Glory stared at the tightly rolled scroll as Fig handed it to her reverently. It contained the last will and testament of the late monarch. With slow talons, Glory pulled the scroll open, eyes scanning the contents as she carefully took every word into herself. 

After several tense moments, she rolled it up and silently handed it back to Fig. with a sigh, she turned around and faced her tribe. Their faces were anxious as they all watched the proceedings with hushed voices. Glory stood before them. "The queen's final wishes were clear. In the event of her untimely demise, without an heir lined up, we must turn toward the tribe to decide our own fate; elect a new queen, or decide whatever new type of leadership we wish to labor under." 

Glory glanced back at Fig again, "and so, after counting all of the votes, it was quickly revealed that you have chosen me as your new queen."

The RainWings cheered loudly, and Glory found herself turning pink and purple with pride and joy. With a hint of embarrassment that she squashed underneath the rest. The general quickly schooled her coloring to more closely match what she'd initially been wearing. 

"I admit," Glory started when the RinWings calmed down somewhat, "I would have been perfectly happy if someone more suited to the position had been chosen, but I do vow to serve our tribe to the best of my ability for the remainder of my days." 

---

After the most exhausting hours of her life, Glory retired to the royal pavilion, truly looking forward to the sun time hours for the first time in her life. 

She was stopped by the distinct sound of a dragon clearing its throat. Glory spun around to face whoever it was, and found herself looking at a familiar black dragon. She relaxed somewhat, though she was still rather annoyed at the assassin for sneaking up on her like that. "What?" 

He made an amused noise, "oh, does the new queen of the RainWings not have time for little old me anymore?"

"Deathbringer. We both know you've been following me this entire time."

The NightWing grinned, "yeah, yeah... but you have to give me some credit for keeping you alive through the whole celebration!" 

"I didn't see any assassins besides you."

"That's how you know I'm doing my job!" 

Glory sighed and continued her ascent to the sun time platform. "Ah, well go do your job over there," she motioned vaguely to the left, "I'm tired." Who knew that an assassin could be so attention starved?

"Yes, my Queen." 

"I'm not your queen. That's Fallingstar."

"You're my Queen. She's just my queen." 

"I'm too tired for this..." 

---

For the next few days, Glory was subjected to a lot of things, the RainWings came to her with all their problems, no matter how small, and in the aftermath of a war, there was no shortage of disagreements and property issues. 

It also fell to Glory to figure out what to do about the dragons rendered broken by the war and the Eye of Orca. They were freed from it, sure, but the emotional and psychological devastation from such happenings was rarely something that dragons could simply shrug off. Glory also felt a certain responsibility to the dragons with such problems, and she tried to visit that wing of the medical hut daily. 

On one such visit, the doctor brought her to the worst case, explaining how he was never quite there and how he kept zoning out in the middle of talking, and how whenever someone would say something that sounded vaguely like a command, he would drop everything and try to do it. There were similar cases, but this particular RainWing had very few lucid moments, which made him automatically a point for concern. 

Glory's current guard, a dragon by the name of Kinkajou, gasped at the sight of him as the doctor led the two of them into the room. 

His scales were a dull lime green, covered with flecks of ever-changing color, as if the dragon desperately wanted to feel something, but wasn't sure what emotion it was. He was laying in a heap on the ground, tail curled around himself. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the wall beside him. 

As they entered the room, the dragon on the floor didn't react, he stayed perfectly still as if entranced by the wall. 

"Root, can I have you come over here?"

The dragon blinked and looked up at them, standing immediately and coming over to sit nearby, his tail curled perfectly around his talons. It was the unmistakable stance of someone under the eye.

Glory watched contemplatively as the doctor led Root through his exercises. Since the dragon seemed to have lost most of his will, he wasn't about to take care of his body on his own. it seemed as if he still had a lot of the habits and mannerisms from his time under the eye, but he lacked several glaring things, like the constant watchful gaze. 

 "Alright, thank you Root. Now, Glory here is going to have a little talk with you, and I want you to try and respond to the best of your ability."

The doctor motioned toward Glory and sat down off to the side, staying in the room in case something unprecedented happened. Glory sat down on the ground beside the poor dragon,     "I am Glory. Now I would like to know, do you have any family, Root?"

The dragon frowned. The first expression that Glory had seen on his face the entire time. "Gone." His voice was raspy and disused, but it was perfectly even, without emotion. Mostly, Glory was surprised he'd said anything.

"Alright, do you have any close friends?"

"No." 

"Thank you for telling me, Root. Do you know why you're here?"

"No." 

"You're here," Glory said, "because we want to help you find yourself. We want to help you understand what's happening to you so you can get stronger here." Glory tapped her chest. "And here." She tapped her head.

Root furrowed his brow, but slowly he nodded. 

---

"Yes, but what if Orca comes back?" Fallingstar asked

"I still think we shouldn't have any alliances, just saying. They tend to wrap everyone up into everything." Scarlet said noncommittally.

"And what about the ice kingdom, how are we changing established trade to include them?" Moorhen reminded them. 

"Please, let's focus on one issue at a time." Tsunami sighed.

Glory silently listened to the proceedings, feeling a headache coming on. They'd all known, in theory, that a meeting of queens would accomplish little. But there was just so much that needed to be fixed after the war, and none of the queens were equipped to handle it on their own. 

"Oh, we should all make matching crowns, and then get a big portrait of us all with the crowns. It would be splendid!" Blaze droned on in the background. No one was really listening to her, but she didn't seem to care.

"Alright," Tsunami said, "let's start with the alliance thing that Scarlet brought up..."

Glory knew that this was probably the most important meeting she would attend in the next year, but she really couldn't find it in herself to focus on it. Her mind kept drifting back to Root, to all the victims of the eye really. There had to be something more she could do for them, if only she could track down Clay. He might be the only one who could get her in contact with Ash, who might know more, but then again, Ash might also just be in the same state. He hadn't quite seemed stable the last time she'd seen him. 

"-Ice kingdom will love to establish formal trade with anyone willing to work with us." Aurora was saying. Apparently, the conversation was doomed to lead there until they got a solid resolution. 

"I am actually interested in that, you have decent mining operations, right?" Scarlet asked, "I've been meaning to get a hold of some fresh mines, and sadly many of my reliable ones are running dry-"

Glory tuned them out again, remembering how stone-like Root's eyes had been. She continued dwelling on the issue until the conversation shifted again.

Overall, Glory got the gist of the problem, even if none of the other queens could see it. Nothing could happen until they found out what happened to Orca, because odds were, she was plotting something. And just the thought of her being out there was putting all of the gathered queens on edge. 

Moorhen was able to get Aurora to establish a trade with the mud kingdom, and there was soon a new treaty involving all the regions for procedures to trade with the ice 'empire' Glory agreed it was necessary, and she was curious to see what they would be trading, who knew what exotic things she could get a hold of from a land of ice and snow? 

Either way, Glory was far more worried about all the problems they hadn't had the time to solve. What of the war-tired dragons? What of the SandWing throne? What kind of safeguards could they implement if another queen decided to begin a conquest?

Apparently, now she had to spend some energy to help Tsunami track down her rogue animus sister on top of everything. 

This wasn't how Glory had imagined her life as a queen would be, but then again, she hadn't even known it was an option until several weeks ago, so she hadn't had to stretch her imagination far.

---_---_---_---_---_---_---

Vote to support Queen Glory!!!