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“Your scales really are the prettiest things, Glacier,” Blaze sighed, with a look of dreamy longing in her eyes as she padded over to the IceWing queen. The SandWing princess reached forward and touched Glacier’s chilled scales with her much warmer talon, before tilting her head back and dramatically whining, “They’re like permanent diamonds! Ugh! I am so jealous!”
Normally, Glacier would’ve ripped the head off any dragon insolent enough to touch any part of her body without express permission, but for some reason, it never bothered her when Blaze did it. She knew Blaze would never purposely harm her. As Blaze’s words sunk in, Glacier felt a feeling of self-consciousness not befitting of a queen come over her. Dipping her head somewhat awkwardly, she said, “Thank you, Blaze. You look very nice yourself.”
Haughtily, Blaze stuck her nose up in the air, saying, “I know I do. I am the prettiest dragon in all of Pyrrhia after all.”
Glacier resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the SandWing’s arrogance. She was about to return to the scroll she had been reading when suddenly, out of nowhere, Blaze continued on, “But seriously Glacier, you’ve been blessed with a stunning amount of natural beauty. If you wore more jewelry aside from those dusty family heirlooms, then you’d be the prettiest queen in all of history!” She let that statement rest for a beat before she hastily added, “Aside from me, of course!”
Once again, Blaze’s casual words made Glacier made her scales suddenly feel unbearably hot. Glacier couldn't remember the last time she had felt flustered. Probably not since she was a dragonet. She was so focused on the sudden flood of emotions, she couldn’t even bring herself to lecture Blaze about insulting the heirloom jewelry that had been passed down to her. Giving a self-conscious shift of her wings, Glacier said, “I think you’re exaggerating a bit there, Blaze.”
Blaze looked affronted at the accusation, yelping, “I am not! I don’t hand out compliments often, you know. I only give them to dragons who I think deserve them.”
Glacier was about to disagree, when suddenly it came to her that Blaze was actually right. She couldn’t think of another dragon she had heard Blaze give a compliment too. Blaze usually talked about which dragons she found ugly, scary, mean, or anything else, but she never gave compliments. In fact, the only IceWing Glacier could remember Blaze giving frequent compliments to was… her. The realization made the rare feeling of heat going over her body even worse.
Compliments were very rarely given in the IceWing kingdom. After all, looking good in appearance and performing one’s duties well was expected of them. In their minds, dragons didn’t deserve praise unless they went above and beyond. But despite the fact that Glacier knew she probably didn’t deserve the compliments Blaze dished out to her, she couldn’t help but feel, at least, to a small degree, a flutter of happiness deep in her stomach.
So, looking at Blaze seriously in the eyes, she said slowly, “If you are being genuine, then thank you.”
Blaze gave her the brightest beam Glacier had ever seen, and chirped, “No problem, darling!”
Queen Glacier was pretty sure her heart just skipped a beat.
“D-darling?!”