Winterwatcher

Winterwatcher is the het ship between Winter and Moonwatcher from the Wings of Fire fandom.

Canon
Moonwatcher, a NightWing and prince Winter, an IceWing are both introduced in book 7, Moon rising. Moon is the protagonist and she has the secret one-of-a-kind ability to read minds, as well as see flashes of the future. Moon and winter both attend Jade mountain academy the year it started, and are both in the Jade Winglet.

They first meet when Moon is on a tour of the academy, and is exploring the Prey centre; a scavenger suddenly runs into the centre in a panic, chased by many dragon students. Moon cannot read it’s thoughts, but she can feel it’s fear strongly. She feels compassion for it, and catches it, gently yet firmly holding it in her arms. She hears Winter’s sharp, icy thoughts right before he runs into the centre and stands face-to-face with Moon and threatens her. He tells her to give him his scavenger or he’ll freeze her face off. Moonwatcher, having most of her life alone in the rainforest until recently, doesn’t know how to respond and stays silent. Winter threatens her again, but Qibli, his roommate, comes to talk him down. It is revealed that the scavenger is Winter’s pet, named Bandit, that had escaped from its cage he when opened to check on him, and Winter only wanted for his scavenger to be safe. Moon then tells him that she didn’t want to eat Bandit, and was trying to protect him. Winter is surprised by this, and backs down. Moon returns Bandit to him, and they both return to their caves.

They meet again later at Tsunami’s class, and see that they are in the same Winglet. Tsunami brings in fish, and Moon and Winter go towards them at the same time. Moon backs up and let’s Winter pick first, and hears Winter thinking proudly about her being scared of him. The dragonets take turns telling eachother about themselves, and at Moon’s turn, Winter demands she tell him the secrets of the NightWings. Carnelian agrees with him, while Qibli and the rest of their winglet defends Moon and tells Winter off. In an attempt to lighten the mood, Tsunami takes the class hunting where Moonwatcher catches a goat. She brings it back to the Prey centre to eat, and shares with the other dragonets.

A day later, Moon gets a vision of the History cave exploding and killing the Jade and Gold winglets, who had the class together. She frantically tries to stop anyone from entering the cave. Winter and Qibli are concerned and confused, although Winter responds with much less gentleness. After the History cave explodes, Qibli takes an injured Moon away from the smoke into a farther hallway while Winter helps put out the fire with his Frostbreath. Afterwords Winter goes to Moon and yells at her, demanding she tell him how she knew about the bombs. She doesn’t tell him about her powers, and he tells her that unless she has an answer for him in three days, he will tell the whole school that she was responsible for the bomb.

Moon and Qibli eventually discover that Sora was the one to set the bombs in the history cave in an attempt to kill Winter’s sister, Icicle. She had tried and failed to kill Icicle a second time, and Icicle now knew who had attempted to murder her and was going to try to kill Sora. They warn Sora in time for her to escape, so Icicle decides to assassinate the dragonets of destiny instead. They confront her just as she is about to murder the blind NightWing librarian Starflight. Qibli and Starflight are both knocked unconscious by Icicle, and she stands over Moon, about to kill her. Winter then rushes in, and Icicle tries to convince him to help her kill Starflight and the other dragonets; she reveals her reasoning was to save their missing brother Hailstorm from his captor, ex-Queen Scarlet. Scarlet had blackmailed her in her dreams using a Dreamvisiter, threatening to kill Hailstorm unless the dragonets of destiny were killed. Winter wacks her over the head with his tail spikes, refusing to let her kill Moon. Icicle is dazed and bleeding, and she quickly makes an escape out the library window.

After this, he runs away from the academy. Moon and the rest of the Jade winglet track him down, some suspect him of going to try to kill Queen Glory, Scarlet’s worst enemy. They find him in the woods beside Jade mountain. He is letting his pet scavenger Bandit free into Pryrrhia, as he can not take him to the other Queendoms. Moon receives a vision of The prophecy of Jade mountain, and tells winter the truth about her powers.

Quotes
"Stop liking her. Remember what Father said: They're all liars. Be strong, be vigilant, strike first. Trust nobody. Not even interesting NightWings with silver teardrop scales."

- Winter thinking about Moonwatcher (Moon Rising, page 92)

"All right. But please stop trying to scare me. You are not as terrifying as you think you are."

- Moon to Winter (Moon Rising, page 92)

"Because I think she's the kind of dragon you respect. And I think you wouldn't want to start a war between the IceWings and both of her tribes. I think you can imagine what killing her would do to Pyrrhia, and you know it would be bad. Also, you're her guest; she's welcomed and trusted you. You aren't the kind of dragon who betrays someone's trust. I've already been in there for one thing — I know you. And I've watched you. I saw you put out the fire in the history cave. I saw you save me and Starflight from your own sister. I think you can think bigger than just one tribe against another — you can think about what's best for all the tribes. I guess I just — I trust you."

- Moon to Winter about Glory (Winter Turning, page 119)

Fanon
Winterwatcher is a popular ship in the WoF. Fandom, being very well known through the fandom as it is semi-cannon. They both have an interest in Scavengers, Moon because she can feel their emotions like no other animal, and Winter has a deep fascination with the creatures. Winter betrays his tribe and sacrifices his royal ranking for Moon, which many find touching. It can be viewed as a cute, dramatic ship with an angsty side.

It may not be as popular as Moonbli or Quinter because of how aggressively Winter treats Moon. Many view the relationship as unhealthy and abusive.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Winter/Moonwatcher tag on Fanfiction.net

Trivia

 * When asked about the love triangle in arc two involving Qibli, Winter, and Moonwatcher, Tui stated in an interview that she wanted to try to challenge herself by writing a love triangle where "you really like all of them, and any of the three can be together," which made Tui feel conflicted when it came time to decide the final pairing. In this case, Tui wanted Moonwatcher to pick the nice guy who cares about her and does all the right things.