Blood warning. Potentially depressing topics.
-five years later-
A servant's light globe penetrated my sleep. I lazily lifted an eyelid, saw Sword, and shut it again. He was the most annoying servant, acting like he owned everything he saw, including Delta Ice Manor. He was often rude to... well, everyone. He was Father's favorite, and it was no secret he earned an extra paycheck for it. "Get up, you seal." he sneered.
I yawned. "I'm not feeling it. Go away," I managed to growl back at him in spite of my sleepy state. Sword didn't seem to take this well. He stepped closer, and I instinctively flinched away.
Sighing, I huddled my wings close and heaved myself onto the ornate slate floor. My room was small. The carved stone sleeping ledge, covered in frost-ivy, stuck out of the similar stone wall with a small fireplace underneath. My walls were decorated with chalkboards filled with sketches and paintings , around twenty. They all pictured animals which I believed I would never see. Skinks, lizards, majestic stags with massive antlers. Stuffed songbirds sat on birch branches hung on my walls, and even I had whale bone carvings and mounted butterflies, delicate wings flaking from the cold.
Stepping around clutter on the floor, I snaked out of the doorway- my father never allowed a real door, leaving me with strands of beads- and clicked down the frozen slate stairs. Every time I went down these stairs, I wished there could be a slide or a tunnel of some sort to go down. Much better, especially to my younger self. I kept those thoughts close to my heart.
I entered the kitchen. Oh, right, Father was hosting a brunch. I hastily grabbed a pastry of some kind and passed through the lounge. It was extremely gaudy, blue velvet pillows on a cushioned beech bench. Several small tables, of some dark wood I didn't know, had dainty navy cloths draped on them. In the center of the chairs and benches, there was a large oval table, a centerpiece of a narwhal's tusk sticking into the air.
I hurried onto the next room. The Figures room. Statues of my ancestors stood, larger than life, a domed glass ceiling giving more depth to them than a carpenter could, especially with how my frugal father payed peanuts. Grandparents, with so many greats I would go dumb saying them, extended back hundreds of years on Father's side, but my maternal ancestry was hidden- or disgraced. Back then, I didn't know. I peered inside my great-great-grandfather's maw, and retrieved my charcoal pencils and paper.
Father didn't like my fixation on art. He threw my old sketchbook away, when he found it. Yelled, sentenced me with no access to the kitchens for a week. The servants delivered carefully proportioned meals, not enough to starve but still leaving you hungry. Countless months of work on that thing. I hid everything more carefully after that.
I scampered back into my room, prepared for a long day of staying out of Father's sight as he impressed nobles with boring, lazy ideas. I started at the stairs, before hearing a voice behind me. "Vigilance, come here, please." My blood turned to ice, well, a higher content of ice than it was before. Father beckoned my closer, and I had no choice but to obey. I tried not to keep eye contacts, but something about him drew my terrified gaze. He stilled.
A rather tall dragon, with blizzard scales, he was the absolute stereotype of First Circle IceWings. Silver and sapphire were basically his motto at this point. They were draped countless times over his broad horns, twined along his lengthy tail, and around his wrists.
I remembered the sketchbook in my talons- Moons! I was absolutely busted. I shifted my claws, slightly as I could, to press up against my side. Father made a soft tsk, then wrapped his ice cold talons around the spine of the book and the tanned leather bag of pencils.
"Now then," he cooed, "Why do you have these?" His voice was frozen, void of emotion. I was certain the punishment would be far worse than the last.
"I- I w-wanted t-to draw- I-" Facing my father really brought out my stutter.
"Come with me fledgling. I am overdue for an explanation."
My ears heard his words, my mind recognized they were said, but I couldn't comprehend them. As he slowly walked away, his gaunt frame made a silhouette against the harsh light from the window, I uncertainly began a slow walk with him. We passed the lounge, and the kitchen, to the foyer. He opened the small closet hidden in the corner- my face must've went bright red, with him finding more drawings pinned on the walls.
He reached to the largest sapphire on the main chain around his neck. With a soft click, he popped it open with his claw. The locket contained a small key, and a piece of parchment so folded I wasn't sure you could read anything that was on it. The key fit smoothly in the keyhole I had discovered so many years ago, and opened.
