"Torrent, wake up!" Griffin excitedly trilled, jumping up and down. "It's already past dawn!"
Torrent slowly rolled over to see three sets of eyes perched over him. Griffin, Schist, and . . . the IceWing.
Torrent suddenly leaped to his paws, threateningly whisking his tail back and forth. "What is she doing free?" he snarled.
"Relax," Crystal snorted, irritated.
"She's going to join us in our quest!" Griffin replied.
Quest? Torrent wondered. When did this become a quest? "What do you mean? We can't just willy-nilly invite IceWings to join us!"
"Crystal is nice," Griffin explained. "I met her brother-in-law while you were with Moorhen, and she wants to come with us. Schist agrees with me!" After a quick glance of hesitation, Schist bobbed his head up and down, endorsing Griffin's claim.
Nice? Crystal wondered in surprise. No one has called me nice before. "Don't worry, fishsticks." Crystal assured Torrent, "I'm quiet, it'll be like I'm not even there."
"No!" Torrent refused. "We don't know her, she could be dangerous, or out to get us or something!"
Griffin looked at Torrent and rolled his eyes. "Literally no dragons are out to 'get' us, unless you mean Gill, and he hardly counts. Crystal's also a runaway! She's escaping from Queen Glacier, you're trying to stay hidden from Queen Coral and Queen Moorhen. And Queen Scarlet too, now that I think about it. Queen Scarlet might actually be out to get us, I've heard she doesn't like trespassers."
"I can help you through the Sky Kingdom," Crystal pointed out, "I know a safe passage through. You'll probably run into a guard outpost or something otherwise."
Torrent glared at Griffin with a steely glaze. First Schist, and now this random IceWing? He gritted his teeth. Yet, if Crystal did know a way through the Sky Kingdom, she would be an invaluable asset. He glanced over at Schist. He didn't want him to end up in Scarlet's arena.
"Fine," Torrent conceded with a growl, "she can travel with us for now. But if she tries anything . . ." The SeaWing left the threat unsaid, and Crystal narrowed her gaze.
Torrent thought he could kill her if things came to it. He had killed Adobe justly, hadn't he? If Crystal betrayed them, she would have to be executed, too. It was what was done to traitors in the Sea Kingdom. Harsh, maybe, but just.
"I'm trustworthy, if that's what you're wanting," Crystal blurted out. Crystal nervously swallowed the lie. She knew it was far from the truth: she had betrayed her patron, her queen, and her kingdom. She wasn't deserving of trust, or respect. Sure, she had done her deeds for the good of all dragonkind, but that didn't make it any better. Allowing Queen Glacier to win the war using the Darkstone might condemn the MudWings to death, but it would save many IceWing lives: the dragons Crystal had grown, played, and learned with as a dragonet.
"Get packed," Torrent ordered Griffin and Schist. "We leave as soon as possible. I don't want to stay in the Sky Kingdom much longer, it's dangerous."
Griffin and Schist gathered the few materials they had out, and packed them away. When they were done, Torrent turned to Crystal. "Well?" he asked. "You say you know how to get through the Sky Kingdom, tell us the way." He pulled out his map, and pointed to their destination on it.
Crystal nodded nervously. She actually had no idea how to get to where they were going safely, at least all the way there. The map Avalanche had given her went a bit further up the coast from here to the destroyed village, but Crystal wasn't sure what lied beyond. She would just roll with it and hope for the best.
"We go north of here, avoiding the peninsula," Crystal replied. This much she knew from her map. "We'll continue along the coast from there."
Torrent spread his wings, almost knocking them into Crystal. She glared and took a step back as the SeaWing flapped them, taking off. Griffin and Schist followed shortly after, with their feathered and leathery wings respectively. Crystal continued after them, glancing behind to make sure they was as little trace as possible they'd camped there overnight.
The four flew to the north for quite some time, Crystal in the front, and the other three lagging behind her. Crystal followed the map Avalanche had given her, but it wasn't too long before she saw the smoldering ruins of the village in the distance. She decided it would be best to steer clear of it: she didn't want Griffin realizing that the village wasn't that far into the Sky Kingdom, and that NightWing she had met, Trustbreaker, could still be in the remains of the town.
After they passed the remains, Crystal started to get a bit more nervous. The war between the SkyWings and SeaWings had primarily taken place on the border between the MudWings and SkyWings, but that was no assurance there'd be no guards patrolling the coast. Every beat of her wings in the Sky Kingdom was treacherous.
The four continued flying over the Sky Kingdom's coast, with the expanse of ocean to their right, and the mountains to their left. Trees rose tall, but were only tiny twigs to the dragons far above. The wind swept under the four's wings until they were sore.
Schist picked up his pace a little, and caught up to Crystal. He looked a bit out of breath. He said something to Crystal, but the words were lost in the rushing wind, grinding against Crystal's ears.
"WHAT?" Crystal asked, almost yelling. "Speak up, I can't hear you!"
"Does the Ice Kingdom look like this?" Schist asked, a bit louder this time, although Crystal still had to strain her ears to make out the words.
"A bit," Crystal called back. "But only in the south, and in the winter all the trees would be completely blanketed in snow." The south of the Ice Kingdom was primarily where the lowest-circled dragons resided, but Crystal had spent much more time there than most IceWings of her rank, due to her apprenticeship with Boreal. That's where the mines were, at least the legal ones. After Queen Oasis' death, most of the IceWing mines had been moved further south, encroaching on SandWing territory, although Princess Blaze was readily willing to turn a blind eye to it in exchange for Glacier's allyship.
"What about the rest of the Ice Kingdom?" Schist asked curiously. "Is it really as cold as they say it is?"
"Oh, yeah, it's frigid to any of the other tribes," Crystal explained. "There are two primary areas of the rest of the Ice Kingdom: there's a huge expanse of flat land in the middle, which is mainly just covered in ice and snow for most of the year, and there's the mountains on the north-east coast, where most of us live. That part is cold and snowy most of the time too."
"Sounds fun!" Schist replied. Crystal thought he was being sarcastic at first, but then realized that his tone was completely serious: the Ice Kingdom was his idea of fun. "So, can I visit some time?"
"No," Crystal laughed, the idea completely absurd, "that's an awful idea! Even if you didn't die of cold, and weren't captured by IceWings, you'd be killed by the Great Ice Cliff."
"The Great Ice Cliff?" Schist asked. "What's that?"
"Oh, it's this giant cliff that surrounds the Ice Kingdom," Crystal snorted, waving a claw in the air as a cold blast of air blew against her snout. "It was enchanted to shoot giant deadly icicles at trespassers. Not a pretty sight."
"Torrent could help us through then, right?"
Crystal frowned as a shocking realization came to her. If that dagger could remove animus enchantments like she hoped, it could destroy the Great Ice Cliff. The Gift of Defense, which had protected the IceWings for thousands of years, would be gone in a second. Not to mention the rest of the gifts the IceWings had been given.
Crystal looked back at the SeaWing. She had to make sure he never got near the Ice Kingdom, or it could doom her tribe. "M-maybe," Crystal stammered to Schist.
Crystal slowed her pace down a little bit, and she and Schist slowly moved backwards relative to Torrent and Griffin. In a few seconds, they were flying side-by-side. Crystal took a look at Torrent's dagger, tucked in its sheath.
"Your dagger looks pretty nice," Crystal asked Torrent, inching a little closer to him. "Where'd you get it? It looks really fancy. What does it do?" Schist looked slightly disappointed that Crystal didn't want to talk to him more, but didn't try to interrupt.
Torrent gave Crystal a glare. "What do you want?" he snarled. "And how do you know it does something?"
Crystal tightened her mouth a little bit. "A little birdy told me," she answered, completely truthfully. Hearing this, Griffin's expression changed to a mix between a grin and and a grimace, unsure if he should find this offensive or funny.
Torrent looked over at Griffin. "Really?" he asked in disappointment. "You actually told her about it?"
"It's not like it's that important," Griffin replied. "I mean, how many animus dragons do you expect to meet?"
"She's an IceWing," Torrent stressed, "I know I've told you about how much magic they've still got around. Can't you just shut your beak for a moment?"
"Yes, I can, but she's part of our team now!" Griffin protested. "She deserves to know about what we're doing."
"No, she doesn't, and she's not part of our 'team.' We don't have a team. It's you and me doing our stuff, and we've got some random MudWing who's just tagging along with us, and now an IceWing who's helping us through the Sky Kingdom. This isn't a team."
"You just described a team, like exactly!" Griffin replied exasperatedly. "We're a gryphon and a bunch of dragons working together for whatever reasons, which is what a team is! And Schist is part of our team, and so is Crystal as of this morning."
Torrent groaned, and turned back to Crystal. "Fine. Since birdbrain here wants me to so badly, my dagger destroys animus enchantments and prevents them from hurting me. Without it, we obviously wouldn't go after super-powered magical dragons. I got it from my sister."
"Her name was Orca," Griffin butted in, "she was an animus, and was pretty kind. She also liked to make creepy statues, but I'm not really one to talk since I'm apparently one of them."
"Wait, like Princess Orca?" Crystal asked in surprise. "So that mea—"
"Just stop!" Torrent yelled at Griffin. "You don't have to tell everyone that Orca was your creator and my sister, like you're parading around that you're some weird feathery prince! She's dead, and isn't coming back, so just shut up about it! Also, for the record, her statues were not creepy, you're the only one who thinks that! Everyone else, not that you'd know everyone else, thought they were really pretty!"
"Excuse me?" Griffin snapped back. "I'm sorry that you can't get over her death, but you're not the only one who misses her! She was just as much my sister as yours, and you can't just tell me to stop talking about her. And I'm literally one of her statues, so yes, I can say they were totally creepy!"
"You were not as much her sister as I was," Torrent quietly growled. "I knew her for twice as long as you did, and yo — "
"Quiet!" Schist cried out, flying in-between the two, interrupting their fight. "Please, just stop squabbling about this for once! Crystal and I don't need to hear about Orca if it's this much of a problem!"
Griffin gave Torrent a quick glare. "Fine," he hissed. He slowly drifted a little bit away, and looked away from Torrent. Torrent did the same, leaving Crystal and Schist by themselves, in silence as they continued their long flight to the north-easternmost corner of Pyrrhia.