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The snow silently fell through the aurora lit skies of the Ice Kingdom. A happy pair of dragons slowly walking through the snow-covered grounds of the Ice Palace courtyard.
Usually, one of these dragons would never be allowed in the kingdom. But, due to a particular special circumstance, that rule is being ignored completely.
Moon hummed as she stepped by another ice sculpture, humming the tune of one of the songs she had just heard from her wedding with the IceWing walking right next to her, himself with a happy smile on his face as he looked at nothing but the NightWing next to him, not even bothering to watch where he was walking.
“Winter, what’s it like around the palace?” Moon curiously asked as she randomly pointed at one of the many ice towers that built up the palace.
Winter was broken from his trance like state as he rapidly shook his head, “What?”
Moon looked back over to him, trying to get used to the icicle shaped earing that clinked against her scales when she turned rapidly, “What was it like living in the Ice Palace when you were younger?”
Winter quickly looked up to the sky with a smile, “Well, it was calm usually...” he looked back down at her, “Obviously you know about my... misgivings with my parents and how they treated me,” he ruffled his wings a tad bit at the thought, “But besides them, it was calm usually.”
Moon cocked her head slightly as she continued to walk forwards, “Even with the war going on?”
Winter hummed in thought, “Well, there were a couple moments, such as the event we had when the SkyWing’s almost pushed us back to the Great Ice Wall,” he looked back over at her with a smile, “But other than that and the usual palace drama, no not really.”
“It must be so nice living in such a magical place such as this,” Moon said with wonder as they walked up to the main ice tower that made up the largest part of the palace, which just so happened to make up where they would be staying for the night before they headed back to Sanctuary where their home together was.
Winter chuckled at that, “I mean, it was nice... but I don’t think it was worth it from how I got treated by my parents,” Winter said as a frown slowly came to his face, “Sometimes... I wish I could have gotten to see how they would be if they were never royal at all.”
Moon frowned at that, She didn’t want her new mate feeling bad during their special day.
“So, any other cool places that you want to show me?” Moon said with a bright tone, hoping to cheer her mate up.
That seemed to fix him as the light in Winter’s eye brightened up once again, “You said that you thought this place was magical, right?”
Moon just nodded to him, “Yeah, I mean... just look how it’s built,” she said while waving to the HUGE ice towers that made up his old home.
“Well, that’s because magic was used to make them,” Winter said smugly all of a sudden as he opened one of the tower doors to let her in.
She smiled and bumped him as she walked through the door, “Oh yeah, and how did they do that?”
“Long ago, far before even the time of Darkstalker, there were a pair of twins that were born from the same egg that our Queen had,” Winter started explaining in his voice that he would often use to give lectures about dragonets, “Both of these twins had animus powers, but whey wanted to be far different from the other animus that was before them,” Winter ducked down to whisper in her ear which made her chuckle.
“The animus before them was actually the first animus dragon in history,” he whispered with a smile, he stood back up straight as they continued down the halls, “The IceWings at this time were...” he frowned slightly, “Not in a good place with history.”
He shook his head, leaving Moon curious on what he meant.
“The IceWings were hated by just about everyone and they were now without a palace from the first great war that would rock Pyrrhia from the animus powers coming about in the world,” Winter continued, his smile now starting to come back.
“But the twins were born after a couple years, and they already had a plan by the first year after they were born... they gave us a home,” Winter said as he suddenly stopped, he pointed up as they walked through the hall and into the throne room.
Moon gasped as she followed to what his talon was pointing at. In large chiseled words above the throne, read, “The Gift of Splendor”.
Winter now spoke with pride in his voice, “Celestial, the first twin, formed the basis of the palace, taking the ice from the sunken sea and used it to form the towers, the courtyard, the walls around it, and the barracks,” Winter looked back to her with a smile.
“And what did the second do?” Moon asked him, now in awe.
“Frost made sure that we would never lose our home again,” Winter said as he started making his way through the palace once more, “She enchanted the palace to never melt, never be destroyed, and never let it break off from the mainland,” Winter finished.
Moon continued after him, “That’s so cool,” she said from behind the IceWing.
“It is indeed,” he looked back to her with a smile, “Want to see... more magic?” he said with a smug tone to his voice.
Moon slowed down, her earring jingling again as she slowed down. The sound of her icicle jingling made Winter’s smile grow only more.
“There’s more?” she asked him.
Winter pointed at the bracelet that was strapped to her arm, “Did you already forget about the Gift of Diplomacy?”
Moon suddenly blushed as she rubbed the band, “I kind of forgot about it with the wedding going on.”
Winter blushed lightly as well, “Well, I don’t know how you forget something that you are currently wearing.”
Moon flashed him an annoyed look, “Oh yeah, just like you managed “lose” your scroll bag when you went to go study scavengers the other day?”
Winter suddenly groaned, “It got stuck in between my spines!”
Moon suddenly started laughing, “Well then don’t give me a hard time about it as well if I make the same mistake.”
Winter’s laughter started to die down, “But seriously though... do you want to see more?”
“More?” Moon suddenly asked as she realized he had calmed down.
“More animus touched objects,” Winter said as he continued on, Moon just now realizing that they weren't anywhere near where Glacier had told them to go.
Moon sped up when she realized she was trailing behind her mate, then his words clicked in her head, “Wait, couldn’t you get in trouble for showing me stuff like that?” Moon asked with a worried tone.
Winter didn’t say anything but she could hear the smug smile again, “And what, is “Princess Moonwatcher not allowed to see stuff from her own kingdom?”
“Winter, you just got that title back not too long ago,” she said, now starting to really worry about it, “What if you get caught?”
“It’s going to be fine,” Winter said, not sounding worried at all. Which was unusual for him since he was the most careful out of the two of them.
“It’s not like I’m taking you to the secret section of the animus archive’s,” Winter explained.
Moon gave a sigh of relief, “Oh, so you have a section made for the public or something?” Moon asked her mate, now feeling a lot better.
Winter nodded, now walking into another hall.
Moon looked around the room and noted that it didn’t seem anywhere near as grand as the throne room.
“Welcome to the animus archive,” Winter said happily as he waved around.
There were lots of smaller items on top of ice pedestals, many of these items didn’t look special at all... Isn’t that just a stick? She thought as she walked near the random looking item.
Winter noticed the item she was walking over too and her confused look, “That is the gift of healing, it can heal any injury and illness on a dragon,” Winter explained.
Moon slowly nodded, trying to not think about how un-special it looked. She looked over at another random item, “What’s that?” she asked while pointing at a ring.
Winter followed her talon, “Oh, that’s the Gift of Translation,” Winter cleared his throat, “Most dragons used to not speak the same language, so we made that to help with it when we needed.”
Moon nodded again, now starting to get a feeling that most of these items were for very practical uses that weren’t super important or deadly.
“So do you know what all of these items do then?” Moon asked as she walked up to another random ring that stood on an Ice pedestal.
Winter hummed to himself in though, “Pretty sure I do, we had to study about these items while in school here.”
Winter had turned around to look at something and didn’t catch Moon picking one of the rings up from the pedestal.
Winter somehow went even paler than his white scales could go when he heard the familiar sound of metal clinking against metal, knowing what it had meant. He turned around to see Moon closely inspecting one of the rings as she held it up to her face.
“Moon... Don’t. Move.” Winter now said with a scared tone to his voice.
Moon looked over to him and wondered about the scared look on his face, “What’s wrong Winter, I thought that you said these items weren’t super important and that we could look at them.”
Winter took a slow step forward, “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can touch them, Moon!” he said with a stressed tone.
She was about to place it back down but Winter suddenly waved his talons, “Don’t, don’t do that!” Winter hissed, now sounding scared which scared Moon even further.
“Winter, what’s wrong?” she said, now scared for her life, “Is this thing dangerous?”
Winter now froze, “I... I don’t know what that ring does.”
Moon didn’t know how, but those words scared her even further. Was it a weapon of mass destruction, an item that destroyed things, a self-destruct button?”
Winter walked forward again and was now standing in front of her, he slowly reached a talon over for the ring, “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s not... that bad.”
Moon did NOT feel better, none whatsoever. She slowly started to mover her talons over to his with the ring pinched in between her talons, her talons shaking lightly.
Winter tried not to, but his talons were shaking lightly as well when he started to reach for the ring in her talon.
The moment he touched it, his world went white and it felt as if he had been slapped in the face by his mother.
Moon experienced about the same thing, her world going white as well with a sudden burst of a headache.
...
Winter groaned as he attempted to stand up, his legs feeling like ice cream as he attempted to stand up, “What on earth did we just do?” Winter muttered as he stood up.
“Winter, I don’t feel so good,” a random voice said from his right. Winter looked up and paled when he spotted a far taller IceWing than himself right next to him.
“Sir, I’m sorry if we happened to destroy something-” Winter babbled on but was cut off when the large IceWing opened his mouth.
What’s going on, who is this? Another random voice said. Winter looked around but didn’t spot anyone else.
“Who are you?” the IceWing suddenly asked which confused Winter.
“What are you-” Winter cut himself off when he realized... why was his voice so squeaky? He looked down and saw the VERY familiar black scales that covered the love of his life.
Why is there another female NightWing here with me and Winter, should I tell someone? The other voice said out loud and Winter suddenly had a VERY worried thought about what happened.
“Moon?” Winter croaked out in his now squeaky voice.
“Yeah?” The IceWing now confirmed who they were.
Winter paled even further as he looked down and spotted the familiar ring from before laying on the floor of the palace.
He looked back up and spotted “Moon” looking down as well. But instead of the ring, she was looking at her own scales. Likely coming to the same conclusion that he had made.
They had swapped bodies somehow.
“What kind of stupid animus item is this?” Winter suddenly voiced out with a slight roar, jumping back as bits of fire spewed out of his mouth which scared the daylights out of him since it was supposed to be FROST!
“Winter?” Moon suddenly asked as she looked back up, a scared look on her face.
How did this happen, was it that ring that Winter said he had no idea what it did?
Winter paled as he realized what the other voice was, it was Moon’s thoughts. He was hearing her mind like she usually did his.
“Moon’s” eyes started watering as she started to realize what happened.
Oh crap, we can’t be caught here like this! Winter thought as he realized how bad this looked. If Glacier finds out this happened, especially so soon after they got married, who knows how she would react.
“Winter, I’m so sorry,” Moon said as she tried to wipe away her tears, “I ruined our wedding day!”
Winter ran over to her and tried to hug her, but he pulled back quickly when he accidently poked himself on the icicle-like spines on her back, he hissed in pain but he tried to hide it as good as he could.
“It’s going to be fine Moon, were going to fix this,” Winter said in a hushed voice, “Just please, don’t be loud,” Winter looked around to make sure nobody had caught them yet, “We can’t get caught like this.”
What does he mean by that? Moon thought as she only looked more miserable now.
Winter started feeling exposed now... they had to get out of here where Winter could think on how they were going to fix this.
He took his now small talons and tugged on Moon’s wing tip, “Let’s get out of here Moon, we need to learn how to reverse this!”
Moon now started to look scared as she heard what he said, “We will be able to fix this, right?”
Winter didn’t want to answer her... he didn’t know the answer to the question! He hoped, and prayed that they could reverse it.
How would he protect Moon if he was stuck in HER body!
He finally started getting Moon to walk towards where they were supposed to be now, their room in the Ice Palace.
It took them a while, especially with Moon bumping his body everywhere with her not being used to such a larger frame than the body he was currently residing in.
Surely this object has some type of way to reverse this, an IceWing wouldn’t just make something useless... this ring has to have some type of reason to be doing this.
At least he hoped anyways...
I guess if I must, I can see if Turtle can fix it... but I would rather not explain how this happened whatsoever.
They finally made it to their room, Winter and Moon both gave a sigh of relief as they closed the doors.
It took a couple moments, but they finally moved again, looking at each other...
“So...” Moon started, frost flowing out of her mouth as she spoke, “How are we going to fix this?”
Winter winced as he didn’t really have a plan, it would help if he actually knew what the spell was.
“I don’t know,” He said simply.
Moon sighed and slumped down to the floor an a large IceWing like puddle.
“So we are trapped like this then?” She asked, now sounding depressed.
Winter quickly shook his head, “If we can’t fix it here, then we can ask Turtle later to fix things,” he said hopefully.
That’s going to be a long time... we just got married and this happens?
Winter sighed and began to think, surely the palace would have a scroll that explained about this ring. He should have at least read what the ring was called for Moon’s sake!
Winter sat down for a couple more moments in thought, trying to figure out how to block out Moon’s rapid thoughts.
How did she say she did that again? He thought to himself, almost cringing as he did so since it sounded like he was trying to cut in on an active conversation, didn’t she say that she tries to think of raindrops?
Winter clenched his eyes as he tried to think of raindrops...
What is Winter doing?
Winter opened his eyes again and sighed, “Oh come on...”
Moon seemed to sink in on herself and it just looked wrong on far too many levels, Winter had never seen an IceWing with that kind of posture before. He had to berate himself and remember that this was Moon.
He cleared his throat and pointed at the silver scales on his face, “Moon, I can hear your thoughts,” he mumbled.
Moon’s eyes rapidly grew and she stood back up straight, “You can?”
Winter quaintly nodded, not sure how to feel about the newfound curiosity on her face.
“Oh, that’s so neat,” Moon started to blabber, “I always wondered if it had to do with something in my mind, or something in my body,” she tried to tap her tail on the floor like she always did as a NightWing when she started to get excited, but all that happened was the icicle like spines clacked against the floor.
“Moon,” Winter quickly growled, trying to get her attention.
Her eyes went from looking off into space from thought, going back down to the floor, “Sorry,” she mumbled.
Winter sighed and rubbed his snout, “It’s fine...” he stood up and looked at the ring closer, hoping to find some type of name, or inscription on the inside of the ring.
...
Nothing, not even a scratch on the metal.
“Oh come on, nothing at all?” Winter mumbled as he rolled the ring around in his talons.
Moon walked over to him, casting a slight shadow over him which worried him at first, “So you don’t know what that ring is at all?”
Winter shook his head, “I don’t know, I studied the animus touched items of the Ice Kingdom about three times when I was a dragonet.”
Moon just quietly nodded, she flicked her tail again as frosted mist slowly started coming out of her mouth as she took in a deep breath.
Winter didn’t know why, but the image of the much far larger IceWing standing in front of him was slightly intimidating to him, and he fought Darkstalker face to face...
Does Moon feel like every time she sees me?
He lightly backed up, “Moon, I’m going to try and... get to the library,” he almost said sneak, but she was technically a welcomed guest now.
“I’m going with you,” Moon said firmly as she stood straight up.
Winter didn’t like the idea of that, but it would make sense if she did go with him to go to the library since they had literally just got married a couple hours ago.
“Just try to stay quiet, we really don’t want to get caught with this ring,” Winter mumbled as he opened the door.
“Do you actually think we would get in that much trouble?” Moon asked him, now sounding worried again.
Winter remained quiet for a couple moments as he walked out the door with Moon following him.
...
“I don’t know.”
Moon did a double take, “You don’t know, how do you not know?”
Winter shrugged his wings, “Royalty borrowed these items all the time during the war.”
Moon grumbled, “You acted like we would get killed if we got caught with this, and you didn’t even no!”
Winter grumbled back, “I panicked a little bit...”
Moon sighed as they continued to walk, her talons clicking against the ice loudly.
Winter grumbled, “Tuck in your talons a bit, your digging into the floor.”
Moon looked down and noticed that her new serated talons were indeed digging into the floor.
Oh, I always wondered how Winter used them so well... and I’m not even trying here.
Winter was partially annoyed by that since his NightWing talons were not doing a very good job at digging into the icy floor underneath him, he was almost sliding with every step he took.
He almost stopped Moon when he would look back every now and then and catch her trying to slide on the floor but was finding it interesting that her serrated talons would stop her every time.
Just let her have her fun, she always asked what it was like to be an IceWing and now she is living it.
He almost snorted when he looked back again and caught her playing around with the frost coming out of her mouth
How does this work, it doesn’t even feel cold as it comes out of my mouth? She thought to herself as she opened and closed her mouth.
Winter didn’t want to say it, but he wanted to mess around with fire breath as well.
They finally made it to the palace library and Winter immediately went to the back of the library where he knew the scroll would be at that he needed.
“A’s, A’s, where are the A’s?” Winter mumbled to himself as he looked around the shelves.
“Winter, is this the scroll your looking for?” Moon asked as she pulled a scroll out that was titled, “Animus Enchanted”
Winter nodded lightly as he walked over to her and took it.
They walked over to one of the tables in the center of the library and opened up the scroll.
Luckily, this scroll was labeled by what type of item was enchanted. So, he went straight to the part labeled, “Jewlery”.
Winter read for a while, skipping over every item that wasn’t a ring of some sorts until he finally reached a description that had a drawling of the ring he was currently holding.
“the Gift of Understanding,” Winter read out loud, catching Moon’s attention from where she was reading a completely different scroll.
She walked over and joined him at his side.
“This ring is to be worn by an individual and touched against the other to “swap bodies” for a temporary time,” Winter and Moon both gave a sigh of releaf at the “temporary” word in that sentence. Winter cleared his throat and continued reading, “Not much is known about the individual who made this, but it’s thought to be made for a prank or some type of spy mission.”
Moon snorted at that, “So they don’t even know who made it?”
Winter shook his head, “That’s probably the reason I never heard of this ring or learned of it in school.”
“Does it say how long this will last?” Moon asked while waving to herself.
Winter read over it again but nothing obvious was shown, “I don’t see anything that talks about it?”
Moon sighed at that, “So we could be stuck like this for days then?”
Winter did NOT like that, “Oh I hope to the Moons not.”
Both of them stayed quiet for a while after that, trying to think what they were going to do.
Well... if I’m going to be in here for a while, then I might as well have my fun then.
Winter was about to ask what she was thinking about until he made an undignified squeak when Moon suddenly picked him up rapidly so he was eye level to her.
“Moon, what are you doing?” Winter objected with a blush on his face.
A gleam shined in Moon’s eyes, “Your always the one picking me up when we kiss, now it’s my turn!”
“What-” Winter was cut off when Moon brought him in for a kiss. Winter didn’t want to admit it... but it was almost nice being the one that was closely held.
They remained like that for a couple moments until they both separated rapidly when they heard a dragon clearing their throat from behind him.
Hailstorm was looking at them with a smile and an eye raised in obvious confusion, “Shouldn’t you two... well, not here?”
Winter was about to speak but Moon bumped him with her wing. He almost slapped himself, remembering that he was in his mate’s body right now.
“Moon just wanted to read some of the scrolls here, so I thought I would show her some of my favorites,” Moon said gruffly, almost making him chuckle at how well she imitated him.
Hailstorm laughed at that, “I’d figure you do that tomorrow, not right after you just got married!”
I’m so happy for Winter, he deserved happiness in his life. Especially after how much torment he went through with Mom and Dad , Hailstorm thought.
Winter was happy that Hailstorm was so happy for him, but he still didn’t want Hailstorm to find out what happened. He lightly bumped Moon on the side.
Moon gave a slight, “Oh,” in surprise, “Hailstorm can... we have time alone?” Moon asked while lightly blushing.
Hailstorm rolled his eyes and started walking away, “Oh sure, just don’t do anything inappropriate in the palace library.”
“HAILSTORM!” both of them exclaimed in embarrassment.
Winter was mortified with the words that came out of Hailstorm’s mouth. He would never- in such a public place?
Moon chuckled lightly as Hailstorm walked away.
They were quiet again for a couple moments
...
“Wanna go mess around with these bodies while we wait to turn back?” Moon quickly asked.
Winter thought about it for a couple moments but he lightly nodded his head. He looked up at her, looking into his own dark blue eyes, “I’d kind of like to try using the fire breath?”
A smile grew on Moon’s face.