#probably healer at least it'd be really funny if he wasn't a healer

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

YAOYAO OUT OF HOYOVERSE’S BASEMENT AT LAST?????

[whumpster-fire]

Yet further update as of starting Escaping Peril, about 1/3 of the way through.

Yay PERIL POV PERIL POV PERIL POV

Dear god I knew this kid needed therapy but wow, Moon should be glad she can't read Peril's mind easily because it is a mess in there. There is SOOO much trauma that she either hasn't had a chance to process or is dealing with in an unhealthy way. Reading her POV it's easy to forget that she's like 3 years older than Winter or Moonwatcher. The way she's mentally going "If I had other friends other than Clay they would be expendable" is so fucked up but it's heartbreaking because jeez. She really was that isolated and conditioned to be totally dependent on one dragon's approval while also being surrounded by death.

I know that Peril mostly spends time with Turtle but I think there's serious wasted potential in not having her hang out with Anemone, because they've kind of been through similar stuff. In terms of being in what's in theory an incredibly "privileged" position but in practice being stuck with a heavily controlling parental figure and groomed into being used as a living weapon / having basically not learned how to socialize normally because their position / their abuser's position of power made it so 99% of the dragons they met were scared of them.

Okay Queen Ruby's visit would definitely be a wrinkle in the whole Carnelian Lives AU, but on the other hand I like the idea that Ruby was already planning to check on her because the last letter she got was basically "I hate it here Mom General Queen come pick me up please" and then like a day later got a dream message that somebody set off a bomb in a classroom that killed one student and nearly killed Carnelian and a third student. And then she shows up intending to pull Carnelian out of the school because it's clearly not safe and finds out that (a) she's been missing for almost a week because she flew off with a bunch of even younger dragonets chasing a student who turned out to be an assassin working for Queen Scarlett, (b) said assassin isn't even the bomber, actually it's worse than she thought because TWO separate students out of the student body of 35 36 attempted a premeditated murder within like a week, (c) Queen Scarlett's pet mass murderer is there too and everyone's acting like she had nothing to do with the Scarlett-affiliated assassin and that the dragon best known for setting everything on fire is somehow not a suspect in the arson attack, (d) the dragon who burns everyone she touches dragged Carnelian out of the smoke filled room / hallway and probably did make her injuries worse both by touching her and by dragging an unconscious / barely conscious dragon across a rough stone floor by the tail as fast as possible to avoid touching her for too long, (e) the corpse of the other student Peril "rescued" is right there and has horrific burns some of which were clearly due to Peril carrying him out of the classroom, which isn't a great look even if the reason she was less careful with him is because he was already obviously dead, and (f) there is another fireproof dragon who DOESN'T burn anyone he touches to death on the school staff. And Ruby is understandably livid.

It'd also be really funny if it turned out Carnelian had permission to, like, leave the infirmary and walk around the school, go back to her dorm, etc. but wasn't allowed to fly at all for at least a week, let alone extended flights all over Pyrrhia. And we only find this out now because Moon didn't pay enough attention to the "Those healers think I'm a helpless invalid, don't they know I'm a hardened soldier?" mental ranting to realize that this is because she got told not to fly because of the concussion / blood loss / smoke inhalation injuries

Something I forgot to say from last book is that Glory is such a class act and I love her. A dragon from one tribe trying to assassinate the queen of another tribe without any orders or authorization, while working for the deposed queen of a third tribe who her tribe has never at any point being allied with, is the sort of thing where executing the would-be assassin would have zero chance of starting a war. Glory was so clearly looking for any excuse to avoid killing yet another child soldier who was also being coerced into her actions, but couldn't get away with not doing something because Icicle did manage to kill someone, so she's trying to go for reparations from the Ice Kingdom that will benefit her tribe(s).

I don't think the "leave her punishment up to you" thing is a great idea though because from what I've seen of the Ice Kingdom and Icicle's family in particular, if she becomes the dragon who fucked up badly enough to make them have to share their super precious animus gift with the Rainwings and Nightwings, the kid needs to be in protective custody. Esp. as from what I've seen of Glacier there's no way she's not politically savvy enough to be aware that Tundra and Narwhal are going to push Icicle into challenging her.

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the number of Skywings who almost certainly also committed atrocities on Queen Scarlet's orders deciding Peril is the antichrist. Hey Queen Ruby, did you exile everyone who participated in chaining dragons to pillars and forcing them to fight to the death in a gladiator arena for their own survival? Or only the disabled dragonet who was gaslit into thinking she couldn't survive without Scarlet's help?

Okay I know dragon fire/ice is magical as proven by Queen Battlewinner but just touching Peril is not instant death, that's not how head transfer works. It'd suck, but not be fatal, and I'm glad Turtle brought up the thing about Peril not being immune to spears. Also at this point I kind of want her to get her ass kicked by a dragon who knows how heat transfer works and figured out a strategy to counter her that doesn't even involve Animus magic. Both because she's too confident in her firescales being an auto-win and because I love her and therefore want to see her suffer and be traumatized even more.

Reason #451 that Carnelian being alive would improve this arc: please I want one Skywing who can be normal about Peril and recognize her as a victim and not a monster and Carnelian at least didn't totally lose it when Peril showed up at the school.

Reason #452 that Carnelian being alive would improve this arc: Turtle pointing out the limitations of Peril's powers is one thing but I'm pretty sure he doesn't get in fights much. Someone with actual Skywing military training who has seen Peril in the arena just calling her out on her technique sucking would be beautiful. Especially if it's pointed out that she's hot garbage at aerial combat because she's only ever fought dragons who had their wings clamped. Even better if Qibli joins in on this and just starts pointing out like fifteen different mistakes she made that could get her killed if she fought someone who wasn't too scared to punish her for them.

Okay so I was just on a road trip and I decided to start listening to the Wings Of Fire series on audiobooks and after finishing the first sub-series I gotta say I'm loving it so far.

What I Expected: Warrior Cats but with dragons.

What I Got: Warrior Cats but with dragons meets Underland Chronicles (levels of Going This Hard with the dark themes and gore and fucked up stuff) meets A Series Of Unfortunate Events (general competence and trustworthiness of most of the adults in these poor kids' lives for most of the series). Like, not that Warrior Cats doesn't go hard with messed up stuff, but this series kind of gives me Underland Chronicles vibes in the way that it does it.

The setting and premise: In A World Ruled By Dragons... that apparently used to have a human civilization that was destroyed by dragons in an apocalyptic event long go but that's not important right now, (humans are still around but almost completely irrelevant to the plot with one notable exception), the seven tribes (species) of dragons have been dragged into an utter clusterfuck of a war because one of the tribes had a civil war due to a succession crisis and have managed to drag nearly everyone else into it. An ancient quite recent prophecy made by some guy who is still very much around states that this completely pointless waste of life will be ended by five children born under a specific celestial alignment, who will have the power to decide the victor of the civil war. A cross-species secret society known as the Talons Of Peace with the noble goal of getting everyone else to stop doing WWI With Dragons decides that the best way to make the prophecy go smoothly is to raise the destined hatchlings themselves in secret and keep them safe from any of the parties with a vested interest in the war's outcome, until they are ready...

In other words a pretty bog standard "Chosen Ones" children's fantasy plot, but what I love is that from the very beginning of the first book, Wings Of Fire pulls absolutely no punches with the fact that the main characters are child soldiers, and the supposed "good guys" organization is not only pretty sketchy for acquiring five eggs under circumstances of varying legitimacy (read: definitely kidnapped at least two, one more supposedly abandoned, one sold by deadbeat parents, one supposedly donated for the cause but it's unclear) but also is just as guilty of trying to use them as pawns for their own political goals as everyone else, and are not even actually neutral in the war.

What I also love is that the DoD (Dragonets of Destiny) are the worst fucking child soldiers ever and this is largely because the Talons Of Peace are completely fucking incompetent and massively fucked up every step of the "grooming kidnapped hatchlings into child soldiers" process.

Failed at kidnapping eggs. Literally in the very first chapter one of the eggs supposedly predestined to save the world is killed. One of the main characters is the last-minute replacement and literally not even the right species that's supposedly specified by the prophecy (and has psychological issues because no one has let her forget it)

Assigned the very important task of raising the Chosen Ones and teaching them the skills they will need to save the world to three dragons who were utterly horrible with kids and didn't want the job. Left them to it with no oversight for years and years.

Decided to raise them isolated from the organization they're supposed to be loyal to, in a fucking cave, giving them literally zero real world experience with so many essential skills like, say, navigation, or flying in actual weather. The main characters literally had a "Puppy Mill Animals Seeing Grass For the First Time" experience.

Did not research / pay attention to the basic biology and culture of the species the kids belong to. One of them, Clay, spent his whole life being told he tried to murder his adoptive siblings when he hatched because the surrogate parents had no idea that for his species the first in a clutch to hatch instinctively helps break their siblings' eggshells for them. Another is from the aquatic dragon species which has their own sign / bioluminescence language they use to communicate underwater. She was not taught any of this despite one of the surrogate parents being the SAME FUCKING SPECIES AS HER. And also, y'know, the negative amount of effort put into every single parenting decision related to Glory.

Literally the only thing the Talons Of Peace actually succeeded at was making the kids bond to each other, but managed to instill less than zero loyalty to the organization they were supposed to obey due to being left to be raised in isolation by emotionally and physically abusive parental figures. Later, the guy who made the prophecy, after checking back in and discovering that one of the children was the wrong species, thought fixing this mistake by having her murdered and replacing her with another kidnapped child would in any way work. As a result the Talons Of Peace now have five Chosen Ones who have ditched them and wanted absolutely nothing to do with them and their plans. As of three books into the series they are still doubling down on the "kill and replace the more annoying members of the group" plan and still seem to think that the surviving members would somehow accept this.

I also think it's noteworthy that, like, most of the remotely competent and trustworthy allies the DoD have are other child soldiers that they have run into along the way. Like, at this point we have Peril (Skywing Queen's attempt at making her very own Azula), Anemone (magical prodigy small child on a leash), Deathbringer (Nightwing secret agent who Glory accidentally flirted with while in disguise within the first five minutes of attempting her own unrelated spy mission), Fatespeaker (one of the Talons of Peace's backup plan dragonets who they somehow put even less effort into than the main five). And, like, Clay's siblings who are also a bunch of kids fighting a war.

Also I don't know if this was Tui T. Sutherland's intent all along or if it was audiobook reader Shannon McManus's artistic license, but. Whoever decided to give the Nightwings - a tribe from an inhospitable island who act like they're smarter and more cultured than everyone else but are mostly a bunch of pompous idiots, who have a decrepit and useless royal family, notoriously inedible "cuisine," and a plot to colonize and genocide one of the other tribes for land and natural resources - British accidents is a goddamn genius.

[ladylike-foxes]

Thank you, Anon!! ❤️❤️ Have some awkward Solavellan hurt+care and a weird Dorian+Solas bromance moment for @dadrunkwriting 👉😉👉

TW: Blood, painful wounds, sutures, first aid.

~~~

She was relieved to see she was the first to wake up. Although they'd stopped arguing after Solas had screamed at her, she had a feeling it was more a pause than actually considering the matter closed. Though the cot proved an added obstacle, she managed to extricate herself from it and his limbs without rousing him. Despite the screaming pain throughout every inch of her body, it had been worth avoiding picking up the argument first thing in the morning. Her Anchor arm felt so weak as to be almost useless, and she realized she wore the tattered remnants of her clothes from the previous night, stinking of stale sweat and dried blood. Wrinkling her nose, she pulled her shirt off with a barely swallowed yelp; remembering the claw marks on her stomach only after she tore the ripped shirt from where it had dried to the gashes. Her left arm throbbed, threatening immobility should she attempt to raise it again. After a few moments to catch her breath, she loosed the laces of her breeches. Once more, she forgot the burn on her hip until she was peeling the leather away from the angry red wound, unable to help but cry out as the material took several layers of skin with it.

"Come here," She'd woken him, and he moved to sit on the edge of the cot.

She shuffled over, wincing, ruined pants still clinging to her upper thighs. He grasped her kindly, hands firm but soft as they framed her waist and situated her before him. He leaned in closely, she could feel his breath across her hip bone as he examined the scratches left by the Shade. When he hummed thoughtfully, she could swear ushe felt it reverberate through her. Breath came a little faster, pulse picked up slightly, skin flushing warm across her chest and face, standing there half naked under his scrutiny. After a second, he turned her slightly to look at the burn: his warm breath scalding against the raw flesh. Lips pursed as he pulled a face, sighing deeply before waving his hand over one wound and then the others. Releasing her, he rested his elbows on his knees, breathing slow and controlled as he squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn't been able to heal either one completely, and they would certainly scar, but at least the lacerations had closed and the burn was a smaller, healther scab.

"Thank you," Muttering quietly, still wary of a fight.

"I would have done more, but I am attempting to conserve my mana, should it be direly necessary later," Still hunched over, eyes shut, "Dorian and I spent the evening helping to heal the Chargers. No doubt he is exhausted as I."

"I'm sure Bull's people greatly appreciate it," Having turned away to quickly don fresh clothes, "I certainly do."

When she faced him again, he was rubbing his face, and she saw his arm was sloppily bandaged. Impulsively, she moved to grab his wrist for a better look, but he snatched out of her grasp with a startled look. His eyes are particularly stormy today, thinking distractedly.

"You didn't bother to heal your own injuries first?"

"My skills were needed elsewhere," Slightly defensive and a touch accusatory, "I was already weaker than usual."

"Okay, but you should at least let me look at it," Reaching again but slow and deliberate, "I know shit-all about healing magic, but you know shit-all about first aid. Let me see."

Scowling, he reluctantly offered his arm. She unwound the bandage carefully, glad to see it hadn't been dried to the injury as her clothes had been. Running the length of his forearm was a long, deep gash. He had packed it with gauze, but she could see clearly it required stitches if there was any hope of keeping it from infection. She straightened up with a sigh, hands on her hips, anticipating his doubtless objection to her magically-lacking treatment.

"I'm gonna need to stitch that up—" Holding a hand up to cut off his refusal," At least until you feel better enough to heal it yourself."

He didn't attempt to speak again, but looked at her with dubious ire. She shrugged, gesturing for him to follow her outside.

"I'm going to need to see it in the light, if you don't want me to butcher it."

After a minute taken, she was sure, to bitch quietly to himself, he emerged from the tent after her. He turned immediately to Dorian, who looked immensely hungover sitting on the nearest side of the fire, but the Magister was already waving his hand in a weak dismissal.

"Sorry, Solas. As I've already told Halie, I'm too weak myself to tend to your arm," One hand remaining a makeshift visor over his squinting eyes, he pointed to his bag with the other.

"The distilled spirits are in that bottle in the side pocket of my bag, Love."

Halesta grabbed the bottle and then a few clean rags and other things from amongst their own supplies before sitting down, indicating Solas sit beside her.

"What are the spirits for?"

Eyeing her with confusion, but she merely grinned, not allowing him a chance to pull away before pouring half the bottle over the gaping wound. He hissed and spat curses in Elvhen, jerking his arm away again. She smiled to herself and took a small pull from the bottle before setting it aside.

"You might have simply warned me!" Pouting like a child.

"Where's the fun in that? Now, c'mon, lemme see it."

He continued his low muttering in Elvhen, so soft and quickly she was only able to catch the occasional word. Hearing her People's tongue spoken so naturally, regardless of his agitation, was strangely calming. Even his largely nonsensical string of curses had a sort of musical quality. Bending one of her smallest needles into a hook, she sterilzed it along with a pair of tweezers in a small flame she'd easily summoned. Deftly threading the needle, and with one last splash of spirits over the length of colored floss (sage green, of course), she turned her gaze back to him.

"This isn't going to be painless...."

"What in life is?" Sarcastically quipped, "I have had worse, I am certain. Go on."

A strange compulsion came over her. She leaned up and pressed a brisk kiss to the corner of his mouth, then quickly sat to focus on her work before it could be acknowledged. She studied the laceration again; it was fairly deep, though there wasn't too much damage to the actual muscle, which was good. There were a few different sutures she had learned from Mamae. Judging by the width of the wound, the "U"-shaped sack stitch would probably be best. She moved to start, but hesitated...it'd been years since she'd done this. A nervous reflex, she glanced up to see Solas watching her with a small—albeit, slightly wistful—smile, slow blink and nod of confidence. Rolling her eyes at his reassurance, and her apparent need for it, she tucked in. Deliberate, fluid motions, like her mother had taught her back when she thought she'd be without magic. Back when it seemed there was no in studying under her mother as a healer, as Aura had. So Halesta and Laleal had stuck with basic field first-aid; learning to set bones, suture, and a cursory study of medicinal benefits of some common plants. Laleal had never been squeamish about sutures, but Halie’s were always neater. The notion that that she had once been squeamish made her laugh aloud.

“What is amusing?” Her glance flickered up briefly to see her patient arching a brow wryly.

She shook her head, smiling as she continued her mending, “Nothing, really. Just a funny old memory.”

“Pray, tell.”

“Oh, yes!” Dorian turned toward them, Bull appearing at his side, “Story time.”

“Ehh, I don’t know,” Ducking her head with a chuckle, “Even if you did believe me, you’d laugh at me.

“C’monnn, Boss,” Bull leaned in with a drowsy grin, “Spill the beans.”

Sighing dramatically, the heat rushing to her face even as she maintained a steady pace with the stitches. She let them wait for a moment as she knotted and cut another suture.

“Mamae was a healer, and people would come from the nearby villages whenever word spread that our Clan was in the area. Even the worst of the humans were careful to watch their tongue, in case they should need Mamae’s help, which they had the courtesy to assume they’d be refused if she heard them calling us ‘Knife-Ears’.... Though, honestly, she’d have helped them anyway. Wellll, so,“ Trying to focus more on her hands than the story, that old embarrassment creeping up in her throat, “I, uh, was actually very squeamish about this sort of thing as a child. Blood and such, I mean.”

Dorian, Bull, and the more familiar Chargers roared with laughter. Even Solas wasn’t attempting to restrain his chuckling, making it difficult for her to see what she was doing.

“You? Squeamish?” Varric had joined them at some point, his voice emerging from somewhere behind her, “Our Little Bit? I don’t believe it.”

Gently stabbing Solas with the needle so he’d sit still, “I know, I know. The irony, right?”

They teased and laughed for awhile; and maybe it was the time that’d passed or how much she’d changed, but it didn’t seem as embarrassing as it once had. She dabbed at the blood that had started from his wound again, her mind drifting slightly from everything but the repetition of her movements. The conversation around her drifted too, though it sounded distant and indistinct to her at first.

“—You and the Chief were actually quieter than those two,” Krem’s comments to Dorian snapping her out of her reverie, “Between the four of you, I’m surprised Maryden and I got any sleep at all!”

“Yeah, he really laid you out last night, huh, Boss?” A teasing undercurrent to Bull’s tone as he set up the punchline for her.

“And not even in the fun way,” Mock disappointment and a sly sidelong glance to her friends.

They were surrounded by laughter, but the easy kind. The kind that indicated that the subject had been dropped. Solas pouted quietly for a moment; she didn’t dare look up at him and risk his glaring daggers at her.

“Dorian,” His voice low and smooth overhead, nearly distracting her from looping a knot, “May I see that bottle? Is this what you were drinking last night?”

“The Massaad?” Passing the bottle to his free hand, “I didn’t take you for a Sommelier, Solas.”

“Hm,” Amused hum as he examined the bottle in his hand, “I am not. I, however, do need a drink if I am to deal with this heckling all day.”

She looked up in surprise to see his head tossed back and bottle bottom-up, finishing it off with a mere three swallows. Bull barked a laugh while Krem looked nervously at Dorian’s appalled expression.

“That was an extremely rare vintage!!”

“Ir abelas, Falon,” Smiling apologetically, “But, I do have...countless resources at my disposal. I swear to procure you another to replace it.”

Dorian seem to consider this, appearing mollified.

“Wait,” The Magister’s tone surprisingly lighthearted, “Before or after you destroy the world?”

Solas actually laughed along with Dorian, while Halie looked between the two men, needle frozen in the air and her mouth slightly agape.