"You made this?" The teacher's dark blue eyes connected with his black ones, wonder shining out of the rich navy. He nodded.
"It's incredible. I only handed them out a minute ago. How did you do it so quickly?" Snowdrift shrugged. The teacher turned away, walked a few steps and then turned back.
"Show me." The teacher whispered quietly in his ear, pure eagerness in his voice. Snowdrift picked up another block of bright, clear ice, turning it over in his serrated talons, picturing what it was inside. He sliced away a section of ice, and it shattered as it hit the floor. He focused, the shape suddenly becoming clear in his mind. He just had to take off all the bits that weren't in the shape he wanted. That was his technique. As a snowfox was the shape the ice wanted to become, then he'd make it a snowfox. Slice, slice, slice. The figure appeared. Scratch. The fur details were engraved into the surface. Scritch, scritch, slice. The face emerged from the smooth, engraved lines. He frowned in concentration, immersed once again. He set it down gently after a while and smiled shyly up at the astonished dragon. The IceWing teacher picked it up, held it to the light and gently breathed pure, focused frostbreath into it, preserving the ice for at least a month. The teacher winked and placed it in the leather bag hanging around his neck. Snowdrift couldn't contain his excitement, and felt dizzy with happiness. He adored this coy, confident young IceWing and wanted it shout out to the world, but had to settle with beaming widely at everyone who passed. He shook out his wings as the tunnel he was following opened into clear blue sky. He was at the peak of the mountain, and there was snow speckling the ground. He longingly traced the outline of the snowy patch with his spiky-tipped tail, sadness suddenly rising up to envelop him. He desperately wanted to go roll in the deep, deep mounds of flakes that covered his land, he pined for the towering pillars of ice that were the glaciers he lived by, and he missed so much the small hut of ice blocks that he called home. His tiny village was right on the outskirts of the Ice Kingdom, but he was so happy there, being away from the Circles and nobility was just fine with him. And now he was here, in this overwhelming, bustling school he would call home for at least 6 months. He ached with homesickness. He stared into the sky, willing it to fill with clouds, for snow to fall in familiar flurries and swirls, but it remained a stark, yawning expanse of blue. Blue was everywhere in his life. The navy eyes of the ice-carving teacher stared back at him whenever he blinked. He shook his head, and they instead changed to an even more stirring set of pink-green eyes. Oh, Aurora. How could she come back to taunt him always at his most vulnerable times, just as he was happy, turning it to sadness? He pushed her to the back of his head, suppressing those heart-rending, painful memories, but the blankness quickly filled up with her shifting scales. He wanted to sob, to break down. He breathed deeply, composing himself. He hated having these stressful moments. His talons trembled and he clenched them, relaxed them, clenched them, relaxed them until they were still. With a heart as heavy as a mountain, he stared at the sky again. He imagined he was like the sky, empty of anything sad, infinitely big, stretching his wings out as if it would work. He tried to visualise his despair and fear rushing out of him, trickling away, leaving only happy nothingness. It worked for a moment. He closed his eyes, focusing on his soul bring a void. A trembling, frightened void who is torn internally, who can't feel anything but depression, and breaks down whenever any other emotion creeps in through the pain. It was back, the ever-present hurt looming over his fragile mind, ready to consume him once more. He didn't even notice a NightWing walk up behind him, tears in her eyes as she heard his pitiful thoughts, until she suddenly embraced him with her warm wings. He jumped and whipped his head around and she stepped back, her dark green eyes mournful, the silver teardrop scales glistening with real water.
"I- I'm so sorry.." she whispered softly. "Your thoughts... they were just so sad... what happened to you?" He looked at her and saw a concerned face wanting to help and he so, so wanted to reach out to her. He somehow knew she could, perhaps, pull him out of these spells of mental breakage, but he didn't have any courage remaining. He was utterly broken for the moment. He opened his mouth but it was dry as the desert and just as full of sand. He looked away, hanging his head hopelessly. She placed a gentle hand on his and sat next to him, knowing words could not help. He leaned into her, feeling her warm scales balancing his cold ones. A sigh escaped him after a while and he realised he was content. He'd thought no destructive thoughts for a whole chain of quiet, normal musings. She smiled sadly up at him.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
And for once, he found he did.
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