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Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings was fuming.
One minute, she’d been limping into her throne room, collapsing under the insufferable pain of the venom fizzing and melting through her face, sucking in desperate gasps for air as the world faded to a fuzzy black around her.
And next thing she knew, she was waking up to the reek of countless dead and rotting things, which she sluggishly realised upon lifting herself to her haunches - to the best of her ability - was the horrid amalgamation of oddities that made up Queen Burn’s Weirdling Tower.
The next thing she’d noticed, after a jarring clank stopped her from taking any more than three steps forward, was her restricted movement. Binding each of her front and back legs were these horrible dark green wire things. Worse than that, a sort of loose band with these prickly spikes on it was clipped around her neck, and from it snaked another wire that connected to a spot on the floor. No amount of tugging and contorting or attempting to pull it over her head would get it off. She knew from experience.
Needless to say, finding herself trapped here , of all places, right after almost losing her life to a dragon whose tribe were supposed to be pacifists, was incredibly infuriating.
Speaking of pacifist dragons, that thought was what made the pain kick in. It was as if her face had forgotten for a moment that half of it was supposed to be melted and distorted, and only remembered when she consciously thought about it. But when she did think about it… Talons and tails, it just couldn’t be put into words. It wasn’t as bad as it had been when the venom initially struck her, but the pain had only dimmed marginally since then. There was a constant, excruciating stabbing feeling, almost like her face was splitting in two. She wouldn’t even have been too surprised if she were to reach up and find a fissure in her skull.
But no, when she lifted a talon to inspect the damage (warily, since she wasn’t sure if the venom would spread if she touched her face), she was met with the surprise of jabbing her claw directly into an exposed, bloodshot eyeball.
Not much had changed in the weeks she’d been here. Burn had made a visit to check on her three times thus far. No, she hadn’t been counting. And no, she hadn’t had any success coaxing her into letting her out. But she had at least convinced her to remove the band around her snout, along with the binds on her wings. She’d thought all that was a little extreme, considering she couldn’t fly anywhere regardless of whether or not she had her wings bound. Burn had agreed, somewhat grudgingly, and had called a guard to the tower in the following hours to take off the binds.
Scarlet had been taken by surprise when she saw how reluctant Burn had looked. She had turned away from her when she said she’d order a guard to come here and do it, and hadn’t been present for it herself at all. Hissing and spitting at the guard hadn’t convinced him to free her entirely. Neither had threatening his life, or his family’s. Burn’s soldiers were too loyal.
Which was one thing Burn did right. Well, Burn did a lot of things right. Scarlet growled to herself. She’d thought almost only positively of Burn for many years of the war, and that led to a peculiar fondness that she wasn’t used to feeling. Queen Burn was rough around the edges, to put it lightly, and was no stranger to fighting. Scarlet had always admired that, and had initially wondered if Burn would be fascinated by her gladiator arena.
She had not been.
As it turned out, Burn was more so one for being in the action herself than for watching it. She had been rather open about finding that Scarlet’s arena was frivolous, unnecessary for the SkyWing tribe’s benefit, and Scarlet had almost considered blindly agreeing with her and having it knocked down or replaced with something more to Burn’s liking. Because Scarlet had only wanted to please Burn.
Had.
After everything she’d done for Burn, everything she’d done to maintain their alliance, to make sure Burn took a liking to her, to make sure this odd fondness wouldn’t fade, because she admittedly quite liked it… Burn’s first instinct when she saw the venom had been to throw herself behind Scarlet so it wouldn’t hit her. Had she particularly meant for the venom to hit Scarlet instead? Uncertain, but hopefully not. Did she care that it had? Also uncertain.
But it showed how unappreciative she was of all Scarlet had given. It also happened that it was during this train of thought that she noticed the most recent gift she’d given Burn. When Burn had visited Scarlet’s kingdom on her hatching day, she’d given her a taxidermied crocodile with little bat wings sewn onto it; that was frivolous, if you asked Scarlet, but she’d still had it made for Burn. Because she wanted to please her.
But when she’d seen the crocodile, it had been sitting on a pedestal aggravatingly close to her, and in a fit of rage, she’d snatched it up and ripped it to shreds. It had been staring at her with its beady, reptilian eyes, and she’d felt rather like it was making fun of her for ending up in this situation. It quite deserved to get torn up, because, oh, how dare she want to please her SandWing ally with gifts fashioned after her favourite interests? How dare she want to support Queen Burn’s pursuit of the SandWing throne? It was ridiculous. And it had all backfired anyway.
Speaking of Burn, she realised she could hear the door at the base of the Weirdling Tower creaking open. No doubt it was the SandWing queen herself. Scarlet sprung to her feet, writhing in her restraints to get a look over the edge of her platform. Sure enough, a glimpse of dull, sandy scales flashing across what she could see of the floor far below proved her right.
She reared up the moment she saw her. “BURN.”
“Queen Scarlet,” Burn responded flatly. She leisurely ascended the levels of the tower, stopping to admire the oddities dotting the floors as if she had all the time in the world to get to Scarlet. Was she even here for Scarlet? Well, whenever she visited, she always stopped to speak to Scarlet. She claimed to be checking on her, as if she needed checking on.
It was insulting. If she was going to talk to Scarlet, couldn’t it at least be because she was taking the time out of her day to give her some company? Scarlet was here all day, every day, and Burn just visited whenever she pleased, spending the rest of her time doing whatever it was she enjoyed doing in her stronghold, content as could be.
Which just wasn’t fair at all! Apparently Burn was doing this to protect her, but wasn’t locking her up on the highest floor of her tower just extreme? Not that she needed protecting. Not in the slightest. If it was up to her, she’d have returned to the Sky Kingdom weeks ago and torn Ruby’s face off.
Stupid righteous daughter of hers, always so soft and sentimental. She couldn’t believe that getting rid of Tourmaline hadn’t helped at all, either, because the tribe still thought that Pathetic Princess Ruby was a worthy candidate for the throne. She could never be competent enough to rule hundreds of thousands of SkyWings. Maybe she’d forgive Burn if she dragged Ruby here herself, so Scarlet could get killing her over with.
But no, Burn had deemed her “in no condition to challenge Ruby for her throne back.” Which was also insulting. She was Queen Scarlet! She had never even come close to falling to a challenger for her throne, never mind her daughter’s measly might! Ruby wouldn’t stand a shadow of a chance against her! Why did Burn seem to think otherwise?
She took another look at the SandWing. She was looking at an aquarium of deformed sea creatures which Scarlet had melted in a blast of enraged flames a few days prior. On her face was a look of regret, presumably toward her decision to allow Scarlet to have the band around her snout removed. Unbelievable.
First of all, if she didn’t want Scarlet to destroy all her most treasured possessions, then maybe she shouldn’t keep her contained with them! As though she was one of her oddities! Second, she was absolutely taking her time getting to her!
Her rage had boiled over already. “YOU’D BETTER GET UP HERE SOON, OR I WILL SCRAPE THE SCALES OFF YOUR MOONS-BLASTED BACK.” Of course she wouldn’t actually do that, but she was really getting impatient now.
“Alright, Your Majesty, have some patience,” came Burn’s voice, but she did notice that Burn sped up her pace regardless. Still, though, how could she treat her ally with such disrespect?
“How dare you! You keep me locked up here, then tell me to ‘have some patience’ when you won’t even spare me some of your time for a conversation? Do you know how easily I could burn your face off, snap off your horns, and then STAB YOU WITH THEM UNTIL I KNOW YOU'RE DEAD FOR GOOD?”
“Well, thanks for telling me your exact plan of attack. It’ll be fun chopping your head off from a distance and adding it to my collection. Or mounting it to my spiked wall. Hmm, where do you think would be better?”
Scarlet hissed through her teeth. “On my body and functioning works perfectly fine, thank you,” she quipped back.
“If you were dead, at least I would know you couldn’t fly off and challenge your daughter.” Burn finally landed in front of her. “Do you not understand, Scarlet? I’m keeping you safe. You’re safe here. You’ll get yourself killed before sunset if you leave, and then what? Ruby stays on the throne, and your dragons will forever see you as the imbecile killer who tried to take down her daughter while she was already half dead. And what’s worse? Half dead because of a lazy RainWing.”
“Stop bringing that up!” she seethed. “How was I supposed to know those soft dragons could shoot venom? I doubt they ever use it. And anyway, that RainWing was different. Supposed to be a dragonet of destiny. Even still, bit of a pathetic excuse for one.”
“If I hear about those ‘dragonets of destiny’ one more time, I’ll…” Burn lashed her tail, forcefully containing her rage in a deep breath. “And stop trying to justify your case. You know, it’s that arena of yours. Stupid thing. Why don’t you just go and fight the SeaWings and the IceWings yourself? Much more gratifying way of going about things, I’ll say.”
“But-” Scarlet paused for a moment, knowing she would sound like a whiny two-year-old dragonet if she let herself finish that sentence. “Dead enemies are dead enemies. Right? And the rest of my tribe likes seeing it, too. I do it to entertain. My tribe, and myself.”
“Mostly yourself.”
“Fine. Yes. Mostly myself. But for all the complaining you do about them, I can’t help noticing you always watch the fights when you can,” she added with a sly grin. She hoped she’d backed Burn into a corner.
“W-Well, you’re not… wrong. That violence is violence.” Wow. Scarlet had never heard Burn stutter. “It’s… somewhat entertaining.”
“Just somewhat?”
“Alright,” Burn caved. Her voice was low and rumbly, betraying her reluctance. “I don’t like to admit it, and it did always seem to me like a waste of dragons you could have used to fight in the war, but the battling was enticing. And you could be good company, as much of a ridiculous dragon as you are.”
Despite herself, Scarlet lit up with a terrible joy. “See? I just like to see the blood being shed, and you prefer to be the one shedding it; maybe we enjoy fighting in different ways, but it’s still something we have in common.”
Burn hummed. A small, but agreeable noise. “Maybe so.”
“In that case… If you were to, perhaps… let me out…”
“Not happening.”
“…We could both… kill Ruby together.”
Burn looked at her plaintively. “How many times have I told you this? You-”
“Twenty-three.”
“Excuse me? You’ve…”
“Counted? Of course. Why wouldn’t I? What else can I do to occupy myself when I’m stuck in a tower my own ally stuffed me into to rot away until I’m a lonely pile of bones?!”
It seemed like Burn had ignored her, because instead of responding, she started idly scanning Scarlet. Her eyes landed on the scarred side of her face and flitted around it for much longer than Scarlet would have liked. Scowling, Scarlet averted her eyes.
She couldn’t believe it.
It wasn’t her fault her face was ruined. Funnily enough, it was Burn’s, if anything. Burn was the one who used Scarlet as a living shield to protect herself from the venom. She looked back at her. If she hadn’t made that brilliant maneuver, it would be Burn with the melted face, and Scarlet would be at home in her kingdom, ruling. As she should have been now.
It would be better if it was Burn.
She already had enough scars for it to not completely ruin her. Her injuries may as well have been a pattern on her scales.
“You really are exaggerating how bad the venom is, you know,” Burn said unexpectedly.
Scarlet blinked at her, thoroughly confused and unimpressed. “I’m sorry?”
“Dragons are pretty scared of you, Scarlet. If I may say so, the melted face adds to the whole… intimidation thing. It’s scary.”
“You might as well just tell me directly that I’ll never be the same again.”
“No, it’s a good thing. You want others to fear you, yes? That’s how you rule. That’s how I rule. For both of us, as I’m sure you’ve been able to tell, it’s been pretty damn effective.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s not the end of the world.” Burn reached out and lightly touched a dried section of Scarlet’s venom-scarred face. Her expression was unchanged. Scarlet shivered. “And don’t think I haven’t heard all your complaining about how it ‘ruined your good looks.’ Which I never agreed with in the first place.”
Snarling, Scarlet lifted a loathing talon to the melted side of her face, and her heart lurched when her claw momentarily brushed Burn’s. But it seemed that Burn’s surprise only prompted her to latch her talon and Scarlet’s. For a very brief moment that felt like two thousand years, Scarlet studied the face staring back at her.
Burn had scars raking every corner of her face, the largest being a slit crossing her mouth and a pale pink river snaking across her eye ridge and cutting through her rugged sail. Her furrowed brows shadowed much of her eyes, but from what little she could see of their coal-black depths, there glinted a perpetual hostility. There had always been a certain roughness to her, but anyone would know that; it practically radiated from her in a way that was physically tangible.
She couldn’t explain it, but there was something about Burn that made Scarlet gravitate toward her. She was like the physical manifestation of the violence Scarlet loved and craved so much. Rabid, relentless. That’s what Burn was like on the battlefield. There was no limit to which she’d be willing to injure herself if it meant she could get a fight won. That was exactly the kind of dragons Scarlet wanted in her gladiator arena, but alas, most of her prisoners were wimpy chickens who would rather take their own lives in front of near enough the palace’s entire population than fight their opponents.
But not Burn. Burn would tear down everyone in her prison and emerge victorious, in a thrilling display of the action Scarlet adored. The excitement! The anticipation! Everything amazing that would come with watching Burn pour her heart out into the fighting!
It was so strange. On the surface, Scarlet wanted to say she despised Burn, especially after what she’d done to her, but thinking of that… it got her heart racing, and adrenaline running through her veins. Burn was just so fierce and powerful. It was, in a weird way, irresistible. Wasn’t she just everything Scarlet wanted in a dragon? Burn was her leading example of a perfect, quintessential warrior.
Which was exactly why she was so hard to hate.
“I need to see you fight,” Scarlet heard herself murmuring. Her mouth was moving on its own, and so was her talon, apparently, because she realised it had moved up Burn’s arm and come to rest on her flank. “It would be simply thrilling. ”
“Well, that’s convenient,” Burn responded, her voice low, “because seeing you makes me feel like I need to kill something.”
“Unfortunate. Seeing as everything around us is already dead.”
“You’re not.”
Scarlet growled. She wasn’t sure whether it was out of aggression, anything else, or both. “I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Quite frankly…” Burn was almost whispering. She brought her face closer to Scarlet’s until their snouts touched. “So would I.”
“I believe I’m capable of taking care of myself, though, Burn. I don’t need you locking me up in your tower for safeguarding.”
“No, you’re still misunderstanding. If you’re in your own kingdom, I can’t guarantee your safety. And I don’t like that. But if you’re here, curled up with the rest of my most protected treasures…” Burn traced the scarred side of Scarlet’s face with a surprisingly tender, slow-moving wingtip. “I can feel at peace. I know for sure you’re safe. If no one but my guards and I know that you’re here, then how can anyone come after you?”
Scarlet shuddered, thinking of all the times she’d dreamvisited (now Queen) Glory since she got stuck here, and how close that lizard had come to finding out where she was. That… that would spell trouble. And that would especially spell trouble on Burn’s scroll, apparently.
“It doesn’t make a difference where I am,” she snarled insistently nonetheless. “I’m Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings. No one would ever dare lay a claw on me, and you know that.”
“Maybe except for your daughter, and the entire SkyWing royal family, if they ever found out you were coming back for your throne.”
Scarlet snorted. “Ruby wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind her mother. I think she’d sooner let me kill her babbling son than willingly fight me. At least it would get him to finally shut up with his stupid songs. I’m telling you, hearing him parading around the palace belting his lungs out, I’ve nearly torn off my ears, and then his.”
“Is that so?” Burn looked away from Scarlet for a moment, peering out of a window in the vague direction of the stronghold entrance. “Do you think this dragonet you speak of would make a fine addition to my collection of severed heads? If it would please you, I could put him right next to his mother.”
“That sounds like a thrilling sight.” Scarlet chuckled, smoke curling from her nostrils. “Even better if you would let me be the one doing the killing and dismembering.”
Unexpectedly, Burn tugged on the wire connecting to the band around her neck, gagging Scarlet slightly. “No. You are not going to convince me. And don’t get too ahead of yourself - remember that you’re not actually queen anymore, Scarlet. It’s-”
“Of course I’m queen!” Scarlet seethed, painfully knocking her head against Burn’s as she reared up with fury. “I am the only rightful SkyWing queen! Ruby is only on the throne because they think I’m gone. Dead. Because of you. This is your fault, Princess Burn!”
“At least I’m queen for now, within my own kingdom,” Burn shot back, stepping across the platform from Scarlet. “One day, my sisters will be dead, as they should be, and I’ll be queen of the SandWings for good. While you, my dear, will learn to make yourself at home right here, where we can have our secret exchanges. No one else will have to know. You don’t need power. You need to be safe.”
Burn didn’t approach Scarlet again. In fact, she seemed to be deliberately facing away from her. Upon studying her face, Scarlet saw that there seemed to be several emotions warring on Burn’s face, mostly overridden by her scowling. She suddenly remembered Burn’s… thoughts about inter-tribal relationships. About ‘contaminating SandWing blood.’
Scarlet could only imagine what Burn would think of their dragonets, if they could have any. Only half SandWing must be equivalent to only half a dragon to her. She could see it in her face. Burn had always been disinterested enough in relationships and dragonets as it was, so the thought that she was this possessive of a SkyWing must have been sickening to her whenever she remembered what she was really doing. Which begged the question.
“Why don’t you just let me go, then?” Burn’s head snapped toward her again. “It’ll be much less trouble for both of us. Just forget about me, let me do what I want to do in my own kingdom. And I’ll leave you alone, too.”
“That’s not an option,” Burn spat. “Regardless of whether I wanted to or not, I couldn’t. You’re my ally in the war. We still…” The words seemed to get caught on her tongue before she got them out. “We still need each other.”
“…And I’d be a much more helpful ally if I was in my kingdom, where all my power is.”
“Do you want yours to be the throat I rip out?” Burn suddenly roared. “My patience is running thin, Scarlet. Maybe I’d let you go if you were in any sort of condition to be out in the open, but you will get yourself killed.”
Scarlet’s ruined face started to prickle painfully, as if reminding her of what Burn was talking about. “I will not. I’ve clearly survived all the attacks I’ve ever faced, correct?” She gestured to herself - to her very much intact physical form.
“Yes, but in all of those cases, you weren’t in that condition.” Burn heaved a sigh, turning to lift off of Scarlet’s platform. “Still so stubborn, aren’t you? I need an excuse to stab someone with their own tail after this. I’ll see you… whenever I decide to check on you next.”
Suppressing everything inside her that told her to lash out at Burn, Scarlet watched in ear-splitting silence as the SandWing princess spread her wings and abruptly soared off down the levels of the tower.
It was as if someone had zipped her mouth shut. Normally, she’d have said something, but somehow, she just couldn’t. She could only sit there, surrounded by the shreds of the gift she’d torn apart, and listen as the door to the Weirdling Tower creaked open and then slammed shut again a moment later.
And Burn was gone.