Author's Note: This fic takes place between my other stories Sanctuary and Rebel Prince, part of my Revolution AU. I think you could read it by itself if you want. It just ignores the third arc of canon.
My apologies to everyone who's been waiting on Rebel Prince! I realized while working on its first few chapters that I had to delve into Hailstorm's story before I could really move forward with my plans. So I started working on a one-shot for Hailstorm... which slowly turned into a whole multi-chapter story! Don't worry, I'm still going to work on Rebel Prince. I just wanted to finish this first, since it takes place before that story.
The rest of the story will be from Hailstorm and Jambu's POVs, but I gave Fatespeaker the prologue POV since she's Hailstorm's new (self-proclaimed) best friend. ;D
Part I: A Not-So-Welcoming Party
Fatespeaker had been through a lot of sticky situations. Bloody wars, false prophecies, real prophecies, school dances, ancient villains, all that.
And while this wasn't quite as bad as the time she'd been stuck in an erupting volcano, it was definitely up there on her "most stressful days" list. Somewhere between the day when Viper and Flame had both tried to kill her and that one time she had to give Princess Anemone detention. At least Queen Coral wasn't involved now.
Today should have been a fun welcoming party, for Fatespeaker and Hailstorm had just flown into the Rainforest from Sanctuary. A celebration with all of our friends. And cute sloths! Fatespeaker thought helplessly. This should have been the best day ever! Instead, in a most not-welcome move, some terrible dragon had tried to assassinate her friend Glory.
Or at least that's what Fatespeaker guessed. Everything was still thrown into confusion. Glory's royal quarters were complete chaos. The last time Fatespeaker had been here, chatting and laughing during her friends' lunch breaks, it had been the most cheerful and organized place in the whole Rainforest. Now it was a miserable mess.
RainWing guards jostled around her, whispering and flaring their wings, flashing frightened colors. A few of the new, inexperienced ones were even huddled together and weeping. Someone had pulled all the woven curtains closed, shrouding everyone inside in muted, stained light. Though Glory often did that when she wanted privacy, the current danger made the darkness unnerving.
Fatespeaker spotted Deathbringer climbing down from the upper level, where Glory was currently confined to a cot. As Glory's second-in-command, he was now in charge. It was he who had ordered Hailstorm's arrest.
Though her heart broke for Glory and Deathbringer, Fatespeaker had to defend her IceWing guest. Hailstorm's my friend now, she though. He trusted me! She had also promised Winter that she would look after him, and she did not want to see Winter get any grumpier than he already was.
"This is ridiculous!" she cried. "Deathbringer, please. This is crazy."
Deathbringer glared. Three moons, that dragon could put fear into a stone. "Someone just tried to murder my mate," he growled. "And you're calling me crazy?"
Fatespeaker shrunk back. Many of her friends had been forced to kill other dragons in the war, but now she recalled that Deathbringer had made a whole career out of it.
"Look," she said, "I'm scared too! But there's no way Hailstorm had anything to do with this. I've been right beside him this whole trip."
"I know." Deathbringer's expression shifted, his suspicion turning on her now.
A chill ran through Fatespeaker's starry wings. Lately, on her trips back from Jade Mountain, she had been interviewing dragons all over the Rainforest. All sorts of dragons, even the shady ones. That included the many bitter NightWings who hated Glory's guts. She never meant to cause any trouble, but it didn't take a genius to see how that made her look now. Hanging around suspects, then showing up out of the blue with a foreign rebel. I wouldn't trust me either, she realized.
"Deathbringer, I..." She fidgeted and tried to explain herself.
Deathbringer turned away to give an order to the nearest guard, a NightWing named Wiseflier. "Get Jambu," he growled, "and do not let him freak out this time. He knows the best healers. Bring them all."
As Wiseflier scrambled off, followed by a few others, Fatespeaker noticed something had shifted amongst the guards. Most of the RainWings and most of the NightWings had separated into their own clumps, panicking together, eyeing the other tribe nervously. Fatespeaker's heart sank. Last time she had visited, all her friends - RainWing and NightWing alike - had been happily mingling and laughing as one. Was that friendship really so fragile? Was the Rainforest's "unity" just an illusion?
No doubt Deathbringer had the exact same questions. "Stay here," he told Fatespeaker, exhausted. "I need to tend to Glory."
The rage melted off his face as he rushed from the room, replaced by a flash of fear. No doubt he would hide it well by the time he was at Glory's side.
"I'm sorry," Fatespeaker murmured after him. It was somewhat comforting to see the love behind Deathbringer's anger. To know that, beneath his hardened facade, he was just trying to keep everything from falling apart.
But that comfort would not help Hailstorm, who was now Deathbringer's prime suspect.
It only got worse when Kinkajou showed up. Usually that little RainWing made everything better, but once she designated herself head of the Hailstorm Defense Squad, things got ugly. Even outside the hut, Fatespeaker could hear Deathbringer's snarls and Kinkajou's stubbornly positive protests.
Jambu was also there, all in a tizzy. Apparently this wasn't the first time that someone had tried to kill Glory. Not even the second or third. Now her poor brother blamed himself just as much as Deathbringer did. "I should have been there!" he cried, his voice muffled as he started stress-eating from Glory's banana trees. "Leaping lemurs, my poor baby sister!"
From her perch outside, Fatespeaker could hear Glory's weak shout: "Do NOT call me that!"
"At least she's still snappy," noted Fruit Bat, a RainWing guard. Petals fell as she fiddled with her flower crown. "That's a good sign."
Fruit Bat and a few other RainWings were waiting outside with Fatespeaker, supposedly to detain her, though they were all such good friends that it felt more like a normal chat. Having hung around Glory for so long, Fatespeaker had befriended everyone in the Queen's Guard.
Soon Kinkajou met them outside. Her scales were faded with fear, but she managed to keep them optimistically purple and yellow.
Fatespeaker gave her a hug, then asked, "Where's Hailstorm?"
"They brought him down to the prison pits," Kinkajou said with a shudder.
Fatespeaker cringed, more out of embarrassment than fear. Instead of using Darkstalker's real dungeons (which most of the tribe now believed to be cursed), the RainWings continued to stick their "prisoners" in rather ineffective holes, usually even forgetting to tie down their wings. Though Kinkajou looked mortified on Hailstorm's behalf, the IceWing was probably more annoyed than afraid.
After all, Hailstorm must have seen far worse during his time in the SandWing War. Fatespeaker had heard, through the grapevine, that he had even been captured by the Sky Kingdom during Queen Scarlet's notorious reign. He never spoke of that stuff, and of course, she never pried.
It was the accusation itself that worried Fatespeaker. Even once Hailstorm's name was cleared - as Fatespeaker was confident it soon would be - Glory and Deathbringer would be watching him with suspicion. "Hailstorm has been helping those IceWing revolutionaries," she muttered to Kinkajou, her tail twitching nervously. "That's not gonna look good. Deathbringer will think he's some sort of terrorist spy."
"Whaaaaat?" Kinkajou shook her head. "No way, not Hailstorm! Maybe Winter, though." She added mischievously, "He and Deathbringer should have scowling contest." Her scales shifted to a happier hue. "Once Glory's better, I'm sure she'll host Hailstorm's welcome party herself."
Fatespeaker managed a weak laugh. "You're right," she said. "I've been hanging around too many paranoid rebels."
Part of her wished she had stayed in Sanctuary, at Starflight's side. And part of her wished she had never gotten mixed up with Winter's family, the IceWing rebels, and all these crazy politics in the first place. Pyrrhia seemed to be falling apart again, with her friends stuck in the center of the chaos.
Don't think of all that now, she told herself, stubborning clinging to the bright side. Fix this mess, then get back to party planning. We can serve NightWing-style cakes!
Then Deathbringer and Loris, one of Glory's most trusted guards, emerged again to give the rest of the royal guards their emergency plans. Kinkajou and Jambu were both sent off with messages. Fatespeaker waited until everything was sorted out, lending a supportive wing to a few hysterical young fans of Glory, then awkwardly sidled up to Deathbringer.
"How's Glory doing?" she asked.
"Still weak, but she'll be fine," Deathbringer replied, his voice low and harsh. "This wannabe assassin -" He spat the word out venomously, as if to distance himself from his own past. "- clearly had no idea what they were doing."
"Can I see her?" Fatespeaker asked meekly. "Maybe I could help..."
Deathbringer's hard glare grew even harder. Tension crackled between them, and Fatespeaker realized that, although she had continued to consider Glory and Deathbringer her dear friends, Deathbringer might not feel the same way. "No," he said. "We'd better just give her a break."
Loris and Fruit Bat shared a nervous glance. As friends of both Fatespeaker and Deathbringer, they must have felt torn.
"Not a word of this gets out," Deathbringer snarled. "Not. A. Word. Whoever did this wants to destroy our tribe. We will not give them the satisfaction of dividing us."
Fatespeaker nodded. Deathbringer caught her eye, and she understood that he shared her fears. Even this failed assassination would spark hatred and fear, and could - moons forbid - inspire another attempt. The Rainforest had only recently recovered from all the chaos caused by Darkstalker. Those wounds would reopen the moment Glory's weakness was revealed.
After some final half-hearted questioning, Fatespeaker was allowed to head home. Loris and Fruit Bat were ordered to escort her. In true RainWing fashion, they tried to make the best of it. They asked Fatespeaker about her day and shared the latest treetop gossip as they flew back. Fatespeaker instinctively relaxed, though she knew they must have deadly sides of their own, since Deathbringer only allowed the most skilled warriors and sharpest venom-shooters to join the Queen's Guard.
"Hailstorm is innocent," she told them. "I flew with him all the way from Sanctuary."
"It couldn't have been an IceWing," Loris agreed. "I'll bet a whole mango that it was one of Fierceteeth's no-good friends." She looked to the other RainWing. "Hey, Fruit Bat, didn't you say you saw them snooping around the other day?"
Fatespeaker winced at the mention of Starflight's half-sister. Though Fierceteeth claimed to have seen the error of her ways, lately there had been complaints about her stirring up trouble in the NightWing villages. Also, Fatespeaker had once heard her call Starflight, among other (even worse) things, a "stupid, blind worm" with "a girlfriend who looks like someone stomped on her egg." Fatespeaker was forgiving, but she wasn't that forgiving.
Fruit Bat nodded. "NightWings," she muttered, "always turning on us." She winced, her green scales paling. "No offense, Fatespeaker."
"It's okay," Farespeaker replied numbly.
Truth be told, she had never felt particularly close to the rest of her tribe, having grown up isolated from them. Her interviews and investigations had been one way for her to try and reconnect with the NightWings. Three moons, had that exploded in her face. Now she wasn't just a weirdo, but a suspicious weirdo.
It's fine. Glory will be fine. Fine, fine, fine. She forced some happy thoughts back into her head. "I foresee that this will all be sorted out by next week! It's probably all just a big mistake, you know? My friend Tsunami once thought she was poisoned. Turned out she just ate some bad sea slugs."
She recounted that story as they flew through the RainWing villages, and ended up convincing Loris to try seafood. All the while, she tried to keep smiling. She was Fatespeaker, after all. And throughout all of those sticky situations that still haunted her nightmares, she had somehow managed to keep her smile.
Hailstorm was released the next evening. After Kinkajou bugged Deathbringer about it all day, and once the guards assigned to Hailstorm insisted that he was just as clueless as they were, Glory had apparently dragged herself off her cot and snapped, "For moons' sake, Deathbringer, just let the sparkly guy out already."
So Fatespeaker flew down to the prison pits to pick him up. Deathbringer had tactfully assigned an all-RainWing team to guard him. For all of the peace and progress that the Rainforest Kingdom had achieved, Fatespeaker sadly knew that most NightWings would show no mercy to an IceWing. The wounds of the old war ran deep and unhealed.
At least the RainWings were kind to their captives. What other tribe had fresh flowers in their prisons?
"Good morning, Fatespeaker," Hailstorm said. He bowed formally to the RainWing guards as they left, casting a terribly unimpressed glance back at their so-called prison pit.
Aside from some mud on his wings, and a stomachache from all the food that his sympathetic RainWing "captors" had shared with hm, Hailstorm seemed fine. Just like his younger brother and sister, he kept himself constantly cool and blank. If anything, he was even better at the IceWing poker face than his siblings. Fatespeaker seriously wondered if the Ice Kingdom had made it a capital crime to show laughter or tears or any sort of facial expression that wasn't boredom.
If Hailstorm noticed the NightWings in the village shooting him glances of hatred, terror, and everything in between, he didn't let it show. He also didn't acknowledge the RainWings who oohed and ahhhed and tried to imitate his sparkly scales.
In fact, he seemed more interested in all the brightly colored flowers that festooned the local huts. "Ice and snow," he murmured as Fatespeaker led him under a flowery trellis, blinking up at the rainbow of petals.
Fatespeaker's own hut was decorated with purple and blue morning glories, a tribute to her friendship with Glory. Given the current situation, she decided not to share that story with Hailstorm yet. She showed him her plumeria tree instead, plucking a few fuchsia flowers before they flew up to her hut.
When they weren't busy at Jade Mountain Academy or setting up that new school in Sanctuary, Fatespeaker and Starflight would often hang out here with their old RainWing friends. She'd been meeting a lot of cool NightWings, too; this one little dragonet named Peacemaker was a real hoot. Her hut was still scattered with trinkets from their last visit, including her blobby attempts at NightWing glass art and Starflight's special textured scrolls.
Fatespeaker hurriedly swept the floor with her tail, but Hailstorm didn't seem to mind the mess. He didn't seem to mind much of anything.
"Hailstorm, I'm so sorry," Fatespeaker sighed. "I never thought... this wasn't... argh!" She flapped her wings frustratedly. "Oh, stars and moons, what a lousy vacation! Flying all this way, just to get thrown in prison for a whole day."
"That was a prison?" Hailstorm snorted. Frost danced through the humid air. "It was quite pleasant," he assured her. "Besides, it's only reasonable for them to take precautions. I was not offended in the least."
Fatespeaker suspected that he was slightly offended, as he had reverted back to the formal IceWing tone that Riptide dubbed "Snotty Snob Speak". At least she wouldn't have to worry about him seeking any icy vengeance.
"Well," she said, "I had a whole welcoming party planned, but, uh, we might have to postpone that."
She offered to help him scrub the mud off his scales. Proud as ever, he refused, managing instead to rub himself against a banana leaf in a manner that seemed almost regal.
Outside, it began to drizzle. The dense rainforest canopy kept most of the rain out for now, but Fatespeaker suspected that greater storms were on their way. She pulled one of the curtains of her hut open, peering out at her cheery neighbors. RainWings and NightWings circled above and below, laughing over unheard gossip, sharing colorful snacks, flapping wings of both rainbows and stars. A few noticed her and waved, calling out to the others, "Look, Fatespeaker's back!"
She waved back and tried to hide her unease. We've come so far, she thought. Could it really be so easy to divide us?
Looking to Hailstorm again, she hoped he could see the wonder in the world outside. He had picked up one of her plumerias, and was studying it with an odd, intense sort of curiosity.
"It's very wet here," he noted, "and very... colorful."
"Oh, just wait till the real rains start up again," Fatespeaker laughed. "Puddles and flowers galore!"
Hailstorm nodded. "I do admire the flowers."
He gazed out at the village, his stern face softening a bit, and Fatespeaker dared to believe that, even after yesterday's disaster, their trip could still turn out enlightening and fun.
"I prophesize that we'll start a whole new adventure tomorrow," she declared. "More flowers, plus fun games, and plenty of fresh fruit!"
Hailstorm nodded again. Ever the stoic, he said in a blank tone, "I look forward to it. Thank you."
"Trust me," Fatespeaker promised, smiling, "you'll never get tired of the Rainforest Kingdom."