#ask 05

You answered my main question perfectly, i find your tribe one of the far more desirable. Perhaps more than mine, at least in terms of things like beauty, for most nightwings if its not useful its not desirable. If you dont mind my rambling, i want to visit all the tribes someday, i want to see their customs and traditions. I only know one icewing and, hes not very useful. Hes a hermit really, poor thing scared of his own shadow, and never leaves his home, hence why i had to come to you-pathseer

05. A:

I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘desirable’, but the idea of visiting all the other tribes is an interesting one. I’ve never thought much about traveling, as much as I complain about the ice kingdom. It’s definitely something to keep in mind for the future if things ever get to difficult here..

And of course I don’t mind you rambling, Pathseer. If you can’t tell, I’m quite a fan of rambling myself! (In fact, I’m about to do quite a lot of it!)

As for your hermit friend, do try to get to know him better. You’ll always be surprised by what you can learn from dragons who don’t say much. Besides, I’m not the only icewing in the kingdom who’s allowed to explain our culture! He may have a much different take on everything than old Saxifrage.

Speaking of my take, you mentioned that you’re curious about the customs and traditions of other tribes too, so I suppose I’ll give you some insight there too. For starters, it’s customary to store meat out of your living quarters at all times, and instead to keep it stored outside either in an underground dug out room for long term storage or buried under a foot or so of snow if you plan to eat it soon. This is because meat spoils much faster in a icewing igloo than under the snow, as igloos are usually a deal warmer than the surrounding tundra despite the natural chill that icewings give off. Nobody wants spoiled polar bear, especially with how difficult hunting can be in the dark season.

As for traditions the Icewing tribe as a whole doesn’t usually celebrate anything together. The only tribe wide celebrations that I can think of is the sun festival, which is a celebration of the ending of the dark season, but even then most icewings don’t agree on the exact date of the festival. Most are fine to go along with whatever date the circles say the festival will be held on, but others don’t celebrate until the first day of sun, and others still just don’t celebrate at all!

Most traditions are dragon specific, for example, in my family its customary for everyone to go the the home of the current oldest family member’s home for their hatching day. We each bring the reigning elder a gift (food, jewelry, clothing, imported goods, etc.) as sort of a thanks for creating us. Then we get a chance to catch up with our family and meet all the new dragonets and in-laws and son on. Most everyone makes it there, no matter what, but my sister has been absent from the event for 7-nearly 8 years now. We don’t know where she’s gone off to, but we do know she’s still out there since she writes us letters for every gathering she misses.

Anyway, traditions like that are another thing to try and ask your friend about, but you should really warm up to him first. Some icewings won’t like talking about their traditions as they can feel extremely personal to some dragons. This closed off nature is also sometimes due to the unpleasant ideology that many icewings hold, that icewings are the superior tribe above all others and that they have no reason to answer to a lesser dragon. Although, I must admit this doesn’t seem to match your friends demeanor.