Wings of Fire: The Extremely Awesome Amazing Epic Legend Of Kinkajou

Chapter 8

The great doors to the ice palace slowly swing open revealing mountains of snow and ice. The sun shines overhead, bright with the light from a new day. The sun! Such an epic thing that I hasn't seen since they entered this palace. Which, fine, was only last night but STILL, It felt like longer.

In front of her the Gift of Protection rests a talon on Tsunami, blue scales melt outward from around its claw, returning Tsunami to her original color. As the scales reach the end of Tsunami's snout she jumps back, teeth bared dangerously. She honestly looks a little bit frightening, but awesome and heroic as well.

"What did you do to me, why do I feel like I just jumped into a pool of jellyfish?" A look of confusion begins to settle over Tsunami's features. "Wait, wasn't it just evening? Gah, my brain feels like it was frozen and is now swimming through a pool of ice. What happened?"

Tsunami's face reminds her slightly of that time when a rainwing named Mango had been knocked out by a falling tree. He had been very confused about how he had somehow been flying on a fruit-gathering trip one minute and waking up in the healer's hut the next. It had taken the healers a whole hour to finally get him to understand that he had lost consciousness for a day. 

"Tsunami, we'll explain what exactly happened on the way back to Jade Mountain, but the important thing is that we got the sword," Moon says.

"How could you have the sword? We only just got here." She sees Tsunami growl and shake her head, "Wait, no. Argh,"

"Well After you got frozen into an ice statue the gift of protection was all like because you are totally going to die and everything I will offer you a deal, that is totally not a deal because you totally don't have another option, and then it was like..."

"Slow down, slow down! You can explain on the way." Tsunami says, not looking much less confused than before, which is totally unfair. Her explanation of things makes total sense. Then again, her rainwing teachers did sometimes say she talks a little fast, no, a lot too fast.

"Then let's get back to our epic mission to defeat Darkstalker again. Come on." Kinkajou bounds over to the giant door and leaps out, spreading her wings to catch an updraft. Behind her, she can hear the others following. After a minute she sees Moon and Tsunami sweep up beside her.

"Alright, what happened?" Tsunami asks, "One second we just got there, and the next another dragon appears and we're leaving again. This is as bad as when we first met the rainwings."

"Well..." Moon says, "When you touched the Gift of Protection you froze into an ice statue, after you were frozen it offered us a deal. We could be tested, if either of us was found worthy, we could leave with both you and the sword. We agreed, partly because it didn't really give us any other choice. When we were tested Kinkajou was found worthy. Keeping its end of the deal, the Gift gave us the sword, which chose Kinkajou as its wielder.  And now here we are."

"Still a little confused, but ok." Tsunami asks.

Suddenly, she sees something moving on the horizon, nothing much, just a slight shifting of white. Did she imagine it? She couldn't think what it could be. She looks back, but nothing moves. All she can see is the immense tundra of the icekingdom.

She swoops over to Moon and Tsunami. "Did you see that flash over there? I can't imagine what it might be but do you think we should fly over to investigate?" 

Both Tsunami and Moon shake their head.

"It's probably nothing, but we should be on alert just in case." Tsunami says.

 She probably imagined it, she decides. the endless snow reflects light oddly and all I saw was a flash. Still, she can't help but let her scales turn slightly closer to the color of the sky they're flying through.

"Great, now that we have this epic magical ice sword. What's next on our list of tasks to defeat Darkstalker?" Kinkajou asks, "Is it go to the rainforest and get a pineapple? I could seriously use a pineapple right now. I mean really who knew that flying through a snowy ice kingdom without food could make you THIS hungry." She says.

They all laugh, though Moon has a sad look in her eye. Oh, she is missing Darkstalker. She realizes, and instantly wants to shove a giant pineapple up her own snout for being a giant howler monkey this and not realizing that completely absolutely obvious fact sooner. Moon was, is one of Darkstalker's only friends since he came back. She already had to betray and help defeat him once, doing it again must be hard for her.

"Do you miss Darkstalker?" She asks. "I know he was your friend." In her experience, just asking questions directly is always the right way to go. Usually, the right way to go. 

"What, no... Fine, yes." Moon says "Darkstalker was one of the first friends I ever had, he taught me to use my powers. That they weren't a curse. I have always missed him, and I wonder. Was being turned into Peacemaker against his will really what he deserved? Was there another way?"

Moon looks away. "Even though I know that it had to happen, I will always miss him. I don't really want to talk about it."

Was there another way? Could it have gone differently? The group lapses into silence as she thinks. Darkstalker was a totally evil and dangerous dragon, yes he needed to be defeated, but she could have done anything to him. Could have used the pieces of his scroll to defeat him in another way. But in the end, would it have made any difference? Was there a better option?

She sees a flash of white wings diving down from the sky blocking their path before she and the rest of the group have to pinwheel in the air to avoid running into the new group of icewings. 

"Stop where you are! Who are you and what are you doing in our icekingdom?" A deep voice calls.