The Arena
Gale watched as the IceWing grasped the SandWing's neck.
Alamos, a SandWing, and Shiver, an IceWing, had both been chosen to fight in the Arena, and the fight was lasting a long time. He watched as Shiver looked up towards the crowd, while Alamos, still pinned, thrashed his poisonous tail. Alamos snapped his head around, trying to bite at Shiver's legs. Shiver, still holding Alamos's neck, flicked his wrist, snapping Alamos's neck instantly. The crowd cheered. Shiver dropped Alamos's lifeless head, glaring at the crowd. "Poor guy, he didn't stand a chance when that IceWing froze his legs," Gale thought.
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Shiver looked at his injuries from the previous battle, only about 2 hours ago. He didn't want to kill Alamos, but Queen Hurricane forced him to. Alamos was his only friend in the group of prisoners, and Queen Hurricane knew that.
Shiver used his frost breath to cover the injuries. His food would be arriving any time now. He heard wings flapping toward his cell. He looked up, seeing a guard approaching the gate. Shiver stood up, hoping for food, and he didn't see any. The guard unlocked the gate, dragged Shiver out, and said, "You're entering another fight."
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Scarab dodged Shiver's frost breath by a hair. His breath touched a small part of Scarab's wing. Scarab charged the IceWing, flailing his paws. One of his hits connected, then two, then three. The IceWing scratched back, and Scarab felt a freezing pain in his underbelly. Scarab backed off, clenching the spot where the scratch had connected. He glanced at the spot, seeing his blood crystalizing and turning to ice. He heard the IceWing charging at him and dodged just in time. The IceWing couldn't stop in time and smacked against the wall, cracking it. Scarab held up his barb, striking the IceWing in the leg. The IceWing howled in pain, turned towards him, and fired his frost breath again. Scarab hissed as he dodged the frost breath, feeling some of it brush past him, touching his talons and part of his right leg. Scarab howled, charging the IceWing one more time. Shiver shot his frost breath again, connecting with Scarab's right wing. Scarab screeched as he hit the ground, his wing shattering into small pieces of ice. Scarab screeched and dove for Shiver, biting his neck and ripping his scales off. Scarab pinned Shiver, grabbing his horns and breaking a piece of one of his horns off. Shiver charged his breath, firing it and the breath was enough to freeze Scarab's tail. Scarab became distracted, looking at his tail. Shiver tackled Scarab, using his frost breath again. The ice smacked Scarab's nerves, along with a part of his left leg. Scarab screeched again, reared onto his hind legs, and bit down on Shiver's neck. Scarab reared his head back, ripping more of Shiver's scales off. Scarab bit back down onto Shiver's neck. The part he bit onto was exposed, so when he tore his head back up, he ripped some of Shiver's sternocleidomastoid (fun fact, that's a very large muscle in your neck!) out of his neck. The SkyWing guards came down to the Arena and pulled Scarab back from Shiver's body. Shiver wasn't moving. Scarab couldn't tell if he was dead or knocked out, but it no longer mattered. Scarab had won the fight.
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Queen Hurricane told Gale to go down and make sure Shiver, her arena champion, was okay. He hadn't, and Queen Hurricane was going to punish him.
Shiver had somehow survived, but Queen Hurricane still wanted to punish him. The first dragon he was going up against was Barricade, a SandWing that happened to be related to Alamos, the dragon that had died at Shiver's hand. Shiver himself needed to be taken to the Ice Kingdom for treatment. Still, the Ice Kingdom, in its subzero temperatures, could not be entered by a normal dragon, or else that dragon would die of hypothermia. The Ice Kingdom was only getting colder, so that didn't help. The Queen knew a way to get to the Ice Kingdom in a much safer way, but only Queens could do that, and because Blizzard, the IceWing Queen, didn't trust anyone else except for Queen Hurricane (most likely because they had similar names), no one else could enter the Ice Kingdom. All the guards knew about this secret way into the Ice Kingdom, but none of them dared enter, or else they would die. Either the guards guarding the SkyWing's side or the IceWings guarding the IceWing side would catch and either kill them (the IceWings) or they would hand them over to one Queens. If it was Queen Blizzard they were handed over to, then Blizzard would most likely kill them or lock them up in her dungeons. If Queen Hurricane got ahold of them, then she would force them to fight in the Arena or just execute them at the top of Jade Mountain and throw their bodies off of the top. Jade Mountain Academy was once a part of Jade Mountain, but the school had not been used for more than 200 years. Queen Hurricane was a descendant of Queen Ruby, who had died 500 years before Queen Hurricane was born. Gale knew this, but why was it suddenly so important to him? Why was it that in times of danger, facts about certain things such as history flooded through his head? Queen Hurricane snapped him back to attention as she read his punishment.
"..and because of this, I sentence Gale to 200 fights in the Arena!"
~A FEW DAYS LATER~
Gale looked over at the prisoner next to him. It had been nearly a week since Queen Hurricane read his punishment. He hadn't done anything wrong, but Shiver could have died. Shiver was back in the Ice Kingdom, of course. Hurricane had convinced Blizzard to let her guards into the Ice Kingdom as a one-time thing. Gale looked back at the chains hooked up to his wings. He hated seeing the clip on his wings, hated hearing the rattling of the chains when he moved. He hated everything about being on the Arena's pillars. He would have dealt with a cell, but the pillars? The only thing good about being on the pillars was that he could spread his wings and feel the wind rush through them. The only thing you could do in the cells remotely close to that was to feel a cold draft rush through, not the wind up on top of the pillars. He spread his wings, feeling the wind rush through his scales. He hadn't been in the Arena yet, but he had seen what happened to Shiver when Scarab got to him. Afterward, Shiver was set free from the Sky Kingdom's dungeons and sent off to the Ice Kingdom for treatment. Scarab was also supposed to be set free, but not before his wing and tail grew back. Extensive Animus magic had to be used, but he was not going to die. A guard snapped him back to attention as he flew up and started to unshackle him. "What are you doing?" Gale asked. The guard said nothing, and Gale remembered the rule that the guards couldn't associate with the prisoners. It was embarrassing to know that the guards who were once his friends didn't even want to know him anymore. Was it because they lost a prisoner? That couldn't be it, they lost prisoners all the time. Maybe that was the reason. Were they mad because they didn't lose a prisoner to death? Gale would probably have accidentally killed him, anyway- that was usually unintended. It didn't matter now, he was getting dragged down to the Arena.