Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Glory sighs and settles herself onto the cold marble tree. She coils herself around it, winding her tail around the trunk multiple times before relaxing. She had a lot of pretending to do. She closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep as she hears a lot of bustling around the throne room. Supposedly Queen Scarlet, deciding who should fight in the next "arena battle", whatever that was. Glory makes her scales a light purple and tries to keep them that way, but feels the red flickering at her ruff.

'Stay calm,' she thinks to herself. 'Do not show rage or any other weaknesses.' Glory opens one of her eyes slightly, and lo and behold, it was Queen Scarlet of the cursed SkyWings. Glory forces the purple back into her ruff and calms herself as best as possible. The queen sits on her throne with a sigh. Glory hears a rapping sound against it, and figures that it was Queen Scarlet's claws tapping. Glory finds it irritating and tries to focus on her breathing, or her heartbeat, or anything else.

"Well," she hears the queen muse. "I could always put in the MudWing… that's new… or, ooh, the NightWing. Now that's thrilling." Glory keeps herself from hissing in a breath.

'Not Starflight! He can't fight to save a soul! Well… he could try, but he wouldn't go very far.' Glory thinks. She opens her eye again and sees the queen looking the other way. Glory closes it as Scarlet swings her head towards Glory and the tree.

"Oh, what a beautiful dragonet." Queen Scarlet coos. "It'll be fun to see what Queen Burn thinks of her. I wonder if she'll be jealous…" more musing, it seems. Glory supresses a scoff. "I hope she is." Glory hears a scraping sound, and talons coming towards her. She keeps her body relaxed as a talon lightly brushes against her left foreleg. "I wonder is maybe… there's something to give to them that makes them change colors…"

Glory immediately changes the purple to a creeping blue dancing it's way up her tail. Queen Scarlet makes an excited sound. After the blue had consumed Glory, she places yellow spots billowing like clouds across her scales. She flashes the yellow to green and back again. What was she doing? Why was she amusing the queen? Glory stays relaxed and suddenly makes herself orange. The queen gasps in delight.

"Woah… what a beautiful design!" Queen Scarlet murmurs to herself. "Hmmm… I wonder if you can make… hmmm…" Scarlet trails off and Glory hums irritatedly.

'Well, say it out loud if you want me to do it, Scarlet!' Glory thinks bitterly. Scarlet goes back to her throne and keeps watching Glory. Glory makes her scales change every once in a while and basks in the sunlight. 'I love this sunlight… it's so bright…' Glory once thought, shivering in pleasure. Then, afterward, oddly enough, Scarlet had commented with something like;

"Sunshine makes your scales so beautiful." Glory had freezed, and her eyes had flashed open then closed again. Was the queen actually talking to her?

The next day was an arena day. Glory kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she hears Tsunami and Clay being brought in… was that… Starflight? Glory hopes that the queen won't make Starflight fight.

"The NightWing is trying to tell you that it's rude to talk to anyone else before thr queen in her own throne room," Glory hears Queen Scarlet say. Glory opens her eyes slightly and sees Clay and Starflight and yes, Tsunami. "First you bow to me, and then you stay put until I'm ready to address you all. Really, what are they teaching dragonets these days? It's so very disrespectful." Scarlet continues.

"Sorry," Clay mumbles. Glory stifles a snort at his bow. Was that the best he could do? But Glory couln't help but feel sympathetic. What was Clay doing? Probably talking to Starflight. Or trying to, at least. Glory relaxes as she sees Clay try to peek at her under his arm. He did notice! Glory pretends to be sleeping. It was for the best. 'It's for the best,' she reminds herself.

Scarlet sniffs disdainfully and waits for Tsunami to stop struggling, examining her claws and sharpening them on the rocks beside her.

"Well hello," says the queen amusedly. "I gather you're enjoying your stay?" Tsunami bristles.

"This is an outrage," Tsunami hisses. "How can you treat dragons this way? Especially us! We're the-"

"-dragonets of destiny, yes, very thrilling," Queen Scarlet waves Tsunami off. Glory keeps her scales a tranquill blue. "I understand you've been underground for the last six years, so perhaps you haven't heard: not everyone wants this war to end." Glory hears a growl rippling up from Tsunami's throat. Starflight just shifts a little, obviously wanting to argue. "Personally, I think this war is quite entertaining," the queen goes on. "I pick up lots of contenders for the arena from the battlefield. And it's a terrific distraction for those dragons who might have otherwise challenged me for the throne. No one's even tried in about eight or nine years. Saves me a lot of trouble."

Glory tries to keep listening in, but soon the sun hits her scales, and she falls into a sun-drowned stupor. The last thing she catches is;

"…Prepare the MudWing for the arena."

Chapter Text

Glory watches quietly, but her heart was pounding.

Clay was down on the sand, and then, a pair of SkyWing guards drop a hissing IceWing on the ground opposing him. Great. An IceWing? Don't they have freezing death breath?

A SkyWing announcer struts to the center of the arena and starts roaring at the crowd. "After last month's battle with Blaze's army, our queen's dungeons were stuffed with IceWing prisoners of war. Only nine have survived. After two wins, i give you- Fjord of the IceWings!"

The IceWing- Fjord- lashes his tail and snarls at Clay.

"And in this corner, and unusual case- a MudWing, but not one of our allies. No, this dragonet was found hiding under our mountains, protected by the Talons of Peace. Is he one of the dragonets of destiny? Not if he loses this battle!"

Glory feels sick as a ripple of laughter murmur from the crowd. She watches Clay with anxietly. 'He can't fight… well, I mean, he can, but not well.'

The SkyWing announcer continues. "If these prophesied dragonets are as wonderful and legandary as they're supposed to be, this should be a showdown to remember. I hope you're prepared to impress us, dragon of the mud. I present to you… Clay of the MudWings! Claws up, teeth ready! Fight!" the SkyWing flies out of the arena. 'With a bit of a rush,' Glory notes. 'He doesn't want to get caught in the middle… hmmm…'

Clay doesn't move. Instead, he starts talking. "Uh, hello," Clay says as the IceWing draws closer. "Fjord, right?" Glory almost hisses, but remembers that the queen was right next to her.

Fjord stops and stares at Clay, irritated and confused. Glory tenses, turning a slow shade of red. 'By all the moons, Clay! Fight! Or fly! Oh wait… fight!'

"I've never met an IceWing," Clay says, edging back a step. "I've never met much of anyone, really. I mean, I guess I read that you were all the colors of ice, but I didn't realize ice came in so many colors. Like, you know, blue. Very surprising. It's cool, though. Oh, ha ha, no pun intended." Glory keeps herself from rolling her eyes.

"Booooo!" calls several dragons from the upper seats. "More blood! More death! Somebody bite somebody!"

"Are you trying to get us both killed?" the IceWing growls. "Shut up and let me kill you."

"I'd rather not." Clay stumbles back. Then he looks up. What was he doing? Glory looks as far as she can, but still sees nothing. No! Fjord catches her attention. He was breathing in, making a hissing sound. Freezing death breath on the way, Clay! Move! "Sorry," Clay apologizes. "Listen, do we have to fight? What'll happen to us if we-"

Fjord races towards Clay, claws outstretched. Clay moves out of the way, but Fjord's long, whip thin tail smacks him directly in the face. 'Oh, ouch.' Clay puts his wings over his head and lashes out. A hit! Fjord roars with pain as blood spills down his neck.

"BOOOOOOOOOO!" more dragons in the crowd shouts. 'Ah, shut up.' Glory thinks. "A sheep could've won this fight by now! What are you doing? Thinking? Less thinking! More killing! Claw him, claw him, claw him!"

'They sound just like Kestrel.' Glory mentally snorts.

Fjord rushes at Clay again, hissing. More frostbreath, Clay, watch out.

Clay moves with some surprising speed considering his size, and rakes his claws against Fjord's underbelly, leaving bloody gashes. Fjord screeches, doubling over.

"YAAAAYYYYYY!" shouts the crowd.

"What is wrong withyou?" Fjord yells at Clay. "That's not how MudWings fight! I was trained in your techniques!"

"Well, I wasn't." Clay shrugs. "Sorry." Glory grins to herself.

"Alright, dragons," a voice right by Glory cuts in. Glory flashes a quick green, before returning to her more neutral purple. 'It's just Queen Scarlet,' her mind soothes herself. Just Queen Scarlet? That wasn't comforting! Or, at least, it shouldn't be. "Fjord and Clay, we don't have all day. Some of us have kingdoms to run. One of you kill the other one right now, or I'm coming down there to end you both myself."

Fjord snarls and dashes at Clay again. Clay rears up and grabs Fjord's extra horns around his head. The grapple in the sand, and right as Glory though Clay was winning, Fjord dominates. "Time to die," Fjord growls. He wraps his talons around Clay's neck and presses hard. He sucks in his freezing death breath for the killing blow.

Then there was a yell. Everyone looks up. Whatever it was, now was Glory's chance. To do what, she didn't know. She waits until Scarlet is distracted before rearing up and opening her mouth…

And a spray of black liquid came out of Glory's front two teeth. Glory settles back down, unexpectedly satisfied. It hits Fjord on the face, and he reaches up to wipe it off. But then a hissing noise happens, and Fjord starts screaming bloody murder. A droplet had landed in his eye, and that was the first to go, leaving a gaping black cavern in it's wake. Fjord dies, and he collapses on top of Clay. Clay wiggles out from underneath him and stands up.

Glory had killed him.

And for some reason, it didn't make her feel sick. Instead, she felt…

Pleased.

Chapter Text

And then the guilt sets in.

Glory turns a sickly green once she's returned to the throne room. 'Ugh… what did I do?' she thinks disgustedly. Yeah, she's disgusted… with herself.

"Queen Scarlet!" someone says. Glory peeks. Ugh. The queen's champion. Peril. "Queen Scarlet, are there any arena fights tomorrow?" Queen Scarlet makes a displeased sound.

"No," she says disappointedly. "But there is a court-thingy. That ought to be interesting. Kestrel."

'Kestrel?' Glory thinks. 'Right. Kestrel got taken with us all. Now she'll probably be executed…' she shudders slightly.

"But you can't go," Queen Scarlet continues. "You must collect your black rocks, I'm running out. Don't you remember what happened last time? You got horribly sick, didn't you?"

"Yes," Peril sighs unhappily. "I definitely don't want that to happen again. Alright." The sounds of talons scraping out of the stone room… and then silence.

"Hmmm… well…" Scarlet whispers into the silence. Glory listens, but is pretty sure Scarlet isn't going to say anything else. " I wish… Remember Peregrine?" For a second, Glory thinks that Scarlet's talking to her. "Peregrine… my sister… I loved her. Looked up to her. And then she teased me. Told me that my scales looked funny and that I was too slow of a flier." A pause. "Why am I talking to a lazy RainWing?" Glory turns a light shading of red in anger. "Oh. Pretty. Looks like mine. Just lighter." Glory turns instead a violet shade, just because she hates displaying her emotions. Not that this eccentric queen knows what any of them mean. "Violet. I guess you're in your violet mood, hm? Anyway, now Peregrine is dead. She deserved it. I hate being the outcast. So I forced myself to be in the top. The queen." Scarlet giggles, preening. "And I love it. Would you love to be queen? You're probably not in the royal RainWing line."

One of Glory's eyes slide open involuntarily at that. She hadn't thought about being queen. What if she is a royal RainWing, and she can become queen to get away from the destiny, where she doesn't belong.

Queen Scarlet yelps in terror, and Glory realizes too late that she had seen her.

"Sorry, sorry," Glory says, her voice partially scratchy from not talking for a couple off days. But speaking just makes it worse.

"You… were… AWAKE?!" Scarlet screeches. Glory winces, but nods. "How dare you! Tell me you didn't hear?"

"I didn't?" Glory says weakly. Scarlet's face flushes a deeper red than normal.

"Not CONVINCING!" Scarlet starts panting from the exertion of screaming at the top of her lungs.

"I'm sorry!" Anger takes over Glory's fear as protection, and her ruff flares. She turns a bright red as a result.

"I didn't WANT you to HEA-" Scarlet promptly passes out. Glory's jaw drops open, and Fjord's writhing body on the arena floor flashes through her head. Shaking the image away, Glory tries to untangle herself from the marble tree she's perched on, to go over to see if the queen is dead. Wait… nope. Still breathing. She turns her mellow normal green with blue and orange, with blue eyes. Finally untangling herself, she wobbles over to Scarlet.

"Are you okay?" she whispers to the unconscious queen. 'Why do I care?' she thinks.

Scarlet's eyes flutter open, and the first thing she sees is a gorgeous green face. 'Have I died?' she thinks. 'No - but then where did this pretty dragon come from?'

Another thing Peregrine teased her about. Her… preferences. She liked, and still does, female dragons more than males. That doesn't really matter, right?

Suddenly, she feels alone.

"What's going on?" Scarlet barks, resuming her queenliness. "Who are you?" The face turns annoyed, in place of the concerned look on moments before.

"I'm your… how should I say this? Ah, yes. Pet. I'm your pet. Pet RainWing." the dragon - a dragonet, Scarlet realizes - huffs.

"Oh," Scarlet calms down. "Wait…" all of what happened rushes back to her now. "Did you hear?" all of her previous anger had dissipated since her passing out. The dragonet nods. "Oh. Frog droppings." she curses. "Isn't that thrilling." she grumbles, mostly to herself. Ah, her main word. Thrilling. She stole it from Peregrine on her dying day, standing over her mostly dead body.

"Oh, dear sister," Scarlet was saying, grinning evilly, "isn't it just… thrilling?" Peregrine's eyes widened, horror filling them one last time, before she breathes in her last breath.

"Oh well," the RainWing dragonet says, holding out a talon. Scarlet takes it. 'Oh my… this is bad…' She's felt this before. This fluttery feeling.

A crush.