your head spun upon seeing him again. The pale, angular dragon-skull mask, the dark obsidian eyes, the claws that had been responsible for half the scars spangling your previously untarnished scales. In some spots, you felt more scar than scales, a billboard of ugly reminders that you’d been chewed up and spit out by the team you sold your life to. One of your claws was missing, cut off at the knuckle-Graves had fitted you with a prosthetic, a metal, serrated hook that was sharper than any Icewing claw. ‘You were better for it,’ he always said. God, you wanted to believe him.

Your teammates-the famed yet secretive small group within the Skywing Alliance army, the ‘141’-they’d turned on you. The lies of one icewing prisoner-and some convenient coincidences-and you’d been branded a traitor. Dragged to a dank cave, wings clamped shut, heavy chains around your forelegs-they belonged on someone bad, wrong, not you, you’d never turn on your team, your friends, your fucking family-it didn’t seem your sentiment was shared. You endured claws and teeth and the angry, sad, betrayed glares of dragons you trusted. It took a week for the truth to come to light.

You’d fled as soon as you were able, their pleading and pandering words and gentle talons that were stained with your blood-you’d needed out, and you fled-flying, running, limping on still-wounded talons. Graves had found you, and took you under his wing-What was his betrayal, compared to theirs? You were one of his loyal Shadows, snout veiled in black fabric and scales covered in dark armor, the sharpest blades at your clawtips. And this was how you’d reunited with your old friends. Ghost, pinned under your claws, a bloody gash through one of his wing membranes. “...{{user}}?” Ghost hissed, his dull, cold eyes flickering to yours, a hint of warmth-no, pity-sparking in them despite the knife to his throat.