How are you guys enjoying this story so far? Today (technically four weeks ago, if you're going by when I wrote it), I'm switching from Ember to Ruby's point of view.

And also, OMG THE ENDING IS SO CRINGY. If anyone, I MEAN ANYONE, is about to encourage this cringe, I will smack you (I am looking at you JoshEatsSquash).

1310 words

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Princess Ruby always knew her place. She was raised (if you could even call it that) to be the perfect daughter. That meant she had to agree with everything her mother, Queen Scarlet, said and never have her own opinions. She never once even thought of challenging her mother for the throne.

However, Ruby did have opinions. But she never expressed them because that would mean certain death. It didn't matter that she was Scarlet's only heir. Ruby always assumed that she would never be queen. Scarlet wanted too much power. In fact, Ruby knew that her mother had her sister, Tourmaline, killed just because she was about to challenge her.

So Ruby kept her opinions to herself. She never took battle classes. She took pains to stay hidden. Ruby never ventured out of the room; the servants brought her meals up to her.

And then her perfect and safe world was shattered when her mother made her the general of her army. Ruby knew nothing about leading other dragons. And leading them to their deaths? Just to fight for a stupid war she didn't even care about? It was awful.

But Ruby was the daughter of the queen and Scarlet controlled nearly every moment of her life. So she accepted and began her training.

Her first battle was the worst. She had no idea what she was doing. She did exactly what her mother told her to do. She didn't like it, but it was better than what Ruby was thinking- run away in terror.

And it didn't help that that dragon- Ember, wasn't it?- told her how immoral these orders were.

Don't you think I know that? she wanted to scream. I don't like these orders any more than you!

But she had no choice. Without doing this, their tribe would be doomed. If they went through with it, helpless IceWings would die a horrifying death at the claws of Peril, her mother's "champion."

Dying in war was a terrible fate, but dying because of that- that monster was even worse.

Ruby was forced to watch as Peril burned the eggs on that brightest night without a single thought in her head but to make Scarlet happy. She had even watched one of Peril's first killings in the arena.

Ruby could understand the eggs- the dragonet was only one year old and didn't know any better. But after seeing her kill those war prisoners, there was no doubt left in Ruby's mind. Peril was a monster.

She had killed Tourmaline, the only dragon who cared what happened to her, and the only dragon who wanted any part in raising her.

Or so she thought, until Ember and Crimson told her otherwise.

Who was Ember? How was he connected to her sister? How was he connected to her?

He was an odd dragon. His mood swings were crazy enough to throw even Ruby off guard. One minute, he'd be laughing and enjoying the moment, and the next minute, he would be looking at them weirdly and brooding. She wanted to know what was going on in that brain of his.

And Crimson- Crim. Her presence was so comforting. It was a feeling she never felt before, even from Tourmaline. A warmth that made you want to confide in her and drink soup and go to sleep. Crim was a dragon who you instinctively knew would take care of you. Like a mother. A real mother. Not Scarlet.

Ruby was beginning to understand that blood didn't make you family. For example, the MudWings' only family was their pod of siblings. Their parents wanted nothing to do with them. Kind of like Scarlet.

And she's seen similar signs in the army. Many of her soldiers had formed bonds with their peers. She had seen dragons who didn't share even a single drop of blood act like family.Ruby noticed that Ember himself had found a brother in Condor. They laughed together, trained together, fought together.

Ruby was slightly jealous of the easy sibling bond Crim and Ember had and the friendship between Ember and Condor. Then she felt bad because she wasn't being fair to them. She should be happy for him for finding happiness in times of sadness and grief like this. But that didn't stop the feelings of resent.

Ruby did her best to shove down the guilt she had of murdering so many dragons on the battlefield and capturing so many others for Scarlet.

She felt terrible about all the things she had done.

No, terrible didn't cover it. She loathed herself.

But Ember. He didn't seem like he even cared about how many dragons he killed in the war. Even laughing, her other soldiers had an air of sadness around them. But Ember didn't have that. So either he was perfectly fine with having killed those dragons...

Or he had come to terms with it.

She should have been stronger mentally; she could have withstood the guilt that came with being in the army. She could have issued her own orders. If she were stronger physically, she could challenge her mother and become a much better queen than she was. She would pull her dragons out of the war.

But Ruby had always been a timid dragon, and she had no real leadership skills, and her fighting skills were pretty much fight- or- flight based. She didn't even have any intense battle training like her soldiers.

Ruby was tempted to scream and fly away from the fighting in her first battle, but she couldn't leave them there. Besides, there were so many dragons who would have died if not for her jumping in at the exact right moment.

Ember himself has been this close to dying when an IceWing opened his mouth to deliver a face full of frostbreath. If not for Ruby, he surely would have been frozen like an icicle.

She left after that to go help her other soldiers.

She knew Ember had either killed him or the IceWing escaped. He was not one of the prisoners taken to Scarlet. But Ember didn't seem troubled at all the next day. He was laughing with his comrades and keeping their spirits up. Did that mean he wasn't taking the army seriously? Why did he even sign up if that was the case?

But it didn't really seem that way. She noticed how hard Ember worked.

And he was a breathtakingly decent dragon. Even though he was five years older than her, he treated her with the same respect he would give to a war veteran of fifty years. Some of Ruby's soldiers didn't respect her at all because she was a princess and was sheltered from everything bad in the world.

She wanted to roll her eyes at that. Her mother was Queen Scarlet, a dragon notoriously known for being a sadist. Her sister was killed by her mother's little pet for trying to challenge her for the throne, which last time she checked, wasn't illegal.But Scarlet was a bloodthirsty and power hungry dragon. She would never give up the throne or be pushed into a challenge unless she knew she could defeat the challenger.

Ruby could not defeat Queen Scarlet. She had no battle training and every time she even tried to speak challengingly to her mother, her throat closed up, as if it were physically impossible to go against the queen's rules.

She so wanted to claw that cruel, smug face that said I AM YOUR RULER NOW AND FOREVER. But she didn't think she had the courage to do it...

Until now.

Until Ember.