Creative Corner

[quote]“I think,” his tiny voice was strained, but vicious, “You shouldn’t talk so much. You’re obnoxious and stupid.”[/quote] muddle oh my [i]gods[/i] ahh their dialogue makes me laugh. MUDDLE IS SO DISGRUNTLED... muddle please, lyric definitely helped you out there!!! that was really nice of casari to let them out though 0: i hope thrush doesn't give her hell for it!! the bit about ice magic's origins and the turning-to-wood spell was really cool too aaa that was awesome ovob sad to hear about lyric's brother stac :( (i'm guessing that's his name pff) now i'm curious about how the script relates to muddle at all, i guess fate is at work here :0 yay for long chapters!!! that was a good read, thank :0 (and so quick!!)

Muddle felt Lyric’s body jerk as she hit the snow, skidding and struggling to slow herself for a few jarring steps before Muddle felt his body flip forward. His back hit the front of Lyric’s face, knocking the wind out of him as a spray of snow rained down around them.


“Are you alright?”

The coarse, thick mane had rubbed his hands raw and he managed to let go, sliding a few inches down Lyric’s huge, square muzzle.

“No,” he managed after a few shallow, gulping breaths, and lay still, confusing the falling powder for stars.

“Oh, alright… Sorry,” she said, with the sympathy of a coiled snake, each word grating against his sore body.

“Put m-me d-d-down,” Muddle tried to sit up but he was shaking too hard, half of him felt glassy and delicate while the other half kept twitching with a terrible energy. The new parts of him were crumpling towards his neck and–

“I guess it is sort of weird trying to talk to you like this…”

The world blurred as Lyric tilted her head down and Muddle felt her squint as his body pulled against her mane.

“There…”

Angling his head up stiffly, slowly from her scales, Muddle saw the ground and slid clumsily down her lumpy snout. As soon as his feet hit the snow, he scrambled forwards– stumbling towards the pines despite the new waves of pain that shot up from his palms.

Whatever she’s going to do to me– Trying to do– I have to–

He thought of The Ring and the dark veins that had spread across its once immaculate golden band. Twice now he’d tried to correct whatever had happened in The Grotto but he was still–

The air was thin and felt like it was cutting his throat and nose each time he pulled it in, and, as he tried to compensate with an exaggerated breath, Muddle faltered and fell chest first into a small drift. He struggled against it, realizing that he could barely feel any part of himself past the sharp sting of the cold.

“Are you alright?”

Lyric’s voice boomed above him and he tucked his head towards the snow.

She didn’t even need to chase me, she–

“I think you should maybe not try to run… I mean, in this weather– without any protection…” a pause, he heard her exhale and peeked behind him in time to catch her watching the clouds of her breath dissipate into the dark boughs above, “I don’t want to say it but,” she looked back down at him, “You’ll die.”

“You d-d-don’t–” his teeth chattered against each other so violently that he bit his tongue.

“Here.”

The large, stony underside of her hand covered him for a moment and he curled in on himself, managing a few protestations and profanities before she plucked him out of the drift and set him on the bushy tip of her massive tail.

“And there.”

Muddle clutched his shoulders, feeling raw and meek from all his shaking and crying. Lyric was looking down at him with the curious, insufferable expression– as if he were some specimen or intriguing object she had found under an overturned log. The new parts of him puffed out and rattled before he could swat at them– But there was nothing else he could do. Not with her size or the snow or The Ring sitting stiff and stained around his boney, strange wrist.

“I’m…” he felt his body sway, “I– Why did you take me out here,” the venom in his voice was faint despite how badly he wished he could scream that this creature and tell her– “At least it was warmer back in…”

“Oh,” said Lyric, her eyes sparking up suddenly, “Oh. I’m sorry about that… I didn’t expect things to go the way way they ended up, well, going but…” she lifted her head, turned to look up at the tiny tents of sky between the branches, “It seemed like what I had to do.”

Muddle’s insides felt suddenly hollow only to be filled with a budding prickly indignation.

“It was st-stupid,” he managed and shivered, resisting the urge to nestle down into Lyric’s tail-tuft, “And once it’s morning I’m not– You can’t make me– I don’t care about any of that ridiculous song nonsense or whatever kind of terrible, intrusive “favors” you want to perform for me. I–

The new parts folded and then flexed and Muddle swiveled his head towards Lyric, saying in a voice so low and suspicious that he almost recognized it as his own,

“How did you know my name?”

The dragon blinked and Muddle felt himself preparing to flinch or run or–

“What were you doing with that bracelet and that light?”

“I… I– It’s n–”

“None of your business!” Lyric chirruped in a high, jagged voice that was obviously a poor imitation of him own. Muddle felt his stomach flip and looked away quickly, the appendages on his neck crinkling, “That’s what you were going to say, right?” the wind stirred the tips of the branches, “So I guess it’s what my answer is too.”

Gritting his teeth, Muddle entertained a few generic but scathing insults to counter with but couldn’t settle on one before Lyric continued,

“But whenever you want to share… I won’t judge, alright,” her gaze drifted byond him and he almost turned around to see what it was she was looking at, “Alright?”

Her voice was faint and misty as if she were somewhere else entirely.
Muddle felt the new parts rippling slightly and swatted at them again, managing to hold them still.

“What,” he said, without thinking, “Are these awful things–?”

“Your…?” One of her large, tufted eyebrows quirked upwards, “Your frills? You don’t know–?”

A laugh rumbled up through her throat and Muddle could feel it ripple through her tail. His frills rattled again.

“I’m not used to– They’re new, alright?!” he snapped before he could stop himself.

“Oh!?” Lyric’s tail spasmed with sudden interest, launching Muddle up into the air with a strangled cry. He spun over himself twice before his belly hit a clump of thin fir branches, and he clutched them as they bobbed up and down under his weight. Lyric’s antlers slid into view, followed by her rectangular head.

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not,” he growled and readied himself for the possibility she’d try to pick him up again.

“I was just excited because it turns out you’re like Rootlickt– I didn’t know, I just thought– Most dragons would never want to become Faes because, ah– Well you’re already Light, so I guess it doesn’t matter but…”

Muddle ground his jaw against the bark, hissing, “ What are you talking about?”

He could feel something wet and warm on his belly, as if one of his wounds had opened up again.

That stupid fu–

“Do you not know?”

Her nose was almost in the firs now, her expression becoming the same, twinkling look of patronizing interest. Muddle felt as though he would like nothing more than some means to hurt her– To make it so she could never look at him like that again or–

“It seems sort of impossible that you wouldn’t know that… Are you sure you didn’t just forget, maybe?”

The appendages flared and rattled,

“Stop asking me if I know or don’t know– I don’t know anything about this place or whatever I am or why– Why…” he looked down at The Ring, setting his jaw and feeling his anger rising up into his nose, “I’m not a dragon– Or whatever– I don’t know– I–”

His claws clenched,

“I just want this– All of this moronic bull– Just give me an explanation of some kind– a real one– or shut up! I don’t have time for some obnoxious, nosey idiot if you can’t tell me anything about– H-hey!”

Lyric lifted him up by the tail from between the dark, scraggly needles, her face suddenly blank with a kind of wonder. She had propped herself up on her heels and Muddle caught glimpse of the ground, closing his eyes quickly and stiffening.

“You aren’t a dragon? Or do you mean that you weren’t one–?”

“Put m-me d-d-down,” he said, as firmly as he could.

“Because you are one… At least, you look very much like a dragon…”

“I’m–” he was a vessel of endless rage and fear, but a small one. One, even he knew, was helpless against these circumstances, “I was– I am a h-human.”

He cracked an eye hopefully, watching Lyric’s body blur from the blood rushing to his head.

“Huh,” said Lyric, “I don’t know what that is.”

Before she set him shaking and crosse-eyed back on her tail.

“Then why–?!” he staggered sideways and fell into her fur, “Why did you ask–?! Why do you even ca–?”

Silence.

Curling his tail around him, Muddle looked at the antlered-dragon and saw she was staring at the huge, inscribed book that was was cinched against her leg. Her body shifted in the snow, turning the cover of the ancient volume towards him so that he could see every twist of the strange symbols across the binding. Protruding from just above the center of the cover, Muddle saw something quiver like–

The night sounds cut into a thick, dragging silence that muffled everything but Muddle’s own fearful breaths– his bolting, terrified heartbeat… Something was trying to speak through the heaviness. Something was repeating a word– a note?– A phrase?– over and over as if he would have understood it. As if–

“I’m going to try to sleep, alright?”

Muddle fell backwards as Lyric pulled a few of the boughs and began spreading them over the snow at the base of a thick grove of trees; shaping the overhang of the largest conifer so that its branches would shield the space from the wind.

Muddle clung to her fur awkwardly, “I don’t care.”

Once she had spread the improvised bedding to her liking, she turned a quick, fidgety circle above it so suddenly that Muddle was flung off of her tail with a shriek. He hit the snows with another. And somersaulted twice with two more.

“Sorry,” she sounded already half asleep, “I forgot.”

And tucked her head back against her body.

“No you didn’t– You did that on purpose– ah–!”

He struggled back towards her, aware of how much smaller he felt with every step. Tiny breaths. Tiny tracks that crossed and merged everywhere he’d fallen as he desperately tried to get to the warmth of the shelter. The memory of her firm: You’ll die.

And he would. And he knew it.

He settled by one of her massive, leathery wings; experimenting with the distance he needed to maintain to feel her body heat without actually have to touch her. In the darkness, the etchings on her book looked somehow different, as if they had switched themselves around the second Muddle had looked away. But the cover was still– Whatever he had seen before must have been a trick of the starlight.

She’s hiding something, he thought, the exhaustion of the terrible day clutching at him again, With the book… It–

The Grotto flashed through his mind– The slurry and those horrible teeth tearing through him–

Wincing, Muddle spread himself out, twitching with the uncomfortable dread he could feel gathering in his arms and legs, and looked down at The Ring. The dark, tarnished area seemed larger than before but– He blinked, feeling more awake than ever: It was beginning to take shape.

Along the inner band, a series of spidery glyphs gleamed up at him in the darkness.

And though he did not recognize them at all, part of him desperately wanted to–

If I can decipher them then– his spindly claws flexed as he pressed his palm to the crook of on the branches, Then–

And then, as if by magic, he was suddenly asleep.

---

Grey skies.

Muddle shuffled along the pedestrian section of Anagnori Bridge with his back to the city and his eyes trained on the 51 South stretching ahead, infinitely into the horizon. None one was with him. The cars he had been following against the white-split asphalt had suddenly vanished.

His palms were on the thick metal railings and he hadn’t bothered to wear his gloves despite the weather. Below the water churned itself into the same endless, swirl of a current and Muddle was struck with a sudden, terrible anxiousness.

Pedestrians were not allowed on Anagnori Bridge: the metal mesh paths were for maintenance workers and inspectors but never– Not since.

He dug through his jacket pockets frantically for his phone, nearly losing it to the yawning silver-tipped mouth of the water below, before he lit up the screen with a tap of his ring finger.

No passcode needed.
One new message.

He jammed his finger down on the mailbox icon three times and swore, looking back over his shoulder to see another body moving towards him along the empty walkway.

Come on, come on, come on–!

Unknown sender.
One new message.

He could feel snot and sweat dripping down his nose. Sliding off the bright sheen of the screen and plummeting down into the river. Someone else was on the bridge! Someone he–

The horns of the cars jammed along the 51 South made him whimper as he tried– God, he was trying!– to read the–

One new message:

/It wasn’t supposed to be you./


Muddle screamed and charged into the darkness, slamming into Lyric’s scales before he collapsed in a quivering, bleeding heap against her. Light was poking, fresh and honey-colored through the rows of conifers, leaving soft blue and lavender shadows across the snow. A shape moved through them but Muddle did not see it.

Muddle wiped his face desperately and then clutched his shoulders until he was sure Lyric wasn’t going to wake up.

“Your dreams are troubling, yes?”

Said a voice somewhere just out of sight.
It was deep and smooth and it didn’t belong to Lyric.
And Muddle felt his heart freeze inside him as he opened his mouth to scream again.

---

@gira

aha muddle is just such a nasty little thing. like, man, she's literally just trying to talk to you.
ah well, at least lyric's not letting it get to her.... maybe.

and there's definitely something at work here, but, as to what it is and why lyric knows she has to bring muddle along on her quest..... only time will tell.

also...
thanks again for all your reactions-- they're always one of my favorite parts of releasing a chapter :}}

@smerdyakov aaaa i'm glad to hear you like my reactions xD i love your story!! muddle is quite grumpy but, given what he's been through, i can empathize - i guess i'd be snappy too... NEW CHAP [quote]“None of your business!” Lyric chirruped in a high, jagged voice that was obviously a poor imitation of him own. Muddle felt his stomach flip and looked away quickly, the appendages on his neck crinkling,[/quote] these two are ridiculous & make me laugh, it's good that lyric definitely holds her ground against muddle's grumpiness. good gosh [quote]“Huh,” said Lyric, “I don’t know what that is.”[/quote] [i]ooooooooo[/i] (i audibly gasped but in hindsight that lyric doesn't know about humans makes perfect sense) and then they just get along well, that's fun xD and a cliff ending?? i'm excited for the new character (maybe?) :0c hopefully they're nice!! awesome writing as always :D

There were bodies on the ice.

Virtue walked amongst them slowly; picking through the heaps and tangles of tails and wings and trinkets of good-luck wrapped around their limp, freezing wrists. Feeling along the paths of each species’ veins and whispering silently, hopefully:

“Are you alive?”

Silence.

“Do you need help?”

Silence. Again and always.

In the darkness, Virtue had to check the fallen’s eyes twice– watching for a flicker of movement or an adjustment of the pupil– but at least the snow provided a faint and blanching, if not eerie, glow. It was soft and inoffensive and, despite themself, Virtue preferred it to–


The wind was stronger here and rattled the poles of tattered banners against the mounts they’d been placed in. Virtue could see the places in the ice where the ground had been evened by the bodies of dragons much larger than their current form– the overlapping trails of felled pines and firs and shattered, delicate icefield pumice– and they felt almost vindicated. As if some ancient, inevitable cycle had been completed while they hadn’t been watching…

“Live by the claw, die by the…” they knelt beside a young Ridgeback, who was barely bigger than them, and passed their hands across her open, frozen eyes– thawing the lids so that they flickered shut.

“Do you need–?”

A sigh. The bodies were still. Their own body felt stiff and dwindling with each erratic function Virtue could feel being performed within it. So they stood and moved through the bodies again, calling softly through the silence for survivors.

The eastern moon had begun to rise, glinting a new pale light from the tips of discarded weapons and polished armor, and, somewhere among the bodies, Virtue saw something move.

They paused and waited, their large ears swiveling with every shift in the wind.

“Did you see something–?” said a sharp voice in a failed whisper.

“Dun know,” another, so low and spoken from the throat that it blended every word into a nearly undecipherable growl, “Could be a settlement party or scrappers or–”

Virtue took a slow, controlled step forward,

“Greetings,” they said, in the calm, non-threatening way they had heard Dragons talk to each other.

Silence– then a few hisses of whispered conversation. Virtue stood their ground, waiting. One of the large dark mounds shifted slightly, pushing itself up into the large, shaggy shape of a Tundra, which staggered towards Virtue with an understandable wariness. As the shape passed through a brighter patch of moonlight, Virtue saw a Mirror pressed against the large Tundra’s left foreleg like a living brace.

“What are you doing out on the ice?” the Tundra said, stopping a tail’s length from Virtue, “You a scrapper?”

The Mirror’s fins stood upright, her tail scraping a wide, irritated arc across the ice, “It’s certainly not one of ours,” she said and flashed her teeth, “It’s a Pearlcatcher so i could be–”

“My apologies for interrupting, dam,” Virtue dipped their neck in a muted bow, “But I am not anyone’s enemy: I am Virtue and I am a healer.”

The Tundra’s cloudy eye darted to meet the Mirror’s for a second,

“Gella,” the name rumbled in his throat with a fondness, “Its eyes- What are they?”

The Mirror craned her neck up, bracing her muscular shoulder against the Tundra defensively, “I…” all four of her eyes narrowed and then widened, “I can’t tell…”

Gella looked up at the Tundra, fear flashing through her, but he was silent for a moment before he drew himself up to his full height, despite a grunt of protest from Gella.

“Are you of the Icefield?” his voice was clearer now, his eyes were brighter versions of themselves– a flicker of recognition showing through the pain.

“I will not lie to you,” said Virtue, setting their weight against their haunches, making ready to dodge the attack the huge Tundra was already planning, “I was not born here,” their eyes flashed and they could feel something thick pooling in the corners, “I was not born anywhere in–”

The Tundra was faster than Virtue had anticipated– his massive, uninjured arm slammed the ice where Virtue had been and Virtue stumbled from the force that rippled from the impact.

“Gella!”

“Got it!”

Virtue heard the Mirror’s claws cutting the ice as she charged- swift and open-mouthed towards them. They scrambled forwards, using their wings to right themselves and then switched back over their own body, arcing over Gella as she tried to tear into them–

But the Tundra was ready and surged forwards, swinging his shaggy head into Virtue’s chest so hard that there was no breath left to get knocked out them when they crashed to the ground. Virtue could barely see the stars through the darkness gathering around the corners of their vision, but they managed to roll over and snake along the ice, knocking the Tundra’s legs out from under him.

“Yris!” shrieked Gella.

Virtue struggled to their feet and ran towards the Everflow River, listening to the sounds of the two Dragons fall behind them as they thundered around the dark forms splayed across the ice. Ahead, a small sequence of ice flows waited and Virtue leapt onto each of them, hardly daring to breath between jumps as not to upset the delicate alignment, and looked back only when they had reached the other side.

The shape of Gella approached the bank and met their eyes before she turned and headed back to wherever she had left Yris. Virtue could see her favoring her right back leg.

“I was unarmed,” Virtue said to the roar of the river and then shook their head, looking at the forest of evergreens that cast pale, jagged shadows over the snow. A breath. Virtue looked down at their glittering chest, feeling out the tender areas with their claws,

“Yris’ legs will be much worse now,” somewhere in the forest, a bird was tittering an odd, eerie melody and Virtue looked back across the river as their eyes softened, “I should…”

They pressed their claws against their forming bruises until they could see the darkness in the corners of their vision again.

“If he dies– If she does as well…” they pressed harder and then stood, moving deeper into the shadows of the pines until it was impossible to tell which patterns across the snow were from which trees. They considered the phenomenon for a moment and felt their pulse quicken.

“If I go back then…” they did not turn around, even though the conviction gripped them and–

Something large swept across the tops of the trees and Virtue looked up, claws closing around the Staff slung across their body– But whatever it had been, it had passed over. Virtue softened again.

“Dangerously close to the Icewarden’s river-wards…” they did look back this time, thinking of the black, rushing water and the magic that seethed around it, and wrinkled their nose, “Fugitives, probably.”

Yris’ cloudy eyes and Gella’s determined lean against him flashed through Virtue’s memory and they began to trudge through the snow– tensing their shoulders with each step.

“Could be wrongly accused,” they lifted their ears again and listened: birdsong, the distant river, silence, “Could be rightly accused as well.”

They wandered beneath the jagged, melting shadows and were unsure of how long it had been or if their body had begun to succumb to its physical limitations:

Exhaustion. Exposure. Emotional–

Suddenly a cry split the quiet and Virtue raced towards it before they had completely registered who or what it could have been. Boughs dragged across them, making the shadows shake and shimmer with an excitable, fading version of the moonlight. But Virtue was not watching them now; Their eyes were trained on the point where they were now certain they had heard the scream– Where they had–

The Pearlcatcher froze at the edge of a small clearing of silver-tipped fir trees, registering the shape of a small Imperial poorly concealed until a tilted lean-to of branches. Its chest rose and fell, stirring the needles slightly, evenly… Virtue took a tentative step into the clearing just as a tiny shaft of sunlight faded into focus.

“Your dreams are troubling, yes?”

Virtue tried, cocking their head and taking another careful step towards the Imperial.

“Or are you injur–”

Something like a strangled squeak sounded from near the Imperial’s belly and Virtue suddenly noticed the bright, blotchy shape that was huddled there:

A Fae.
An injured one.

“D-d-don’t–” he stuttered, his head swinging back and forth as if he couldn’t quite find Virtue in the snow, “It was h-her idea– Not m-mine, I– I wouldn’t h-have tried to– I m-mean, I–”

Virtue moved further into the clearing, the Fae sucking in a large, shuddery breath of air as he saw them. He buried his head behind his frills, pleading muffled by the folds.

“I have no intention of harming you, Fae,” Virtue unfurled their right claw like a flower as they extended it towards the shivering scrap of a Dragon, “I am Virtue and I am a healer…”

The Fae hadn’t seemed to hear and was thumping their back against the Imperial’s belly,

“Wake up– Idiotic– You could at least be useful and–”

Virtue blinked, their head tipping sideways as they watched the tiny creature swear and struggle.

“Would you like me to help you? Wake up your companion… And with your injuries?”

The Fae’s spotted head swung back, his bulging golden eyes looking suddenly more confused than afraid.

“Aren’t you with–? You look like you’d be–?” he dropped into a weak crouch, raising an arm defensively so that the gold around his wrist caught a shaft of sun, “What d-d-do you want?”

“I’ve already told you. Twice now,” Virtue took another slow step towards the two Dragons, “I want to help–”

The Imperial’s body twisted, grating against the boughs she had laid over the snow, and her mouth opened in a long, loose yawn.

“What are you…?” she yawned again and made two smacking sounds with her mouth, “What are you crying about, Muddle?”

“I’m not–!” Muddle spat over the rattle of his frills and then scrambled to hold them stiffly against his cheeks, “There’s someone here, you st-stupid- agh!”

The Imperial rolled over and Muddle darted away from her body, huddling at the edge of the makeshift shelter with his hands holding his sides.

“Greetings,” said Virtue, as the Imperial turned to look at them.

“Oh,” she said, blinking, “Hello.”

“That’s it–?! Some st-stranger just waltzes into–”

“I’m Lyric,” the Imperial began to brush the branches from above her, drawing herself up into a sitting position. For a moment, Virtue saw her eyes flicker in and out of focus as if she had heard something in the distance, before she looked back at them, “I’m sorry, I, um, thought you were someone else for a moment. I think Muddle might have done that too.”

“No, it’s… It is not the first time I have been greeted so… ” Virtue felt a sudden emptiness stir in them and looked at the sour-faced Fae, “The Icefields are a hostile place.”

“Yeah. Even before–” Lyric shook her head again, “I don’t think you said your name– Not while I was awake anyways…”

There was a sunny expectancy in her expression and Virtue was unsure if there was something else she wanted from them.

“I’m Virtue,” they said, “I am a healer.”

“Oh!” Lyric bent down and nudged Muddle with her nose, sending Muddle stumbling into the snow with a cry, “I think this drake very desperately needs one. I would have tried something, alright, but I… Well, I left my kit back at Rootlickt’s and…”

“They don’t know what you’re talking about– Not that anyone ever does,” Muddle dragged himself back onto the boughs and shivered before he gave Virtue a sharp, indignant look, “And I’m fine.”

“My apologies, Muddle,” said Virtue quickly, “But your injuries would suggest otherwise.”

Lyric nodded her head with a soft, “Uh-huh.”

“Shut up–!” he shrieked, adding, “What do you want anyway– there’s no way you just go around healing people– Dragons for free– I– I assume you have some kind of currency because of those awful buildings but I…” Muddle trailed off, his expression hardening with embarrassment,“You obviously want something.”

His eyes darted to his bracelet and then narrowed, “And I don’t need your help,” The sun breached the tapered points of the trees, glinting off of the gold again, and fear flashed through his expression before he glowered up at Virtue again, “And I don’t want it either.”

He crossed his arms, and winced.

Virtue opened their mouth to speak but paused. These strangers were odd. Contradictory. Virtue could not settle on a real opinion about either of their approaches to Virtue’s sudden appearance.

“Alright. I think,” Lyric whispered loudly, “You did something rude, Muddle.”

“Good,” snapped the Fae, “Hopefully I can figure out how to get you to shut up too.”

The sounds of the forest seeped into the spaces between Virtue and the others and they could feel a thin, playful wind stirring up the powder that had collected on the boughs of the canopy.

“I am confused,” they said, “As to why you are traveling out here… Together, anyways.”

They felt their heart skip suddenly, but couldn’t understand why.

“It seems… Improbable.”

Muddle looked over, face puckered and tired,

“She,” he gestured at Lyric with one of his spidery claws, “Kidnapped me and had done nothing but abuse me since.”

Virtue looked at Lyric, stiffening. She had taken small fir branch in her left hand and begun trying to twirl it in a steady path through her claws. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she finally noticed Virtue watching,

“Oh?” she set the branch down, “I’d say more of rescued. Enlisted, maybe? That’s a good meaty kind of way to say it, right?” she wasn’t watching either of them and had settled up against the tree with her head tilted back towards the sky. Her voice was distant, “The kind that maybe will keep him from always saying I’m stupid.”

A beat. She giggled and scratched her side, “It’s funny that I’m saying stuff like ‘always’, Virtue, when I’ve really only had to know Muddle a day or so,” she smiled and closed her eyes.

Muddle told her to shut up.

It all felt large and alienating to Virtue, who, after a moment of raw uncertainty, tried,

“Your wounds then?”

“I said no–”

The Fae’s mouth flapped on, silently and Virtue reached up to touch their head– tapping the odd, dry skin and hearing nothing.

This form must be experiencing some manner of–

But Muddle had noticed it too and was gesticulating wildly with his ruined wings flexing them in and out. Lyric was still watching the sky. Her eyes were set on a break between the trees, her palm laid across the etched cover of the book reigned to her hip.

And Virtue followed her gaze.

A long, shimmering trail had split the sky. It was bright and pulsated with a golden magic like a visible frequency– a sound that had been given a physical form from the way it rippled over the clouds. Muddle had dropped to his boney knees, cowering and clutching his head as he repeated something desperately, silently. Lyric had somehow risen to her feet without Virtue noticing– her long face still tipped towards the heavens with an unreadable expression.

And somewhere, from beyond the forest, Virtue could hear a high, vibrant sound that shook the trees and pulled the tips of their mane up towards the split. The light had changed too– The sun seemed higher, paler than before as if the whine and wind were pulling it into the split as well.

And the more Virtue watched the space in the center of the split, the more familiar it became to them–

“It’s…” Lyric said.

Virtue looked at the Imperial, their body twitching with the weight of the way in which sound had been flung back into this world. She was adjusting the book against her hip, her voice straining to rise about the intensifying wind,

“I mean, we might want to get moving, alright?”

Muddle was still cradling his head, muttering, (”What’s h-happening, d-d-dear god– What’s–”) and Virtue raised a claw to their chest tentatively,

“It is not my intention to assume, but…?”

The whine had become a louder, the suction of the wind growing with it. Lyric had begun to move through the firs, her great head parting the low canopy of flailing branches as she looked back at Virtue,

“I would have– ah, I guess a meaty word would be something like specified?” she nodded to herself, “But I didn’t. So, you know…”

She smiled and turned away, motioning at them with a slow flick of her tail-tip, and Virtue felt something odd stir in them again.

The tiny Fae was trying to find his footing in the snow, the wind dragging him upwards as his arms slipped through the powdery top layer, and he screamed as his body became airborne– Squeaking as Virtue reached up and intercepted him, bringing their claws towards their neck to shield him from the wind.

Muddle looked stunned– both by fear and then surprise– looking up at Virtue as the Pearlcatcher hobbled after Lyric. They paused, dipping their horned nose towards him,

“Are you alright?”

Muddle opened his mouth in surprise and then shook his head, looking away as he tucked his neck towards his own chest.

“Do you need–”

“I just…” Muddle’s voice was rough and exhausted, and he was looking at his hands, “I h-hate this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Virtue, and pressed on. Ahead, Lyric was clearing a path for them through the straining boughs of the trees.

---

@gira

aha. i love writing the muddle and lyric dynamic because muddle is definitely very awful to her but she, like you said, holds her own against him and definitely knows how to get under his skin.

as for virtue.... i guess only time will tell if they're nice or not >:}}c

@smerdyakov

ohhh
i loved virtue's introduction, it really showed what kind of dragon they are. :0 i can't decide if they're 'good' or not, i guess it's to be seen? also the animosity between i'm guessing light flight & ice flight is really something. like a war or something?? either way it's so good

i'm now wondering if virtue has black eyes or something because of muddle's reactions and gella/yris being unable to tell the color of their eyes?! as in like, they exude a presence similar to the shade?

the interactions were so great, i just love all three of them so much xD poor muddle, i hope he can power through the rest of the journey. it must be hard for him.

THIS STORY IS SO GOOD!! i'm glad to see another update! it's amazing jdkfj

The air is thick with steaming rain and she can hear it pattering against the leaves as she snakes through the bamboo grove.

“Rainy season, sticky season,” she says, spacing the syllables of the tiny, repetitive song between the loudest rhythms of the rain, “Rainy season, sticky season.”

There are paths she can follow through the grove– ancients rivets between the arrangements of the segmented green plants. She thinks they might look like a whole picture, or a message cut into the earth by the universe itself– if only she could fly high enough on a clear day.

But not in the rainy season, not in the sticky season.

She can hear her grandmother threshing the shoots, digging her claws into the soft, petey earth to find unwanted root systems and clipping them back, and humming along with it all.

“Flute! Flute!” she says and her grandmother stops and beams at her as if she were the first star ever seen by dragons, “I made a song while I was sliding along the grove paths–”

And she sings it. And her grandmother smiles and smiles and cannot help but join in…

---

When she reached the edge of the forest, Lyric looked up at the split in the sky, the wind pulling at her whiskers like an invitation to follow it upwards towards the pale, strange divide. The trees were shivering with the same force and scattered their hoarded flurries of snow through the air in panicked, thoughtless patterns.

She saw Virtue swerve to avoid one of these flurries, Muddle tottering in their palm. When the Pearlcatcher had steadied themself, they locked eyes with her and said,

“Lyric, I belie–”

“What–?!” Muddle was balanced between fear and an obvious, budding resent towards being carried, “What was that–?! What the h-hel–?!”

Virtue glanced down at the tiny Fae and blinked,

“Yes. That was my question, however coarsely put.”

“D-d-don’t talk d-d-down to m–!”

The Script shifted against Lyric’s side, slow, encouraging waves of warmth spreading from it. She gathered a matching breath and then said,

“I’m not really sure,” her gaze wandered back the split, “But I think hanging around it too long… Muddle did almost get sucked in, right?”

Muddle’s frills went rigid and he made a noise as Virtue nodded.

“You know, the snow and the trees… I thought it’d be good to move,” she felt The Script pushing the warmth through her again, “We still might want to do that, alright?”

Lyric turned to walk, trying to pick up the sounds of the river above the swishing and whipping of the branches.

“Perhaps,” Virtue surged forwards, drawing alongside Lyric, “A different direction might serve the same purpose as–”

Lyric saw their eyes trained dead ahead, clouding with something that looked thick and distant.

“After all, I should tend to Muddle’s wounds before they worsen.”

Muddle was struggling to stay upright and squeaked, “I already told you, I–”

Before Virtue’s weight shifted and he tumbled onto his knees.

“The river, I think,” Lyric wasn’t even bothering to slow down for the others, “Alright. Once we get across it…” she glanced back at Muddle’s spotted form, “Maybe then I can just…”

The sounds in her most recent dreams had been so muffled but she remembered, somehow, the shrill, interjecting tune and the long rolling of river-rock over itself– the scraping of stiff, freezing bodies against the pull of a force far to powerful for her to swim against.

“The Everflow River?” Virtue stopped, Muddle barely clutching their claws in time to avoid tumbling into the snow, “I suppose you are not familiar with the boundaries of the Icefields?”

“Huh,” said Lyric, only half slowing down, “I guess not.”

The trees were scarcer ahead and Lyric could feel the shift in the air as she moved further from the split in the sky. Here the boughs barely quivered, but the shadows they cast across the ground seemed oddly yellow, like ancient bruises just below the top-layer of snow. Lyric tilted her head to the side, exhaling slowly, carefully and watching her breath puff and vanish across the scene.

Alright.

“I’m afraid,” Virtue had caught up to her, “You might not comprehend the nature of the Icefield– The magic, that is, or, rather, the severity of it.”

“Huh,” said Lyric.

She swiveled her head back, but only to check The Script, unsure as to whether or not the slow, ache she felt knocking against her insides was its doing. But The Script looked still, was still– still as the last line of trees before the land dropped off into the dark, vicious waters of the the Everflow.

Another exhale, she tried to imagine it was steam.

“What do you think I don’t understand?” she said, watching the iceflows bunching and scraping and then dispersing along the edges of the river.

“It wasn’t my intention to–”

Muddle let out a gasp and Lyric looked back: he seemed to have had enough of being carried and had jumped onto the ice, hopping from one spidery foot to the other from the cold. He scrambled forwards, with obvious discomfort– the split ends of his mangled wings leaving a trail of tiny rubies– and settled on the tuft of her tail, panting and shivering and wincing.

“Are you certain you do not wish for me to heal you n–”

“Just,” Muddle snapped, “Tell her what you’re not telling her about the st-stupid river or m-magic or whatever.”

He held his sides and looked away.

Lyric felt a tinge of the sharpness from The Script and dug her claws into the ice, but neither of her companions seemed to notice. Virtue’s eyes looked thick and dark again,

“The Icefield is more than just an ideal location for a prison: it is one. Not that every wyrm who lives here is necessarily a fiend or criminal or a creature of unsavory nature… Just that there are safeguards in place to prevent those sorts of entities from escaping the actual prisons located within the Icefield.”

Stac’s voice had always been so slick and smug, warbling about the crimes of the Icefield’s impenetrable fortresses:

So very Terrible are the many, and many they may be
For in the ice and draped in chains, they float on the frozen sea
And the keys that turn the locks, and the claws that tie the knots
To rivers none can cross, shapeless walls for those who goodness lost–
Oh, to seal evil makes a cost, to hold the lines where wicked’s caught…

Lyric shook the song out of her head.

“Alright,” she said.

Virtue looked from her to the river, “If you are running from a denizen of the Icefield which,” they glanced at Muddle without hesitance, “I would hardly dispute given the circumstances… You won’t be able to cross.”

“What do mean,” Muddle’s frills vibrated weakly, but Lyric heard a sudden fragileness cracking in his high voice, “By that?”

“It is irrelevant to me– To an extent,” Virtue said quickly, “I only wish to heal you and any judgement I might pass would only come should I be presented with sound evidence that you…”

Their mouth hung open for a moment, then, “Ignore that tangent. My apologies. The river, yes… We were discussing the river. You cannot fly across it, even if you are, ah… innocent, but depending on the severity of the hold you might have been in…”

“What are you talking about?” Muddle’s eyes were bulging, “You d-d-don’t know anything about– You d-d-don’t–!” He glanced nervously at his bracelet and, for the first time, Lyric noticed an odd, dark vein had marred the inside– the tips of its tendrils barely breached the outer band. Muddle swallowed, “Why does everything keep looking at me like I’m– Like–”

“We’ll be able to cross,” said Lyric, barely registering her own words and she moved closer towards the water. She felt a tug on her tail as Muddle suddenly clutched it,

“That’s not an answer– I–”

Virtue was silent but Lyric heard them move along the ice, trailing just outside of Lyric’s peripherals.

“Whatever happens,” Virtue’s voice was low, barely audible above the roar of the water, “Remember that I offered you a warning.”

“Wait!” Muddle shrieked, tightening his grip, “M-maybe you shouldn’t– I m-mean, the w– I mean, the ice flows… they–”

The air rushed around Lyric as she coiled her legs and then sprung, launching herself onto the closest ice flow and digging her claws into its surface as it tottered under her weight. Muddle screamed and began to mutter something high and pleading under his breath.

Human prayer, maybe? she readied herself and jumped again, swinging her body across the ice as it began to tip.

“St-stop it!” Muddle wailed, “St-stop–”

Lyric looked back, her eyes meeting Virtue’s. The Pearlcatcher stood on the jagged shore, their nose slanted towards the sky as if they were watching hatchlings quarrel over a scrap of meat. Lyric felt nothing from The Script and made herself equally unreadable, pulling her body in before she leapt through the freezing air– The dark water churned and crackled below her– Muddle screamed, again and– Her palms slid along the ice, her claws barely shaving the surface before her belly struck the edge of the float and her lower half was sucked into the water–

Scrambling against the impossibly smooth surface of the ice flow, she thrashed her tail through the river, trying to propel herself upwards while her claws squealed and scraped against the ice. Everything felt like it was five times heavier, harder than it should have been and the air wasn’t settling in her chest correctly– She couldn’t catch her breath, she–

In a moment of clarity, she felt The Script pushing against her– and then pulling over her hip, the twine that held it to her loosening with the relentless current.

No. No–

She tried to shimmy along the sharp side of the ice, trying to coax her long body into a place where the current would pin her to it– Maybe then she could–

There was a noise like a broken flute being held against the winds of a storm and Lyric saw Muddle flailing against water in the same moment she felt The Script tear away from her body.

“I ca–” Muddle’s movements were slow and weak but no less desperate, “Hel–”

And, without hesitation, Lyric let go of the ice and dipped down into the freezing waters, snaking along with them as if they were the warm, dripping roots of a bamboo grove. Despite the angry grey of the water, the sunlight shone readily through it, casting marbled patterns on the smoothed rocks churning along the shallower depths. Muddle’s body dragged along the sunlight-yellowed underside of a float, but Lyric wriggled past his rigid form, her claws closing around The Script’s undulating red tail of twine. She pulled it towards her, clasping the heavy binding to her heart and hearing the volly of sounds and vibration flood through her again.

The water surged upwards around her and she broke the surface, gulping in what felt like seven days’ worth of air, and beating her wings violently against the waves. Perhaps it was The Script singing through her or the memory of herself in what had been a brighter time, but, somehow, she managed to break free of the current and propelled herself onto the frozen bank, where she lay shuddering and panting.

If the cold of the water had been unbearable, laying soaked and exposed on the ice was tortuous in a way she had almost forgotten existed. And yet… The Script was warm against her heart and she struggled to push herself into a sitting position, feeling her claws rattle against the ice. The Script bucked in her claws and she dipped her squared nose towards it, pressing the etched binding in the gap between her bushy eyebrows.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you…” she said, breathless and freezing and in a voice that sounded as though she might either laugh or burst into tears.

She barely heard the sound of Virtue hoisting themself up out of Everflow but looked up at they staggered towards her, Muddle dangling limply from their mouth.

“I warned you,” they wheezed, after settling Muddle flat against the ice.

Lyric was breathing too hard to say much of anything and wrapped her body closer around The Script.

“I warned you,” Virtue repeated and then managed “Watch his chest. If he stops,” they spat out a shimmering glob of something oily and thick as they moved stiffly towards where they had laid their staff upriver, “If he stops breathing… Alert me immediately.”

But she kept her eyes trained on the Pearlcatcher and they trudged towards their staff and then back towards where they had put the Fae. Virtue did not comment on this, though Lyric, despite the needles she felt in the tip of her ears and tail, figured they must have known– Instead they leaned over Muddle’s body and brought the staff to the base of his neck.

Lyric’s eyes wandered.

“You were right,” she said, squinting across the waters at the opposite side of the river, trying to puzzle out what the distant shapes peppered across its horizon were, “Crossing was hard or, um, impossible, I think is how you put it,” she held The Script against her for another moment before she began to wind the twine around her waist again, “I guess you did warn me.”

A beat.

“I’m sorry,” she tried, hoping it was convincing.

She watched Virtue’s shoulders stiffen, but they did not turn around. Instead Muddle coughed, water dribbling from the sides of his mouth as he jerked his head upwards and coughed again. He took in a fragile, shuddering breath and curled inwards like a spindly insect.

“I can’t–” he whispered, his voice so soft that Lyric felt it tug at her insides, “I can’t swim– I can’t swim– I d-d-don’t– I can’t–”

He kept repeating it and shivering.

“It is imperative we find somewhere warm,” Virtue was looking directly at her, “Or we’ll all die.”

“Oh. Okay,” Lyric said, her body feeling like nothing at all, “Is your bracelet alright?”

Virtue looked confused, but Muddle suddenly shifted, clutching at the gold around his wrist with his eyes bulging.

“Oh that’s good,” said Lyric, setting her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter, and forcing herself to stand, “Maybe it has the kind of magic that would help us not die.”

Muddle made a noise, motionless and silent except for his shivering. Virtue looked between Lyric and him, eyes narrowing.

“I don’t understand,” they said, “If Muddle had the ability to save himself then…”

Lyric shrugged, “It doesn’t make sense, right? But I know that thing is magic and he tried to use it twice… Back in Lopshide, or close to it… Or something like that. I just know nothing happened, I mean, he was very upset, anyways…” she looked back at the Fae, “Is it broken?”

“No– No, it’s not– It’s–” he folded his opposite hand over the gold, “It’s not m-magic and it’s not broken, it’s– I can–”

The sharpness, this time in her throat– like Thrush sticking her with his claws. Lyric looked down at Muddle,

“We’re going to die if we don’t get warm soon.”

Muddle let out a squeak of air and looked away but Lyric craned her neck around so that she could see his eyes again.

“It really seems like you don’t want that.”

Muddle’s mouth twisted upwards in contempt but hung slightly open in surprise. His body shook. Then, he ran the pads of his fingers along the outer rim of the band, flinching once the action was completed.

Nothing.
The roar of the river.

And then–

A cluster of trees began to ripple with a sudden energy, their trunks splitting evenly, soundlessly down their centers as though a they were water parting around a stone. They began to warp and twist, forming the walls and thatched ceiling of a somewhat large, somewhat lopsided windowless building– the sides of which rippled a final time, as its thinly wooded door swung open, and then were still.

“I’ll prepare a fire,” Virtue moved to lift Muddle up but the Fae squirmed a pathetic distance from them. Virtue looked down at him with a clouded expression, “Unless you–”

“I’m not st-stupid,” Muddle dragged himself along, shaking and whimpering under his breath, “Of course I– agh!”

Lyric scooped him up easily and slithered towards the shelter. She barely fit through the door, but the inside of the shack was surprisingly roomy and she could almost sit upright without hitting the brushy ceiling. There was a small clearing near the center of the wood flooring made of poorly cut stone in which a small fire flickered with the draft Lyric was letting through the door.

She made to close it, nearly slamming it into one of Virtue’s horns.

“Oh, sorry,” she said quickly and moved towards the fire, curling herself around it as Muddle rolled off of her.

Virtue closed the door and struggled towards the heat, pulling their legs under them so that they settled in a tight, boxy position. Muddle clutched his shoulders and growled, stepping into the glow and nearly falling over as he tried to sit,

“You’re welcome.”

Lyric saw Virtue open their mouth and then close it with a strange, heavy shake of their head. The Script felt just as heavy against her, but she couldn’t focus on the sensations, or whatever Muddle had begun to whine about, or anything that wasn’t her stiff, freezing body.

“Alright,” she let out a small sigh and settled into the silence, knowing it would be impossible to hold onto forever.

---

@gira

virtue's eyes are definitely a bit of a mystery... all and all, they are quite an enigmatic dragon, aren't they?

and i'm just itching to get to the meatier parts of the the inter-flight conflicts but... all in good time, i guess. plus, i'm also just glad i get to finally write these three interacting :}}c

thanks, as always, for your support and encouragement-- it's always amazing to read :DD

@smerdyakov woo, update!! :D (i'm glad my comments aren't bothersome pff) and true, virtue is quite enigmatic but uhhh i love them..?? i like how they're the most reasonable/rational of the trio but are still there to bail lyric out when their advice isn't taken. they're a pal ; v ;b (quickly becoming my fave tbh) I was pleasantly? surprised when lyric dived into the water not for muddle but for the script xD i thought for sure she'd be going after him. she just goes straight for what she likes which is endearing i think xD at least she apologized? how are your characters so likeable, i love them!! also, the details like the sound of a broken flute when the script shifted off lyric's hip!! really awesome ovo i love the multitudes of sounds in your writing!! the house was rly cool too, dang muddle's bracelet magic is pretty strong huh :0 the first part of the chapter was interesting, i wonder who it's talking about? ovo [quote]Lyric scooped him up easily and slithered towards the shelter. She barely fit through the door, but the inside of the shack was surprisingly roomy and she could almost sit upright without hitting the brushy ceiling. There was a small clearing near the center of the wood flooring made of poorly cut stone in which a small fire flickered with the draft Lyric was letting through the door.[/quote] such a comfy image ^^