Could Winter and Carnelian Have Been Friends? (+ Moonelian WIP) (this might be a stupid post but I just want to talk about it lmao)
I‘ve been thinking about Carnelian a lot while working on this, and one thing thats frequently crossed my mind is the idea of Winter and Carnelian being friends.
(Quick disclaimers: 1. I am NOT shipping Winter and Carnelian under Moonelian fanart.
Pleasepleaseplease don’t hate on this for whatever reason currently, I can’t respond to that well currently!
Although I’ve read all the books at least 5 times, the graphic novel content sticks better in my head than the books. Some of the character traits here might only exist in the graphic novels, and if they do then I apologise. Did try hard to remember the novel content though :]
I’m a mouse-brained individual, I’m not elaborating further.)
Ok actual writing :]
They would definitely need a while to bond before becoming friends, due to Winter being, well, Winter, and Carnelian sharing the classic ‘Skywing-above-all’ mentality with the rest of her tribe. Winter did manage to overcome the majority of the his tribe’s hate towards NightWings, so I think he could come to respect Carnelian if he was treated similarly in return.
Carnelian would definitely be more fiddly. As far as I’m aware, (correct me if I’m wrong please ^^) Winter did not fight in the war, although Icicle and Hailstorm did so he might’ve and I’ve just forgotten. Carnelian was shown to have very little respect towards her wingmates due to the fact most of them have never experienced what she has, and responds with severe hostility to mostly-harmless jokes that, to her, undermine her years in battle. However she did begin to think of Umber as an ‘ally’ after learning that he had participated in some of the same battles she had. Carnelian also, very notably, didn’t panic too badly or want to hurt Peril when she appeared in Jade Mountain, despite the fact that her queen (Ruby) had exiled her, and the majority of the SkyWing tribe hated her. Despite this, she is very loyal to Ruby and seems to respect her royal status.
Winter is a prince, so to some degree he would gain some respect from Carnelian by default, despite being from another tribe and overall being a bit of a prick before his mythical character development arc. They’re also rather similar personality-wise (pre Winter development) so they’d either clash horrifically or be best buds.
Regardless, I think it would’ve been an interesting dynamic if Carnelian didn’t get a good mouthful of flames. I would’ve liked to see Winter overcome a bit of his Icewingyness by being exposed to a battle-hardened dragonet with as much loyalty and aggression as him. And Carnelian would (probably) gain a similar benefit from being around him too. It would be good for her to learn that dragons from other tribes aren’t always a threat, and when they are pricks that doesn’t always mean that they’re a huge threat to her. Sort of like Flumber (friendship-wise, not romantic. I frequently use ship names to refer to pairs of dragons even if I’m talking about them platonically) except the Umber is removed and the Flame is amplified but less traumatised at the same time (awful analogy, I am perfectly aware of it). Or Amity x2. I don’t have a good analogy for this lmao.
Anyway, this was mostly just me messing around and thinking about one of my favourite alive characters (Winter) and one of my favourite dead characters (Carnelian). uhhh yeah yay yippee