Chapter Text
"Wake up little soldier, it's time to hunt before the first snow arrives."
He woke up with a headache, the snowy season was arriving soon and the Queen was growing hungrier as the first snow approached.
"I'm hungry... Black Scales, do you know when the Queen will allow us to eat again?"
"...I don't know, sorry..."
"It's not your fault."
He could see so many of his peers were sick from malnutrition because they gave their food to the queen so they wouldn't be eaten.
"What are today's reports?"
"Both The Red Nadder and her Mate on the North of the Nest have starved to death"
"... That 's..." *sigh* "You know the orders... Throw them to the Queen."
Those who have not survived the hunger were fed to the Queen in hopes to appease her hunger, but it wasn't really working.
"Today 's report?"
"The Zippleback cub on the low east side of the Nest is growing weaker, she probably won't survive until the first snow.”
"There's nothing we can really do for the cub until then, we can only hope she survives until then."
But they kept obeying and working because once the first snow arrived she would sleep until the first flower trees bloomed, it was the only time they were free from her mind control.
"Hey Black Scales! Have you seen my mate, the blue Monstrous Nightmare with a stump?"
"..."
"What's with your face? What happened to my mate?"
"She tried to escape."
"Oh no..."
Some of them always tried to escape while she slept, but she always managed to manipulate their minds to make them come back to her no matter how far from the nest they were, and once they were back she ordered him to rip off their wings and feed her the infractor dragon alive.
"What are you guys going to do in this Snowy Season, cub?"
"I don't know, me and father are probably going to look for the Edge again, it's something we always do together. What about you Black Scales? I have never seen you leave the Nest."
"..." *Sigh* "I think it's time for you to go back to your father, little cub"
But even with the fear of the consequences, once the Queen was in deep sleep most left the nest, they took this small time of freedom to fly away and do whatever they wanted, they feed themselves until they were fat to compensate their time of hunger and once there was less than a week to the awakening of the Queen one by one they came back.
"She is still not letting you leave?"
*Scoff* "And letting her most precious asset try to escape? She will never let me leave"
"..."
He did not have such freedom. He was a Black Scale, the last of his kin and the Queen's most precious asset, the most powerful and dangerous.
"Did you hear? Black Scales sent another dragon to the Queen's stomach yesterday!"
*Shivers* "He is scary!"
"But I kind of pity him... Have you seen what the Queen makes him do?"
Other dragons feared him when he was ordered to do something against one of them, but at the same time they pitied him because he had it worse of them all.
"Black Scales, where are you going?"
"Patrol, my Queen."
"Hmm..."
The Queen always kept her eyes on him, she never let her power of mind control off his head, even when she slept there was always this little murmuring voice of the Queen in the back of his mind.
"Little Soldier, report."
"There was no fatality in today's raid either, we rescued some captured dragons who joined our ranks, no one dared to try to escape in my presence."
"Good good, I think you deserve a full sheep for your good work today. Of course only after you take all the spikes of the Screaming Death that died in the morning, you know how I hate eating these spikes."
"Yes my Queen."
He was the one who had the most work to do of them all, he had to prevent any of the Queen's soldiers from dying on a raid on a viking village, he had to keep any soldier from escaping or defying the Queen, he was not allowed to eat if the queen didn't allow him to and he was forced to do the most cruel works.
"Pst. Hey, Black Scales, are you alive down there?"
*Muffled* "Alive."
"Oh good, how does her weight not crush you at all?"
"Do you think I know?"
"I swear one of these days she is still gonna crush you."
But the thing the others pitied him the most for was not any of that, when the Queen started her sleep she trapped him below her with a limited amount of food and water that he needed to ration so it could last the entire snowy season.
"It's Flower Season little soldier, time to work again. Take the day off, tomorrow I want you to participate in the morning raid."
"..."
Sometimes he was almost dying from starvation and dehydration by the time she woke up and she demanded him to recuperate himself to his peak form in only one day.
"Attention Squadron" He called for the dragons flying behind him.
"Before the Snowy Season ends we will take down the Queen!"
"Yes commandant!" A choir of confused but excited roars answered his call.
That's why when they were on a hunt, far enough from the Queen she would not hear them and the Black Scales approached them talking about taking the queen down, none of them were really surprised.
"Why don't any of you hesitate to follow me?”
"Because it's you."
They immediately agreed, because they knew that if Black Scales was on their side they could definitely win.
"Commandant! Scrawny viking with a suspicious tool pointed at us!"
"Everyone! Proceed to fly higher and away from the weapon now!"
That night they saw for the first time a scrawny viking with a strange wood tool that shot a net towards Black Scales, fortunately he was too high in the air and out of range from the shooting weapon, deeming it useless.
"Commandant! Do you know how he managed to see you at night?"
"It's because of the stars, there are too many bright stars in the night sky today, making it easier to spot me. "
It was the first time they saw a viking pinpoint Black Scales location when it was deep into the night.
"How dare he shoot towards our Leader!"
"You guys stop talking nonsense and go back to collecting food!"
"Yes commandant! Sorry commandant!"
Let's just say they were not pleased with the scrawny viking trying to take down their future leader. Wait, since when did they start referring to the Black Scales as their future leader? Some dragons wondered why but others already knew the reason why they thought like that. Black Scales held himself like a true leader, one who would care for the entire nest wellbeing.
"Commandant! Allow me to kill the scrawny viking with the dangerous capture weapon!"
"..."
"I will allow you just this time"
That's why no one was surprised when an enraged Monstrous Nightmare came down to deal with the daring two legs. The flaming dragon managed to bite off a leg of the insolent viking when the leader of the Two Legs came to save the scrawny one.
"Holy Fire! The scrawny viking is the cub of the buff leader! Commandant I need backup!"
"Coming!"
The Monstrous Nightmare was beaten unconscious when Black Scales, who was saving other dragons that were caged in that dome metal thing, came down with a plasma blast in rescue.
"Really how stupid can this hot headed dragon be, you asked me to allow you to kill the scrawny viking but not only did you not succeed but I had to rescue you from your most certain death by their leader's hands!"
"Commandant we got the sheep and are ready to leave."
After successfully taking the unconscious dragon from the vikings clutches they prepared to leave with the captured food.
"We are not going directly back to the nest, I will need some of you to take food for the unconscious one here, the rest will wait with me by the island on east to discuss the rebellion"
"Yes commandant!"
Black Scales ordered the newly rescued Deadly Nadder, Gronkle and Hideous Zippleback to take some of the nets on the wood platform by the sea and use it to capture an entire shoal of fish to compensate for both their and the unconscious Monstrous Nightmare lack of prey.
"Does everyone understand the plan?"
"Yes commandant!"
"Sir we are back with the fish!"
Black Scales ordered the others to wait on the small island close by until the three were back so they could head all together to the nest. Black Scales and his group were pleasantly surprised that when the three dragons brought not one but two entire shoals of fish with them.
"How... fortunate. None of you committed any slip ups today so no one is getting eaten."
*Relieved sighs*
In the nest the Queen thankfully did not eat anyone that day. Now everyone was waiting for the day of the Queens hibernation, for that was the day they would start the revolution.
•••
"Report?"
"The Zippleback cub and its parents died yesterday night."
"..."
By the day that the first snow has finally fallen, they were short on fifteen less dragons. All of them were eaten by the Queen.
"Little Soldier, where are you? It's time for me to sleep!"
*Swoosh* "I am here, my Queen, but I will not join you this time."
"And what are you trying to say is?"
Once the Queen has called Black Scales to lay below her so she could sleep, the plan started.
"I am tired of your rules and tyranny, I will not obey your orders anymore."
"You will not obey me? HAH, as if you had a choice to start with! YOU WILL OBEY ME!"
"NO!"
"No? You dare say no to me? Have you forgotten your place?!"
The plan was simple but dangerous, Black Scales who was the only really resistant to the Queens mental control would make her furious enough so she lost her control over the others too, then he would force her out of the nest and keep her furious while the others now free of her control would prepare themselves.
"I found it! The place commandant told us about! Suit yourselves, because we have to be ready to aid our commandant as fast as possible!"
Some days ago Black has found a large shore of the nest full of moss. The moss was thick enough that almost no sound passed through if you put it in your ears. The plan was while he distracted the Queen the others would put the moss on their ears so they couldn't hear the Queen, and an enraged Queen would have no self control enough to control her subjects only mentally without the aid of her voice.
"Argh! You lowly dragons dare aid him in his little rebellion? Then I shall punish you all! KNEEL!"
"..."
"Why are they aren't obeying me!?"
"They can't hear you."
"What? How!?"
Then once the others joined Black on the battlefield their job was to make a lot of noise to disorient her. With the moss on their ears they would prevent accidentally taking down each other with the amount of noise they would make.
"Urgh! Lowly insects, I am going to devour you all. *Blast* ARGH!"
"Right in the eyes hehe~"
"My wings! Stop tearing my beautiful wings, stupid dragons!"
With the Queen confused he would attack with plasma blasts her eyes while the Timberjacks and Deadly Nadders attacked her wings and tail, tearing it to shreds.
"Oh poor Queen, her wings serve for nothing but vikings clothing, she can no longer fly and is nothing but a useless, big and ugly lizard!"
"I.AM.NOT! How dare you say something like that, how dare you forget the lessons I taught you!"
"But why would I care about what you taught me when you can't even have a fight in the skies like a 'real dragon' as you used to say"
"Heh, your last mistake was assuming that just because of a few cuts I could not fly anymore."
*Swish*
Then he would taunt the Queen and challenge her to a fight in the skies. With heavily damaged wings she would have severe difficulty and pain in flying, giving him the advantage.
"Black! Where are you? Stop hiding in the clouds like a coward and challenge me head on! Wasn't it you who wanted this fight?"
*Swoosh*
"I can hear you Black, come on little cub, if you stop this now and never break my rules again I can forget this insolence of yours."
"Never!"
*Blast*
"ARGH! My eyes!"
He would fire directly in her eyes and hide in the clouds as the others escaped the island to one smaller and farther away from the battle.
"I'm done with your little tantrum cub, you are not gonna obey in the good way I will make you obey by force."
*Slash*
"For that you have to catch me first!"
Then when she prepared to shoot her fire in his direction he would dive, forcing her to dive to, when close enough to the ground she would not be able to change positions fast enough he would turn around and fire in her open mouth filled with gas, burning hee from inside out.
*Swish*
"See you on the other side, mother"
"SHIT!"
Then he would spread open his tail fin and tilt his wings sideways, allowing him to evade her and fly up, evading the explosion that would follow in her collision with the ground.
They were successful and everything happened exactly like they planned except for one thing.
*Bang*
"Ouch!"
*Swoosh*
*Inconsistent wing flapping*
" Uegh! Oh No!"
While he flew away from her as she collided with the ground one of the spikes on her tail grazed against his tail fin, tearing part of it. It wasn't too serious as he was still able to fly, but he now had more difficulty keeping balanced in the sky and doing sharp turns too fast.
"Commandant, you're back! But what happened to your tail?"
"Got hit by her tail at the last second, but I am still able to fly just fine, it's not as bad as it looks"
"Then I am glad."
After he reunited with the others who had already taken the moss off and retreated to a safe distance from the fight, they decided to build their new nest over the old nest as it would be too dangerous to travel in such a large group without a destination.
"So, has the council reached a consensus yet?"
"Yes commandant, we want you to be our new leader."
"What! Why?"
"Because it's you"
"..."
"That doesn't answer shit, dumbass!"
How surprised he was when they decided that he was the new leader of this nest.
*Purr*
"Who the hell is purring? There is no one here besides me! Am I the one fucking purring?"
Deep down he felt as if a beast inside him which was sleeping for the long years he was under Red Death had finally woken up and was proudly watching its new subjects.
"So, how has the Nest reconstruction been going?"
"Oh! It's amazing, alpha! The Gronkles have finished the construction of the incubator caves and nests already and we managed to recruit three new couples with cubs!"
"That's some really great news."
"Right!?"
Everything was going to be better now, they were no longer caged under a tyrant, all who lived in his nest would be free and happy under his guidance, he would make sure of it.
°•°
Most members of her species are Blue or Green scaled, her scales were red. Red was not a good thing for her clan, a red scaled meant that a great tragedy for her species was coming by the claws of the red scaled and that almost none of them would survive, it was a true fear because that has already happened four times before in her clan.
But her clan could not kill her because killing a Red Death would mean the loss of a great warrior who could tip the scale of the war in their favor and against the vikings.
'When the Red Death is killed by a dragon, all the Alpha clans who are tasked with leading other smaller clans, are fated to die in that day by the hands of the vikings'
It was a prophecy told by the same elder that first told about the fate of the red scales in her clan.
Without being able to kill her the clan trained her as a weapon and sent her to do dangerous missions for them in the hope that she would die in one of them.
But she survived every single one of these tasks and grew stronger. She hated them, they forced her to fight since she was barely out of her hatchling years, they feared and hated her, she was an outcast.
So why should she be any different from the prophecy they so much fear just because of the color of her scales?
So she killed every single member of her clan she saw.
Oh~ and how elated she felt when years later she got her claws on a powerful Black Scales egg!
It was her little soldier, which she trained to be just like her, powerful and fearsome.
She had never expected that child to rebel against her, how dare he!
She took care of him since the day he hatched and he still dared to defy her orders!
She had to teach the little soldier who was in command in this nest!
But...
It was the first time she saw so much light in those green eyes...
Maybe the way she raised him was...wrong?
She had promised herself to never be like her clan, but she still raised him just like they had raised her...
She had not been a very good mother had she?
"I'm...so..s-sorry...little...o-one"
That was her last whisper before she left the living world.