Lost and Dead - a Wings of Fire FanFiction [Book 1/5 of The Corrupt Continent]

Chapter 7

The MoorWing named Earwig ran her talons carefully over the break in Frost's wing. She tutted, frowning.

"You've left this very late," she scolded, rather aggressively grabbing a wad of bandages. "One more day and your wing would've had to be amputated."

"Yeah... whoops?" Frost winced as she started wrapping the bandages around the break. "Um, can I ask how the bandages are supposed to help a break?"

"They'll make sure the bone doesn't stick out when I re-aline it." With that, before Frost could react, she jerked his wing. He felt his bones grate over each other, and he gasped, but then the pain disappeared. His wing was left looking normal, except for the tear and cut.

Jackalberry rolled his eyes from across the room. "It's not that bad," he huffed. "I've had worse." He sub-consciously flicked his cracked wing-shell.

Earwig shuffled to the cabinets, her dark brown scales almost disappearing into the gloom. Apparently, there wasn't much light in the inner rooms of a MoorWing building. Frost wondered if they could see in the dark. In the palace, there were always skylights and windows in every room, so they could see without fire. It made the palace look like a bunch of long, narrow buildings smushed together at the corners. There were over twenty miniature courtyards between the rooms, back home.

No. Not home. This is my home now. Frost watched Earwig lumber back over to him, holding some glass jars. Each was filled with a different coloured liquid or goo.

"Just give me your wing and I'll get it fixed right up," she said, placing the jars on a small table to her left. Frost let her grab his wing and tried not to flinch as she lathered some of the cold, slimy goos onto his cut. Once she was done with that, she produced a needle and thread from somewhere and stitched up the cut and the tear.

"Right, now get out," Earwig growled good-naturedly. "And I don't want to see you back here, you hear me?!"

"Yes Ma'am!" Frost quickly jumped to his feet and scooted out of the room, grabbing Jackalberry by the wrist with his tail and dragging the big MoorWing out behind him.

Jackalberry chuckled and shook Frost's tail off. "Now let's go grab some rigmere and gather my stuff before we head back to my place." He set off down the hallway at a brisk pace that surprised Frost. He had to almost job to keep up.

"Uh, what's rigmere?"

Jackalberry gave him an odd look. "It's an alcoholic drink," he said after a moment. "Why? Do you not have any in the Alpine Kingdom?"

Frost shook his head. "No, we're a dry kingdom. No alcohol at all up there. We prefer plain food and water."

Jackalberry stared at him. "w h a t"

Frost shuffled his feet nervously, flicking his wingtips. "I've never had alcohol before."

Jackalberry didn't move.

Frost frowned, waving his talon in front of the MoorWing's face. "HelloOoOoOo? Did I break you somehow? JB?"

Jackalberry slowly turned and kept walking. "Okay," he said. "No rigmere. We'll just go back to the motel and get my stuff."

Frost stared after him, very confused.

---

Frost hefted a heavy bag onto his back, tightening the straps to fit his smaller chest and waist. A long leather satchel lay on the ground by his talons, filled with the poles for Jackalberry's green and yellow tent. He lifted the strap over his head and let it fall into place at the base of his neck, the poles stretched across his chest in front of him.