Fire and Ice (WinterxQibli) - DISCONTINUED

3

Qibli POV

A dragon was waiting for us on one of the peaks of Jade Mountain. The three moons illuminated her silhouette, and I heard Darkstalker inhale sharply. He abruptly looped back in the sky to hover in front of Moon.

"I'm not going to fall for this. Turtle made her, didn't he?" he said. "The way I made Clearsight? This is a plan to mess with my head." But his expression wasn't angry, or suspicious. I thought it was more... desperately hopeful.

"No," Moon said. "She's real, Darkstalker. She's been in the Ice Kingdom all these years, trapped in a kind of suspended animation spell. She has only lived for tiny fragments of time here and there, so she is not much older than when you last saw her."

"I thought they killed her," he said, his voice breaking.

Moon hesitated. "It's... it's actually worse, what Queen Diamond did to her. But she's all right now. She wants to see you."

Darkstalker wheeled around without further argument and soared down to the dragon on the mountaintop. She turned to face him, her wings whispering across the frozen violets that dotted the grass around her talons. It was the dragon from the palace library, I realized.

Moon beckoned to me and Kinkajou and we landed softly nearby, close enough to hear without intruding.

Neither dragon said anything for a long moment as Darkstalker stepped closer and closer to her, his face still anxious with disbelief, his long neck and vast wings towering over her.

Finally he stopped right in front of her and crouched, making himself as small as he could.

"Mother?" he said.

She opened her wings to him. "Darkstalker," she said. "My beloved disaster."

The two dragons folded into each other. I could hear Darkstalker's quiet sobs carried on the wind.

Huh, I thought. So Darkstalker has a mother who loves him.

Oh, very good idea, Qibli, this is an excellent time for some self-pity.

"Where did she come from?" I asked Moon softly.

"She's the Nightwing Winter rescued from the Ice Kingdom," Moon whispered. "Foeslayer. She's been hiding in the shadows, watching him and the other Nightwings, trying to figure out what was happening and what she should do."

"She didn't want to see him immediately?" I said, surprised.

"Well, she'd heard what he did to his father," Moon said, making her voice even quieter. "And she really loved Arctic, you know? I think she was afraid Darkstalker had lost his mind, and she didn't know if her reappearance would make it worse. She said she was thinking of fleeing the continent instead... and then she met you."

"Oh," I said, remembering their conversation in the library — and all the things I probably wouldn't have said about Darkstalker if I'd known she was his mother.

"I guess you made her realize she had to try reaching him," said Moon. "She came to us after the battle, when she saw Darkstalker take you. We were chasing after him and she joined us. She said she wanted to help."

"I hope she can," I said. "But I don't know how."

"You'd be surprised what that kind of love can do," Moon said with a wistful look. I wondered if she was thinking about her own mother and her strange upbringing, hidden away in the rainforest, but loved very, very much.

"Mother," Darkstalker said in a sudden rush, sitting up to look at her. "Do you remember the soul reader I made?" "Yes," she said wryly. "I remember you prowling around the house trying to catch your father with it to read his soul."

He hesitated, perhaps reading on her face that she knew everything about what had happened with Arctic.

"It... it says I'm evil," he said to her, sounding centuries younger than he looked. "Like, all the way almost entirely completely evil. Worse than Father ever was. I'm not, though, am I? I'm not evil."

"Well," said Foeslayer, "I can't say I entirely approve of your choices lately. Or two thousand years ago, for that matter."

Darkstalker hunched his shoulders, his wings hanging askew. "It was his fault you got caught by the Icewings," he said petulantly.

"No. It was my fault for letting a stupid fight make me so mad I took off my protection."

"What did they do to you in the Ice Kingdom?" Darkstalker asked. "I'll make them pay. You can watch while I make them all sorry." His claws jerked open and closed again.