One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

45.

Content warning: discussion of the whole Allknowing and Vigilance mess, a plague in very vague non-graphic terms, propaganda, and a disgusting amount of yearning

Precocious

"Maybe we should fill up his palace with bees. That's how we kill him," Gaze says tiredly, laughing to herself. She stares out her bedroom window at the stars, scattered across the sky.

Epiphany blinks, alarmed. "Wait, what? Is he allergic to bees? Is this something I should know about? I don't get it."

Gaze laughs. "No, it's, um—it's stupid. We had seer training together, right? And once we got in a fight in class, when I was like... four? Five? And, you know, I'm deathly allergic to bees, which for some reason I'd mentioned weeks ago, and he not only remembered, but decided that to get back at me for.... oh, what did I think he said? All his opinions were terrible, I can't remember. Anyway--he filled my locker up with live bees."

Way bursts into laughter. "Oh my gosh, really? I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but--how?"

"Nobody knows! That's the worst part!" Gaze exclaims. "I mean, he would have had to transport them to the school--break into the school, which would have been pretty hard; there were guards at every doorway 24/7--somehow get into my locker without any obvious damage, get the bees in without unleashing them on the entire school... he's a nightmare, is what I'm getting at. He'd always ask Clearsight these, like, weird personal questions, and get everyone going down weird group discussions that no one wanted to be a part of--except for Sharp-eyes, apparently. And he was all for, like, open discussion, until someone disagreed with him, and then they got bees in their locker. So, you know, the makings of a reasonable leader. I can't believe he stole that student award from me, and now he took the entire kingdom. What a jerk." She huffs.

Way thinks for a moment. "Do you remember any, like... weaknesses we could use against him?"

Gaze stretches out her wings, wincing. "I mean, at least when he was seven, he seemed to think every dragon other than him had about as much mental capacity as a gerbil. It's not that he can't understand emotions if he wants, it's that he thinks his feelings are the only ones worth bothering to think about. I think. But that was a long time ago. It's not like we kept in touch, he's the dragon equivalent of paint fumes."

We've been hanging out every night after dinner to discuss what we're going to do about Sharp-eyes. It usually just devolves into playing board games and eating snacks after the first hour--how do you fight someone who managed to take down Darkstalker and Clearsight?

Plus, we know nothing about him, other than Gaze's accounts from when he was in school--so not only is our enemy probably invincible, he's completely unknowable as well.

Gaze fidgets with her claws. Clears her throat. "I've been trying every tactic I know to induce a vision--thinking about things Sharp-eyes has done to try and getting emotional about it, the whole nine yards! But it's like my powers are just... broken. All I can get are these weird, loud flashes when I get upset sometimes, and these bad headaches. Like, yeah, it's still in there! Just being decidedly unhelpful right now. Not in a being-tampered-with way, I don't think. Just in a Gaze-can't-do-her-literal-only-job kind of way." She clenches her jaw.

Epiphany frowns. "I mean, is that... the worst thing? It sounds like your power wasn't that useful in the best of times."

"Well, it'd be better than nothing!" she snaps. I think Gaze looks very dramatic in the candlelight, like a proper revolutionary. Sometimes, I think about that--that had the revolution descended into something more like a civil war, like my parents thought it was going to--had Darkstalker and Clearsight not intervened--we would have been on opposite sides. I'm not sure how I feel about that.