Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 33

A Scarlet sky

Scarlet was angry. She was usually angry lately, but she was a lot angrier since that fireless abomination had told her of Tsunami's evils. She'd thought that a rogue seawing princess was one of the better allies she could have in this war, but if she kept doing things like finding a long-lost tribe behind Scarlet's back, then perhaps she should listen to the fireless abomination.

It was just a thought though. There was no actual determination or resolve to abandon their treaty, but Tsunami did need to know when to stop, and she did need to know that Scarlet was in charge here. Because Scarlet was the leader of the resistance, not Tsunami.

She and the Seawing princess had constantly been at each other's throats ever since Tsunami had taken over her wing of the resistance, and Scarlet would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it.

There was something thrilling about annoying Tsunami, on purpose or not.

So as Scarlet led Tsunami through her palace, into the throne room where the best yelling matches happened, she couldn't help but be the slightest bit excited to see what Tsunami would do to get out of this one. She'd already thrown the icewings at Scarlet, which had proven effective in cooling her initial rage, but here they could get to the base of the problem, Tsunami hated Scarlet or at least didn't trust her. That much was obvious.

It was nothing that a good old-fashioned talk couldn't fix. And a talk with Tsunami was most likely to involve more yelling than talking.

Thrilling.

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Frosted worlds

Frost preferred to carefully avoid the war camp. Everyone else called it a base, but he disagreed, if it was a base, how come it was so obvious to the outside? It was a war camp, a place where soldiers camped and generals plotted. A place where the higher-ups made strategies while their subordinates rested.

Either way, Frost liked to avoid the base, something that Echo had yet to learn. Other dragons were exhausted as they tried over and over to figure out what Frost was. And while Frost had initially felt it was a great idea to go with the group heading south, he now regretted that choice more and more the longer he lived it.

The south was a miserable place, warm and sunny with no ice or snow. The dragons were diverse and Frost's scales felt wrong, because the air felt wrong, because everything was wrong. And so Frost flew, it was the only familiar thing in this strange place where dragons could feel cold.

Frost almost felt better in the sky, as long as he closed his eyes and ignored the unpleasant wetness in the air he could almost convince himself that he was home. But he'd never been a fan of flying, he was a dragon of the ice.

Frost looked downward, drifting among the temperate wind currents. It was then that something strange caught his eye. An almost-city just below him, but far far too small to be made for dragons.

He narrowed his eyes and went into a sharp dive, unsure if this was the same type of thing from back home but almost excited to find out. He finally got close enough to observe it, and made an undignified happy noise as he watched the scavengers shriek and run around as he landed in their midst.

So cute.

They scrambled about and one of them threw a rock at him, but Frost wouldn't leave until one decided to start stabbing him. He sat down with a thrilled smile and watched the scavengers run about in panic. He didn't like freaking them out, but Frost had no other way to observe them. Perhaps if he kept visiting, they would start to be more like the village back home. None of them wore their little coats like those ones, so perhaps the temperature change was to blame. He'd often wondered if Scavengers could feel the cold like some other animals, and this seemed to prove that.