Torrent took his claws and rammed them against Crystal's throat, pushing her head away, and her mouth away from his direction, defusing the threat of frostbreath. He pinned her head to the ground, with his paw on her neck. Her scales scraped against the coarse dirt. They felt cold to the touch, like the frozen kingdom in which the IceWings lived.

"What is an IceWing doing in the Sky Kingdom?" Torrent interrogated, growling.

"What's a SeaWing doing in the Sky Kingdom?" she snapped back.

By this time, Schist and Griffin had heard the commotion. The two hurried over to see Torrent pinning Crystal down. "Are you alright?" Griffin asked Torrent. "What's an IceWing doing here?"

Crystal glanced over at the newcomers. A MudWing, and some weird feathery pet thing. "What's a . . . you know, nevermind," she grumbled. "Let me go."

"No!" Torrent exclaimed. "You just tried to breath your freezing death breath on me!"

"You're the one who attacked me," Crystal hissed. "Now get off me, your breath smells like rotten fish."

"No. Tell me what you're doing here," Torrent ordered. Schist approached her cautiously. He hadn't ever seen an IceWing before, and was curious.

"I'm just passing through," she muttered. "I'm trying to get out of SkyWing territory. Happy?"

Torrent thought for a moment. The SkyWings were the SeaWings' enemies; if she was an IceWing spy, he didn't need to interfere.

"Maybe you should let her go?" Griffin suggested. "I mean, it's not like we can just take her with us."
"Yes!" Crystal exclaimed. "Listen to the talking bird."

"Maybe," Torrent said, "but she could come back and kill us in the middle of the night." She's already tried to kill me once, what if she does it again?

"What?" Crystal snorted. "Why would I do that? So I can see your ugly snout again?"

"Quiet. Better safe than sorry. We can keep her with us for the night, and we'll decide what happens to her in the morning."

Crystal gave Torrent a cold stare. Griffin rolled his eyes a little. Schist walked back over to Griffin, and frowned. It didn't seem like anyone else agreed with Torrent.

"I'll take first watch," Torrent commanded. "Schist, get me some rope to tie her up with."

Schist sighed, and did as Torrent asked, trotting over to one of their leather packs. A few seconds later, he returned with the rope Torrent had asked for. Torrent took it from him, and with Griffin's grudging help, tied Crystal to a tree, her wings uncomfortably crammed against its bark.

"You know, I could just yell and keep you all awake the entire night," Crystal pointed out in irritation.

Torrent looked at her with a skeptical look on his face. "Maybe I'll tie your snout up too," he muttered. "That way there's no risk of you using your frostbreath on us either."

"Alright, alright," the young IceWing conceded. "I'll be quiet, and no frostbreath, and my mouth stays open, okay?"

Torrent hesitated for a moment. It would certainly be safer if he tied her snout up. Griffin looked at Torrent, giving him a glance of disappointment. "Fine," Torrent agreed. "You can keep your snout open."

Schist and Griffin went to their respective sleeping areas, while Torrent stood, staring at Crystal silently. What is she doing here? he wondered. Maybe she's the animus I'm looking for?

He pulled out his map, and laid it on the ground, rolling it out. He brushed the dirt off the edges and pointed a claw to where he believed his group was at the moment. The animus marker was still where it was, far north and slightly to the east of his location. This IceWing was not an animus.

"What's that?" Crystal asked, making Torrent jump out his scales for a second.

He quickly spread his claws over the map, making sure Crystal couldn't see it. "None of your business," the SeaWing bitterly hissed.

Crystal squirmed in discomfort. "You know, I could see your map for like, a few seconds, right? There's a bunch of colored blotches on it. One of them is in the Sky Kingdom. What are they?"

"Shut up," Torrent snarled, "I told you I'd bind your snout."

Crystal glared at Torrent. What's his problem? she wondered. He looked to be the size of an adult, but he had the voice of an adolescent dragonet. Her age, maybe. Slightly younger. She couldn't see that well in the dark of the night. If she hadn't been caught by surprise, she probably could have fought him off.

For the next couple hours, Crystal consigned herself to rest. The SeaWing didn't want to talk to her, and the few times she attempted to strike up a conversation, purely out of sheer boredom, he refused to talk. Eventually, she fell into a sleep, although the discomfort of her bindings and being held upright made it shallow. She was constantly nudged in and out of a dreamstate, flooded by the images of burning SeaWings and NightWings with cats crawling out of their mouths.

After a while, Crystal woke up to movement. The SeaWing had gotten up while she was gone, and the MudWing had replaced him. He was fidgeting with the sticks on the ground, making shapes and patterns with them.

"Hey," Crystal said, alerting him to her awakeness. "You there?"

Schist nodded cheerfully, glad she had answered. She wasn't exactly sure how long he had been sitting there with nothing to do but watch her sleep and play with sticks. "Do you have a name?" Crystal asked him. "I'm Crystal, by the way."

"Schist," the young MudWing replied. He looked at Crystal's tail, seemingly fascinated with the long spikes on the end.

Seeing this, Crystal shook the end around. It might do well to befriend one of them, and this one looked kind enough. "They're tail spikes," she gently explained. "All IceWings have them."
Schist looked over at his own tail. "Are they uncomfortable?" he asked compassionately. "They look like they'd weigh your tail down, or dirt could be caught between them."

Crystal laughed. "They're not too much of a bother, though I might've just gotten used to them. I used to poke myself with them when I was a young dragonet, but they're pretty tame now."

Schist smiled and shook his thick scaled tail, probably wondering what having tail spikes would feel like himself. "So, how did you end up here?" he asked. "In the Sky Kingdom, I mean."
"Is this an interrogation?" Crystal snorted with a chuckle. "Just joking. Queen Glacier decided she didn't want me anymore, so I left." She wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell this dragon. What if he wanted to turn her in for a bounty or something? Had Queen Glacier put a bounty on her? Probably, Glacier would gleefully murder her own daughter to get what Crystal had taken from her. Not like that was saying much, Princess (or was it Ex-Princess now?) Blackice was literally the worst dragon Crystal had ever met, and her permanent banishment to the frigid islands far north was far from a mistake.

"Ah," Schist replied, understanding what Crystal meant. If a queen didn't want you anymore, that was a very serious thing. "I guess I'm kind of on the run here, though not really. I'd be drafted into the army if I was found by Queen Moorhen. Torrent is on the run too, he's got a bounty on his head." Schist suddenly worried he might be giving the IceWing a bad idea. "Well, all of him, not just his head. He's wanted alive."

Crystal tilted her head upwards, thinking about this. Was Torrent the SeaWing? Probably, Torrent didn't sound like a gryphon name, if that's what the bird thing was. Although Crystal wasn't exactly sure what gryphon names were. Talon, maybe? She remembered reading a scroll about a gryphon named Talon when she was younger. Schist really needed to learn how to hold his tongue better, telling Crystal all that information could be dangerous. If she was a pinch for some gold, turning the SeaWing in could help. She didn't need money though, she needed to get rid of the Darkstone somehow, to make sure no one could ever use it.

"Neat," Crystal acknowledged, "so what are you doing with a SeaWing and a gryphon? Do those even exist?"

"I think they exist," Schist replied, "he was made by animus magic I think." Animus magic? Crystal wondered. Did animus dragons still exist? She thought back to the Darkstone she was wearing. Animus dragons were certainly dangerous, which was why she needed to make sure this . . . weapon was secure as soon as possible. Yet, if the SeaWings had an animus, what if they used it against the IceWings? Maybe stealing the Darkstone wasn't such a good idea after all, Crystal thought. It would certainly prove useful if the SeaWings decided to use magic. Had she betrayed her tribe, only to doom them?

"I'm with them cause I want to go on an adventure," Schist continued, "they helped save me and my town a while back, and I'm here to help them. I miss my sister though. I'm a little worried about her. What if she gets hurt? What if I get hurt, and I never see her again?"

Help them with what? Crystal wondered. She didn't want to pry too much though. That would only make Schist more tight-jawed, which could be unfortunate for finding out what these dragons were doing here, and how best she could escape them, especially if they decided to kill her. "I have a sister too," Crystal sympathized, trying to win Schist over to her side, "she's back in the Ice Kingdom, and I'm worried for her also. Short of a miracle, I doubt I'll ever see her again. Queen Glacier would kill me if I set one wing north of the desert."

"Oh," Schist said. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your problem," Crystal shrugged, her wings rubbing against the rope, "most dragons have it worse than me, cause of the war and all."

"Yeah," Schist feigned. He really had no idea. He had never been out of Adobe's city and he'd only been told about the war from the few unfortunate dragons who had wandered inside accidentally, like Grizzly. He wondered how Grizzly was doing; had he found his sibs yet?

"Well," Crystal yawned, "I'm going to get some shut-eye now, nice talking to you."

Schist nodded, and went back to playing with his twigs and sticks. Crystal continued falling in and out of her dreams, until once again, she had noticed that the dragon watching her had shifted: it wasn't a dragon at all now.

"Good morning," Crystal smiled drowsily.

Griffin attempted to make a smile with his beak. "Still a bit early for that," he informed her, "around an hour or two until sunrise."

Crystal bobbed her head. Hopefully they'd let her out of these ropes, but if not, she was prepared to fight. "So," she questioned, "what exactly are you? If you don't mind me asking. Schist said something about animus magic?"

Griffin fidgeted back and forth. "Er, yeah, I was enchanted to life. I'm a gryphon though."

Crystal continued nodding, as if she was somehow approving him. "Don't worry, it's not too surprising," she assured Griffin, although it sounded a bit like she was assuring herself of that, "we've got plenty of magic in the Ice Kingdom, though I've never seen anythi — anyone like you. It's old magic, of course, but it works. Do you have a name? I'm Crystal."

"Griffin," Griffin answered.

"Griffin?" Crystal skeptically asked. "As in, you're a gryphon, and your name is also Griffin? Who came up with that idea?"

"Torrent," Griffin replied, frowning a little, "he's the SeaWing."

"Alright, that's cool. Nice. Easy to remember." Crystal didn't particularly want to offend the gryphon or the SeaWing. "So, what are you doing in the Sky Kingdom? Last time I checked, there weren't any gryphons here."

Griffin paused for a moment, wondering how much he should tell Crystal.

"I can go first," Crystal suggested, hoping to make Griffin a bit more friendly towards her. "I stole some of Queen Glacier's treasure," she explained. It wasn't technically a lie. "Obviously she didn't take kindly to that, so I flew off."

"So you're a thief?" Griffin asked, frowning.

"No, no!" Crystal protested. "Well, sort of, but that's not why I did it. She stole it from my sister a few years ago, so I decided to take it back." That was definitely a lie, though Griffin didn't seem to notice. "I decided to go to a small town on the east SkyWing coast, founded by my brother-in-law, Fracture, but when I got there it was completely destroyed."

"Fracture?" Griffin asked in confusion. "Is that, like, a common IceWing name or something?"

"Why?" Crystal wondered, intrigued. Do they know Fracture somehow? "Did you meet him? He's got white scales with a greenish tint and an eyepatch. He's really, really nice to everyone, but he's a bit weird. Like, crazy uncle weird."

"I don't have an uncle," Griffin mentioned, "but yeah, that's him. I met him after I left the Sea Kingdom; I tagged along with him for a bit, and he helped me find Torrent again." A dark thought crossed Griffin's mind. "Wait, is he dead?" he asked. "You mentioned that the town was destroyed . . ."

"Fracture? No, not that I know of. Some weird NightWing said Fracture was still alive and kicking, though I'm not much for trusting NightWings." She suddenly remembered what her goal here was, and talking about her brother-in-law was not it. "Oh yeah, so it's your turn to tell me what you're doing in the Sky Kingdom."

"Well, there's an animus up in the northeast corner of it," Griffin explained.

The SkyWings have an animus too? Crystal thought. All these years of Queen Glacier working day and night to get animus magic back in the royal family, and these dragons had just happened upon two? She almost laughed, thinking about what Queen Glacier's expression would look like if she heard about this. It was ironic. "And you want to ask this animus to enchant something for you?" Crystal guessed.

Griffin shook his head. "No, no, I think we're planning on killing it."
"That seems like a bad idea," Crystal snorted skeptically, "last time I checked, animus dragons have magic."

Griffin nodded. "Well, sure, but Torrent's got a way to take care of that. He's got this magical dagger thing which destroys animus magic. It's a bit frightening, if you ask me."

"Since you're enchanted yourself?" Crystal inferred. "Yeah, I can see why that might be worrisome." She thought back to the Darkstone draped around her neck. If the SeaWing can destroy animus magic, maybe he can destroy it! Maybe . . .

Griffin looked at Crystal, thinking. "You know, I could just let you go right now, if you'd like. Torrent is just a bit paranoid, he really shouldn't have tied you up."

Crystal pushed against her bonds, trying to stretch her wings. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd mind me joining you. I really didn't have any plans, and don't have anywhere to go. I can fight, not as good as my sister, but good enough." And if I can get near enough to that dagger to try destroying the Darkstone, this whole thing might be over!

Griffin opened his beak in surprise. "Do you want to?" he asked. "I don't really have a problem with it, any friend of Fracture's is a friend of mine, but I don't know how Torrent would feel. Nor Schist for that matter."

"Oh, I talked to Schist earlier, I'm sure he'd be happy," Crystal smiled. This whole 'making friends' thing was really paying off.

"Alright!" Griffin supposed. "I'll talk to Torrent about it in the morning."

"One last thing," Crystal suggested, "do you mind getting me out of these ropes?"