Summer brings life to the world, and thus it brings new peace. To embrace the spirit of new life, colonies will attend a banquet on the summer solstice to renew friendships and forge new ones.

This is Our Law.

~ From the Dragonling Grimoire

Mako was right.

I hate admitting that.

Dmitri and Alek were furious that I had planned such a risky plan without their consent or input, but they - begrudgingly - came along anyways. Something about me always getting in trouble. Nonsense!

Within the week, we had packed and prepared to leave. I had somewhat expected Derek to come with us, but he just shrugged when I suggested it. "I prefer to stay out of the snow." His eyes twinkled in wicked amusement. "But I could ask Cody if he wants to go instead-" I smacked him with my wing and our conversation turned to 'goodbyes.'

Even though I was disappointed, I was excited to hang out with Mako. It had been way too long, and his confident eccentrism was something that I missed dearly. Mako was eternally fascinated with Mishal, and begged to bring the phoenix with us. After a long debate with Alek, I finally persuaded him to let us bring him. 

It turns out that phoenixes love snow. As soon as we touched down on the snowy border of the Iciclecrash territory, Mishal chirped excitedly and unlatched his cage to hop about in the cold powder. I, meanwhile, was freezing my scales off.

"At least one of us is happy." I muttered as some of the Iciclecrash colony dragonlings stationed at the outpost draped soft polar bear furs over my shoulders and fastened them with bone buttons. One of them scooped up Mishal's cage and tied it to a loose leather strip. It was... uncomfortable to be weighed down. Clothes only belongs on our humanoid forms. Still, I didn't feel like freezing to death so I had to just go along with it. At least Dmitri looked just as awkward as I felt as they wrapped "shoes" around our claws to keep them from freezing in the snow.

Because of the sheer coldness of the frigid air, we couldn't fly. Our wing membranes would get frostbite almost immediately. Yet the Iciclecrash colony was smart - instead of finding another place to live, they simply utilized the heavy furs of their abundant polar bear prey to cloak themselves from both the elements and any unsuspecting targets.

Despite the ingenuity of it, I couldn't help but think they should have just found a different place to live. We looked like giant puffballs.

"Don't tell me you're uncomfortable!" Mako gasped dramatically, scampering over. Being a member of the colony, he had a personal cloak of thick bear pelt lined with soft rabbit fur. Lucky bastard.

"I'm always uncomfortable in this ridiculous getup." I growled playfully, lashing my tail to keep it warm as our group began walking. "I can't even fly." As if mocking me, Mishal flew up to land on one of the ridges of scales on my head.

"Not until we get to the glacier." Mako agreed glibly before turning to my mates. Alek kept a stoic, composed face that didn't quite match his now rotund, fluffy appearance. Dmitri didn't even try, actively fidgeting in the furs. Mako gave me a conspiratorial wink before continuing to speak. "Have either of you ever visited before?"

"If I had, I never would have come back." Dmitri grumbled, shaking the snow off his claws as Alek shook his head silently. "Do you ever get used to it?"

"Nope." Mako said cheerfully. "You just, you know, lose feeling in your paws after a while."

"Lovely." Alek commented dryly. "How have you not all frozen to death yet? Your draggies would be far more susceptible to the cold than us."

Mako sent me a sly glance, like he had a secret toy he wanted to show off. "You'll see!" He said to Alek cheekily.

"Cryptic."

I tapped Alek's shoulder with the tip of my tail. "Oh, like you're never cryptic." He snorted and leaned against me.

"Not when dragonlings are freezing to death."

"Lovebirds, we're almost there!" A Ryn snapped from up front. Mishal screeched back at him and I stopped myself from giggling. Alek just snorted and started walking again.

A part of me was thankful Dmitri was too distracted with trying to keep his paws snow-free to notice the impromptu snuggling. Watching his body lurch gracelessly around was quite hilarious anyways.

"Not used to walking?" I teased, speeding up to walk beside him. Alek muttered something under his breath, the patched of visible scales rippling blue, but fell back to let me talk with Dmitri.

"Ryns belong in the sky." Dmitri grunted. He attempted to maintain a semblance of dignity, but failed horribly. He just looked too adorable wrapped up in the fur cloaks like a swaddled draggy.

I bumped Dmitri's shoulder with mine. "Just wait until we get there. How far, Mako?"

"A little less than a league."

"See?" I hummed. "Almost there." I felt Mishal shift his claws against my head, settling down like a warm hat.

"A league is still a far ways away." Dmitri grumbled.

"I would have thought a Ryn of your caliber wouldn't complain." Alek said sardonically. "It appears I'm wrong."

Dmitri snorted, his tail lashing out to stab the ground a few inches away from Alek's clawtips. "Don't run your tongue unless you want to lose it."

A spark of frustration exploded in my chest. "Can't you two just get along?" I hissed. Both my mates glanced at me, Dmitri with blatant shock and Alek with aloof dignity, before separating to opposite sides of the group. Mako, of course, took this opportunity to begin harassing Dmitri. I almost felt bad.

An older wyk sidled over to me. I only came up to her shoulder, which told me she had seen far more years than I had. Her scales rippled green and yellow in amusement under her furred cloaks. "They're awfully different, aren't they?" Her voice was raspy with age, but soft with tenderness. I liked it.

"Unfortunately so." I replied. The wyk's gentle demeanor made it... easy to talk with her. Besides, it was true. Alek's cynical brilliance against Dmitri's tenaciousness and pride was... not really a good match. Not for the first time, I wished Alek hadn't turned out to be my mate... which I immediately regretted

They'll get used to it." She promised gently." It might take a few years, but they will."

With a heavy sigh, I let my head droop a bit. "They seem content to always be fighting and bickering." I said bitterly. "They never seem to care how... how annoying it is to watch them argue constantly." A wave of frustration that had been dammed up somewhere suddenly broke down, nearly bringing tears to my eyes.

The wyk made a soothing churring noise before brushing a fur-covered wing over my back. "I know how it is." She said. "My mates were just as rough, sometimes even more violent. Two Ryns at the same time, you know?" I nodded. "They'll calm down with time."

"But what happens if I get another mate? Will this start all over again?" I asked. The question had been hovering in the back of my mind for a while, pushed back from my focus by the recent events, but now I had someone to talk to about it. I didn't want to spend my life dealing with quarreling fyns.

It hit me after a second that I didn't even know the wyk's name, but she didn't seem to mind talking to me anyways. "Maybe. It depends." She admitted, shuffling her wings. "If your fyn is in a different colony and decides to stay there, they probably would relax with each other..."

"With each other?"

The wyk glanced at me in mild amusement. "You're pretty sharp, for a Ryn. Yes, they'll ease their anger at each other... and aim it at the fyn who isn't around. It's not in a fyn's nature to cause stress on his mate, so they'll subconsciously direct their anger at someone that won't cause her stress."

The way she spoke made the words hard to comprehend, which left me sounding like a blustering idiot. "I... I don't understand. They should know ganging another mate will just cause even more stress."

"It's subconscious." The wyk replied quizzically. "Didn't you study the psych?"

"Just the body." I mumbled, glancing at the ground bashfully. "That's all Ryns need to know."

I felt the wyk's tail flick near my flank. "Well, I think you should learn about the mind too." She declared. "The subconscious is the part of your," the wyk paused, as if trying to find the right phrase," your thinking, I suppose you could say, that you do without realizing." After a short pause, she glanced down at me. "Sort of like when we fly or breathe. Do you ever think about it?"

There was a little thrill in my chest as I began to understand. "So... they wouldn't know that they're doing it? They'd just... do it."

"Yes!" The wyk said. "Now you've got it. You know, you would be a good scholar. Have you ever thought about returning to school?"

"It... didn't work out."

"I see."

The wyk didn't press the matter and we walked on in comfortable silence for nearly thirty minutes before we came upon the pride and joy of the Iciclecrash colony - their glacier.

Just as the astral dome in the library of the Kestreldive colony had been created by magic, so had the Iciclecrash colony's home. The legend goes that a young Ryn who was well-versed in the use of magic was chased out of his colony for using his magic in battle. Such a practice is banned by our Laws, and the Ryn had been treated as any shunned dragonling - sent to die alone in the habitable frozen wildlands.

But the Ryn didn't die.

Through hundreds of years of surviving on polar bears and caribou, the fyn carved an intricate and extraordinary collection of caves and tunnels straight into the ice with his own claws. He enchanted the very walls to never melt, even at the blistering heat of dragonling flames, yet stay warm so any dragonling inside wouldn't freeze.

As the years passed, other outcasts sought out the Ryn and his icy castle. Slowly a colony began to grow, acting just as any other colony would. But there was one problem - there was no King or Queen. Obviously, a Lira stepped up to take the title. But many of the dragonlings refused her, as they had followed the lead of the Ryn for many years. So it was settled among the elder dragonlings that the Ryn and Lira would fight as any other challengers to the throne would.

The battle was long and hard. The Ryn had focused on building his castle, neglecting his training, while the Lira had been planning for years to take over her former colony before she was chased out. Yet, just before the Lira could deliver the final blow, a scattering of icicles fell from the ceiling and killed her. The Ryn, named King after a heated debate on the authenticity of the victory, named his newly created colony after the very thing that had saved his life - crashing icicles.

It was an old, old story that my mother used to tell me before she died. She said that her great-grandmother knew the Ryn, but I didn't quite believe her.

Still... looking upon the glacier, I felt my blood stir with excitement. It was rather plain from the outside, but my heart thrummed with excitement as I thought of the wide-open spaces inside where I could stretch my wings and warm my scales.

A small part of me was sad to think that maybe this is what I should have felt for my own colony, but I brushed it off as our group began the descent towards the glacier opening.

Dmitri landed beside me gracelessly. "Is this what we came all this way for? A hunk of ice?"

"It's far more than that!" Mako announced. "Madam Gvrilla, would you do the honors?" The wyk I had been talking to - Gvrilla, what an odd name - approached the wall of solid ice and tapped on it.

Within seconds, the frozen sheet had sunken into the ground soundlessly, revealing a merry, brightly-lit room full of dragonlings who had clearly just arrived from outside like us. Melted snow created large puddled on the ground and about six or so Ryns crowded around a fire. Piles of caribou reaching almost up to my neck dotted the room, a band of Inas collecting them.

I turned to see, much to my delight, that both Dmitri and Alek looked stunned. Alek spoke first, regaining his composure after a moment. "How...?"

"Magic!" Mako said excitedly. Our group began to pull off their furry cloaks and shake out their wings, and Mishal hopped off my head and scurried over to stand inside one of the fires. I curled my tail around his cage before any of the Inas could collect and take it away.

"Magic." Alek repeated skeptically. "Dragonlings aren't capable of magic."

"Most aren't." The wyk, Gvrilla, called. "But our founder was. They say he could have real dragon's blood, which is how he was so powerful."

Alek opened his mouth to argue, but hesitated. He looked conflicted, as if he was turning the possibilities and implications over in his head. The turmoil evident on his face was hilarious.

Dmitri snorted. "At least we have warmth now. That's all that matters, right?"

Alek rolled his eyes, prompting my tail to smack his side. He glanced at me, red eyes flashing with a mix of irritation and amusement. "Ow."

"Don't be rude."

The room began to empty as the group dispersed, along with the Ryn hunters. Only Mako, Gvrilla, my mates and I remained, with Mishal, of course.

"Oh!" Mako blinked and suddenly jumped to his feet. "I forgot!" He nodded to Gvrilla. "This is my mentor. She's going to be in charge of planning the festival." He was practically bouncing as he spoke. "And I get to help! We have to plan sleeping arrangements, food, the guest list, security-"

Gvrilla hooked her claws around Mako's snout, closing it. "You're rambling again." Mako blinked than glanced down at the floor bashfully. The wyk turned to us with a small nod. "It'll be nice to have your help. I'm a little overrun. King Aaron refuses to delegate any more help to this. Too busy with the war and all."

"You're... still at war?" I asked in surprise. "It's been..."

Gvrilla shrugged nonchalantly, staring into one of the fires. "Remember that most wars aren't as short as yours." She snorted, a touch of bitterness in her voice. "Your queen is more worried about holding grudges than working for her colony's benefit."

"Or staying within the Law." Dmitri muttered. Alek sent him a small glare, but, if Gvrilla had caught his words, she didn't comment.

"Anyways, we'll be glad to help." I promised, glancing at my mates sternly. "Right?"

"Sure." Dmitri mumbled, his attention on the icy ceiling.

Alek was more tactful, nodding his head once. "It would be my pleasure."

Mishal chirped from his place in the flames, the oil on his feathers glowing from the heat. "Mishal agrees too." I said, offering my wing out for him to perch on. The phoenix fluttered up, looking beautiful from the scorching rejuvenation.

"Thank you." Gvrilla dipped her head before standing up. "Alright. Let's head in."

"Head in?" Dmitri questioned. "Aren't we already inside?"

Mako gave me an eager glance, practically bouncing up and down. Damn, I missed his child-like joy. It rubbed off on me, making excitement bubble up in my chest. Gvrilla just snorted and walked over the doorway that the other dragonlings had disappeared into. "Come on." She called. Mako raced after her and I followed close behind.

As soon as we passed through the doorway, the mirage faded away and revealed a massive cavern. And when I say massive, I mean there was thousands of feet of open space just to fly. Various shops were carved straight into the ice wall, each with displays of their products. The smell of cooking food and treats that wafted through the air, accompanied by the constant stream of chatter from the crowds and the lovely golden glow from countless torches, created a merry air. You couldn't see them from where we were, but I knew there were hundreds of frozen houses built along the upper levels of the cavern, doors tightly closed until their owners came back. Alek and Dmitri, once more, looked utterly stunned, and even Mishal gave a surprised warble, flapping his wings.

Gvrilla laughed lowly, her raspy voice making it sound somewhat like a cat's purr. "Well, boys. Let me be the first to welcome to the Iciclecrash colony."