Beyond the Veil takes place at Jade Mountain during the trip to Pantala Pelco and Oaktail took in "Of Forest and Sea"

Mink's POV

Death is like a veil; it separates the living from the dead, and the only way for the two to reunite, is for the living themselves to pass.

Mink was only two years old when that veil had come into her life; when the plague stole her mother.
It had been so long since that day, but she remembered it vividly.

She remembered hiw amazed Snowfall had when she was made queen.
She remembered how stiff Crystal was when she bowed.
Mink remembered how she and her two older sisters had knelt on either side of Glacier's deathbed, watching their mother's white scales fade to gray.

"I will not have the Icewings suffer the fate of the Kingdom of Sand", Glacier breathed between spasms of coughing.
"There will be no War of Icewing Succession. Do you three understand?"

Mink nodded frantically, even though, at such a young age, she knew next to nothing about the war, or even about the three dragons she and her sisters could have become.

"We promise, Mother", Crystal said in a frail, soft voice.
"Nobody wants another war."

"We'll just fight each other. We won't drag anyone else into it", Snowfall said.
"A normal duel, over in a day

Mink stared at her sister.
"I don't want you to fight!", she said in a hurt voice.

"No", Glacier snarrled, crushing Snowfall's talon in hers.
"You will not fisgh each other. I am going to chose the next Icewing Queen."

Crystal rubbed the edges of her wings together.
"But that's - that's never-"

"You must swear on the spirits beneath the ice", Glacier said fiercely.
"Whoever I choose to be queen, the other two will support her. You'll help save the trie and keep the peace. No duels. No fighting. No war. Do you understand?"

Snowfall glanced at her sisters.
"For how long?", she asked.
"I mean. . . . . . tradition says no new queen should be challenged for the first month of her reign - is that what you mean?"

"Longer", Glacier rasped.
"The tribe will need to heal after this plague."
If any of us survive, was the unspoken mutter under her words that even young Mink could detect.

"So. . . . . " Snowfall studied Crystal for a moment.
"A year?"

Glacier sighed, a failing whisper of wind across a frozen lake.
"I don't want you to fight", she said, closing her eyes.
"Ever."

"I won't!", Mink cried.
She climbed up onto the bed with their mother and crept under her wing.
"I won't ever hurt them, Mommy.
I love them, and I love you, and we'll be r-r-really good."

Her mother's body was cold, not a comforting, secure cold, but a lifeless, falling cold.

"I swear too", Crystal promised.
"Whatever you want, Mother."

"Snowfall?", Glacier asked.

"I swear", Snowfall choked out.
"I'll support the new queen. I won't challenge her."

"Good.'

Glacier opened her eyes again and tucked Mink in closer with her wing.
She reached for the glittering diamons crown on the side table.

"The next Icewing queen. . . . . . is Snowfall. That is final."

Mink blinked, the world spinning as she stared at the sheet of paper infront of her.

What?

Her gaze went blurry and she put her talons to her temples.

Why is this happening?
This hasn't happened since-

She glanced at the calender next to her desk.
She knew what day it was before her eyes saw it.

August twenty-first.
The three-year anniversary of her mother's death.

Her eyes flickering rapidly, Mink reached in one of her packs and took out a journal, a quill, and a glace of ink.

She dunked the quill into the ink and trying to ignore the circles flying around her, she began to write.

She was so disraught, she didn't even care about her grammer, or about the splotches of black ink that kept splattering on the pages.

August 21,
6:00 A.M

I woke up not twenty minutes ago to study my lines, but I just had a flashback.
Like, a bog one.

Every day, I try to give myself a goal, something to work towards, but this is the first time I've used it for something this important.

Daylily goal: Get through this play without tearing up or missing any lines.
Everyone else is too busy getting ready for the play.

I can't let my new friends think I can't handle presure.

If I can do this on my own without crying, I'll be able to move on with life.

I hope, was the unwritten prayer behind her ink.

The play was called "Beyond the Veil" and it was about an Icewing detective who investigated her mother's death, to dicover, with horror, that her lover was the killer.

Mink was only playing a minor role, thank goodness; Snowfloer, the Quartz Winglet's Icewing, was acting the main character.

Mink had been having trouble since the death of her mother.

She kept getting disracted in school.
She kept driffting off.
She couldn't focus on anything.

But if she got through this, if she kept herself under control and didn't blow it, she could move on and everything would be alright.

"You!", Emu the director yelled to someone backstage.
"Move the thing! And. . . . . that OTHER thing!"

A Silkwing managing the pullies looked at him in confusion.

"Move it!"

Emu was a tall, brown-and-tan, no-nonsense Sandwing who always seemed to find someone to boss around.
It was like beathing or drinking to him- if
he didn't, he would die.
Who's idea it had been to make him director, Mink had no idea.

"Alright, gang", Emu said, turning his back on the Silkwing to adress the actors behind him.

"As you probably know, tonight's preformance night. So-"

"Wait, we preform TONIGHT?", a small Leafwing asked.

Emu cleared his throat as though he didn't like being interupted.

"So I hope you've all memorized your lines.
It's Ten O'clock right now, so we have about ten hours until then. So what we're going to do, is, since we have two hours until lunch, we're going to rehearse, and then we're going to eat, and then we're going to come back, have dinner, and then we'll preform. Everybody got that? Good. Let's get started."

He switched his glance to the Silkwing at the pullies again.

"Move it!"

"What's the magic word?"

Emu stared.
"PLEASE."

"Why, thaaaank you!"

"Hey, Mink!"
Mink spun around to see a red-and-orange Skywing waving at her.
"Hey, Cliff!"

Cliff was one of Mink's new friends at Jade Mountain.
He was often involved in things like this, one way or another.
He was also Tody's best bud, but that was random information!
Diffinitely not important!

"What are you all doing? Get in your positions!", Emu called through his megaphone.
"From the begining! Scene One, dragons, Scene One!"

"Have you memorized everything?", Cliff asked Mink in a whisper.

"Yeah, but I'm glad it's only a small part."

"Why? Tody wouldn't shut up about how well you did in 'Take a Deep Breath!"

Mink flushed blue.

"Well, erm, that, um. . . . . ."

"Snowflower!", Emu bellowed.
"How many times have I told you to stop doing that? Stop trying to make the scene more dramatic!"

"Why?", Snowflower demanded rpoudly.
She waved an elegant talon at the other preformers.
"The audience WANTS dramatic!"

"Not THAT kind of dramatic! That's unrealistic!"

The beautiful Icewing rolled her eyes.

"From the top! No overacting!", the director ordered again.

But Snowflower spitefully exaggerated her movements and diolouge, to the point that Emu looked like exploding.

"Snowflower! This is MY play, not yours. I'm in charge, so either you listen to me, or you're out!"

"You can't call me out!", Snowflower flared.

"Oh, yes I can!"

"No! You can't! Because I quit!"
She stormed off the stage, shiving the other dragons aside, her tail lashing violently.

Mink looked at her as she past her.
Snowflower glared and marched out of the room.

No one said anything.

"Okay", Emu said presantly.
"Titmouse you're going to take Mink's place."

"Wait, what? Why?", Mink asked.
Then she knew.

"Because you are taking the lead."

"And then, the director turns to ME, and he says, 'You're taking her place now.' All that work memorizing lines was for nothing, becuase now, I only only like, wight hours to get down my new lines, and I have no idea if I can do it!"

"Of course you can do it, Mink", Tody said, handing her a plate of frozen fish.
"I've seen you act. You so got this! This should be a peice of cake!"

Mink blushed and flashed him a fragile smile.

"Unless it's not", said a high, clear voice from across the kitchen.

Mink's shoulders drooped.
She generally tried to stay positive, but pestimists were the one thing that got to her.

"You may not know this, Princess, Snowflower said, strutting up with a sneer, "but I've seen you at night. Do you want to know what you say? Over and over, I hear you cry, 'No, no, no! Mommy! Mommy!' Will it be too much for you? Can you take the presure? Is reliving your poor dead moomy's death too difficult for you?"

Mink blinked painfully.

Tody's scales turned a vibrant shade of red.
"Well, at least she's going to do her best! She's not quiting just because someone criticized her!"

Snowflower looked down her snout at him.
"And what do YOU know about determination, Rainwing? If memory serves, your tribe was the only one not involved in the War of Sandwing Succession."

"So what?", Mink demanded.
"Maybe they were the only smart ones!"

Snowflower looked at her for a moment, apparently trying to come up with a retort, when Clay walked in,a nd they all shut their snouts.

"Don't think for a second that you've gotten away from me, Girly", Snowflower whispered in Mink's ear.
"Or you, Jungle Bird", she said to Tody.

Then, head held high, she swaggered out of the kitchen.

Throughout the day, Snowfloer kept coming back to Mink to make snark remarks and just generally make life difficult.

"What do you think you're doing here, Princess?', she asked during a break between rehearsals.
"She should be in your room, crying and morning over your dead mommy."

"W-Why-why are you doing this?', Mink asked, truying to sound as smart as her friend, Auklet, and as brave as her clawmate, Bumblebee.
"If you're so convinced that I'm going to screw this up, why can't you just do it? Why taunt me and tell me I'm going to fail, if you can do it yourself?"

Snowflower paused.
"I'll give you the simple version, Little Miss Perfect", she said, roaming around Mink.

"All my life, I wanted to be a princess. I spent half of my childhood imitating something I could never truely be. But, turns out, no one likes a fraud. Fortune made you, a weak, scrawny, pathetic Icewing to be something I should have been. I WANT you to fail. I WANT you to cry.
This is my revenge, your little Majesty."

Finally, after a quick dinner, the moment arrived.
The moment when the curtains were drawn back, the audience applouded, and the actors backstage took deep breaths.

"Okay, Mink, the next scene, is the one were Arcticowl discovers her mother's corpse", Emu reminded her.
"You know all of your lines?"

"Yep", Mink said, looking down.

Now that the time had come, she wasn't so sure she had enough confidence to do this.

"Good. Do it exactly the way you did at rehearsal. Now, get on out there!"

Mink looked over at Cliff, who gave her a thumbs up and waved his talons at the stage, gesturing for her to go.

She took a deep breath . . . . and stepped out from behind the curtain.

At first, things went perfectly.

When she first got up there, Mink was so nervous, she could barely keep herself from trembling.
But once she caught sight of Tody's eyes, everything came back to her, and for a moment, everything was easy, and it felt like anything was posible.

And then, that moment ended.

The troubke started when the curtains fell so that the scenary could be replaced.

That's when Mink was caugt off-guard.

"Hmmm. Too bad. You're failing everyone", Snowflower said, emerging from the shadows.
"What a shame. Death is but a hard reality, isn't it?"

Mink should have just igored it, but the words floated through her skull, over and over again.

Everything belew to peices when the curtains lifted and Mink's eyes feel upon Bobcat, Icewing or the Gold Winglet, playing the part of the corpse.

A sword impaled itself into Mink's chest.

It was like waking up as a two-year-old again and discovering Glacier's dead body in the school hallway.

"M-Mommy is . . . . . dead. She'd dead!"

Mink could see Glacier infront of her, her scales a gray and colorless as a slate.
Her eyes pale and glassy.
Her face, a blank expression of still and silent pain.

Everything moved in slowmotion.
The director and audience staring at her.
Snowflower sneering.
Tody mouthing her name.

And she ran.
She ran out of the theater.
She ran down the cordoors and past the teachers.

She sobbed so hard, an endless pit opened up inside her.

She ran straight out of the mountain entrance and colasped on the ledge, covering her face with her wings, and hoping that no one would ever find her; that no one would come for a broken princess.

But finally, someone did find her.

"Hey."

Mink sniffed and looked to see Tody sitting next to her.

"What's wrong?"

She sniffed again.
"Nothing."

"Mink, I know something's upsetting you."

She let her head fall into her arms.
"How do you know?"

Tody blinked.

They were both small for four-year-olds, and even though Tody was only an inch or so taller than her, he suddenly seemed like a giant.

"Mink, I've been watching you all day. I don't need some creepy emotion powers like Dusky, or smarts like Auklet, or poetic abilities like Cliff, or a moody aunt like Bumblebee's to know that you're having a rough time.
"Mink, I'm right here. I'm listening if you want tell me what's up."

Mink bit her lip.
Then the river slipped out.

"Today is the anniversary of my mom's death. Snowflower's been picking on me the whole day. Emu won't stop yelling at me. I put my hope into that play, and I told myself that if I revistited Death, I'd be able to move on, but I'm still here, and I've embarassed myself for life, and no nobody'll want to be friends with me, and I've failed everyone."

"How long had this been eattin' at ya?"

"Since I woke up this mourning."

"Well, it's a bunch 'a' sloth-dung", tody told her without a pause.
"No one can expect you to keep to yourself when you feel that way. There's no reason for you to worry about that."

Mink stared at him.

"I. . . guess I forget that sometimes. Back when I was younger, when. . . well, before my sister Snowfall was queen, on one was allowed to talk about things like that. Espeacially royals like me. Dragons saw it as a weakness. I guess sometimes I forget that that's not a thing anymore; that I'm with dragons who really care."

Tody smiled at her.

"Oh. Before I forget-"
He passed her a peice of candy from the small black leather pouch around his neck.

"Hope you like mints. Also, I didn't exactly get that legally, so, ya know, don't blow the whistel on me."

Mink chuckled.
"Thank you. For, you know. I really need to hear that."

He nodded.

That night, Mink dreapt that she was back in the Ice Kingdom, standing under the Moon Globe Tree, the Gift of Light.
It was crystal-white, carved from ice and enchanted to give light and hope to the whole tribe.
Glowing, silver-blue orbs grew on it's branches and it's leaved were as shinny and delicate as snowflakes.

"My, how you've grown."

Mink slowly turned.
She knew that voice.
It couldn't be.
It was impossible.
She was dead.
It. . . . . . couldn't be.

Standing there, was the most beautiful Icewing Mink had ever seen.
She had a long neck, towering horns, and eyes that shone winter blue.
The only jewlery she wore, was the hourglass necklace that lay on her chest.
Her body was glowing.
And her scales. . . . . Mink could see straight through them.

Mink gasped. Tears ran down her neck.
"Mom?"

Glacier smiled.

Mink ran to her mother, but the only thing she came into contact with, was open air.

"Oh-oh, my gosh! I can't believe you're here! I-I . . . .", she sobbed.

"Shh, shsh", Glacier comforted, runing her claws above Mink's head.
"We need to talk."

They sat beneath the pearly treetrunk -at least Mink did; Glacier floated over the ground.

"Now, tell me what you've been dealing with recently."

Mink inhaled.
"I'm at Jade Mountain Academy. I have a crush on this Rainwing I met. You'd love him. Snowflower wouldn't leave me alone. I've been hidding my feelings, I've been trying to move on by myself, but no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I just move you!""

She started sobbing again.

Glacier laid her transparent talon just above her daughter's noraml one.

"And that's alright. It's okay to miss me; I miss you sometimes too. But I don't want you to spend your whole life morning for me. You have your whole future ahead of you. And when you do miss me, don't be afraid to talk to someone. Sometimes the best way to get past something, is to confront it."

Her eyes began to sparkle.
Then her chest and wings started to fade.

"Now, go make your mother proud."

Mink beamed.
"I will."

When she woke up, Mink was back in her dorm at Jade Mountain.
She wiped away the tears in her eyes and got out her ink and journal.

August 22
7:30 A.M

Yesterday, I messed uo the preformance.
I cracked under the presure.
I'd been hidding it for so long.
But then, I talked to Tody, and I guess I just really needed to hear from someone who really cared.

Last night, I dreapt about Mom.
I dreapt that she visited me as a ghost.
Maybe it was only a dream, but. . . . . . I feel like I can continue now.

I may have failed at the play, but my point is, I've stared Saddness in the face, and now, I can move on with life.

Death is not the end; it is just the end of the begining.

A/N: You might have noticed that in this story, Tody acted more mature than he usually does.
That's because he has a mature side that most dragons miss -including himself.

Don't forget to vote and share if you enjoyed!

Wordcount: 3182

Renx out!