The forbidden fruit

The fruit

It took a few seconds until the forest went still and silent again. Iceberg dove toward the snow covered trees and landed on one of the peaks.
The thin trunk crunched under his grip and he could hear a groaning sound in the dark.

,,Should I even go there?" he hesitated and scanned the ground. He definitely shouldn't, but he was too curious what dragon could be out here.
He smoothly slid to the ground and blinked, so his eyes would adjust to the darkness of the woods.

,,Hello?" he called into emptiness, while taking a few steps forward. ,,Is anybody out here?"

After a few more steps forward, a soft grumble tore the still silence. He turned towards the sound and saw a dark silhouette of a huge dragon. His large wings lay helplessly on the ground as he huffed out a plume of smoke out of his nostrils.
That meant they weren't an Icewing.
He slowly walked towards the motionless dragon and adrenaline started taking over him. What was a non-Icewing dragon doing all the way in the Taiga forest?

As he came over to them, his talons just before the dragons snout, he recognized the face structure of a Skywing. He had a very sharp jaw and his troubled face expression made his pretty snout stand out. The soft orange and brown color of his scales complimented his golden eyes so well and Iceberg found himself holding his breath.

,,Hey, what are you doing here?" he tried to keep the tone of his voice arrogant and royal, but he couldn't quite push his urge to be nice to him.

,,Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude anyone's territory." the handsome Skywing replied through his gritted teeth.

,,Well technically, you're still on the boarder, so it doesn't matter"

,,Really? Well that's convenient" he laughed slightly.

,,But what happened?" Iceberg asked, a little too worriedly. What was it about this Skywing, that made him all soft and nice?

,,Oh" the orange dragon lowered his eyes. ,,It's nothing. I just escaped from a skywing patrol. They found my hideout in the mountains, so I had to run away."

,,What did you do?" Iceberg raised his eyebrows in surprise.

,,Eh, nothing bad. I was just selling some rainforest herbs and fruit on the Skywing market and I guess the Queen didn't like that..."

Iceberg burst into laughter.
,,They banished you from the kingdom because you sold plants?"

,,Hey! That's not funny!" He furrowed his brow but a wide smile spread on his face. ,,The Queen doesn't trust anything related to the rainforest. She says that it's cursed, and that the Rainwings have to be a made up tribe. Anyone who disagrees with that, is automatically against the Queen, so... you know how that is." He lowered his head and fixed his eyes on the ground.

Iceberg hummed in disbelief and thought about that. He's heard of the Skywing Queen once and the things about her didn't involve anything nice, as far as he knew. He figured that this Skywing probably stood up against the beliefs of the Queen and that might be the reason he was wanted.

,,I can tell that you figured why I'm here now." the orange dragon said, making Iceberg pity him a little. After all, he knew how unfair royals can be.

,,Yeah I did, kind of." he admitted. After a small pause he looked at his crooked body and felt a little guilty, letting him stay on the cold stone like that. He stretched out his talon in gesture of helping him up. ,,Come on, I know a nice spot where you can rest."

The handsome dragon looked up at him and rolled his shoulders before carefully standing up. Iceberg could tell that he was in pain, but didn't quite know if he had some serious injuries, because of how dark it was under the trees.

,,By the way," Iceberg said when he threw the skywings wing over his shoulders. ,,my name is Iceberg."
The dragon looked at him in disbelief.

,,Like, the animus prince Iceberg?"

,,Yes, that, or whatever. It's no big deal."

,,Oh. My name's Hover."

,,Hover huh?" he thought to himself.
,,That's a nice name."

He helped Hover walk through the forest to a place, where a small pond of crystal clear water was, surrounded by smaller trees and where a soft bed of moss and animal fur was perfectly sunlit.

,,Wow" Hover breathed out, overwhelmed. ,,Did you build this yourself?"

,,No way. I found this place one time, when I wanted to be away from everyone and went for a hunt." he admitted and then a thought came into his mind.

,,Kinda like how I found you."