#ottscreeching

AND ITS THE GUY WHO DID TROLLHUNTERS AAAAHHHH YAY I DONT REMEMBER TOO MUCH ABOUT THAT SHOW BUT I REMEMBER PEOPLE LIKING IT AND I THINK THAT TONALLY ITS A PRETTY GOOD MATCH UP FOR WINGS OF FIRE

i can't believe i might see Clay and Tsunami escape from the cave and step into the world for the first time

Inspired by @circuscountdowns's bishop death comic.

cw: grief, slow mental deterioration by way of immortality

Mortal minds were not meant to live forever. Not alone. 

It’s the middle of the night and they kneel before the grave. In one of their hands they grip a shovel that had been gifted to them a long time ago. At the base of the handle is an engraving that matches the stone crown on the gravestone.

There is a pendant on their chest, and it gleams gold in the moonlight.

They close their eyes, and breathe. Out slow, in slow.  

Camellias smell like sugar and dirt, like three thousand years of longing. The flowers on this grave are always fresh. always redder than blood, even in the winter, when every other plant on cult grounds wilts and turns bare and hibernates. The camellias on his grave are always there, always beautiful. One might call them blessed.

They are not afraid of dying—they are devoted to Death. They simply cannot die yet. Their Gods and leaders need them. The rest of the flock needs their wisdom. Someone who can speak to them as an equal, but who knows more and has seen more than the rest. 

Mortal minds were not meant to live forever, but they’re still doing pretty well. They lose days or weeks sometimes, but it’s not a problem yet. They suspect it’ll take another five thousand or so before their mind becomes a problem, assuming something else doesn’t kill them first.

So, they cannot leave. Not of their own accord. They have no need to.

They want to stay, to be content with the impossible life they live, but something is missing. They’ve been missing the sandpaper edges of his voice for the last few centuries. They’ve been yearning for the feel of his fur on their own—green and yellow, a sunbeam shining over a bed of moss.

He left them. They agreed to it. He was tired. They understood, or thought they did. They were with him for the rest of his life, and they loved him, and he died, in the end, like a mortal, but his heart was full, and when he was gone for good, they realized that their heart had gone with him. Stolen in a final prank.

At first they figured the pain would lie in the loss itself, but true moments of pain were every time they would forget that he was gone. It was every time they would look beside them, to whisper to him something that he would yell aloud to embarrass them both, only to find no one was there. It was every odd hole in the ground that they would feel the urge to crouch down beside, to talk to him, coax him out, before someone would ask what they were doing and they would remember that he wasn't there. It was every time they remembered that holes in the ground were for plants, and not Gods.

He would be severely annoyed to see them do anything but smile, but it was getting hard to smile without him.

And, and he would want this, wouldn’t he? Even if getting woken back up annoyed him at first.

His After was probably boring without them.

He'd think it was funny.

He’d grin impossibly wide and say, “ABOUT TIME YOU DID SOMETHING SELFISH.”

They stare at the old stone. The crown of the God of Chaos stares back. It's only another life. He won't even have to put on a necklace this time around.

Mortal minds were not meant to live forever. Not alone.

So, they stand and lurch forward. They take the shovel into both their hands, and they drive it like a spear into the dirt, into Leshy's grave. 

"You're not an animus, Lynx."

She grinned. "I know."

Snowfall looked down at the spread in front of her: lamb kebab, fennec kidneys and three roasted owls. They all smelled delicious—noticeably spicy and fragrant and heavy; completely mouth-watering. "What SandWing taught you their food secrets?"

"It's a secret!" Lynx chirped.

"It was Thorn's pseudo-son," Snowfall said.

"It was Qibli, yes, yes," Lynx said, playfully waving her off. "Do you like it?"

"I was planning on having seal blubber and a glass of ice wine," said Snowfall.

She knew that she wasn't treating her body right. IceWings believed in varied, balanced diets. Their bodies were manifestations of their perfection. They had to take care of themselves.

Unless they were the Queen. Then they could eat the same sparse meal every day for a month straight, stay up every night, and sleep only between the darkest part of the night and the rising of the sun, like Snowfall did.

Great Ice Spirits, she was tired.

And she was hungry.

"That's what you have every night," Lynx said. She slithered around the table, practically draping her side against Snowfall's as she nosed the neck of her queen. "I thought you might enjoy some variety. Now dig in, before the food gets cold!"

Snowfall sighed. The food did look good. Leave it to Lynx to do everything perfectly. She was always Snowfall's greatest threat on that stupid wall for a reason.

Snowfall reached forward, towards the kidneys—

A worried hiss made her stop. She side-eyed Lynx. "What?"

"The owls are supposed to be first..." Lynx whispered.

"Are they, now," Snowfall said. "Well, maybe if you MENTIONED THAT EARLIER I would care, but I've been staring at those kidneys for minutes now, and they're what I want."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Lynx said, the echoes of a giggle behind her voice.

Snowfall picked one of the kidneys off. It was soft. Still hot.

She popped it into her maw, and began to chew.

It was...herbal. Green. There was a heat to it, a peppery, numbing sensation that warmed her palate as flavors that were citrusy yet dark and earthy flooded her mouth. The fox was tender, smooth, like what silk might taste like it if were a meat.

She swallowed.

"Good?" Lynx asked.

"Every other day," Snowfall said. "You're to make me this every other day. That's an order."

"It's a date," Lynx said.

"Don't get cocky," said Snowfall. She struggled not to smile as she added, "You'll need to make yourself a portion for that, and I only have time for social engagements at the end of the month."

"It'll taste even better by then," Lynx said.

And those words coming out of her Snowfall's mouth made Lynx lift her head up from Queen Glacier's notes on Fifth Circle village legislation. Snowfall hated talking about their relationship, so she always avoided using the word 'relationship' and replaced it with some synonym that meant the same thing. Lynx tucked every word about We-Remember-and-Venerate-Caribou's secret SandWing weapons black market that wasn't very secret since Glacier seemed to have known it like the back of her claw, into the place in her head where she kept law and politics and such, and she looked over at Snowfall.

Her Queen was in bed with a scroll and a glass of ice wine. She was frowning, which wasn't out of the norm for Snowfall, but there was a glisten in her fierce eyes that Lynx wasn't quite used to.

"What do you mean?" she asked Snowfall, even though she was clever and already knew.

Snowfall was such a—a girl sometimes. She wanted to provide and protect and rule, and she ruled and protected and provided very regally and very beautifully, but she never let anyone do anything for her back.

Except for Lynx.

"Do you really feel okay with having to—" Snowfall's words shrunk in volume as she looked away.

Lynx had heard her clearly, but she grinned and said, "Can you repeat that, Your Spikiness?"

"I SAID," Snowfall growled, whipping her head back to glare at her, "DO YOU REALLY FEEL OKAY WITH TAKING CARE OF ME ALL THE TIME?"

Surprise washed over Snowfall's face, and her spines bristled as she turned around and quickly downed the rest of her wine.

Lynx, still grinning, knew exactly what to do. She stared at her Queen's butt.

"Your tail is looking so shiny and lovely today, my Queen."

"YOU INSOLENT—" Snowfall turned back around. "You're torturing me, you know that?"

"I was just telling my girlfriend that she looked pretty," Lynx said.

"You're not—"

"My Not Girlfriend," Lynx corrected before Snowfall could finish. "You worry too much."

Snowfall sighed, and Lynx was glad that she maintained their eye contact, even though Snowfall was definitely feeling very tender right now.

"Do I?" Snowfall asked. "But you know why, right? Why I'm worried that..."

"You're a Queen and I'm a lowly peon and you think that I only love you because you're a cool princess and that I feel like I have to do everything for you because of all of the power you have, right?"

"Yes?!" Snowfall squeaked.

"That would be true in many cases," Lynx said. She took a breath, and she let her grin soften into a fond smile. She had learned early on about the importance of smiles. Wide ones were like shields. The real ones, the ones that weren't quite so big but were twice as warm, were the ones you saved for the ones you loved. "Not this one. I was—I am—your only real rival. Sometimes I was your better, and sometimes you were mine. I don't need protection from you. And you know, even if you weren't a princess, I'd still be in love with you. I'd still trip over myself bringing you food and affection and kisses and I'd still never ask for any of it back. You don't tell birds to stop chirping. You don't tell Mink to stop being cute."

"I do both of those things a lot, actually," Snowfall said.

"Well, stop," Lynx said.

Snowfall frowned. "Maybe."

"I love you either way," Lynx purred.

"Good!" Snowfall said. She began to read her scroll, and a minute later, realized something, and looked up to see that Lynx had never stopped lovingly staring.

"I love you too," Snowfall said.

how people seem to think snowfall's character development is unearned because it was done through magic like??????? do you discount any changes the characters go through in like, Groundhog Day or Freaky Friday or Your Name???? or ESCAPING PERIL???? the empathy magic is the whole concept of the book

"snowfall was forced to go through her arc" "snowfall changed so suddenly" "snowfall's an entire other character by the end" like, as if her whole personality is tied to her paranoia and racism

her fuckin mom even sits there at the end and is like "snowfall will be a good queen because she's fierce and she'll fight for her people" and YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE HOW SHE'S DONE THAT WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT THE BOOK

She FIGHTS for the queens to save Pantala, she very adeptly figures out that she can use her power to convince Wren to help out,

Lynx is there the whole time watching Snowfall and believing in her, because neither Lynx nor Glacier ever saw Snowfall's flaws first, they saw her PASSION, her VIGOR, and she has SO MUCH OF IT

THAT is who Snowfall is. She starts her book off channeling her inner fire in a bad way (yelling at her subjects and guards, hating herself, distancing herself from Mink, refusing to help the Pantalans) and through her trials and tribulations, she realizes the ways in which she is wrong and by the end of the book, is using that inner fire, that passion, that burning core in her heart to do good for the world—she smashes the ice wall, she tells Tundra to fuck off, she starts being a better sister to Mink, she becomes, in Lynx's words, THE BEST QUEEN EVER

And imo kind of outclasses Sundew's entire arc in that way—I love Sundew and I think she's a good character but if we're talking about a CLASSIC, CLASSIC, CLASSIC CHARACTER ARC, Snowfall is one of the only WoF protagonists who starts off being COMPLETELY WRONG and then makes mistakes and then, by the end of the book, is changed for the better

Maybe that's why she feels so shocking to WoF readers? Starflight is the only one out of the OG 5 to have a similar trajectory, and in arc 2 you only really have like, Winter and Peril, but even then they had some POINTS

but that's beside my main point

which is her agency ISN'T taken away by the ring. she PUTS THE RING ON IN THE FIRST PLACE. the whole book is a result of her dealing with the consequences of that choice. the scavengers are important not only to bridge Dragonslayer and Flames of Hope but because it's one of the last steps for her to take as a queen. she understands that dragons need help. she then is made to understand something that no other Pyrrhian understands—that humans have emotions and feelings and thoughts, that they deserve dignity—and she believes it, and her being a trailblazer in that way is important. her empathy has evolved to a point where she can now conceive of things that other people can't. and THEN she's shown why the magic that could solve everything is gone forever, and she UNDERSTANDS why Boa did what she did, and she isn't bitter. and THAT is the last step in her transformation. thinking that "maybe Jerboa missed Glacier as much as she did" is genuinely huge, and not even not just for Snowfall. Snowfall is grieving and for her heart to have grown so large isn't some sort of unrealistic transformation. You need to be REALLY BRAVE AND STRONG to acknowledge that you're not the only person in the world hurting when you suffer something like that. That final vision that Snowfall gets doesn't make your eyes misty because Snowfall finally receives validation—it's emotional because at that point in the story you realize that Glacier was right about her daughter the whole time, that Snowfall had worth without this, that Snowfall had the potential in her to be an amazing queen without ever knowing that Glacier had thought these things. It's not Snowfall hearing Glacier's thoughts about how she'll be a good queen and asking "I can be?", it's Snowfall saying, "Maybe I am. Yeah. I'm glad you agree." AND WITH THAT WE UNDERSTAND THAT HER SELF-ASSUREDNESS IS STILL THERE, THAT THE SAME DRAGON WHO SAID THE WAS GOING TO BE THE VERY BEST QUEEN OF THE ICEWINGS EVER ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE BOOK, IS STILL WITH US, BUT IS NOW EVOLVED INTO THE PERSON THAT SHE HAS TO BE IN ORDER TO MAKE HER SELF-CONDFIDENT STATEMENTS TRUE

I don't know. I think Book 14 is Snowfall all the way down. She's still a little Princessy, still very type-A, still a perfectionist and a total showoff at the end of The Dangerous Gift. It just kind of burns me up for people to think that the Snowfalls at either end of the book are irreconcilably different. I hate the idea that a character as deeply flawed as Snowfall would have to retain some kind of bitterness or hate or rage in her in order to be recognizable.

OR EVEN that she should've been sadder or gone through more shit! like! i think it maybe would have been a bit gratuitous. i think exploring trauma is a really valuable topic to have in a book, especially in YA and MG novels, and that maybe one or two more scenes of Tui digging into that would be nice, but Snowfall is a queen. She should be grieving her mother and doing her best to deprogram her rage and egomania linked to her experiences with the war and with Darkstalker and growing up in a supremacist culture, but the book is about learning the weight of responsibility and accountability more than anything. Having Snowfall fuck up, get faced with the full brunt of what her ignorance is making her blind to, and doing her best to fix everything wrong and make the world a better place and to fight for what is good and right, is the most important thing to showcase.

tldr best queen ever to be honest, Queen Snowfall has a place in my heart forever

He’s looking at Thorn like she’s happiness and it’s always quite interesting to see the differences between the way he looks at her, and at Moon, and at me. Not that I’m treating it like a competition.

If it is, I would like for Moon to win. If it is, I’m not sure if she is. Qibli looks at all of us differently, but the eager awe in his eyes is the same. We three may very well be the moons.

He notices me looking at him looking at Thorn and he looks bashful for only a moment and in the next—

Lynx pushed the doors open to Snowfall’s room. At this point the guards knew that there would be no stopping her. 

And on the bed, head in her hands, sulking, was Snowfall. The Queen. Her Queen. Hers.

Lynx closed the doors before the guards could see her like this, and turned back around.

“Hi, Princess,” Lynx said. 

“Who said you could come in here?” Snowfall asked. There was a bit of her usual bite in her words, but they just weren’t bitey enough. This was concerning. Not ‘get Mink to sit the throne for the next three days’ level of concern quite yet, but it was enough to make Lynx frown, and she hated doing that.

“You okay, Boss?” Lynx asked.

“Just fine, Lynx,” Snowfall said. 

“Are you sure, biscuit?”

“Bis—” Snowfall lifted her head to glare at her. “I’m your Queen, Lynx.”

Lynx’s frown lifted into a smile. “So that’s where you’ve been hiding!”

Snowfall rolled her eyes, flopped her head onto the bed. She looked like a seal pup waiting for her parents to return from hunting. “What do you want, Lynx?”

Lynx took a moment to study the graceful curve of Snowfall’s maw. “Do you want to go swimming?”

Peril wasn’t sure how it happened, or when it started. NOTHING LIKE THIS SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED AFTER CLAY TOLD HER HE DIDN’T SEE HER LIKE THAT EVEN THOUGH HE WAS THE LITERAL ONLY ONE FOR HER.

….Discounting the list of the handful of MudWings older than six who had hatched from a blood red egg that Turtle and Winter had found for her, a few months after that conversation.

THE POINT WAS THIS.

This couldn’t have been happening to Peril.

Peril couldn’t be in love.

Peril couldn’t be in love with MOONWATCHER, of all dragons!

Moonwatcher was DATING KINKAJOU AND THEY WERE CLEARLY VERY, VERY, VERY IN LOVE.

“Um, Peril?” Turtle said.

Peril remembered that she had been holding a pile of salmon meat for him.

The salmon was now dust. And it smelled terrible.

“Why do I exist, Turtle?” Peril asked. 

“We’re all here to be tortured by the universe,” Turtle said. Probably a joke.

It didn’t feel like it.