An Icy Prison

Chapter 12

When I had gone to find food I had stumbled upon an Icewing village, hardly affected by the snow falling everywhere, there I met Seal. An Icewing who sympathized with her plight, although suspicious, gave her a chance to tell her story, and even took her to her parents, since she described I looked like I dived in a pond of murky pond water.

Naturally she took it. Not the murky pond water, the opportunity.

Seal's family gathered around as she described the center, their life beforehand, the guardians who despite a healthy dose of perspective from Aureus she couldn't help but feel hints of contempt for at times. Of Aureus, and their childhood, and of their journeys.

When she had finished their expressions of complete and utter shock and awe were enough, I may have embellished a little, hehe.

Spruced up a few little things, such as our escape which was more of a matter of luck and my scatterbrained nonexistent plan, now made me sound like I was a genius.

The Icewings were friendly enough once I'd earned their respect, now all I needed was to grab my dumb companion. We had a shot of not just joining but being accepted, it would take a lot of work but Tundra was willing to do it.

She had gone back to the cave, expecting to find Aureus snoozing away, when nope! She had decided to go rogue, so that was just fantastic. Seal had come with me to ensure that I didn't get lost and unfortunately she hadn't been able to fill in Aureus beforehand because now they were in a very awkward situation.

"Seal this is my..." I paused hoping this wouldn't blow up in my face, "My sister."

Seal was the youngest daughter of the one who took me in. A shiny white with little speckles of gray scales mixed in.

She sat a little bit away enamored by the two of us.

Still Aureus was a mouthy dragonet and it would be likely she would disagree with my claim, or question it, throwing off the act.

Aureus blinked in confusion, "Sister? What?"

Yep.

Time to put my sub-par acting and thinking on the spot to use.

I spoke a little faster than what should be considered normal, "Well yousee... Sister. Seal will get us inorsomething... I understand your confused but please keep those questions to yourself."

That just caused her to look more confused.

Understandable, I was just as confused by what came out of my mouth as her.

Seal looked between us as if we were playing ping pong. Probably not what she expected.

"Shall we head back?" I questioned breaking the silence, setting down the hill back to the caves.

Seal jumped as if she had been caught sleeping in class, "O-oh right! Yes! Let's go!"

We started down the ice covered hill, to the hollow the Icewings resided in. It was a vast valley filled with caves and in the center was a giant lake, in the hottest months of the summer the ice was thin enough to break the ice and they'd go fishing. It was also the closest village of commoners to the Royal Palace so they always got the news first.

I sneaked a glance over at Aureus who was looking at it skeptically.

Seal led us to the far end the valley over a fallen ancient tree.

"So, your not from around these parts, are you?" she said to Aureus trying to make some conversation.

"Erm... no." said Aureus shooting a questioning glance towards me.

I nodded slightly, "I explained most of our journey already."

"Oh, okay." said Aureus hesitantly, it was odd for her to be so quiet, maybe I should check up on her later, once we were alone.

We headed into the burrow. Carefully not disturbing the snow cave we found ourselves in.

Inside were Seal's parents, decent officials, not decent enough to live in the Queen's domain but still far above average. They were kind but stern with their children, and suspicious but accepting of me. In short I respected them.

Aureus trailed behind me, stiff in her movements, I lightly rested my tail along her shoulders to ground her to reality.

"Oh, you found your sister! How delightful." said Seal's mother, carefully organizing some gaudy accessories onto some shelves, "Now Seal, don't forget to clean up your room before dinner."

Seal scattered off, shooting a sheepish smile towards the two of us when she passed by.

"So you're not from the Ice Kingdom but you wish to join?" questioned the Mother curiously.

I nodded my head in confirmation. We were icewings afterall, were we supposed to go to the Mudwings?

She just hummed in response.

They elegantly began to set the table. Carefully, setting down the utensils, and plates. Meanwhile we waited patiently in the other room.

Aureus decided to settle down against one of their pillows, to which I smacked her in the face with my tail. She gave a hiss in response, I simply turned away only to get a pillow thrown at the back of my head.

"Dinner's ready!" cried out the father, from the other room, Aureus's only saving grace.

I still shot her the dirtiest glare I could muster.

She shoved me. I caught up shoving her back and pushing my way to the dining room. She came in rushing behind me though and shoved me embarrassingly to the floor. If I was a Rainwing I'd probably be a light red in anger and blushing in embarrassment.

I was definitely swating her on the head later.

We sat at the table, in an awkward silence, all carefully chewing our food. It felt like the awkward dinners I had to eat with our Guardians whenever I got in trouble, slow and melodicalous, it made my scales itch.

"We could sponsor them, they seem brave enough." said Seal's sister, Prism, finally, "You're around my age right? I would love to have a friend that I can practice with."

The rest of the family nodded along, some more hesitantly than others. Aureus sat beside me. Across from us was Seal, and her older sister and two older brothers, with the parents at the head of the table.

My heart flitted with hope, it had never even a fear of mine that we wouldn't be accepted in, we were icewings, that was our tribe, but when I first heard of the prospect back in the Sand Kingdom, seeing an icewing hanging out there, I had been filled with dread, I had pushed it down but... it was a relief to know this.

We just couldn't screw anything up.

I shot another sideways glare towards Aureus.