Chapter Text
4 years later…
“Rise and shine Krystal! Stop sleeping, or you’ll be late!” Reign ripped my enchanted blanket off of me, the magical coolness disappearing, jolting me awake. I groaned, the excess sleep still tearing at my mind and body.
“Ughhhh, dad, 5 more minutessss.” It was more of a mumble than a complaint, but alas, it didn’t do anything to get me more sleep. Reign simply tapped his claws on the stone floor of the cavern expectantly.
Relenting, I stretched and stood up, slinking out of my nest and snatching the leaf blanket back from Reign, rolling it up and tucking it into my rainbow charm. Today was the first day of going to Jade Mountain Academy, somehow Reign had managed to convince Queen Glory to send a request to Queen Glacier to let me in, and even more surprising, she actually accepted. He had put that request in on one condition: I make myself look like a pure icewing. I already looked the part, I just had to shift my colours to fit an icewing’s. He didn’t want me to get bullied or worse, even if that meant repressing a pure part of my personality. I looked back at the winglet list I was provided, a shiver running through my spine as I spied the names of dragons I had only seen in the WOF books. I however, was away from all the action, sadly, being in the Quartz winglet. I will make myself part of the action, or, you know, stay away from the action and maybe not die? I put the list away, putting on my best smile and facing Reign. “Come on dad, I can literally teleport, stop worrying.” He gave me a concerned look, before saying matter-of-factly, “Krystal, I love and trust you, but I want to see this school for myself, make sure you are completely fine and safe before I leave you there.” An old sorrow filled his eyes for a moment, but it was gone in an instant as he turned away, walking towards the entrance of the cave. Now that I was mostly conscious, I could see that Glitter was sleeping peacefully in the corner of the room, snoring gently. I liked her better when she was asleep, couldn’t kidnap me or threaten my life while she was unconscious. I followed Reign into the open, blinking in pain as the sun hit my eyes, temporarily blinding me. When my eyes actually started working again, I saw Reign turned towards me, his wide purple wings spread. I smiled at him, a soft smile, before spreading my own pink and purple wings. He took off first with a gust of air, nearly knocking me off my feet before I followed suit, propelling myself into the sky behind him. When we reached the apex of our flight, I let my scales shift to icewing colours, stark white with several stripes of pale and medium blue. Reign looked back to make sure I was following him, his face twisting to a grimace as he saw my scales. This hurt him dearly, I knew. There was nothing I could do though. White was the rainwing colour of pain. I tried to minimize it with the stripes, but honestly, white was a sick colour, I would’ve probably been pure white had it not hurt Reign so much. As we flew, Reign moved from in front of me to beside me for easier conversation.
“Krystal, let's go over the precautions again, while we can.”
“Yes dad, I know, don’t draw attention to myself, don’t shift my scales or use venom at all, and the number one rule , don’t reveal my animus magic.”
Reign smiled in reassurance, and I started to feel bad for my tone.
“Yes, my gem, you’re right, make sure you don’t break those rules, and you’ll hopefully be safe.” He shivered a bit, and the flight turned to silence. It wasn’t long before Jade Mountain came into view, and I pointed out a platform leading to a cave, where dozens of dragons and dragonets were flocking. Reign paled, but started descending, me following. We landed on the platform, and suddenly several pairs of eyes locked onto us, and there was a confused murmur before the adult dragons went back to making sure their dragonets were ready. The dragonets though, their eyes stayed on me longer, before finally peeling off of me. I looked around, spotting several dragons that I vaguely recognised. There was a new face though, a seawing-icewing hybrid being dropped off by, a sandwing? Oooo, new face, I need to learn about him. He looks like best friend material. I turned back to Reign, and he had tears in his eyes. “My gem, I love you, and hope you have a great time, try not to die please?”
“Aww, dad, I love you too, you big sap. I’ll stay safe, and I can’t die, remember?” I wrapped him in a hug, my wings folding around his body. He responded with the same thing, and we were both wrapped in a sort of wing cocoon. He broke off the hug, and as he stepped back to take off, I called, “Goodbye dad!” His only response was a small wave, then he took off, tears freely flowing now, high into the sky.
Ok, now, time to get inside, find my cave, and pray I’m not in the same cave as Icicle or another icewing. Or, even worse, a rainwing. I shook off my anxiety, and I stepped into the vast entrance hall. There were still so many dragonets, and my brain could barely handle this. I repeated Reign’s advice in my head, when I was suddenly assaulted by what I decidedly deemed a way too enthusiastic nightwing.
“Heyyyy, welcome to Jade Mountain academy! I’m Fatespeaker, and you are? Wait… Hold on, you’re…” She paused to think, pressing one of her talons to her forehead, “Bluestripes, right?” I actually chuckled, but quickly composed myself. “Hi Fatespeaker, I’m glad to be here, and, um, my name is Krystal.” Was that too awkward, does she think I’m weird now, oh no, she definitely does. Fatespeaker grinned, her sharp teeth glinting in the faint light.
“Well, Krystal, your sleeping cave is… 6 caves down on the left.” She pointed to a hallway, where plenty of other dragonets were hanging around, likely going to their own caves.
“Thanks Fatespeaker, have a good rest of your day!” I said as I padded over to the entrance of the corridor. I walked down it, the charms on my necklace clinking together softly. I counted the cave entrances. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6. Ah, this would be it I hope. I let out a deep breath. This wasn’t exactly the moment of truth, but it sure felt like it. The sleeping cave's mouth wasn’t large, per se, but it was certainly bigger than home’s. I stepped into the cave, hoping that it would be empty, but, obviously, I could never be that lucky. The seawing-icewing from before was quietly reading a book, but peaked his head up as he heard my talons clicking against the stone. The older dragon ran over, with surprise on his face. “NO WAY!” He shouted, and I instinctively covered my ear holes. He continued, quieter now, “I’m roommates with an icewing! And the one who was dropped off by a rainwing no less!” I took an instinctive step away from the dragon, reviewing the story I had prepared before answering. “Um, hi, I’m Krystal, the rainwing is my adoptive father, my parents abandoned me in the rainforest. And uh, you are?” I hope that didn’t sound too obnoxious. The hybrid stepped back as well, and now I could see him better. He looked mostly like a seawing, his scales were a deep shade of navy blue, with hundreds of individual scales of pure white. His tail had ice-like spikes on it, just like an icewings. His eyes were an unsettling white, his pupils the only thing breaking the snowy abyss they replicated. “Ah, right, I forgot about that, didn’t I.” He bit his lip, his eyes drifting to the floor. “I’m Seagull, it’s nice to meet you Krystal. I understand what it feels like to be adopted by one not of your tribe, my father found me on a beach in the sand kingdom.” Damn, I love him already, he’s like, awesome. I walked further into the cave, and Seagull skidded even further back to allow me to pass. “Well, nice to meet you, Seagull. I uh, suppose you’ve already claimed that side of the room then?” I pointed to the icy side of the room, where Seagull’s book still remained open.
“Yeah, but you can have it, you probably need it more than I do.”
“Nah,” I said, looking at the other half of the cave, which was a raised platform filled with moss and miniature trees, “the other side looks and feels more like home anyway.” I climbed onto the raised platform, testing the softness of the moss and leaves. It felt surprisingly like my leaf blanket. I lay down on it, and me and Seagull talked for hours, sharing our life stories and what we wanted to accomplish in our futures. Somehow, the regular urge to reveal everything didn’t cover everything that ever happened to me, not affecting my time before Pyrrhia, when I was a human, nor my animus magic or hybrid nature somehow. He shared details about his father, a good-natured sandwing called Geode, who rescued him when he was barely a week old. The time passed faster than expected, and after what felt like merely an hour, it was dusk, according to my internal clock. “Seagull, it’s dusk, weren’t we meant to like, explore the school today? I said, getting up and stretching, my wings flayed out to either side.
“Meh, we can do that tomorrow, hopefully. For now, it might be nice to get a snack at the prey room.” Seagull’s response, although the words were relaxed, his tone and body language signified he was at least semi-distressed. “Nah, I’m not hungry, you can though?” I was lying, I was definitely hungry, but I needed some alone time to use my animus objects. He gave me a weird look, but left anyway. Ok, now that he’s gone, I need to do stuff. I expanded the snowflake charm into a pouch, grabbing out my scroll and my ink. I dipped my talon into the ink, before writing my question. Scroll, what is the chance I die in my time at Jade Mountain Academy? I held my breath, waiting for the scroll to reply in my head. “Um, excuse me, my name isn’t ‘Scroll’, it’s Scrollius the Asterix the III.” Shit, I forgot I gave it the most obnoxious personality ever. 2 years ago, I decided that the scroll needed a personality. I probably shouldn't've worded it “Give this scroll a personality” though. The important thing was though, it’s funny, so I kept it like that. The rest of its answer chilled me though. “0%, but the chances that you’ll get so injured your animus magic can barely save you is 95%.” Well thanks scroll, that's very useful. I put the scroll and ink away as the writing vanished, and I pulled out the other animus object in here. Darkstalker’s hourglass. Well, a replica of it anyway, I couldn’t fuck with canon too much after all. I pointed it at myself for the 1000th time, and like all those other times, the sand shifted so that it was half white, half black. I let out a frustrated growl, my scales ever so slightly shifting to orange, which I snapped back immediately. I felt the memory overtake me.
***
2 years ago
“What the hell does that mean!” I silently roared, my feet going crimson. I watched the sand even closer, as if it could give me an explanation. Oh wait, I have my scroll just for this sort of situation. I pulled out the scroll and ink, quickly writing my question. Scrollius, what does my soul checker mean when it goes half-half? “Well, hm, it seems that the spells themselves don’t drain your soul, what you do with them does. Why it’s half-half, well, I… Don’t have that answer available to me.” Well that sucks.
Present
I put the hourglass away, sighing deeply.
At least I haven’t damaged my soul more than it already is.
“The situation could be worse I guess, I could be a murderous killing machine.” I sighed, and I just caught the moment as Seagull strolled back into the room, carrying a sheep in his mouth. He placed it onto the floor, exclaiming, “Krystal! You should’ve been there! In the prey room, there was a fight between Prince Winter and a nightwing over a scavenger!”