One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

7.

Gaze

My girlfriend broke up with me.

I still really haven't had a chance to process that one.

We had just moved in together a few months ago. (Admittedly, it was mostly because her house got destroyed by the bombings and she had nowhere else to go, plus Heartfire pays  me so well I have a pretty nice place of my own, so it made sense--but it was still a milestone!)

Her name was (is, I remind myself, she's not dead) Moonlight. She had these deep indigo scales and the most perfect purple eyes, and I was just getting around to breaking the whole "secret revolutionary thing to her, but I guess I'll never get to do that now. (Which is really frustrating, I had a really good speech planned out for that.)

I've been in relationships before, I know how it works--it's pretty weird for dragons to actually stay with someone they met in math class when they were six years old for the rest of their lives. But I just really thought we could be different. It was our anniversary, and she had this whole nice dinner planned out, but I ended up being two hours later because Heartfire had an end-of-life crisis, and I had to talk him out of picking up beekeeping and/or running away to the rainforest and starting a new life.

"You spend all your time at work!" She accused. "It's like you care more about--whatever you even do--than your girlfriend! I thought you were dead, I was worried sick!"

"I'm sorry," I pleaded, barely holding back tears. "It won't happen again. Just give me another chance..."

"That's what you said last time," she snapped. "And the time before that! I'm done with being second-best, Gaze. I'm not just some fun hobby you can pick up every night when you get off work, and drop when you don't have the time."

"Please wait--I can explain--" I could feel the darkness creeping up around the edges of my vision.

Nope, nope, we are not going there. I tried to remember the breathing exercises Professor Clearsight taught me a while back, to at least make my attacks more manageable.  But before I had the time to clear my head, I was talking in rhyming couplets, the end of the world flashing before my eyes.

When I snapped out of it, moons know how much later, Midnight was gone.

***

I can't believe Clearsight just let all her kids tag along on my quest. Also, that she found an IceWing, who she's been hiding in the city walls for months now, apparently? What? Her name is Permafrost, and she actually seems pretty cool (no pun intended) but still. It's unnerving--Clearsight never struck me as the kind of dragon with secrets.

We stop right by the wall, swarming with NightWing soldiers. I still feel nervous about doing this; rumours will inevitably spread about us leaving the kingdom while no one else is allowed to, and then dragons are going to be mad at Clearsight and Darkstalker for picking favourites and abusing their power, and rumours will twist and turn into something monstrous and out of control, and then--

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I sigh.

Besides, it's not like it's my problem anyway, I remind myself. I'm sure they'll figure it out.

"Okay. We're about to fly straight into the encampment, what are we gonna do?" The IceWings, SeaWings, and SkyWings have us surrounded on all sides--anywhere we go, we're gonna be attacked.