
Glacier hovered above the hut, composing herself before dipping inside. It was hard to tell from this far up, but the sand around the entrance to the ancient building seemed much more disturbed than usual, and most obviously, the large ageing door lay in multiple pieces scattered on the ground a tail length away.
Curious, though Glacier certainly had a guess as to why.
She tucked in her wings, dropping down lightly to the ground. The soft ocean sand sunk beneath her, leaving deep gashes from her ridged claws with every step she took towards the hut. She could see Jerboa sat inside, working away on one of her sculptures. She smiled to herself, after much convincing on her part to find herself a hobby the Sandwing had decided on wood carving, and she'd taken to it quite quickly. She didn't mind having to bring her wood from time to time, as long as Jerboa enjoyed it it was no scales off her back.
The tap of her rings against a fragment of door made Jerboa's ears twitch up, twisting to meet Glacier with a nod, "Your majesty."
Glacier sighed, shaking her head as she ducked as to not knock her head off the door frame.
"Hm? Not in the mood for your usual response?" Jerboa asked, setting down a dragon tongue-shaped tool on her table.
"You already know you don't have to call me that, you have no need to be reminded every visit."
"But I like calling you that," Jerboa said innocently, "and besides, I think you like it when I call you that too."
Glacier scoffed, "Right well, if that's your opinion."
"I still remember how excited you were after the challenge with your mother, you certainly enjoyed it then."
"That was how long ago exactly? And no, for the record, I absolutely did not enjoy it then, or in fact, ever."
Jerboa sighed, smiling weakly, "Alright, that's enough pushing your buttons for one visit." Her warm wing nudged against Glacier's, "How have you been?"
"Fine." Glacier said quickly, forcing back everything else she wanted to say. Jerboa gave her a look, a look of "If I talk to you long enough you're going to end up telling me anyway, why not just say it now?" She cleared her throat, gesturing to the doorframe, "I take it you had a bit of an incident?"
"Ah, yes that." Jerboa frowned, "It's going to be quite the pain to fix, not that I have much better to do mind you."
"That Nightwing-"
"It was an accident." Jerboa interrupted, holding up her talons. "I'm sure she didn't mean it." After a moment of pause she added, "Did you end up finding her? Just out of curiosity."
Glacier growled, her spikes puffing out in anger. "Oh, we found her."
Jerboa waited a minute, and realising the Icewing wasn't going to elaborate she prompted, "And when you found her, what? Did you capture her?"
"Not quite." Glacier forced out, "I'm sure we will soon, and if we don't… well either way she's not going to be an issue anymore."
Jerboa's tail flicked, leaving a clean trail through the thin layer of sand that had swept through the open doorway. "I think I have to hear the whole story."
"Perhaps," Glacier replied, drumming her claws on the desk as she searched for the best way to describe what had occurred. "We found her by the coast. There was, well I'm not sure how to describe it, but something was wrong with her."
"Wrong? In what way?"
"I'm not sure, fainting doesn't feel right, but I'm not sure how else to describe it. That's how we located her in the first place, she cried out with pain after collapsing."
"That sounds like fainting to me."
"Well yes, but she'd only be unconscious for a second or so, coming too almost instantly after falling." Glacier glanced sideways and added, "And every time she did her snout would start bleeding, lightly at first, but by the end of it it looked like she'd been punched in the jaw."
Jerboa tapped her chin with a claw, "Did you see her writing in the scroll while this was happening?"
"No," Glacier arched an eye-ridge, "Why?"
Jerboa shifted her wings, "Nothing. What happened after that?"
"We lost her." Glacier growled, "She turned and flew straight out to sea, which means we'll catch her when she comes back, or she'll drown, either which are acceptable options."
The Sandwing stared at her, tilting her head to the side as if trying to see Glacier from a new angle, "You can't seriously mean that."
"Of course I do." Glacier's expression hardened, the shield she normally let down around Jerboa creeping back up, "Who knows what she could have done with magic like that if left unchecked? You saw that scroll yourself, didn't you? It was her fault anyway, she made the decision to steal the artefact, she can live with the consequences."
Jerboa paused again, it was hard to tell from her usual impassive expression but she looked genuinely sad. Glacier had to bite her tongue to stop herself from scoffing.
She might've fallen for the Nightwing's ruse, but I won't be so foolish.
"She's just a dragonet." Jerboa held out her talons, "She didn't have bad intentions."
"A Nightwing dragonet." Glacier stressed, "I have no reason to believe she isn't like the rest of them." That wasn't entirely true, this was the dragoness who had assisted in rescuing her nephew, but she told herself that wasn't relevant.
Jerboa shook her head, "I can't imagine she used that scroll to hurt your tribe."
Glacier squinted at her, watching the Sandwing's expression, "You think she used it?"
Another long pause, though this one answered her question even clearer than a true response.
"You mentioned her snout started bleeding," Jerboa started slowly, "From my experience, I know that overuse of magic over a short timeframe can cause nosebleeds or other temporary physical ailments."
Before she'd even finished Glacier was standing, not a trace of her stoic expression remaining. "You're sure? What do you think she used it for?"
She could've done anything with magic like that! Did she enchant herself to be able to breathe underwater, so she'd survive the storm? Or she could've made herself invisible to sneak past my guards and get to the mainland. What else is she planning? What was she doing before? Was she trying to free Darkstalker after all? Should I-
"Glacier!" She hadn't noticed Jerboa getting so close. Her talons were pressed to both sides of Glacier's head, warm, black eyes locked with her pale blue. Glacier frowned, this felt incredibly infantilising, but she didn't try to pull away. "You're here, in my hut. You are safe. Your kingdom is safe. The world is not ending."
Glacier could feel Jerboa's warm heartbeat pulsing in her talons, along with the thrum of magic. She didn't answer, just staring into her eyes.
Jerboa sighed, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up, I know how upset it makes you. If she wasn't writing in it it's more than likely it had nothing to do with the scroll. I won't mention anything about her again."
"No," Glacier forced out, making the Sandwing's eyes widen a fraction in surprise, "You're right, I'm being paranoid. I know what animus magic feels like, and I couldn't sense anything close to it emanating from her. You don't have to apologise."
Jerboa closed her eyes, humming a low, amused note, "I know, I just didn't want to be the one to say it."
Glacier chuckled, "How have I put up with you all these years?"
"I think conversations like these are good for you, even if you don't enjoy them. Just to make sure that very precariously balanced had of yours doesn't come loose."
Glacier had to admit, at least partially, that was true. Ever since she'd become Queen actual criticism directed towards her had been a rare find, and whenever she did get any it was dressed up in complements and apologies for daring to be insolent enough to correct her. Jerboa had no love for court politics however, and while she'd never be insulting about it, she wouldn't hesitate to tell Glacier she believed she was in the wrong.
"I do enjoy these conversations, even if you occasionally do insist on annoying me the entire time."
"I think I'd rather see you annoyed than insane."
"As would I."
As it turned out, sand was quite possibly the most aggravating substance Moon had ever come into contact with. Sure it was soft, and under the water it was much nicer to stand on than mud or clay, but that was where its list of positive attributes ended. It stuck to everything. No matter how long she spent scrubbing every last rough, coarse grain from her scales more managed to sneak in, between her claws, behind her ears, and underneath every single impossible to reach spine. That wasn't the issues she was having with it though.
She'd managed to catch herself some kind of ocean bird. It had taken a while, hunting in an unfamiliar environment, where all of the birds seemed able to dive below the ocean's surface to evade her claws, so she was particularly eager to eat it once she did catch it. She'd brought it down to the island she'd found the previous night, and no sooner had she bitten into it when she heard the sharp crunch of stone between her teeth.
She'd washed out the bird's feathers to the best of her ability, but she'd still found stubborn grains burrowed away with every bite. The sand was inside her mouth now and would not leave until it was swallowed or spent the next million years tucked away between her teeth.
She'd considered washing her mouth out, but every time she waded into the water, a cloud of fresh silt sprayed up, making the effort a fruitless endeavour.
She choked down the meat, determinately ignoring the rough texture even as she got to the unpleasant business of draining as much blood from the pile of feathers in her talons. She wouldn't have normally done that, but she needed water, and some unconscious part of her knew drinking from the ocean would do her no good. She ran her tongue over her abused teeth when she'd finished. Aside from the occasional speck of sand she picked out, they felt fine.
She stood, shaking a spray of loose sand from her wings in the same movement, and began pacing, taking a moment to reflect on her current situation.
She was completely isolated, in the middle of the ocean. By some miracle she'd found her way here, to an archipelago of islands that stretched almost 100 winglenghs long and barely one dragonlenght wide. She'd considered turning around more times than she could count on her journey here, but flight against the storm wasn't really an option she could consider then. She could do it now though, reverse course, head to the mainland to whatever awaited her back home. Even pitching it to herself made it sound a sour deal. She wasn't going back, but she wasn't overly sure how she was supposed to move forward either.
Throwing herself straight out across the water again in hopes she'd find somewhere to land before tiring sounded like a great way to get herself killed, but she had no ideas for what else she was supposed to do. She stared out across the water, at the glimmering reflections and far off waves, an impassable wall between her and her destination. Maybe if she were someone more resourceful she'd've come up with a plan to ferry herself across. Or maybe, were she a more capable seer she'd use her powers to find some path across the waves. And maybe, had she any sense at all, the plan that came to her next wouldn't have sprung into her mind.
I do have something that would let me get across
It felt completely ridiculous to consider. Her? Using animus magic? She wouldn't even know where to start. Yet as the night dragged on Moon was beginning to feel as though she had no other options.
At around midnight she stopped her pacing. She curled up on the centre of the island, a small patch of desperate, yellowing, grass that felt as though it might turn to dust if she breathed on it the wrong way. Slowly, carefully, she dragged the scroll out, the unnerving black case shining in the moonlight, as though it could sense its imminent use.
She unravelled it, the thick off-white parchment unnaturally clean and unworn for its age. She laid it on the grass, rereading a talonful of the oldest enchantments.
A blanket that always kept the user at the perfect temperature, a toy enchanted to return to its owners sleeping shelf each night, a dinner plate enchanted to always keep the food placed on it warm. It was almost enough to make her heart break thinking about the dragon he once was, before being corrupted by power. She tried not to think about that, she'd seen enough times in her nightmares what would happen if she freed him, it simply wasn't an option.
Her eyes moved down the page, carefully avoiding reading the sporadically written enchantments this far down. Something from one of her visions was bugging her though, so she scanned the neat, perfectly spaced lines nearer the top when squashed between two benign enchantments she found,
"Enchant this scroll case so should any pure Icewing touch it with the intent to take or make use of it, they shall die, a slow, painful death."
Moon shivered, that was the version of him she needed to remember, not the charming, sugarcoated image he tried to present to her.
She folded over that section, leaving only a handful of newer writing and the blank sheet where several small pieces had been torn out. Moon was almost impressed that chameleon had been able to rip something so thick, until farther up she read in clumsy, childlike handwriting,
"Enchant this stupid thing to be tearable"
She almost laughed despite herself, imagining the Rainwing's frustration as he tugged uselessly at the fibres.
She realised she was trying to distract herself from the task at hand and shook her head. She stared down at the empty parchment, a knot of worry welling up in her chest.
What enchantment am I even supposed to use? Is this a terrible idea? How specific do I need to be? Or what if something goes wrong that I wasn't considering, like what if I enchanted myself to suddenly appear at wherever I've seen in my visions, and the displacement of all that air so suddenly causes an explosion that kills me instantly? Is there rules to what animus magic can do, are things like that unimportant because it's magic?
There was one immediate obstacle to writing an enchantment, she didn't have any ink. Remedying that problem seemed like a much more productive use of her time than sitting here worrying her tail off, so she set to that.
She swept up into the air for the second time that night, the warm ocean air currents carrying her substantially higher than the bitterly cold winds of the Ice border. With some practice hunting didn't take nearly as long, and after a couple of missed attempts, Moon landed back on the island with a slight, white seabird in her talons.
She placed it down softly next to the scroll, plucking off one of its wing feathers and worrying it between her claws as she thought.
Am I really about to do this? Actually use his scroll? I don't suppose I have any other options, but what if he somehow knows?
The very idea of it felt wrong to deep to her bones, utilising something he'd created and abused to the point the entire tribe had abandoned their kingdom and fled. She dropped the mussed feather, its unevenly clumped barbs making it spin unsteadily to the grass.
What enchantment am I supposed to use, or what am I supposed to enchant? I suppose I have this scroll case, but if I enchant that it'll be as good as permanent, so it can't be something too extreme.
Words further up the page caught her eye, the enchantment he'd made to make himself invincible.
I could enchant myself, couldn't I? Well then it'd actually be permanent, unless… could I include in the spell that it wears off?
She wanted to test her theory, to put some inconsequential enchantment on her feather as a test, but she stopped herself. She knew well enough what animus magic could do to the soul, and one enchantment was more than enough on its own. She flicked her tail, a solution piecing together in her mind.
Alright, I guess it's now or never.
She sliced open the birds breast, so the tip of her claw had a thin layer of blood covering it. It felt exceedingly morbid, writing her first and only enchantment in blood, even if it did just come from an animal. Still, her only other option was her own blood, and since she wasn't overly keen on using that, this was her choice.
As she moved her claw to the page, that familiar sinking, awful feeling pooled in her stomach. She hesitated, waiting a moment to see if it would pass.
This is a mistake, isn't it.
The feeling didn't answer, it was just a feeling after all. She shook her head as if to knock loose her doubts
What else am I supposed to do, return home, get caught, and have any number of the terrible things I've seen in my visions come to fruition?
Once again, no answer.
With a determined push she lowered her shaking claw, scrawling,
"Enchant Moonwatcher of the Nightwings to reach the destination she's seen in her visions while finding islands to rest on each day and without coming to harm. This enchantment shall wear off as soon as she touches the ground of wherever she's seen. The feather next to her shall become green, and remain that way until the enchantment is inactive."
She'd had to go back for ink every few seconds while writing it out, making for a tedious task, and finally it was done. She wiped her claw in the dry grass, waiting for anything to happen.
She certainly felt the same, so when she turned her neck she was somewhat surprised to see the feather had turned a bright, lime green, somewhat like how Jambu had described Chameleon looking. Part of her had believed the enchantment wouldn't work, that somehow he had made it so only he could use it properly, and this would all be for nothing.
She stood up, folding away the stroll and sticking the feather inside with it. There was no way she could know for certain if the enchantment had worked-
Well, I suppose there is, I could enchant the scroll to tell me, or to give myself better future vision so I could see if I make it, or-
She clamped down on that train of thought immediately. This was the one enchantment she was ever going to make. She didn't like the idea of constantly using magic anyway, what did she need it for during her day to day? It might make things easier, but they were fine the way they were.
Yes, this was the one and only time I'm ever going to use the scroll.
And what could be so bad about one little enchantment?