Author's Note: Here's a short 3 chapters work that I am making for a writing contest, doing an alternate take on a part of book 10's ending, with something that could perfectly have happened.
Chapter 1
Father was dead.
Narwhal's body was laying down in front of Winter, his blue blood pouring out of the corpse and mixed with red Nightwing blood, Winter was frozen in shock for a moment, his eyes scanning this in bewilderment, his mind not even able to process what just happened.
Father… Gone? How? Such a strong dragon, and he died at the start of the fight? The Nightwings… Killed… FATHER!
His claws scraped against the ground beneath him, digging deep into the dirt, and then his eyes locked with Hailstorm's, who was standing next to him and looking as shocked as he was.
The shock wore off, and almost as if they read each other's thoughts, they placed a talon each on their father's head, and carefully closed his staring blue, empty eyes.
May the Great Ice Dragon be kind to you, and shall you have an honorable rest, Winter's thoughts echoed.
"Would you fight alongside us?" Hailstorm's voice suddenly snapped Winter back to reality, to the middle of this war, with dragons flying and fighting and dying right above them. "Even after… What we did to you?"
Winter only had to consider his question for a single moment, there was no doubt in his heart or mind. The Nightwings went out to war to attack them even after Darkstalker had already sent out a plague to kill them all, they wouldn't stop, the Darkstalker wouldn't stop, and in his icy fury, he wanted to make them pay for everything they've done to them.
"You're my tribe," Winter replied. "You're my family."
"But, Winter-" Moon suddenly tried to speak, but he shook his head.
"I'm sorry," he told her, his tone filled with sadness for a second before he nodded at Hailstorm and then both took off, and Winter did not look behind. He was certain that everyone must be looking at him disapprovingly, disappointed… But what do they know? Why do people like Qibli believe they can just act high and mighty as if they stood in some moral high ground? Would they seriously sit still and do nothing if one of their family members just dropped dead in front of them? Even if his own tribe hated him, right now they all shared the same goal and motivation: to fight back against those who tried to destroy them.
In the last few days, Winter had ended up enchanted by the dragon he hates most, threw frostbreath at one of his only friends due to that enchantment, argued with that same friend and also the dragon he loved because the latter kept on defending a genocidal maniac, dealt with the dread and panic of knowing that everyone he ever knew through his life was dying (and his aunt did die), and now it was happening again and even more violently.
He had enough, and his friends should try someday to imagine themselves on his talons to actually understand why he is the way he is.
The battle was raging above them, to their sides, everywhere they looked, so they made sure to stick together. They would try to not split or leave each other's side much during this, they had more chances of surviving and causing real damage by working together and being able to help out the other if needed.
A Nightwing was diving down towards their general direction, he was throwing extreme amounts of fire, it was in such large quantities and even of a blue coloration due to its heat, that the rocks it touched melted in seconds.
Winter and Hailstorm glanced at each other for a second, and then without hesitating, flew towards that dragon, who immediately upon spotting them tried to burn them down with a crisp, but the brothers each dodged to a different direction and retaliated back with a coordinated frostbreath, with the blue fire Nightwing narrowly dodging the blunt of their attack but still ended hit on a leg, grunting in pain.
And then, Winter quickly flew towards him to tackle the Nightwing, who let out a surprised yell and tried to spit fire at him from up close, but Winter grabbed hold of his neck and twisted it to the side right as he did that, making the firebreath hit two other incoming Nightwings instead, who yelled in pain from their burns.
And with a bit more twisting, the Nightwing went limp on his arms as he snapped his neck like that, then fell down to the ground below and crashed on some rocks.
Winter and Hailstorm kept on flying, and that's when Winter spotted a young Icewing dragonet being attacked by a dragon with over the top strength, as she had literally grabbed a different Icewing a moment ago and threw them hard against the mountain and made it shake for a moment and cause a small avalanche.
He yelled at this, and before the strong Nightwing could lunge at that dragonet, he darted forward and managed to aim his frostbreath to hit straight at one of her wings, making her roar as she fell sideways towards the mountain.
He looked back towards Hailstorm, who was coming closer to him after Winter beat that Nightwing, but then he spotted two Nightwings coming from above, ready to dive bomb his brother.
"Watch out!" He exclaimed, making Hailstorm turn and narrowly dodge these two, who looked ready to attack, but then their expression shifted to confusion out of nowhere, looking at each other, and then to other nearby Nightwings which also looked confused, then they all began to fly back towards the Darkstalker's direction, who had just slammed a few Icewings with his massive tail, then caught up a large boulder on his talons and threw it to somewhere on the ground.
"It's a trick, Nigthwings! Hold the line! Don't be fooled!" The giant Nightwing shouted.
Every Nightwing turned back once more and let out a loud vicious roar towards the Icewings before they charged at them a second time.
Winter meanwhile caught his breath during these few moments without fighting, bracing himself for this second charge from the black cloud of dragons, his eyes looking towards all of their opponents, and he was glad to see that even without superpowers, the Icewings were certainly making a number on their army.
But not even a moment later, before the armies clashed again, Winter grunted as suddenly a savage gust of wind threw him off his position and nearly made him crash against the mountain, but he barely managed to fly the opposite direction, struggling against the strong wind current. Looking around, he saw many other Icewings were trying to keep themselves up in the sky as well, same with the Nightwings ahead, and then big storm clouds were approaching…
What? How is this happening? The sky was clear just a minute ago-
And then Winter realized what was going on as he grunted and wanted to facepalm hard right now. "Qibli…" He muttered in a disappointed and annoyed tone.
WHAT is he thinking? Does he want both sides to lose!?
Sadly, there wasn't any time to go down and snarl at the sand snorter, so he'll just have to fight both against the wind and against the incoming Nightwings for now.
Hailstorm and many others released frostbreath from afar to receive the incoming horde, but the Nightwings did the same with their fire, making several clashes that were covering the middle between both tribes with steam.
The Icewings waited for the Nightwings to come, it's just obviously smarter, because already many Nightwings are getting thrown off balance by the wind, while the Icewings are keeping themselves afloat on the spot much better, so the charge of their enemies would be less effective.
And it worked just like they expected, the Nightwings didn't have the most impeccable of formations, so the Icewings were able to dive through their lines and start their own assault, and by that point, the wind was suddenly starting to become weaker.
But their foes weren't defenseless yet thanks to their dumb powers, there was a Nightwing with really large wings, like a Skywing's, who was moving at blindsiding speeds and knocking down multiple Icewings with tackles, but at the same time, the downside of such large wings is that they're easier to nick with attacks and frostbreath, so at least Hailstorm actually managed to land a clean blow on the right wing and make him fall off.
But yet again, the fighting got interrupted, this time by something most unexpected, feelings and sensations that Winter wasn't able to truly describe, feelings and memories that weren't his own.
He saw their island, constantly releasing fumes and smoke, just breathing was painful, and he felt an intense, overwhelming hunger while eyeing the measly, squalid meat in front.
He saw her cuddled next to her eggs, gently covering them with her wings as she wished they could live a better life than she did, knowing that they're cursed to hunger and sickness if they don't get away from there.
He saw the volcano erupting, fear and panic overtaking their emotions as their only home was gone, and desperately clinging to the only hope left and bowing to a Rainwing, until another Nightwing appears and promises them a return to their old glory, with promises of greatness and a true kingdom.
He heard the news of the Icewings leaving their kingdom to strike them, being told that they're merciless and wouldn't spare a single one of them, feeling the dread and hopelessness looming through, with the idea of losing everything again.
He saw him hugging his dragonets in the old Kingdom of Night before he left, promising to them he'll be back, that daddy will beat up these Icewings so they can't ever harm them. Telling them how Icewings have always hated them, and have always wanted to wipe them out.
But you hated us first.
You hated us first.
You want to kill us all
You want to kill us all.
I'm afraid of you.
I'm afraid of you.
I'm afraid, and that is why I fight.
Everything was deadly silent for a moment, Icewings and Nightwings looked at each other, and Winter saw many scared and desperate faces. And on the side of the Icewings, there was doubt and uncertainty, something that their army has barely ever f
And then he felt his body vanishing on thin air and disappearing from the battlefield.
"Oops," said Turtle from the ground, scanning the sky. "I think we might have zapped Winter back to the Ice Kingdom along with everyone else."