Moorhen

"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."

— Queen Moorhen to Sunny about Burn, The Brightest Night

Template:Charbox Queen Moorhen is an adult female and the current MudWing queen. By size and age, she is possibly the current oldest queen in Pyrrhia, described to be as large as Morrowseer. She has four siblings.

Appearance

She is stately, russet-hued, and adorned with various gemstones embedded onto her head, her eyebrows in particular, and on two anklets. Her scales are a mud-rust color. She was described to be as big as Morrowseer, perhaps even bigger.

Personality

Moorhen is the bigwings of her clutch and is very protective of her three brothers and sister. Her protective instincts extend to the rest of her tribe as well, as seen when she joined Burn's side of the war when Burn threatened to attack the MudWing tribe if Moorhen refused to fight for her. According to Sora, Moorhen is a good queen and is loved by her fellow MudWings. She is very wise and would do anything to protect her tribe from danger, even collaborating with Burn, and it is shown in her long reign over them.

Biography

The Dragonet Prophecy

The Dragonet Prophecy
While in the Mud Kingdom, Clay meets his sibs, who are soldiers in her army.

The Lost Heir
Queen Moorhen's army helps the SkyWings with the dragon flame 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 are walking through the Rainforest Kingdom, Tsunami notices some MudWings headed their way but notes that they couldn't possibly see them in the fog, but Starflight suggests that they should hide because they were only a day's flight from Queen Moorhen's palace and that they wouldn't want to get caught and be imprisoned by her. 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 of The Dark Secret, Pheasant asked why she and her siblings have 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 the whole of the IceWing forces. 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, and 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 but was still present at the Stronghold at the end of the book for the crowning of Queen Thorn. Also, while this was unbeknownst to all but the IceWings, the Great Ice Cliff would have slaughtered the entirety of Burn's attack.

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The Jade Mountain Prophecy

Moon Rising
Umber mentions to the rest of his Winglet in Moon Rising that his siblings Reed and Pheasant are working for Moorhen in her palace. Later, Anemone mentions she hasn't eaten ever since she left Queen Moorhen's palace.

Winter Turning
Her lake was mentioned in relation to where the largest scavenger den is located.

Escaping Peril

At the beginning of the book, ex-Queen Scarlet arrives at Jade Mountain to throw the decapitated head of Queen Glory at Queen Ruby, her SkyWing guards, and the Dragonets of Destiny before fleeing. With the help of Prince Turtle, the group discovers that the head is actually a MudWing head enchanted to look like Glory, and Ruby decides to contact Queen Moorhen to let her know that Scarlet has killed one of her subjects and therefore must be around her swamps to get to a MudWing.

Talons of Power
Chameleon mentions a time where there were no MudWing heirs, indirectly mentioning that she might not be from the original line of MudWing queens.

Darkness of Dragons

In Darkness of Dragons, Queen Thorn mentions Moorhen, saying that she should send a dragon with an earring enchanted to protect her from Darkstalker. However, the book misspells her name, spelling Mudhen instead of Moorhen. In the epilogue, Queen Coral mentions in her letter to Turtle that she is rebuilding the Summer Palace and hopes it will be a center of trade and diplomacy, especially with Queen Moorhen and Queen Glory.

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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 (likely General Swamp) 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.

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 about her dream during her dreamvisit in The Brightest Night.

"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."

"I'll think about it. Are you choosing Burn, then?"

"Good luck, [...] You're very small to be in charge of saving the world." - To Sunny during her dreamvisit in The Brightest Night.

Trivia

• Burn threatened to kill her tribe if she didn't join the war but promised one hundred years of immunity from attack in exchange for joining her (however, considering what Starflight said about her under the mountain, Burn was most likely just lying in order to get Moorhen's army, and probably would have a war with them just for the fun of it, regardless of their deal)
• Moorhen and Coral are the only two queens to be part of the original leadership at the time of The Dragonet Prophecy and still lead in Darkness of Dragons.
• She knows of the SeaWings' scrolls as referring to them in The Brightest Night as "The SeaWing queen's silly, romantic scrolls"
• She has been described as an older queen. This is probably due to the fact that a MudWing's siblings would never betray each other, as they have a very close bond instinctively.
• Moorhen is most likely not descended from the original line of MudWing queens, as Chameleon has mentioned that there was a time the MudWings were left with no heirs which ended in chaos.
• She had originally allied with Blister and the SeaWings, but after the events of Assassin, they broke their alliance. 
• In Darkness of Dragons, page 154, paragraph 2, Queen Thorn accidentally refers to her as Mudhen. This was corrected in the E-book, and later printings of it as well. 
• Reed and Pheasant are currently working for her, as of Moon Rising.
• She has the most book mentions and least appearances of any queen that actually appears, having appeared in only The Brightest Night and mentioned in all other first and second arc books as well as Assassin.

Gallery

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References

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