- "Burn has promised us immunity from attack for the next hundred years if we help her win. If we don't — she'll destroy us. She is a powerful enemy, little SandWing. A lot more powerful than you, and she's an enemy I don't intend to make."
- — Moorhen to Sunny about Burn, The Brightest Night
Moorhen is an adult female MudWing who was introduced in The Brightest Night. She is the current queen of the MudWings and the bigwings of her troop. She was allied with Burn and the SkyWings, and formerly Blister and the SeaWings during the War of SandWing Succession. She currently resides in the MudWing palace located within the Mud Kingdom.
Description[]
Moorhen is huge, as big as Morrowseer, and much taller than any of her four siblings. She has russet-[1]brown[2] scales and has embedded gemstones on her ankles and head.[1]
Personality[]
Moorhen is a protective queen, both of her tribe and her siblings. She seeks for the option that most ensures the safety of her tribe. It is seen when she joined Burn's side of the war when Burn threatened to attack the MudWing tribe if Moorhen refused to fight with her. According to Sora, Moorhen is a good queen and is greatly respected by her MudWing subjects. In The Brightest Night, she fretted over how many dragons were dying and how it was her fault she did not protect them well enough.
Moorhen also appears to be skeptical, stating that Sunny's plan to stop the war with no more dragons dying sounded like "a tale from one of the SeaWing queen's silly romantic scrolls".[3]
Coral stated that Moorhen has "such interesting ideas."[4] She is logical, and would not want to put her tribe through more war.[5] Fatespeaker described her as nice and "only a little bit completely intimidating."[6]
Biography[]
The Dragonet Prophecy[]
| The Dragonet Prophecy |
|---|
| While in the Mud Kingdom, Clay met his sibs, who were soldiers in Queen Moorhen's army. |
| The Lost Heir |
|---|
| Moorhen's army helped the SkyWings with the dragonflame cactus attack on the Summer Palace, carrying burning logs and dropping them into the palace. Her spy in the Talons of Peace, Crocodile, was the reason they were able to find the Summer Palace. |
| The Hidden Kingdom |
|---|
| When the dragonets of destiny and Webs were walking through the Rainforest Kingdom, Tsunami noticed some MudWings heading their way but noted that they could not possibly see the dragonets in the fog. Starflight suggested that they should hide because they were only a day's flight from Queen Moorhen's palace and that they would not want to get caught and be imprisoned. Glory also sarcastically said that Moorhen probably would not give them tea and send them on their way if they met her. |
| The Dark Secret |
|---|
| In the prologue, Pheasant asked why she and her siblings had to fight in the War of SandWing Succession, and Reed replied that Queen Moorhen must have a good reason to ally with Burn and the SkyWings. |
| The Brightest Night |
|---|
| Moorhen gathered her army to prepare for an invasion of the Ice Kingdom along with her SkyWing allies, in which they planned to wipe out every last IceWing. Sunny visited Moorhen during one of her nightmares using a dreamvisitor to warn her about the battle. Sunny managed to convince her not to go through with the invasion because it would kill too many dragons on both sides, then told Moorhen to arrive at Burn's stronghold a few days later for the peace summit. Although Moorhen did agree to try, she was still unsure it would solve anything. She was present at the stronghold when Thorn was crowned queen of the SandWings. Also, while this was unbeknownst to all but the IceWings, the Great Ice Cliff would have slaughtered the entirety of Burn's attack if Moorhen had not believed Sunny. |
The Jade Mountain Prophecy[]
| Moon Rising |
|---|
| Umber mentioned to the rest of his Winglet that his siblings Reed and Pheasant were working for Moorhen in her palace. Later, Anemone mentioned she had not eaten since she left Queen Moorhen's palace. |
| Winter Turning |
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| Winter briefly mentioned Moorhen when he thought about the location of the scavenger den he and his friends stopped by while looking for the talons of peace. |
| Escaping Peril |
|---|
| When Scarlet arrived at Jade Mountain, she threw the decapitated head of Queen Glory at Queen Ruby, her SkyWing guards, and the dragonets of destiny before fleeing. With the help of Turtle, the group discovered that the head was actually a MudWing head enchanted to look like Glory, and Ruby decided to contact Queen Moorhen and let her know that Scarlet had killed one of her subjects and therefore must have been around her swamps to get to a MudWing. |
| Talons of Power |
|---|
| While flying to the rainforest, to defend Darkstalker and the NightWings, Anemone asked Turtle to imagine if Coral had died, and all the SeaWings had to go to the Mud Kingdom to be bossed around by Moorhen. Later, when Turtle was thinking of how to deal with Darkstalker, Turtle wondered if Moorhen, along with the other queens, would listen to him and help. |
| Darkness of Dragons |
|---|
|
Bog claimed that Queen Moorhen and the MudWings were the ones setting off bombs in the Kingdom of Sand, which Qibli could tell was a lie. Later, Queen Thorn mentioned Moorhen, saying that she should send a dragon with an earring enchanted to protect her from Darkstalker. In the epilogue, Coral mentioned in her letter to Turtle that she was rebuilding the Summer Palace and hoped it would be a center of trade and diplomacy, especially with Queen Moorhen and Queen Glory. |
The Lost Continent Prophecy[]
| The Dangerous Gift |
|---|
| Snowfall mentioned Moorhen while complaining to herself about the other queens going on and on about unity and "that sort of nonsense". She also mentioned that Moorhen was her favorite out of all other queens because she was calm and the least annoying of the other queens. During the queens' meeting, Moorhen said that there was not enough room in the Mud Kingdom for the refugee dragons and later sent Bullfrog as the MudWing representative to go to Pantala. |
Winglets[]
| Assassin |
|---|
| While never appearing, one of her generals, Swamp, and at least two of her guards met with Tempest, Blister, and the SeaWings at the time of Tempest's murder. One of the guards reported the news of what happened and subsequently, she broke off her alliance with Blister. Due to these events, Burn was able to threaten her into allying with her. |
Field Guides[]
| A Guide to the Dragon World |
|---|
| Moorhen was depicted outside the MudWing palace in a portrait at the beginning of the MudWing chapter of the guide. Moorhen was later mentioned in Fatespeaker's letter to Starflight where she gave Fatespeaker two scrolls for the guide from the library in the MudWing palace. |
Family tree[]
| More | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coypu | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Several Generations | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Three Dragons | Moorhen | Unnamed | |||||||||||||||||||||
Quotes[]
- "Here? Now? [...] Can't you see I'm in the middle of a campaign? And everyone's dying and it's all my fault and I can't save them? [...] No. No, I command you not to die."
- ― to Sunny, in a dream (The Brightest Night, page 246)
- "But then the war will be over, and perhaps that'll be worth it. Burn has promised us immunity from attack for the next hundred years if we help her win. If we don't — she'll destroy us. She is a powerful enemy, little SandWing. A lot more powerful than you, and she's an enemy I don't intend to make."
- ― to Sunny about the war (The Brightest Night, page 247)
- "Good luck. You're very small to be in charge of saving the world."
- ― to Sunny (The Brightest Night, page 249)
- "You want us to send our soldiers all the way to the other side of the ocean. To fight in a war that — I'm so sorry, but — it has nothing to do with us. Our dragons are safe here. That thing over there doesn't even know about us. If we go rile it up, it might come back to attack us and we could lose this continent, too. At least right now, this is a safe place — for us and for you."
- ― to Hazel and Qibli about the othermind (The Dangerous Gift, page 205)
Trivia[]
- Tui accidentally made Queen Thorn refer to her as Mudhen in Darkness of Dragons.[7] This was corrected in the e-book and later printings.
- Queen Moorhen's sister looked so much like her that Queen Snowfall almost "bowed to the wrong dragon."[8]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Brightest Night, page 244
- ↑ The Brightest Night, page 245
- ↑ The Brightest Night, page 248
- ↑ Darkness of Dragons, epilogue
- ↑ Darkness of Dragons, page 86
- ↑ A Guide to the Dragon World, page 16
- ↑ Darkness of Dragons, page 154
- ↑ The Dangerous Gift, page 200
| MudWings | |
|---|---|
| Queens |
Present: Moorhen |
| Royalty (Historical) |
Bayou • Copperhead • Possum • Sawgrass |
| Jade Mountain | |
| Other Dragons |
Asha • Bog • Bullfrog • Cattail • Crane • Crocodile • Gharial • Mayfly • Ochre • Pheasant • Reed • Swamp |
| Other Dragons (Historical) |
|
| Kingdom | |
| Society | |