One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

12.

Content warning: general IceWing shittiness, Snowfox's spectacularly awful parenting/relationship skills and increasingly complex mental gymnastics to try and justify genocide, dissociation as a coping mechanism, mention of explosives/battles, general violence

Snowfox

"I can't believe you, Mother!" Polar scoffs, as he storms back and forth around my spacious white tent (in which he is quite unwelcome in)."You just let those dragonets go!"

"It's been two weeks," I snap. "Go find another hill to die on."

"Those dragonets were important—clearly upper class too, look at their jewellery! We could have exchanged them for ransom—"

"Ransom we don't need," I interject. "We're doing perfectly fine as a kingdom, I don't need to root around for scraps."

"Well, if you don't want two small dragonets' weight in diamonds, I'm sure some other dragons would be happy to take it off your talons! Plus, you have no idea what Prince Wayfinder looks like, it totally could have been him!" My son says indignantly.

I roll my eyes. Normally, Flurry is here to pawn him off on, but my husband knows nothing about war, and I wouldn't dream of bringing him along on a mission like this. I thought it would be nice to catch a break from the performative rigours of my marriage—but after weeks of Polar pestering me nonstop, I take it back, I'll dance with my husband once a week at parties without a single word of complaint, if it means getting a break from my son. "All right. That is enough. Get out—go bug Ptarmigan or something." I swat at him with my wing.

"I feel like you don't take me seriously," he mutters.

"That's because I don't," I sigh vacantly, clenching my jaw. "Please leave. Ten, nine, eight..."

"All right. Good to know I'm loved," He huffs, and storms out, leaving me in... relative quiet, at the very least.

It's never silent here like it is back in the Ice Kingdom, not even when the hordes of dragons surrounding me are all asleep. There's always birds, or howling wolves, or the occasional deer, rain showers and fickle gusts of wind blowing through the trees. It's nothing like the deep, tranquil silence of the Ice Kingdom, and for some reason, I haven't quite yet learned to tune it out, which makes sleeping difficult.

But at least I'm alone--a luxury I always used to take forgranted, before I became queen two months ago. I didn't realize how much I needed quiet walks along the tundra to stay sane amid the stifling aristocracy, or how much I lose my mind being barraged with other dragons' opinions all day long. Sometimes it takes all my self-control not to just scream at them to leave me alone, and never come back.

But I don't do that, obviously.

***

As soon as I found the records of Snowflake's banishment, after confronting her parents, I stormed into the throne room, begged Diamond to reassign me to Penguin Inlet, so at least I could be with her. But she refused, staring me straight in the eye as she said, "We're going to war, Snowfox. I need my best dragons at my side."

"What are you talking about?"

She narrowed her eyes, looming from her throne as she sized me up like a piece of jewelry.