Don't have a lot to say, enjoy the chapter!

This was getting annoying. We had been at Blaze's for a day now, and we were getting nowhere. Icicle thought to herself as she walked through the halls of the fort.

Blaze was just so easily distracted! She could lose track of a topic in literal seconds. If you tried to bring up the war, she would give you a very short answer and start talking about something else, like her scale polish or her collection of capes.

"Hey, have you seen these jewels? My mom got them for me before she died!" Icicle recalled hearing from Blaze. "Hey, have you seen this cape? It's the only one in the world!"

It was just infuriating!

It was Clay and Peril's turn to take a crack at talking with Blaze; it would be their sixth time trying to talk to her today that sounded anything like negotiations.

She was hoping to at least get something started before her mother and the queen showed up, but that hope was looking like a snowflake's chance in hell. It was looking so bad that nothing was going to happen, even when they did show up.

She kept wandering down the halls, letting her mind wander in boredom. She would love to be practicing her powers, but she didn't want anybody, especially her mother and the queen, to know that she had them. She was hoping to keep this a secret from them as long as she could.

She was getting tired of just wandering around, so she started heading back towards the room she was staying in.

She reached her door, opened it, and sighed deeply in boredom. She wasn't ready for who was waiting for her on the other side.

She didn't even have enough time to say anything before he grabbed her and threw her into the room and closed the door.

Icicle shook her head, shaking off the fall, and asked Winter, "What are you doing here?"

"Are you okay?" Winter said, ignoring her question. Icicle didn't say anything, confused about why he was even here.

Winter cracked open the door and peeked outside, then closed it again shortly after. "Where are they?" Winter asked vaguely.

"Who?" Icicle asked, standing up off the floor of her room and starting to get frustrated with her younger brother.

"The Dragonets of Destiny, where are they?" Winter asked again.

Why would he want to know about them? Icicle thought to herself. "I don't know where everybody is at, but Clay and Peril are talking with Blaze right now," Icicle answered.

Winter was now the one confused. Why did Icicle call them by their first names? She hardly does that with anybody. He shook his head, "We have to leave!" Winter said, making his way towards the door.

Icicle was starting to understand what was going on. She was about to say something but was interrupted when there was a knock at the door, also making Winter freeze in his tracks.

"Icicle, are you okay?" Starflight said behind the door, probably hearing her thoughts from his room.

Winter shook his head at her, trying to tell her not to say anything at all.

Icicle snorted, Starflight knew a while ago that Winter was here but probably didn't do anything about it because he could hear in Winter's mind that he meant no harm to her.

"You can come in, it's just my brother," Icicle answered him.

Starflight walked into the room, shut the door behind him, and gave Winter a smile. "It's an honor to meet you, Prince Winter," Starflight said, giving him a bow.

Winter was shocked at first, a NightWing bowing to him. Then he remembered who he was talking to. Winter quickly went to a defensive stance.

"Back off, NightWing!" Winter said defiantly. Starflight's smile never faltered, unnerving Winter because he knew he didn't stand a snowflake's chance in hell against any of the Dragonets of Destiny if the stories were true.

Icicle smacked him hard on the head. "You will not threaten him!" Icicle ordered him.

Winter rubbed his aching head. Why was Icicle acting like this? Wasn't this one of the dragons that had captured her?

"Winter, I'm not their prisoner," Icicle told him.

Winter didn't say anything at first.

"What?"

"I'M NOT THEIR PRISONER!" Icicle repeated herself.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT THEIR PRISONER!" Winter said, starting to get pissed. "We were told a month ago that you had been captured, and you're trying to tell me that you weren't!"

Winter's mind went to the stuff he had to cover for her. "Do you know how hard Tundra and Narwhal started to work me after you were supposedly captured!"

What Icicle said next shocked Winter. "I'm sorry," there was one thing that she knew, and that's how hard their parents can be on them. They always worked them dead tired so they could be the "Perfect IceWings." She felt truly bad for Winter.

They may not have the closest brother and-sister relationship, but that was one thing that had always kept them together, trying to get through dealing with their parents.

Truth be told, her time away from them was about the most relaxed she had ever been in her life.

She was about to start explaining herself until there was another knock at the door.

Starflight opened the door this time, and there was a SandWing on the other side of the door.

"All of your presence is requested by Queen Glacier; she has arrived," the SandWing said before leaving.

Icicle saw Winter get a panicked face. "What's wrong?" she asked him, wondering why he was worried. Then her eyes grew in realization, "You never told them, did you?"

Winter gave her a look that confirmed it all.

"WHY?" Icicle asked in frustration. What dragonet just runs off without telling anybody?

"I thought that you were in trouble, and I wanted to get here before the dragonets took you somewhere else," Winter explained.

"Didn't anybody say I wasn't captured?" Icicle asked him.

Winter's eyes grew in realization; he didn't stay for the whole message; he left the moment he heard that his sister was here.

Winter explained himself, and Icicle sighed, rubbing the bridge of her snout in frustration.

"Here is what we are going to do if they ask: tell them the truth except for rescuing me; tell them that you were making sure that I was okay," Icicle ordered Winter.

"What do I do if they ask why I didn't tell anybody I was leaving?" Winter asked her.

"Then I'll try and change the subject, but if it's unavoidable, then that's your problem," Icicle said sternly.

Winter nodded his head, accepting her plan. Why didn't he just listen to the messenger for a few extra minutes, or even ask to fly ahead? This is the same type of stuff that got his brother captured. Why couldn't he just listen to orders? This is why his parents didn't love him.

Starflight walked out of the room, Icicle and Winter following him out. They walked into the main hall. Blaze and the rest of the dragonets were already there, talking with Queen Glacier.

Icicle's gaze settled on Glacier, the queen's turning to Icicle. Both gave each other a glare.

Glacier made her way over to Icicle, her glare never leaving. Icicle sat defiantly in the face of the Queen. She wasn't afraid of her. If anything, she was hoping that Glacier would attack her.

"What were you doing? I told you to only scout out the MudWing border, not to go and look for some glory kills!" the Queen hissed out.

Icicle didn't say anything, just matching the Queen's glare.

"Then you get captured, endangering your group, or so that's what your group said. Till I got the news yesterday that you were in no danger whatsoever!" The queen said in rage, "This is treason!"

Icicle never faltered at any of her words. "I had my reasons," Icicle said confidently, "Everything I did was for the glory of the IceWings."

"How is running around with some special dragonets and abandoning your kingdom, for the glory of the IceWings?" The Queen asked her.

"You mean the dragonets who have now brought peace to three warring kingdoms, and the dragonets who have also taken out one of the most tyrannical queens this world has seen since the time of Darkstalker," Icicle explained, "It would have been one of the most foolish things I could have done to not join them on their quest, especially since they asked me to help!"

The queen turned to the dragonets, "Is this true?"

Every original dragonet nodded their heads in confirmation to the question.

"At first, we did capture her, but we realized that it would be fair to have every tribe in Pyrrhia help with our mission, and who better to invite onto the team than a princess?" Starflight explained.

Glacier gave a nod to the NightWing's explanation, "I can understand accepting a direct invitation from them, but this doesn't excuse you from not messaging us about your predicament," Glacier said to Icicle, "You could have sent a message."

"Hardly, we were always on the move, and by the time we were in the SkyKingdom, the group already knew that we were going to come here next, so I decided to just inform you here instead of sending a message," Icicle explained herself.

"Winter, what are you doing here?" Tundra asked, coming from behind the queen, "I was wondering where you had gone, I checked your room for you, but you weren't here."

"I came here to check on Icicle the moment I heard that she was here; I had to make sure that she was ok," Winter explained himself.

"Why didn't you tell anybody that you were coming here?" Tundra asked him.

"This hardly matters right now!" Icicle said, interrupting her now glaring mother, "Me and the dragonets have been waiting for your arrival all day, we would love to speak with you," Icicle told Glacier.

Unseen to everybody else, Blaze was glaring at them.

I decided to go with my own head cannon on how Winter acts. This is a whole year earlier than the jade arc in cannon, so I wanted to make it seem like he is just a younger slightly less mature version of his cannon self. He won't be as cold as his older self, he still will be with others, but slightly less so. Not as angry at the world for say. Also, you must remember, the nightwings never "Killed" his brother, so he pretty much has your average nightwing untrust towards nightwings. I can't tell you how excited I am to write about the bromance with him and Qibli. I will say this now, their will be no romance between them here, I am going to try to make the romance department strictly cannon. The only dragon I might change that for will be Winter. He is one of my favorite characters and my boy deserves some type of happiness. I'm actually halve way tempted to try and do an OC competition for that. I'm not sure yet, it might change later in the future if I get a really good cannon character for it. I like the Kinkajou x Winter thing, but Turtle has her, I guess. I don't like the Turtle x Kinkajou relationship, it kind of came out of nowhere and made no sense to me. Your probably wondering why Icicle called Clay and Peril by their name. She has been with them for almost a month now, she has been with them and fought multiple battles with them, she is slowly starting to respect them. They may not be the closest of friends, but she is starting to respect and get used to their company. Last thing, next chapter we start to hook up with my other fanfiction, my other fanfic is pretty much just a lore fic and its my own head cannon. Their will be no major Oc's in this story so you don't have to worry about that. "Almost" every character from that fic is dead in this one. It was set almost hundreds of thousands of years ago. If you're wanting to know where I got the lore idea, go and read "toothlessgolfer's" "Brothers of Night" fic. It's a very, very well written httyd fic. Probably my favorite fic of all time.

The next chapter shouldn't take too long to post, the Rough draft is pretty much done, and I have recently been working with AI to edit my work and its been helping wonderfully. I have recently been inputting my older chapters into chat gpt and its been editing them for me.