Winter looked down at his friends as he winged away to the fight over head with his brother at his side. A little piece of him wanted them to acknowledge him as he left, he couldn't stay with them, not with his father dead, his brother, his mother, his few friends like Lynx up there fighting for their lives. He could see the IceWings falling from the sky, more and more falling than the NightWings. He caught a glimpse of Darkstalker and the things he did to the dragons he caught. He had memorized every name on the wall and there were a lot and he recognized each dragon that fell for the most part. He had grown up with these dragons and while there were many he didn't like or hated there wasn't one he wanted to see dead. He couldn't just abandon them in this fight, he didn't know what Qibli would come up with but he hoped it would save his tribe again.
He split off from his brother in the melee and soon found himself desperately fighting for his life against a NightWing wearing an earring that made his scales impenetrable as every attack Winter threw at him the other dragon shrugged off. The other dragon threw himself at Winter, beating their wings, snapping their Jaws, and clawing at any part of him they could reach. It was all he could do not to be knocked from the sky and fall down to the slopes of Mt. Jade below him even as other IceWings fell to their own death below him. No one was close enough to help him as his wings faltered and he dropped a lower in the air.
Dragons swarmed all around them over the slopes of Mt. Jade, IceWings were fighting NightWings in open combat and for every NightWing that fell from the skies, two or three Icewings seemed to fall as well. The Icewings for all their superior discipline, coordination, training, and tactics. A tribe that honed the young into warriors as soon as they could fly if not earlier. The NightWings on the other hand simply had something that far outpaced whatever the IceWings could bring in combat, and that was Animus magic. He could see enchanted bracelets, armbands, horn ornaments, and other jewelry.
His opponent could only be a few years older than him but it was all he could do to endure the onslaught of attacks and he was losing as the dragon fought without any care for injury. That was when he first felt the feeling of whispers in his mind, then the whispers built in strength until it became a roar as emotions and thoughts alien to him swirled and filled his mind. He felt the briefest of understanding and saw the shared surprise in the eyes of his opponent. Magic, a spell was placed on him and all the dragons in the battle, he felt a sudden looming dread as the sensation built up further. He could feel and understand the thoughts and emotions of the dragons around him, fear, fear, fear and hatred. Fear for their families, their friends, and their tribe. Fear of smoking broiling volcanoes and dreadful stories told in icy hatcheries. Hatred born of fear of the others, their enemies.
Then there was some instinctual urge that demanded he flee but it was too late and the next thing he knew he was in the Ice Palace surrounded by his fellow IceWings. It felt like he had let out a breath he had been holding for too long. Then they noticed him and someone shouted, Winter tried to turn and flee but it was too late.
He was beaten and pinned down by the dragons who had been standing around him, held in place as he was cuffed, muzzled, and restrained by guards. He saw his father laying limp amongst other fallen Icewings, the bodies having been brought with them and his mother looking on in shock and what could only be anger, if he could guess. The next few hours were a blur as he was dragged off by guards, interrogated and tossed into a cell to await his sentencing. The questions always looped back to the same thing, 'How did you survive the Diamond Trial?' and Winter would always answer the same way. He could have told them the truth but in the end he still cared for his older brother Hailstorm.
He adored him as he was one of the few dragons who actually seemed to care for Winter as a dragon and not a political pawn. It was his fault that he had already wrecked his brother's life and he wouldn't let it happen again. The questioners never got violent or physical but they stared him down looking for every little flaw and crack about what happened after he was supposed to die and he lied over and over. They could tell he was lying and Winter knew it but it always came back to that question. He knew what they wanted was a confession so he gave it, he said he was a coward and that he played dead faking a mortal wound until he was sure his brother had left. That he had waited in the cave until night and ran away to Mt. Jade.
Now he sat alone, deep under the Ice Palace as far as he knew. There was no light, no sound besides those he made himself and the only other dragon in here, he wasn't even guarded. Not like he could smash open the metal cell door and escape, not even if he had been strong enough as he was barely being fed enough. He resorted to chewing on icicles that hang from the ceiling. It was damp, dark, and cold even for an IceWing, but at least he was left alone. The pain from his bruises and worn out body subsided and eventually no one came down to ask him questions so he didn't talk much.
His neighbor in a cell across from him was his sister, Icicle. A dragoness who had been raised to be Queen, dragged so low now. He had helped capture her after she made an attempt on the life of Starflight, a blind NightWing who ran a library in Jade Mountain Academy. Then she made an attempt on a Queen Glory, he managed to ask her about it before she was captured. She said she was doing it for Hailstorm, to free him from whatever prison he had been left in by Queen Scarlet who promised if Icicle killed the members of the Dragonets of Destiny, Hailstorm would be released. They were never close and after Hailstorm's capture Icicle had grown to hate Winter even more.
She spoke to him the first day he'd been dragged down here after he had been left alone. It was mostly cursing him out saying he'd ruined Hailstorm's life again before trying to spray him down with her frostbreath. Thanks to the diagonal angle of their cells Winter was able to press himself into a corner and avoided the worst of it and she hadn't spoken since. Time down there in that dark abyss quickly lost all meaning, the only constant he could track was visits by guards to toss a half eaten carcass for each of them. In between meals Winter did what he could to keep active, pacing around and staying busy but the lack of food ate away at his energy. He quickly felt himself grow sluggish and slowed his activities, he still moved around as much as he could but he found himself tiring quickly.
He sat in that hole for two weeks by his count when Icicle had been freed and taken away. She never turned to look at him as she left, apparently with Snowfall on the throne and their mother's influence Icicle was freed to be a member of their tribe's society again. Icicle would never be Queen now and maybe that was for the best. From what Winter knew Queen Glacier picked Snowfall to take her place as she was dying from the magic plague that the nightmare dragon Darkstalker had placed upon them to wipe them out. Winter doubted Snowfall would be much more than a puppet to his mother for a long time.
So Winter scratched more grooves into the walls, running his claws against them as he counted the days and did what he could. The darkness, the absolute silence was something he could probably never have imagined before this. In that darkness Winter had the briefest thought of, was this what Darkstalker had experienced under the mountain? Another meal came,the second one of the day, and so he scratched another groove in the wall and waited. That was how he kept track, each day they fed him twice.
There were so many grooves now that he had lost track of the number of days after the fourth week. Counting was futile as they lay haphazardly all around the cell, not to mention the fact that after a long enough time the wall of packed ice would repair itself. So he waited, he had tried talking to the guards when they came but they ignored him and would get aggressive if he pushed for any conversation. Thankfully he had learned to get comfortable a while ago with the pangs of hunger and cold and loneliness. He had so much time to think and he came to one undeniable conclusion in his mind, he hated it but he no longer had any excuses, any denials.
He was here due to his own actions, while he wouldn't have changed what happened by much he only wished that he had in the end been a better dragon, nicer, kinder. He thought of the dragons he had made friends with in such a short period of time, of Kinkajou, Turtle, Qibli, and especially Moon. His heart ached at the thought of them, of Moon, he'd probably never know what happened to them. He searched through himself to understand what he really felt. Maybe if he had been better he wouldn't have been abandoned by them with that spell, but he had never gotten the chance to tell them what happened while he was in the Ice Kingdom just that he could never go home, not that it mattered now. It wouldn't have been hard for the spell to exclude him if they really wanted him there, right? He had lost his pouch with the skyfire in the fight with the Nightwings, not like they'd have let him keep it in the end but it would have been his only moment.
Sometimes he would curl up into a ball and lay there, with so much time to think he got a good long introspective look at his life and failings. It was mostly failure in the end, he wondered if he would be left alone here until he died of old age. Given just barely enough food to keep him going. He curled up tighter, he missed the Jade Winglet, he missed Queen Glacier, he missed Hailstorm, and Lynx, and well… those were all the dragons he could think of that had seemed to actually care for him. He was abandoned by the Jade Winglet and rightfully so, Queen Glacier was dead, he had no idea what happened to Hailstorm, and well he doubted anyone in any of the circles would even acknowledge his existence.
Then one day or night, it didn't matter as down there there was no difference, there was a dragon coming down to visit him. What remained of his internal clock told him this wasn't a mealtime visit. As the light drew closer and closer he pulled himself up and sat patiently, his wait was probably over. To his shock his mother stepped into view, a moon globe floating by one shoulder and a tray of food. He noticed that there was a lot more than normal when his mother set it down. She opened the cell door and stepped in, she was much larger than him and she still wore the same necklace of Skywing teeth. It rattled softly as she settled herself in front of the cell door, leaving it open behind her. Her smooth almost frozen expression was cracked slightly with a slightly furrowed brow, her flat grey eyes as impassive and emotionless as he remembered.
Winter held himself in place as best he could, feeling her towering over him, her presence alone seemed to weigh him down and ground his talons. He worked his jaw slightly and his voice came out raspy and weak. "Mother.."
"I am not your mother." The reply was flat, crisp, and as smooth as ice. It was all Winter could do not to flinch. "You will address me as Princess Tundra. Queen Snowfall has decided to grant you mercy. You've been stripped of all titles and rights as a prince and an Icewing. You are to be exiled, never to return under pain of death."
Winter could only stare at her although avoiding her eyes, his body sagging slightly as she continued. "Furthermore, I recommend that you change your name."
With his sentence laid out before him he let out a sigh, his head bowing as he thought for a moment. "What about Hailstorm? Is he… alright?"
"Prince Hailstorm is just fine thanks to your 'confession.' If you two were going to pull something like you did, the least you could have done is stay dead."
With that Winter looked back up and finally met her eyes. "I wish I had too."
There was the briefest flicker of something in her eyes and just as quickly as it appeared it was gone. Tundra was already turning around and stepping through the open cell door. "The food is for you, you have until dawn to leave the palace and get as far away as you can. After that the guards will attack on sight."
With that she pulled the moon orb off her shoulder and let it hang there before leaving as quickly as she had come.
