Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 17

Wings of night shall come to you

Starflight found it odd how many of the Icewings hated him immediately upon sight, almost as if some deep part of them knew that Nightwings were not to be trusted.

Being surrounded by so many minds had at first been overwhelming, but as Starflight was once more getting used to it, he realized just how much better it was than the wartime dreams of base four. In comparison, the ice palace was almost calm.

They'd been there for almost a week as queen Aurora and princess Tsunami traded information and talked about details of how an alliance would go. If it happened that is. It sounded more like Aurora didn't want to commit until she knew more about the Cavewings.

The day before, Tsunami had stormed into everyone's common room with a disturbed look, and talked quietly with Uhar for several minutes. Her mind was a mess of emotion and uncertainty that Starflight didn't want to touch, so he ignored it, trusting that eventually, he would probably find out.

When they finally departed from the ice palace, he was once more relieved to be away from the constant presence of thoughts. Slowly, Starflight was starting to figure out how to be an individual, but it was still so strange to be able to hear himself think.

After a few hours of flying while Uhar described to his best ability where he'd come to the surface, and lots of yelling from Tsunami, one of the Icewings, Storm, perked up, "it might be the place on the map wheren the frostbreath would come out if it was a dragon. You know, those mountains."

"Frostbreath?" Echo echoed.

Radiance glanced at him, and looked thoughtfully at Storm. "it's probably just an icewing thing."

Echo frowned, "alright. So mountains then? I've seen mountains, I feel like there would be caves under mountains."

Cactus gave him an odd look, "I've been assuming until now that you know how caves work, but now I'm sort of doubting that assumption."

Echo shrugged, "I know how caves work, but only when I'm inside the caves. Everything outside the caves is the weird part."

"Alright," Radiance said, looking toward Tsunami, "so I guess we've got some ideas then, we'll search around those mountains for caves, see if anything is on Echo's maps." she squinted at Uhar, "have you shown anyone else those maps? There might be something you don't get that someone else would."

Echo pulled out his book. Such a strange object. Starflight had to concentrate on flying straight to keep himself from focusing on how much more efficient it was at storing knowledge. It was almost like a flattened scroll in some ways.

He handed the book to Radiance, "you can look at it, though it seems mostly like scribbles to me besides the very last ones."

Radiance tucked it under an arm, "do we want to land so we can look through it?"

Tsunami was watching the book, "yeah. Good idea."

---

"No, this looks just like the Night kingdom."

"I think you're going insane, it's clearly a very energetic lake."

"Snail brain."

Glory sighed and took the book from the bickering Tsunami and Radiance, who didn't even notice as it slipped out of their grasp. She flipped through the maps pausing every few pages as she examined the map with a thoughtful gaze. Somewhere near the middle, the maps changed, going from maps of Pyrriah to caves. When that happened Glory flipped back a few pages examining a full sketch of the continent.