Graupel was completely sure he made a mistake.

Or rather, they all made a mistake.

While doing daytime patrolling, they managed to run into a pocket of MudWings that turned out to be an entire squadron spread out over a valley.

Sooner instead of later, there were MudWings coming at them in three directions. They were going to be overwhelmed unless there was a coordinated effort, a tactical retreat.

He was the one who volunteered to hold them back.

His frost-breath met the face of a MudWing that tried to barge him out of the sky. His foe dropped like calving ice from a glacier.

Already, another MudWing was in his face. He could see the rage in her eyes before they slammed into each other.

Grunting, they twisted together in the sky as they grabbed for weak spots. Eye sockets, wing membranes, talons to bite. No room to slash. He needed room.

Graupel was the quickest. After all, he trained for this moment.

Fast as a heartbeat, his claws found the eyes of the MudWing.

"DIE!"

The MudWing roared in pain, releasing her grip and giving him a chance. His opposite talon found his service dagger in its sheath.

His dagger swept across the throat of his enemy, splashing blood against his face. His target gurgled as he finished his stroke.

He heaved as hard as he could, and the MudWing fell forty feet into a creek below him. The splash echoed throughout the hills, over the sound of his heavy breathing and beating wings.

Looking to his right, he saw dozens more coming.

It was definitely time to get the hell out of here.

Turning in the air, he let himself fall for a few moments to build speed. The wind whistled in his ears as he flared his wings, catching the wind and using his momentum to glide. Stowing his dagger, he grabbed the spear slung around his other side and gripped it tight.

He needed to get over this hill; to Victory Outpost.

I am going to make it. I can make it.

Graupel huffed, flapping as hard as he could, pushing his wings to their limit.

He heard wingbeats behind him.

I CAN MAKE IT. I AM GOING TO MAKE IT.

He just needed-

Suddenly, pain.

His lower body sunk for seemingly no reason, destroying his aerodynamics. He started to fall.

He tried to work his wings, tried to regain control.

But nothing was working. The ground came to meet him faster than he could react, and before he could even utter a curse, he crashed into the top of the grassy hill and darkness overtook him.

Graupel awoke in pain.

What just happened? I was flying perfectly fine, and then…

That was when previous events rushed back to his head. He gasped.

Turning his head to the sky, he saw dozens upon dozens of MudWings flying overhead.

Why aren't they coming down here?

A single MudWing looked down at him as he flew overhead.

Their eyes met.

And he just kept flying.

Why are they just...going? Graupel thought.

They must be guessing I'm dead.

He tried to move and immediately was punished for it. A sharp stab of pain across his lower back, so strong he stopped immediately.

Ouuuugh, that HURTS.

He craned his neck around to see.

Embedded eight inches in his rear leg was a throwing spear. Rivers of blue ran down his white scales, spurting out in tune with his beating heart.

And his stomach sank.

That's...definitely severe arterial bleeding. Must have gone into the pelvis, ruptured the iliac artery. No way to get medical attention.

I am not going to last very long.

Six minutes at most.

He laid his head on the ground for a few moments.

Looks like the MudWings guessed correctly. I'm not going to make it, he thought deflatedly.

Damn it. Damn it all.

He chuckled, ignoring the flash of pain it caused.

He closed his eyes, and his thoughts ran like melting ice.

Funny. Six years of life, gone in six minutes. Three of them learning how to save dragons. And in the end, the only one I won't save is myself.

With a deep breath, he took in the smells of his surroundings. Wind blew over the hilltop, shaking the grass, carrying with it the distant smell of blood, iron, and pine.

The medic dying from blood loss. Irony.

He opened his eyes to see where he was, picking his head up.

He laid in a bed of flowers on the peak of a large hill. Mountains he didn't know the name of sat in the distance dozens of miles away, touching the cloudless sky. A bright orange butterfly came and sat on his nose. Instead of batting it away, he observed it appearing to suck up the MudWing's blood from his snout.

Hrm. A shame I won't be able to enjoy this much longer.

Graupel chuckled.

Won't.

Contractions, Graupel mused.

"Do not overuse contractions. It makes you look common, undignified." His parents used to say.

He used to argue about the usefulness of contractions. It made it easier to talk with less time.

He liked making things less inconvenient.

"I recommend you do not pick that hill to die on." his father would say. If only he knew the irony now.

He sighed. A cloud of frost left his mouth and froze the grass in front of him, forming a thin layer of rime.

Rime. The name of the love of his life.

He remembered the first time he met her, the first time he heard her laugh.

She came in that fateful day when he was five, concerned about a sore throat.

One thing led to another, and before he knew it they were completely infatuated with each other.

They had planned to move into the fourth circle together. He was falling behind in his feats, so he was going to join the war to up his status. He was going to come back and they were going to be happy together as permanent Fourth Circle IceWings.

"I'll be back. I promise." Graupel said to her the day he was to leave to join the war. It was going to be only a year.

Just a year.

He remembered his mother giving some advice, advice that stuck with him, advice he really, really thought he had embodied.

"Do not make promises you can't keep."

Graupel sighed again, the flowers in front of him wilting in the sudden cold, the butterfly having been scared off.

How wrong he was.

He was going to miss her.

He was going to miss how they would run off to hunt together under the moonlit sky with the northern lights above them.

He was going to miss the sheen of the green aurorae gracing her beautiful snow-blue scales.

He was going to miss her singing voice, graceful and magical as falling snow in the early morning, and how it was peace to his sophisticated heart and mind.

Instead of her, I get to spend my last moments clutching a wooden spear.

Graupel felt his heart began to quicken- just like how it did whenever he spent time with her.

Or like the symptoms of shock.

He thought he was so good at fighting. He'd trained with some of the most decorated soldiers in the kingdom to prepare. He even received compliments from warriors he thought far better than him.

But in the end, it seemed like skill didn't matter if his enemy just got lucky.

Such was the way of life, it seems.

Light steps, off to his side. Nothing like a dragon's.

Looking to his right, he saw a small group of five scavengers carefully approaching. They backpedaled a few steps when he turned his head to them. Seeing that he was injured after a few moments, they continued to walk forward. Two of them walked wide around his side and disappeared behind his field of vision.

Graupel kept his eyes on a particular tan-colored scavenger with shaggy black fur on its head and leather coverings around its body.

A spear in his paws was not at all unlike the one he himself carried in his talon, which Graupel thought peculiar.

He recalled in history classes that the ways of war were partially inspired by observing Scavengers pre-Scorching. (However, IceWings didn't need to learn from them. We were obviously superior to the rabble, his teacher disclaimed.)

If that was true, Scavengers knew war just as well as Dragons did.

In a strange way, that doesn't make them much different from us.

The next thought that went into his mind was one that would get him in trouble back home.

Almost like all we did was take their place. Did we overthrow them in the Scorching, or did we just become no better than them?

He wondered how far in the rankings he would've fallen for making a statement like that.

The spear holding scavenger peered down at him with icy blue eyes like Rime's.

This close, scavenger eyes were remarkably similar to dragon eyes.

He felt a paw close on the silver pendant around his neck, the one signifying him being in the Fifth Circle.

Wonderful, Graupel thought. Dying from blood-loss and then being looted. Let's hope my friends don't come back to see me like this.

The scavenger in front of him raised their spear.

Oh. It seems I won't be dying from blood loss after all.

His body felt numb, light. He didn't even notice he was smiling until he saw his reflection in the steel of the spear over his head.

I hypothesize that the pain will be extremely brief before I lose consciousness.

He chuckled, the scavenger above him jumping slightly at the noise.

Hypothesize. Like I'll be able to record the results.

He sucked in a deep, final breath. Not to exhale frost, but to experience the feeling of oxygen one last, final time.

He closed his eyes.

Rime...Goodbye.

Take care of Polar, don't let her make my mistakes. I love you so much.

For the briefest moment in time, he felt the sharp head of the spear punch through his eyeball and impale his brain.

And then, nothing.