Frozen Desert | A WoF Fanfiction

(Prologue) True Blood

Snowmelt's POV

I sighed, rolling up the scroll I had finished reading for the fourth time in the past two weeks. Any bit of entertainment I had was gone in the little cottage me and my father shared, and boredom was slowly creeping its way in. I had reread all the scrolls in the house at least twice, gone outside and fed the sheep, and tried to draw in the small leather journal Father had brought me from town. Instead, I just yawned and rolled over off my bed and onto the floor, stretching my stormy white wings with a frustrated groan.

I had no idea what to do. I didn't want to read anymore, and I didn't want to write or draw. I definitely didn't want to be caught talking to the sheep again. After the first time, Father had never let me live it down. But, luckily enough for me, he wasn't home, and I had an idea.

Currently, Father was in town, and he had been for the past few days. Being the area's only doctor, he had plenty of work to keep him occupied and out of the house. That meant that he shouldn't be home anytime soon, and I had plenty of time.

I jumped to my feet and headed out of my room and down the hallway, brushing the tip of my wing against the wooden walls. Ever since I was just a dragonet, Father would say to me, "Snowmelt, don't go into my office. Stay out of that room, Snowmelt," and ever since he first had warned me, I couldn't have helped but wonder, what could possibly be in there that I wasn't allowed to know about. Could it be something absolutely horrible, like the severed head of a Nightwing noble? The talons of a Sandwing princess gone missing? Or maybe, it was just a regular old office, and Father didn't trust a clumsy dragonet wandering around in it, digging through all his important files and medicines. That would have been a disappointing discovery, but I still just had to know what was in there.

My thin claws fit easily inside the lock, and I quickly managed to pick it open. I had been practicing on my own door for this moment, and it paid off. I grinned at my success and eagerly opened it, hoping to see the glorious shine of a huge pile of diamonds. Instead, I was greeted with a simple and relatively basic looking office.

I couldn't help but gawk at how generic it was. There wasn't much in terms of furniture, and even less in decorations. There was a desk with a chair and an arrangement of paper on it, and two shelves on each side of the room. One was filled with scrolls, and the other filled with glass bottles of various medicines and ointments. Hanging in the back of the room was a portrait of Queen Lightpool, her icy blue gaze surveying the room beneath her as if it were nothing more than a plot of land to be conquered.

This can't be it, I thought to myself. No, there just has to be more. I need to know the real reason I'm not allowed in here. My first thought went to the shelves. I rushed to the paper filled one and started pulling scrolls off, hoping one would be lever to a secret door. Sadly, nothing happened, and I dejectedly place them back in their place.

Then I went on to the next shelf. I carefully but quickly picked up and set down the glass jars, holding each one up to my eye. Again, there was no special surprise. The most interesting thing I found there was a small jar of bright purple scales that had an icy sheen on them.

Next up was the desk. There was nothing considerably important placed on its flat surface other than a branch with a moonglobe and a small portrait of me and my father together. I remember the day we went to have it painted. Father had spent hours beforehand polishing my scales and placing a small silver chain around my horns in a desperate attempt to make me look dignified. We sat for hours as the artist painted us, and those felt like the longest hours of my life. But, in the end, it was a nice portrait, I had to admit. Nothing really jumped out at me as I went about opening each of the many drawers. Just paper upon paper, loose and unorganized, which surprised me. I had always seen my father as an organized dragon.