Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 45

Frosted winters

Frost was perfectly fine with how things in his den were turning out, occasionally, he would go out into the deep woods and find large mammals that vaguely resemble Bears, after the first time he'd seen one, Frost decided it was a good idea to bring a few back for his den to feast on.

He returned triumphant, holding two of the large beasts. They weren't as challenging to deal with as Bears, but they were plenty ferocious in their own right.

The scavengers were awed about this, and quickly took the large creatures to huge pits for cooking. It was fascinating to see the Scavengers cook their meat, it came with great satisfaction for Frost to see them eat with happiness.

The little champion was praised for this, even though he had nothing to do with the acquisition of the meat. Frost didn't care though, he just wanted to be around the scavengers, he wanted to learn from them. He hadn't realized consciously why until recently though.

He'd gone back to the warcamp to let Tsunami know that he wasn't going to be returning. It was a particularly warm day, and he had been suffering as usual. Tsunami accepted his plan to live out in the woods for the rest of his days far easier than he'd expected. It was a happy surprise though, because after that, he had no other reason to not just live in the den.

It was only then that he noticed the whispers as he passed, "he's almost like a ghost." "I heard they can't feel cold." "What a strange dragon."

It hurt him deeply to hear those things, to hear the almost mocking nature of the whispers, as if they didn't think he was even alive. As if they didn't think he could even feel. It was then that he realized just how much he hated how other dragons treated him as an outsider, back home it had been because of the scavengers, but here it was the simple fact that he was like nothing they'd ever seen before.

The scavengers couldn't care less about what he looked like, he was a dragon, that was all they cared about.

So Frost built himself a shack just outside of the den, he planned on never seeing another dragon for the rest of his life.

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Truth before Triumph

When the dragon first came, Truth had been at home, trying to convince his sister that yes she had to come with him to the fair. And no, she couldn't go on her own. Who knew what could happen while he wasn't there.

Legacy was mad about that though, she wanted to go by herself, because according to her, Truth was an annoying jerkface that didn't deserve to have a place in the council. Truth, however, didn't care what Legacy thought of the plan, he was going with her. Though they still had several hours before it started. Which was bad because that meant that Legacy had half the day to figure out a good argument for leaving him behind.

Which, incidentally, meant that he couldn't leave her out of his sight for a moment, just in case she snuck out early and helped with setting up. Legacy was only eight years old. She held no responsibility to help set up the fair, but she would do it, especially if it meant leaving Truth behind.

So he hunkered down outside her creaky wooden door -he really had to fix that one day- holding various tools to make his job easier. Including but not limited to; a bar of soap, two pots, a long staff that he'd carved from the old willow tree a few months back, and several arm lengths of rope.

Legacy wasn't getting through here.

He was constantly reminded that she had a window though, and while it was absurdly difficult to open or close, Legacy was getting better at it with every escape. Last time, she'd been able to get away for a solid three hours before he realized it.