Edge of the cliff (Private Artemise)

Hop hop hop

Prancing across the stepping stones scattered across the river bed, the little dragon Kyuurei made his way to the border of the snowlands where the Icewings are now residing in. Not going in any further, he ran to the snow top mountain which was the closest to the borders and climbed all the way to the top. When he reached a cliff, a cave was waiting for him. The Icewing gave out a yap and ran to the entrance of the cave and not going any further and stood in front of it, as he was waiting for someone or is just guarding it. The cave is just some sort of an ordinary cave, nothing special was in it.  His blue fur shone out against the white snow and gray rocks but with a blizzard going on, it makes it hard to spot him sitting outside a cave on a high cliff of a mountain.

Artemise took into the air, her body slicing through the wintry air effortlessly as if she were a pair of scissors cutting paper. She targeted her favourite cliff, which had a good view of the beautiful, snowy surroundings of the IceWing home's border. Nearing the tip of the cliff, she tipped her body downwards and descended. She dug her claws into the rocky cliff just in time; any later and she would have crashed into the cave in front of her. A glimmer of blue at the entrance of the cave caught her attention and squinted. Against the white snow and grey rocks, there was a nearly-invisible IceWing male. He seemed to be somewhere around the age of 15 or 16. "Err.. Hey," she greeted, not really knowing what to say.

Kyuurei waited for a while until a dragon came by, he thought she won't notice him and keep flying by so he didn't bother hiding. He closed his eyes for a second, he was tired from gathering all of these things for the wolves, who were hiding inside the cave behind. They usually take so long to come out but that's because the cave has a secret passage that leads to the bottom of the mountain... The icewing would come inside the cave to deliver them himself but he had to go somewhere else to get fish for himself afterwards...

By the time he opened his eyes, a large ice dragoness was in front of him, he jumped back and stared at her. It was certainly a surprise to him which made him want refuge to the cave but this dragon was here and she might follow him if he did so he decided not to do it. The dragoness spoke to him and unfortunately, Kyuurei isn't a social kind of dragon and he may make this dragon lose interest in him in some way. But he said something back to her anyway, "...Hi? Um... Err... Nice day isn't it?" Looking up to the miserable looking Snowstorms, HEY! Not miserable!

The other IceWing was clearly an antisocial dragon. She smiled, amused, at his attempt to start conversation. "It is a nice day," she agreed anyway. "Snowstorms have been brewing frequently these days, and because of that it's colder than usual. Which is good." As if to emphasise what she said, the snow pelted them both with more force. "What's your name? Mine's Artemise." She winced as some snow nearly got into her eyes, and she turned her head away slightly in an attempt to shield her face from the relentless snow. Still, she still had both eyes focuses on the IceWing, and she could see that his wings were a pretty cyan colour; he had gleaming purple eyes and... silver irises? Probably due to monochromacy... And a dark blue body with a white underbelly. The colours were matched really well.

Kyuurei looked down to the snow, not going to say more about the snowstorms. Not that he doesn't likes the snowstorms but they were so harsh that the wolves had to stay inside, leaving more duties for the Icewing to do... yay.
On the case of wolves, Kyuurei looked back to the cave to notice a wolf's head which peaked out and then back in. He didn't care that the wolves were too shy to meet the dragon, one quarter of the pack has been eaten by a dragon recently, so can't blame them?

He turned his focus back to the Ice Dragoness, like snow/ice she was very.... white gray? Well everything's gray so why does that matter? Looking all glum because of the events that had recently happened, he softly spoke but loud enough for her to hear, "Artemise? (What a lovely name! I bet it means war!) I don't know that name before. I think my name's Kyuurei or Kite Rii or what that giant bird is named..." Kyuurei shivered, blushing from his bad sense of grammar speech, hopefully Artemise won't mind...

"Kyuurei?" She looked at him, biting her lip thoughtfully. "It's a nice name; it suits you. Better than 'Kite Rii', anyway," she laughed. Prodding the snow with her tail, she wondered what to say next. 'What are you doing?' Umm... Maybe not. 'Who are you waiting for?' Ugh, even worse. She peered at him. He looked like he hadn't seen the other tribes' territories before, so.. "Have you visited the FireWings before?" An unexpected, out-of-the-blue question, but eh, whatever. Well, she might go to FireWing territory with Kyuurei after getting familiar with him.. There wasn't much of a chance, though; he would most likely have a weakness for heat and fire, for that was the weakness of most IceWings. Not her, though, thank goodness, or it would be a problem. A huge one.

Falsely chuckled with Artemise, Kyuurei smiled awkwardly as agreeing to her compliment. To be honest, he hardly met any dragons and when he do, they were mostly mean and insulting. So Kyuurei finds it hard to contribute to this rather friendly conversation because of his past. Feeling tensed, he looked down, digging his claws into the snow, if I say the wrong thing to her, she may attack me! I know this because it happened before! Nah nah! I just gotta be strong and brave! Can't show weakness to ones who could exploit you! Kyuurei thought trying to not to feel scared but the size of Artemise is just too intimidating for him to relax.
Still shivering from fear, Artemise asked him a question, an unexpected one... He immediately looked up to Artemise, "...Arr... Are... you... Out of your mind?" Sure, he had been to the lava world for while, but some giant fire dragon scared him away. At least it was just that big giant dragon who didn't do anything but shout... "But to answer your question... Kind of... I think I know what you're thinking..." Kyuurei is psychic, yay him.

Artemise looked indignant. "My mind is in perfectly good condition, thank you," she snapped, but softened slightly when she saw Kyuurei's face. "What do you think I'm getting at?" Her voice was now gentler, softer; she didn't want to hurt Kyuurei. She doubted that he actually knew what she was thinking. Her attention was drawn to a wolf head poking out of the den she'd nearly crashed into earlier. She reacted instinctively; in the blink of an eye, she had the wolf trapped under two of her front paws. It struggled valiantly, trying to get free. Sighing, she released the wolf, watching the grey-pelted animal scurry back into its den.

With the way Artemise replied, it gave a stung into Kyuurei's stomach which is fulled with guiltiness, he didn't meant what he had said but it was too late to take it back anyway. Moving on to the next question, he answer her while he noticed that Artemise's attention wasn't focused onto him anymore. "Like if you want to go there again and-" He stopped as soon as Artemise zoomed past him, he turned around to see her pinning down an innocent wolf. Kyuurei was shocked to see this happen to one of his friends and he was going to go over to help it out but Artemise let it free before he could say anything. Looking at the icewing with a unhappy expression on his face, maybe this dragon can't be trusted, just like the other ones, he thought but he was curiously to know why Artemise had done this... "...Are you really sure that your mind is in a perfectly good condition?" He asked, it was another awkward question but it was the kind of questions that he usually asks for now...

(This is Artemise. Too lazy to switch ahaha xD)

Artemise glared at Kyuurei. "Why do you ask? Is it because I attacked a wolf?" She looked at the imprint on the snow that the wolf's body had left behind. And then she remembered what he said earlier, and she beamed. "You're right. I do want to visit the FireWings. Why not?" She was excited at the prospect of visiting another tribe for the first time in quite a while, and her tone displayed her excitement very obviously. "Wanna come? Don't worry, I'll protect you from them.." She scrunitised Kyuurei's small figure. He was so much shorter than her; it won't be much of a challenge protecting someone shorter than her, right?

"Yes. N-n-not that I have anything to do with them but I think it's not nice to attack the small and poor creatures that way..." Kyuurei gave a sad sigh at Artemise, he doesn't trust her to show the dens below anymore even if he wasn't going to in the first place anyway. If she can't be trusted, then no dragon are trustworthy then! His sigh was also aimed at her attempt to move into another subject. At least that if he agreed to it, the wolves won't be annoyed by her for a little while, "Uh... Sure I guess, I'll watch both of us get tossed into the lava while we are there. I've heard that it's a fun sport for Firewings to do with their visitors."  He joked, but he wasn't feeling amused from his joke nor made him feel worse.

Artemise sighed. "Not funny, Kyuurei. Just tell me if you're coming or not. I don't want to wait anymore." Her tail lashed the ground impatiently, leaving whip-thin marks. It was a sign that she was feeling restless already. Standing up, she spread her wings and got ready to leave if Kyuurei decided that he wasn't coming; she stared at the sky and imagined herself there, flying out of the IceWing territory and towards the home of the FireWings. And then she noticed that the sky was dark, and a single bolt of lightning flashed. Then it started to rain, but it froze due to the cold temperature. Appears that she would have to fly through hail... how annoying.. The hailstones didn't hurt her, though, but she'd have to fly slower. Stupid..

Kyuurei felt very emotional from Artemise's response, he thinks that Arty doesn't really like him at all. The dream he had for years is dead once more, like if anyone cares, even the wolves and birds don't. Before he was ready to leave, he took off his stash filled with supplies and he placed it onto the ground for the wolves to take back to their den when they have the chance. Now when he was ready, Artemise already had left, "Hey! Wait for me!" He spread out his miserable cursed wings and took off into the sky in a slow, graceful way and went out to try and find Artemise. The heavy snowstorm was making it hard to spot the enormous dragon flying in the sky sadly. If that's not worse that Kyuurei couldn't find Artemise, there was hail once he had got out of the Icewing territory, the falling which were the size of softballs hitting onto his icy wings. It may not seem much but they are weighing him down, until a couple of hits later, Kyuurei was sent pummeling to the ground. Now he knew why he hated flying...

Artemise had decided to go without Kyuurei. One less to care about; good. She took into the air and flapped her wings hard; slitting her eyes to protect them against the harsh, cold wind, she let out a slight groan as the weight of the hailstones pushed her downwards. Turns out that she would have to fly even more slowly.. A shout caught her attention: it was Kyuurei shouting for her to wait for him. She wheeled around sharply and flew towards where she had last seen Kyuurei. When she saw nothing but snow on the cliff, she panicked, and looked around desperately, trying to find Kyuurei. Maybe he had gotten pushed down, towards the ground; it was possible. If the hailstones bothered such a large dragon like her, what would it be like for a dragon like Kyuurei, who was so small? She quickly dived, this time without folding her wings; though it would slow down her diving speed, if the other IceWing was directly below her, at least she could shield him a little, right? She squinted and finally caught sight of a flash of blue.

"Kyuurei!" she yelled, trying to get his attention. The hailstones were really noisy as they collided with her hard scales. And there was thunder, too. Sums up to a super noisy day. "Look up! Towards the sky! I'm here!"  This time she folded her wings, so she would meet less air resistance; this way, she would — no, might — get to Kyuurei in time. She extended her front two talons as far as they could go, and the tips of her talons grazed his tail. Ugh... What about her tail? She extended her tail, too, and managed to wrap it around one of the flailing (and falling) IceWing's limbs. She grinned triumphantly, but then her grin vanished. Now.. To either slow their fall, or try to go upwards. Both would be difficult. She chose the second option and flapped her wings vigourously, trying to propel both of them upwards. Not that she had a chance, of course. Dragon carrying another dragon vs many hailstones. In the end, she gave up, and spread her wings are far as they could go. And prayed.

Falling and falling, Kyuurei tried to regain his balance but the hail was preventing him to do so. He was really high up in the sky so he haven't reached the ground yet and when he do, it was going to be like the time he was flying away from the mean dragons in the Icewing territory, when he flew for the first time again... Kyuurei closed his eyes and braced for a great crashlanding.
The sounds of the hail stones bouncing off him plus the sounds of thunder was too deafening for him to hear other sounds like Artemise's voice. He didn't notice that she was coming for him until she had caught him by one of his back legs, that's when he had woken up. "You came..." He said softly, when was the last time a dragon had rescued him? That was really unexpected. Kyuurei lifted himself up to hug Artemise's tail with her tail still curled around his leg for better support.

Now that the both dragons was together, the hailstorm was still too heavy to fly through. It sounds like the trip to the Lava world had to be put on hold... "I don't think we can fly through this! Need to find shelter!" As Artemise got closer, the view of the ground was visible from above Kyuurei pointed to a cave or at least something that looks like a shape filled with shades of black. If Artemise chose to ignore the cave, at least travelling across land in a hailstorm is not as impossible as flying through it.

Artemise's gaze followed the direction in which Kyuurei was pointing to. "Good eye!" she yelled, and tried to fly towards the cave. She started flapping her wings valiantly again, but of course, it was no use; all she achieved was draining more of her energy. "Get ready for a rough landing!" she shouted and a moment later, both of them crashed to the ground. Since Kyuurei was below her, he was the first to crash onto the ground; she fell onto him. She immediately rolled off Kyuurei, apologising. Hopefully she hadn't squished him.. And then, without waiting for a response, she roughly yanked Kyuurei to a standing position and dragged him towards the cave, trying to ignore the hailstones beating against her sore body. The sooner they got there, the better. She spread her wings and let Kyuurei shelter underneath them; at least he would be protected from the unrelenting hail.

After a while, Artemise finally reached the cave, and she practically leaped into it in her desperation to escape the hail. She rolled on the ground happily, all four limbs sticking into the air comically, and a groan of relief escaped her lips. "Ugh... My whole body hurts... It'd be a miracle if I managed to recover within a day..." She sighed. "I guess it will be a while before we can visit the FireWings..."

Kyuurei held onto Artemise's tail tight as soon as she said to prepare for a rough landing, he doesn't know what was going to happen next before he hit the ground hard. As soon as he rolled over onto his tummy, the giant Icewing landed onto him with a lot of weight on him, knocking him unconscious as well. Thankfully that was only his ice wings that had shattered completely, not his bones. When his conscious was returned, he got up forcefully and then dragged himself to the cave with Artemise.

Kyuurei wasn't really effected too much by the hailstorm, thanks to his fur which is resistant to it but most of the injury like his bad headache and the missing wings mostly comes from being squished, the rest was bruises caused by hail...
"Well, that was unfortunate..." He said to Artemise, "And everything's quicker to heal if you have a healer with you..." He added, he does have a healer but he had no time to fetch her before he took flight, but well she couldn't survive this storm unlike the Icewings can as she isn't a dragon anyway...

It was a while before the dragoness noticed Kyuurei's missing wings. "Rei!" she said, shocked. Not noticing the fact that her mental nickname for Kyuurei slipped out, she continued, "Why didn't you tell me about this" — she gestured at his wings — "earlier? Does it hurt?" And then she noticed the absence of blood. What? "Rei.. No blood?" She stared pointedly at his un-bleeding wings, feeling intrigued yet slightly scared at the same time. Nevertheless, she walked over to him, and stared at his bruises. She wished that she was a healer. Searching her mind for some kind of medical knowledge, she sighed when she found none. Flopping to the ground again, she said, "What can I do to... ease your pain? If it hurts, that is." Her body sprawled across the ground, and she yawned, exhausted from trying to fight against the hail. Usually it was not that hard for her, but today's hail was more... numerous... and they came down with more force than usual.

Kyuurei shook his head to ease his headache a little bit to get a clearer mind on what's happening now, and now the dragon which he almost forgot who, was concerned about him. He looked at his remaining pieces of his broken wings which were some tuft of feathers without ice frozen into them, and the near visible bruises on his skins. "Naaah, they'll heal sooner of later." He said so that Artemise would stop worrying but she seemed more concerned that his wings didn't bleed... "Such a surprise isn't it?" I guess she should hear this secret, it's not really serious or anything anyway...  "Some curse it is, more annoying than useful..." Not wanting to tell Artemise the story, Kyuurei slowly flopped down into the floor, he wasn't as tired as he was after all of the hail stones that hit him but there was nothing else to do so the only choice he had was to wait for the next day.

Artemise coughed when Kyuurei was done speaking. "Curse indeed," she murmured, smirking in amusement. "May I ask where you got this... curse? All worries about lack of blood forgotten, she stood up and started poking the remnants of Kyuurei's wings. "Does it hurt?" she asked curiously, and her soft pokes turned into harder jabs. Another question followed: "Will your wings grow back? 'Heal' doesn't mean 'regrow'." She frowned. "Though my body's not in good shape.. Whether I'm fit or not, whether you're coming or not, I will visit the FireWings tomorrow. If I have to I will walk." She settled into a comfortable position; lowering her body to the cold, hard ground, she rested her ridged head on her paws, letting her eyelids droop shut. Within a few seconds she was snoring softly.

Kyuurei was pretty much ready to fall asleep now, and before he do he spoke one last sentence, "From... Descendants..." He yawned again before finally drifting off to sleep, leaving the other questions unanswered. His wings twitched whenever Artemise had poked them, but no other reactions as Kyuurei was fast asleep. It wasn't very long before ice feathers had started to reform in the shape of his wings again.
The hail was still going throughout the night but it was getting less heavier and heavier...

(Time skip?)

(Yep.)

Artemise's eyelids flew open and she sat bolt upright, panting. She glanced around, panicked, but calmed down when the thought passed her brain: It was just a dream. She breathed a sigh of relief. As much as she didn't want to, she found herself recalling that new nightmare. Rei... In her nightmare, he'd died..right in front of her. Oh, and someone had tortured him and you only could watch! a stupid voice in her brain said. She looked around for Rei, and her gaze landed on his cyan body. His face was peaceful for once, and his sides moved up and down in a gentle rhythm. She smiled. Moving over to him and settling down, she thought, Thank goodness that dream wasn't real. Her stomach rumbled, and she was ready to go out and hunt for breakfast when she realised that Rei might not be safe without her.

Was she being paranoid?

(You didn't say the time of day... oh well gonna fill that in)

As soon as the light of dawn rose to the surface,  the peacefully sleeping Icewing woke up and got onto his feet to do some stretches before he was fully aware of his surroundings. The first thing Kyuurei noticed was Artemise which made him remember that this cave he was sleeping in wasn't his cave, such a strange feeling along with a strange dream he had last night. It was so strange that he had forgotten how it goes, oh well, hopefully it wasn't important like as in vision... The female Icewing moved over to him or at least he thinks she did so as he was a little tired, he greeted her with a weary smile, "Good morning Misty! How ya sleep go?" Kyuurei said, not realising that he gave Artemise a nickname but hey, he did notice that she was calling him Rii instead of Kyu...

Artemise stared at Rei. And then her face broke into a grin. Misty?! That's your nickname for me?" She started chuckling. When her chuckles finally stopped, she lied, "Oh, I slept really well," Not wishing to mention her nightmare or be pelted with questions about it, she stood up and invited Rei to hunt for breakfast with her. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for a "yes" so that she could get out of this horribly cramped cave and stretch her wings. She glanced at the entrance of the cave and a soft gasp escaped her. "The rising sun... It's so beautiful!" she cried and ran over to the entrance, admiring the sky. Why hadn't she bothered to observe the sun rise before? She would probably spend the next few mornings watching the sun rise... Making the "o3o" face, she returned her gaze to Rei, beckoning to him to come and watch the sun rise with her.

Kyuurei shook his head in disagreement to Artemise's first, no that's wrong. "'Your Nickname?' Oh no no no, I must have mistaken you for someone else!" Kyuurei chuckled awkwardly, blaming on the fact that he was still half asleep. He clasped his talons together and he wonders oh so dreamily, "There was this dragon who oftenly enters into my dreams, seen with a rose in her mouth and she was all sweet and dreamily..." He sighed, as he couldn't see clearly in his dreams so he may never know if the dream dragon Misty could be found in the real world...
Following Artemise out of the cave, Kyuurei was greeted with the morning sun. This haven't happened to him before but the sun was the first thing he looked at once he emerged from the cave, resulting in the temporary blinding of his eyes. He immediately ran back inside the cave, laying in the darkness and hid his eyes from the sun and he sat there until his vision was back to normal.