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Chapter Text

Moonwatcher wasn't... entirely sure what had just happened. One moment, she was minding her own business, looking for something a dragonet only a few hours old could reasonably eat, and the next, she was being cooed over by a group of five or six dragons in colors her newborn mind hadn't known existed. 

(The new voices in her head were ALSO a subject of interest.)

She looked up at one of the colorful new dragons, chirping in confusion. The dragon responded with a wide smile. At the same moment, one of the strange new head-voices grew MUCH more animated, and a few moments later, she was being carried away. 

She began to squeak and wriggle in protest. None of these dragons were her mother, and she wouldn't abide by them pretending to be. Moonwatcher knew her mother, and she certainly wasn't nearly as brightly colored as ANY of the dragons she now found herself stuck in the air with. She stopped wriggling, aware enough to at least realize that falling from this height wasn't a good idea. 

This wasn't fair. She wanted her mother back, but the farther the group took her from her hidden nest, the less likely that option seemed.

Eventually, she found herself and her entourage approaching a strange new area of the rainforest, filled with wooden buildings with leafy roofs and even more of the same sort of colorful dragons that had taken her away in the first place. There were so many new voices speaking in her head at once that the dragonet began to feel a headache brewing. 

As they got closer to the large number of new dragons, the voices only grew louder. Moonwatcher began to whine as the headache grew more and more prominent. By the time she was finally placed on the ground, she swore she could feel her brain trying to bust out of her skull.

All of this was to say that the second she was put down and regained control of her limbs, she immediately curled up, grabbed her head with her talons and screamed.

She was half-aware of being picked up again. A pair of turquoise talons closed around her as she was lifted into the air and carried away. 

As Moonwatcher was kidnapped for the SECOND TIME, (really, these dragons needed a better hobby) the voices grew quieter and she slowly grew more aware of her surroundings. Finally, the only two voices she could hear in her head were the one that had stayed with her the entire flight, and one other, calmer voice.

Slowly, she opened one eye.

Yet another oddly colorful dragon stood over her, this one sporting multiple shades of muted greens and blues.

"Thank you, Papaya. At some point you'll have to tell me where in the moons you found this dragonet, but for now I'll take her from here."

The turquoise dragon nodded and flew off, leaving Moonwatcher alone with the calmer of the two voices in her head and the dragon standing over her.

Chapter Text

Moon woke up with a headache.

This wasn't new; she'd awoken with headaches ever since she could remember. If she really thought about it, she'd realize that the last time her head had been completely free of pain and voices clamoring for her attention was before she was taken to the Rain Kingdom.

Of course, she wasn't complaining. The way some of the older RainWings told it, she'd been left in the middle of the rainforest to die the second she hatched. Between dying and oddly severe headaches, Moon was pretty sure she'd choose the headache every time.

(Although really, she probably should tell whichever of the healers was on duty that her headaches hadn't stopped and had only gotten worse if anything.)

She forced herself out of her nest. and into the crowd, even knowing that it would only make the headache worse. It always did, in the end. She'd gotten VERY used to it. (The healers always got sad when she mentioned that. They'd been trying to find a cure, or at least some sort of help, for as long as Moon could remember. Nothing had worked. The only thing to come of their efforts was that she had become almost a favorite patient of theirs.)

The second she made her way into the crowd, she was met with the most dragons she'd ever seen in such a confined area. They were all sporting excited yellows and pinks, and staring at something Moon couldn't see.

(The mental cacophony all shouting "Eggs!" or "They're hatching!" and other such phrases, however, gave Moon a fairly educated guess. However, she wasn't sure if it was worth it for the pain, which was much, much worse than usual.)

A melodic feminine voice Moon recognized as Amaranth, one of the healers, snapped her from her thoughts. "What are you doing all the way back here, Moonwatcher? Little ones in the front, remember? We've been going over this for awhile now, dear. Go on, now, up you get."

Amaranth gave her a little nudge in the right direction. Moon nodded mutely, afraid that if she opened her mouth, all her pain would escape in the form of a scream.

She slowly weaved her way through a crowd that she swore contained the entire RainWing tribe. She made it to the front row and sat down, looking straight ahead at the ten eggs on the pedestal, all in various stages of movement or cracking.

Suddenly, a stabbing pain pierced her head and a picture oddly similar to the current one unfolded behind her eyes. An egg, rolling to the edge of the pedestal, teetering for a few moments, and falling down. It landed with a large crack, breaking into pieces to reveal a motionless, mangled white dragonet.

The scene ended, and Moon realized she was practically gasping for air. The dragonets around her all gave her strange looks (save for one of the youngest, Tamarin, who just looked concerned and confused,) but she was too distracted to care. Exactly how she'd just seen, an egg was rolling towards the edge of the pedestal.

At this point, there was nothing to do but take deep breaths and hope for the best. Surely it would stop soon, right? But what if it didn't? Was Moon supposed to simply watch the egg fall, with a dragonet inside?

...

Oh, who was she kidding, it was definitely going over the edge.

A collective gasp flew over the RainWings as the egg rolled closer and closer to the edge of the pedestal. However, they all were either assuming the egg would hatch before it fell off, or they simply didn't care. Moon made the split-second decision to fly up to the egg just before it started to topple to the ground.

The next few seconds went by in a flash as the egg teetered on the edge of the pedestal and began, slowly, to fall towards the ground below...

Only to be stopped by a small set of black talons. She'd made it just in time.

Somehow, everything seemed quieter when the rush of adrenaline was factored into the situation. Moon could swear the entire world went silent, save for the sound of her own breath.

She wasn't exactly sure what to do with the egg from here, so she simply stayed in her (rather precarious) position to block the egg until it hatched.

Luckily, that seemed to happen fairly quickly. Cracks formed along the shell and a dragonet toddled out, just barely missing the edge of the pedestal. Its coloration almost reminded Moon of a watermelon. Not quite red or pink, but somewhere in the middle, with spots of green on the tail, wings, frill, and legs.

The dragonet took one look over the edge of the pedestal and decided that attempting to sprint in the opposite direction was the most logical course of action.

(Privately, Moon wanted to do the same, now that the dragonet was relatively safe and she could feel the eyes of the entire RainWing tribe on her.)

She turned around slowly, eyes on the ground, because if some of The Voices were any indication, she was definitely about to be reprimanded at the very least.

There was a tense silence for a few moments, but after what somehow felt both far too short and like an eternity, it was broken.

"What. In all of Pyrrhia. Were you thinking?!? The egg could've been destroyed!"

Moon flinched. Of course Bromeliad was going to be one of the first to get angry.

She opened her mouth to respond that it was already about to be destroyed either way, but the words wouldn't come out. Honestly, she couldn't explain how she'd known to save the egg. Nobody would believe her if she told them the truth.

Suddenly, Moon's spiral was broken by a dragonet's talons on her head.

She tried not to flinch too much at the sudden touch of scales and rush off odd new emotions. Curiosity, wonder, and a bit of annoyance (probably at Bromeliad’s yelling) filled her mind in the same instant the dragonet touched her.

Well. Now I'm stuck here, Moon thought as another dragonet talon landed on her head.

The dragonet immediately began to chirrup and squawk in earnest. Moon could tell this one would grow up to be… quite talkative.

Moon stood there awkwardly as the dragonet attempted to stand on her head and neck. She didn’t need… whatever it was that caused her to save the other egg to happen again to know how it would end if she moved right now.

She simply looked out into the crowd and awkwardly mouthed, “help…”

One of the many RainWings Moon couldn’t remember the name of walked up to her and gently lifted the dragonet off of her head. When Moon got a closer look, she saw that the dragonet was yellow, with pink wing membranes and magenta dotting its face, limbs, and tail.

The dragonet immediately expressed its displeasure at being handled with a loud screech. Moon winced, quickly walking back to where she was supposed to be sitting.

That went… better than I thought…

Chapter Text

(About another year later)

Moon was, in a turn of events she'd definitely seen coming, back in the healers' den with a new healer named Bamboo.

"So, how've the headaches been?" He asked, looking through the shelves of remedies. "Any better?"

Moon shook her head. "Worse, if anything," she muttered, not entirely sure whether or not she wanted the Rainwing healer to hear.

She realized that the decision was made for her, however, when Bamboo gave a small huff of disappointment and his scales began to shift in various shades of blue.

"That's too bad... hold on, let me see if I can..." he trailed off and began shuffling around the shelves.

Unless you can shut up the voices, that doesn't seem likely, Moon thought, realizing only after looking back up into Bamboo's very confused face that she'd said that aloud.

"The voices?" he repeated.

Moon looked down at the floor of the healer's hut. "Forget about it..."

"Well, color me very confused. Last I checked, ours are the only two voices here," he said, probably thinking he was on the verge of some great breakthrough. Moon would deny to her grave that she also got that impression from somewhere in the back of her own mind.

After a few moments of staring and prompting gestures from Bamboo, she realized there was no escaping the situation without explaining herself. 

"I didn't mean the voices... here," she began, gesturing to the area around her while a part of her hoped Bamboo would come to the right conclusion on his own so she wouldn’t have to say it herself.

He did not. Another healer, who Moon was fairly sure was called Tapir, flew in just in time to hear Bamboo's next words.

"You just gestured to the whole hut, where else could you possibly be hearing voices?"

Tapir proceeded to put on the most obvious expression of confusion Moon had ever seen. "What's... happening?"

Bamboo gave Tapir a large grin. "Oh, well, for one, Moon's back!" He gestured towards Moon, who had been sitting rather awkwardly in a corner.

Moon gave a small smile and waved a talon.

Tapir looked at Moon, then at Bamboo. "So... I'm gonna guess this is about her headaches then?"

Bamboo nodded again. "Yup! And then she said something about voices, which was weird because she and I are the only voices here! Or, well, we were, before you showed up."

Tapir looked down at his talons for a moment before his head snapped back up and he spoke again. "So she's hearing voices? But you're... not hearing voices?"

"Yup! Wow, you catch on fast."

"And she thinks the voices are why she's getting headaches?"

"That's what it sounds like!"

Moon's eyes widened. Tapir was getting too close to the truth. She was pretty sure hearing voices in her head wasn't exactly... normal. At all. What would happen if all the healers found out? Would they treat her differently? 

She was pulled out of her thoughts by a loud gasp from Bamboo. "Oh! Oh! Are you saying she's got too many thoughts in her head and it's giving her headaches?"

Tapir nodded proudly. "Exactly."

What...?

It couldn't be that simple, could it? All this time, the voices had simply been her own thoughts? She'd been so sure they were something other, something with no connection to her at all. The source of her dilemma had turned out to be far more normal than she ever could have suspected. All this to say, Moon was currently watching the two healers converse and feeling incredibly stupid for not having either said anything before or figured it out on her own.

She supposed this meant she'd have to live with the headaches for good, but she'd take the confirmation that she wasn't, in fact, hearing any voices that shouldn't be there.

Feeling suddenly weightless, she ran past the healers and out the doorway of the healers hut, taking off into the rainforest with a large grin on her face.

Chapter Text

It was getting dark, and Moon and Kinkajou were playing hide and seek in the rainforest around the village. Moon closed her eyes and began to count to thirty.

She got to around twelve before a scream in Kinkajou's voice pierced her ears and fear filled her mind. She snapped her eyes open and ran in the direction of the scream to find a much bigger dragon that looked just like her carrying a bag that seemed to be thrashing around. 

The scream sounded again, and Moon had only just processed that Kinkajou was INSIDE the bag before the dragon took off flying away from the rainforest. She was too late. The screaming continued until both Kinkajou and the other dragon were lost to the night sky.

———

Moon woke up gasping for air. The nightmares were back, and getting worse. This one, she'd been having every night for about two weeks.

Its frequency still never stopped it from being absolutely terrifying. 

Moon waited until her breathing slowed down before lying back down and trying her best to reclaim a few more hours of sleep.

What felt like only a few minutes later, Moon woke up again to someone enthusiastically shaking her in her makeshift nest.

"MOOOOON!!! HEY MOON! WAKE UP! IT'S MORNING!"

Moon blearily opened her eyes and discovered that it was still mostly dark. The sun was just beginning to rise.

"No, it's still dark out," Moon responded sleepily before closing her eyes again.

"But MOON the SUN IS RISING!!! That means it's time to WAKE UP!!!"

Moon attempted to ignore the noise and fall back asleep, but it was difficult when the noise in question was Kinkajou practically screaming right into her ear.

She slowly opened her eyes again, stretching. She hoped that maybe if she acted awake, Kinkajou might leave her be and let her sleep for a precious few more minutes.

Unfortunately, that plan didn't work.

Moon stood up slowly, resigning herself to not getting enough rest to survive the day properly.

(This happened fairly often.)

———

Several hours later, Kinkajou came stomping angrily back from various Rainwing lessons that Moon, for obvious reasons, couldn’t exactly participate in. She was a bright, eye-stabbing shade of crimson that Moon had only ever seen on her before.

Of course, not seeing the lesson didn’t mean Moon didn’t know exactly how it went.

“I’m guessing Bromeliad called you incompetent again?” she asked, watching a pair of birds chase each other into the sunset.

“She DID! All because I couldn’t shoot venom as far as she could! Big deal! It’s not like we even USE it for anything other than venom testing. Why do we even NEED to shoot it that far anyway? Also, she’s a LOT LOT LOT older and bigger than me! Of COURSE she can shoot venom farther than I can!”

Moon blinked, trying to put all of this information together in her mind with as little interference as possible from the voices her thoughts. They were just her thoughts. It was no easy task, and eventually she gave up trying and simply asked, “You wanna play hide and seek?”

Kinkajou lit up and her scales began to change to her usual yellows and pinks. “Oh, you’re ON!”

Eventually, the two dragonets found themselves in their favorite spot in the rainforest for hide and seek.

Kinkajou grinned. “We’ll give each other thirty seconds. I’ll count first!” she said, immediately covering her eyes and counting.

Moon decided to hide in an alcove she'd noticed on the way. The alcove was covered with fern fronds that just barely hid her from view. She peered out in Kinkajou's direction as the excitable young Rainwing finished counting to thirty.

"Ready or not! Here I come!" She chirped before presumably starting her search.

Moon stayed close to the ground, peering at Kinkajou through the ferns as she started rustling through bushes and low branches. Hopefully this time she could last longer than ten seconds. 

As if the thought had summoned her, Kinkajou decided to bound over to the ferns where Moon was hiding, and after two seconds a grin appeared on her face.

"Found you!" she cried, pointing at Moon, who stood back up. 

"You're too good at this! No fair!" She giggled and walked out of the ferns. 

"My turn now!" Kinkajou squealed as Moon covered her eyes.

“One… two… three…” Moon began to count, trying her best to ignore the odd feeling of deja vu she was getting. Something about this seemed all too familiar, and she was sure she’d been in this exact position before.

She felt herself start to trail off and shook her head to clear it, starting back at ten where she’d left off. “Ten… eleven… twelve…”

A scream rang out. Kinkajou’s scream.

Moon opened her eyes and ran in the direction she heard the screaming from. Sure enough, she once again traced the source of the scream to a sack of some sort, wriggling in the talons of a dragon who looked just like her. The second she got close enough to see it, however, the mystery dragon flew off into the night, taking Kinkajou with them.

To make matters worse, it was dark now, so everyone else in the village was asleep. Moon could do nothing other than run back to her nest and cry.

Chapter Text

Ever since that fateful night, Moon had started every morning with the same fresh burst of hope, one that would immediately dissipate when Kinkajou was still missing and not, in fact, asleep in the nest next to hers. 

She'd gone to the current queen, Queen Magnificent, about Kinkajou every morning since. After formally meeting an older Rainwing named Mangrove whose mate, Orchid, had also gone missing, Moon suspected the two disappearances were connected. She did not hesitate to tell Mangrove this, even as his scales went a deep, dark blue at the news and something, somewhere in back of her mind mirrored the emotions his scale coloring represented.

The two of them had started going to the queen together after that, hoping that maybe their combined information would sway her into doing something.

It didn't. (Not even after Tamarin, who Moon had a mutual friend with in Kinkajou, had made the time to join their group to plead for action the week before.)

It was after the latest of these visits that Mangrove collapsed to the ground in sadness.

"If things don't change around here, then I fear we'll have to count poor Orchid and Kinkajou as lost."

Tamarin said something, but the words seemed to fade out before they hit Moon's ears.

She felt a sharp pain stab her head as a sudden dizziness overtook her. The world spun, until she no longer saw Tamarin and Orchid in front of her, but Queen Magnificent and a new Rainwing she'd never seen before.

The new Rainwing, who couldn't have been older than seven or eight, walked up to Magnificent and looked her straight in the eyes as anger pierced through her own.

"Queen Magnificent, I challenge you for the throne of the RainWings."

The world righted itself, and the next thing Moon knew she was being supported by Mangrove and fussed over by Tamarin. 

She slowly put a talon to her head. That was new, she thought blithely, even as something she couldn’t pinpoint gave her the feeling that it wasn’t.

"Ugh, what was that?"  Moon muttered to no one in particular, slowly trying to right herself.

Tamarin and Mangrove were silent for a moment.

"We were sort of hoping you knew," Tamarin responded, claws kneading the ground below her.

Moon shrugged, regretting the action when it threw off her still-shaky sense of balance. "Nope," she said, stumbling a bit.

Tamarin put a talon out, ready to catch Moon if need be. "Do you need to see the healers? Whatever that was, it looked like it hurt..."

Moon shook her head, quickly righting herself. "No, everything's fine," she answered. Or as fine as it can be, with my best friend missing and the queen unwilling to do anything about it.

———

Some time later, Moon and Tamarin were amusing themselves by playing 20 questions. Moon wasn't sure how on earth she kept guessing even the most random of things Tamarin kept coming up with. They just seemed to pop into her head.

After many, MANY incredibly quick guesses on Moon's part, Tamarin declared that she needed a break from coming up with objects for Moon to guess. This meant that Moon was currently attempting to lead Tamarin to guess "crocodile."

Tamarin looked lost in thought for a few seconds before saying, "Is it an animal?"

Moon grinned. Already, this was going fairly well. "Yes!"

Tamarin nodded slowly. "Is it something I've already had you guess? Not that that really narrows it down, but..." She shrugged.

"Yeah, you've already had me guess this," Moon answered.

"Alright... is it bigger than a melon?"

"Yes!"

Tamarin opened her mouth to speak again, when suddenly a shout came from the treetops.

"Intruders! Intruders in the rainforest!"

Chapter Text

Moon and Tamarin started flying towards the nearest hut to hide. Rumors had started of a monster kidnapping the missing Rainwings, (Moon was pretty darn sure they were wrong, having seen the "monster" in question kidnap Kinkajou right before her eyes. If somehow the rumors were right, then she'd have a large number of new questions about herself, and presumably, her original tribe.) Until the "monster" was found, every dragon under the age of 7 had been instructed to get indoors if an alarm was sounded.

Moon and Tamarin entered the hut and were suddenly engulfed in the crowd and found themselves separated almost immediately.

Moon attempted to wriggle her way into a corner to lean on. Why was it that being shoulder to shoulder with large numbers of dragons just made her thoughts that much more overwhelming? Her head almost seemed to match the stifling atmosphere of the crowd.

What's happening?

How did these intruders find us?

Why are they here?

What do they want with us?

Are they the ones kidnapping our tribemates?

All these questions and more appeared in Moon's head at once, each one growing louder and more panicked, until she could hardly breathe and swore she'd break into pieces if she tried to move any further.

Finally, Moon squirmed her way to a corner, practically collapsing into the wall for support. It had taken all her energy to overcome the massive amount of fear she may as well have been drowning in. 

(Why she was suddenly so terrified, she didn't know. She knew that the last five intruder alerts had either been false alarms or jaguars, the latter of which usually took one look at the village full of dragons and decided to go look somewhere else for a meal. Logically, she shouldn't be as afraid as she was.)

After what felt like an eternity of being frozen in the corner, a voice she was pretty sure was Jambu called out that it was safe; the "intruders" were simply travelers. And something in Moon's mind, for some reason, mentioned a sister.

While the hut full of dragonets dispersed into the village, Moon took the opportunity to stealthily follow Jambu and the "intruders."

Eventually, she found a place to hide where she could get a closer look. The largest of the travelers was brown, with curved horns and a stocky build. The dragon next to him was certainly brightly colored enough to be a Rainwing, but all the webbing they had didn't make it likely. They were a bright blue with a muscly build. Next to them were two smaller dragons, one golden, and one black. The golden one was supporting a dragon that looked to be the same tribe as the blue one. That one was limping. The dragon in front of them, strangely enough, was a Rainwing that Moon didn't recognize

(She did, however, have some serious deja vu going on about them.)

Once again, out of the blue, the image of Queen Magnificent being challenged by a much younger Rainwing appeared in her head along with a splitting headache.

She tried not to make any noise at the sudden onslaught of pain and strange ideas, but when she came back to reality, she was pretty sure she'd failed. The new Rainwing whom the back of Moon's mind was now positively screaming that she should recognize and their blue companion were looking towards her hiding spot with twin expressions of suspicion.

Drat.

Chapter Text

Moon's breath caught in her throat as they made eye contact. She stayed in her hiding place, keeping as still as possible and hardly daring to breathe.

After a few moments, the blue dragon inched closer, a snarl on their face. Seemingly in harmony with them, a thought appeared in Moon's mind that shook her to her very core. 

Whatever or whoever's in those bushes, I know you're there.

Moon felt herself begin to hyperventilate in terror. 

Great, Moon thought, trying not to panic at the contents of her own brain. Now I can't even trust myself not to give me away.

The snarling dragon then turned to their companions and pointed a talon at Moon's hiding spot. The Rainwing nodded, seeming to agree with something.

That was enough for Moon. Forgoing all stealth, she took off flying back to the village as fast as her wings could carry her.

Fortunately, it seemed that the newcomers weren't quite as adept at tree-gliding as Moon was, and she eventually lost them by the time she got to the village.

She found herself almost immediately approached by Mangrove, who explained that Tamarin was busy in the flower gardens. This, of course, meant that it was once again time for their daily visit to the Queen. They wordlessly flew to the back of the line and waited their turn.

Along the way they were passed by Bromeliad, who, unfortunately, seemed in a bad mood that day. Or, well, a worse mood than usual. Moon couldn't hear much of what she was muttering to herself, but she caught snippets of phrases such as, "impertinent dragonet" and "runaway" here and there. Based on that and one of her many thought paths that she couldn't pinpoint the beginning of, she assumed that Bromeliad was looking to continue her work on venom training. All Moon knew about her situation was that she had been temporarily relieved from duty because one of her students had disappeared, presumably to the "monster."

Moon had just resigned herself to being stuck listening to Bromeliad complain for a good portion of the foreseeable future when she saw the group of dragons in line in front of them. The same group, in fact, that had almost caught her snooping on them only minutes before.

She tried to act like she didn't notice them or care that they were there, but the massive amount of shock she was hit with upon their arrival made it very difficult. It was, in all honesty, probably too much shock for one dragonet to produce on such short notice.

She stayed under Mangrove’s wing like usual and hoped that maybe they wouldn't recognize her, or maybe even notice her if she stayed quiet and hid behind Mangrove’s larger form. To her immense relief, they seemed too busy talking to each other and the dragons in front of them to notice her.

Until the Rainwing of the group appeared in front of them and Mangrove decided to speak up.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” he announced, effectively alerting the mysterious new dragon of his existence (and probably Moon’s as well.)

If I just act casual, they won’t think it was me they saw back there. Just. Act. Casual. 

Moon kept thinking those words like a mantra as Bromeliad decided to complain about Mangrove’s complaining. Classic Bromeliad. 

Somewhere along the way, though, she did hear a voice unfamiliar even to her own thoughts mention something about a “Nightwing” in the rainforest. Whatever that meant.

“We should all be complaining!” Mangrove shouted. “My Orchid isn’t the only one missing!”

The Rainwing then did something that both impressed Moon to no end and scared her a little bit. Their face appeared very obviously confused, but her scales stayed exactly the same. 

Moon had never seen that before. The Rainwings she knew usually let their emotions out on both their faces AND scales.

“Your… Orchid?” The new dragon asked, effectively snapping Moon out of her thoughts.

“My partner, Orchid,” Mangrove explained sadly. “She’s been missing for three weeks.”

“She probably ran off like that pain-in-the-tail Kinkajou.”

Upon hearing those words from Bromeliad, Moon gained a sudden understanding of exactly why Kinkajou was so frustrated by her venom training teacher. Moon had told anyone who’d even noticed that Kinkajou was gone exactly what she’d seen, so Bromeliad should already know that Kinkajou didn’t just run off.

“Kinkajou?” Mystery Dragon asked, looking between Mangrove and Bromeliad with some kind of dawning realization on her face. “Is that another missing dragon?”

Well, she at least seemed like she cared about the fact that dragons were going missing. So Moon decided she might as well bite the sleeping dart and say something.

“She’s why I’m here,” she muttered. “I saw what happened to her. And she didn’t run off. She was kidnapped… by a dragon who looked just like me.”

Chapter Text

Bromeliad opened one of her wings to hide Moon, seemingly telling her to be quiet. 

"Kinkajou ran off after my venom training class and hasn't been seen since. They suspended my assignment, but it wasn't my fault. This one, however," here she tilted her head accusingly at Moon, "seems to enjoy spreading wild stories about where the noisy little nuisance's gotten off to."

Moon pushed past Bromeliad's wing. "I am not! She was kidnapped, and I saw it!" she insisted, stomping a talon for emphasis.

Mystery Dragon held up a talon. "Hold on, how many dragons are missing?" she asked Mangrove.

"Twelve in the past year," he responded, scales going blue with sadness.

Mystery Dragon was silent for a second, expression unreadable as Moon, for some reason, began to wonder if maybe there was a monster. There wasn't, she'd seen who kidnapped Kinkajou, and it was another dragon. She knew that. So why couldn't her mind agree with itself?

"And you two are here about the same dragon?" she finally asked, pointing at Bromeliad and Moon.

Unfortunately.

Moon nodded. Although why it took Bromeliad almost three weeks to notice she was gone, I don't know, she thought, glaring.

"So why don't you all go in together? If you're all here about missing dragons, maybe the queen will listen more to more of you."

"I doubt it," Moon muttered.

"What?"

"There usually are three of us," Moon explained, gesturing to herself and Mangrove. "Tamarin just couldn't make it because she's working in the gardens today."

"Still," Mystery Dragon continued, "If you're all here about missing dragons, they might be connected."

Mangrove nodded. "They'd have to be, wouldn't they? I know Orchid, and she wouldn't run off without reason. Moon's story makes sense, or at least more sense than what Bromeliad seems to think."

"Alright, fine." Bromeliad huffed. It seemed she'd come to that decision just in time, as a voice came from inside the hut yelling, "NEXT!"

Moon, Mangrove, and Bromeliad began to cross the bridge to the Queen's hut, with Mystery Dragon behind them, asking to join.

"You can't have my turn," Bromeliad responded.

Moon could swear she felt the annoyance radiating off of Mystery Dragon, who was probably NEVER going to give them a name at this point, as she explained that she only intended to listen.

They all entered the hut, only for Queen Magnificent to immediately zero in on Mystery Dragon and exclaim, "You're new! How exciting! I love new things!" 

"It's my turn!" Mangrove cried, indignant. "This dragonet just wanted to watch."

The queen, not seeming to notice his distress as per usual, looked to him. "All right, all right. Mangrove, go ahead."

"Orchid is still gone! It's been three weeks; we need a search party!"

"Orchid... Orchid..." Magnificent muttered to herself, somehow managing to make even Moon confused. She wasn't sure how much time had passed before she got confused as to why she was confused. Unfortunately, this happened every time she visited Magnificent. Usually, Tamarin was here to snap her out of it.

"I come to you about this EVERY DAY!" Mangrove shouted, scales going orange in frustration. "How could you forget?!"

Magnificent hardly noticed him, turning to Bromeliad. "Mm-hm. What about you?"

Mangrove's frustrated orange scales only grew more intense turning slightly reddish, and with them, Moon also began to see red, and not just because that was the color Bromeliad's scales were at the moment.

"My student, Kinkajou, ran off. I want my job back. It wasn't my fault!"

Moon glared at the ground for a few more moments before locking eyes with the queen, who had opened her mouth presumably to respond.

"She did NOT run off! I've been telling you for the past eighteen days that she was kidnapped!" Moon yelled, flashing glares at Bromeliad and Magnificent.

Everyone went silent at Moon's outburst. She wasn't exactly sure how long the silence lasted, at least partially because her mind was still as loud as ever.

Impertinent dragonet.

Let's hope this queen isn't anything like the last two we've seen. I've witnessed way more than enough murder these past few weeks, thank you very much.

When's sun time?

What's the holdup in there?

Did someone just shout?

That wasn't Glory yelling. What's happening in there?

Moon felt her glare softening as time passed, only for confusion to overtake her. Glory? Who in the moons is that? And why on earth do I seem to think I've witnessed murder?

She sat back down under Mangrove's wing, trying to make sense of her own head. Before she knew what had happened, Bromeliad had left, and Mystery Dragon had spoken up again.

Moon wasn't sure what she'd said.

"They'll probably turn up," Magnificent reassured her. "Dragons usually do."

Mystery Dragon suddenly appeared to be suppressing her scales’ ability to change color.  Moon felt annoyance rise up in her.

“Not lately,” she spat out, slowly inching closer to the queen, as if being closer together might give her message more power. “There are twelve dragons missing.”

Moon swore she could feel something jostling around in her head as Mystery Dragon continued to approach Queen Magnificent. By the moons, it hurt.

She winced, blinking, and backed into a wall. Nobody seemed to notice her, but that was fine, she’d been dealing with headaches her whole life. Why should this be any different?

She tried to pay attention to what was being said around her, but her head was pounding too much to hear any of it. 

She got a vague impression of Mangrove pointing at Mystery Dragon for a fraction of a second before her brain finally busted out of her skull. (Or at least that’s what it felt like was happening.)

It took a few moments for Moon to realize that the scene in front of her hand changed, though, as the only real change visually was that Mangrove was gone. It took another few moments to realize that her mind had incapacitated her with this image before.

There was absolutely no doubt in her mind now. She was seeing Mystery Dragon challenge Magnificent for the throne of the Rainwings.

But why?

Chapter Text

The next thing Moon knew, she was in the healers hut. Unfortunately, so were three of the six new dragons she'd been eavesdropping on. 

She blinked a few times, trying to focus her vision again. (Honestly, if she was going to keep being bombarded with the same image over and over again, the least it could do was stay in her mind and NOT completely remove her ability to see what was going on around her.)

She stood up and crept out of the healers hut, trying to avoid being seen by the others. She had the feeling they wouldn't take kindly to having caught her eavesdropping before. 

It looked for a moment like the smallest of the remaining trio had caught her, but she didn't say anything, so Moon assumed it was safe to leave.

She found herself walking towards the platform she'd usually find Kinkajou on after venom training. She didn't really know what else to do. Mangrove usually went fruit gathering for a few hours after their visits to the queen, and Moon assumed she hadn't been out of it for THAT long. 

All there was to do at this point was to wait. Wait, and hope nothing else terrible had happened to Kinkajou.  

So hope she did, until her concentration suddenly broke.

There she is.

There who was? Moon was pretty sure she was the only one here. 

Of course, the very second she thought this she was proven wrong.

Flying down to meet her was Mystery Dragon, accompanied by Moon's second new doppelgänger in a month and a burly brown dragon that also definitely wasn't a Rainwing.

I have GOT to start asking for names, Moon decided. Otherwise I don't think I'll EVER get them.

The three of them landed a few feet away from her platform, far enough to give her some personal space and yet close enough for Moon to know that they intended on talking to her.

Apparently, though, they had to have a whisper session right in front of her before they did, though. She caught a few snippets of the whispering, though. The word "careful" was in there, as well as "Nightwing" again. (Despite having thought the latter word beforehand herself, she still had no idea what it meant.)

"Sooo... is there a reason you're here or are you just going to stand there whispering to each other right where I can see and kinda hear you?" Moon finally asked.

Ah. Right. She's right there.

For some reason, Moon heard some variation of that thought in three different "head-voices" at once. Why that would be, however, she didn't know. Of course she was right there! Where else would she be?

Mystery Dragon turned to Moon. Something in her head seemed to flutter a bit when they made eye contact, and she quickly blinked the fuzziness in her eyes away. "Sorry about that. We both thought Starflight had finished his lecture on what exactly you could do before we came to meet you."

Moon tilted her head, wondering what exactly Mystery Dragon meant by "what she could do." She opened her mouth to ask about it, but what came out instead was, "Starflight?"

Mystery Dragon nodded. "Obviously he's the Nightwing of the group."

"Which is...?"

“You… don’t know?” Mystery Dragon seemed genuinely shocked by this, and so did her companions.

“It’s one of those two, I know that much,” Moon responded, pointing at her doppelgänger and the other one, who she supposed she was going to call Mystery Dragon 2 until she got their name.

“That would be me,” said her doppelgänger, raising a talon. “Which I’m surprised and somewhat concerned you didn’t know, considering…” here he gestured to Moon.

“So I guess that means… I’m a Nightwing,” Moon muttered with a smile. She’d known she wasn’t a Rainwing for as long as she could remember, but it wasn’t until that moment that she knew what she was.

It felt, in a way, like coming home.

Chapter Text

Moon just sort of stood there basking in the knowledge of what she was with a smile on her face for... probably a bit too long. Even some of her own thoughts were starting to get tired of her "standing there grinning like an idiot."

She shook her head, clearing it, and looked back up at Starflight and Mystery Dragons 1 and 2 before realizing that she hadn't given them a name either.

"Oh! I'm Moon, by the way," she said, quickly making up for that.

Starflight nodded. "Moon, huh? Anything... else?"

"Huh?" Moon asked. 

Suddenly, and without warning, something in her mind that she hadn't known was there revealed to her that apparently, "Nightwings" (like herself) mostly had two-part names. 

A vague memory triggered of herself talking to another dragon (It had been Amaranth, right? Or was it Papaya?) years ago. It was minutes before Kinkajou's hatching, and the dragon had called her "Moonwatcher."

"I mean... I guess technically it's Moonwatcher, but it's been so long since anyone's called me that that it doesn't really... feel like me anymore. Does that make sense?" she asked, fiddling with her talons.

Starflight nodded. "Moon it is, then. We have a few questions for you."

Moon nodded, pointing at Mystery Dragons 1 and 2. "Can I get you two's names first? I don't know if you said them while I was... knocked out or whatever, but I still have no idea who you guys are."

That's right, she conked out after Mangrove asked me to look for the missing Rainwings. The thought appeared, unbidden and confusing, as so many of Moon's thoughts tended to be.

Mystery Dragon 2 at least had the decency to look apologetic about leaving Moon in the dark. "Right, of course, sorry! I'm Clay." 

"And my name is Glory," added Mystery Dragon, finally giving Moon a name to put to the face that kept randomly appearing in her mind.

"Clay, Starflight, Glory," Moon muttered, pointing at each one in turn as she tried to commit their names to memory. (This had always been more of Kinkajou's strong suit than hers. Kinkajou was confident that she knew every Rainwing by name. Moon couldn't imagine having that many names in her head.)

"Okay, you said you had some questions?" Moon asked after a few seconds.

"Well, more or less. Can you take us to where you say Kinkajou was kidnapped? We're trying to figure out if maybe these dragons are disappearing in the same general area," explained Starflight.

Moon gave a small nod. "I can take you. Getting there might be a little tricky if you're not super used to tree gliding, but we can probably make it work with some effort."

With affirmatives from the three older dragons, Moon began to lead them off.

Eventually, after about ten minutes containing a mixture of flying and guiding the others through gaps in the treeline and more thoughts of not being a fan of trees than she usually had on these trips, they made it to the area where she and Kinkajou often played hide and seek.

"Here we are," Moon eventually said, feeling the mood drop the more she looked around. After all, usually when she was here, Kinkajou was with her.

"This is where you saw her get kidnapped?" Glory asked, looking around.

"This... is where I heard the scream I followed to find her." Moon felt a lump in her throat, but she determinedly pushed it down. I will not cry. Not while I still need to be able to answer their questions properly.

"So where did you see her get kidnapped?" Glory asked.

Moon took a deep breath. "This way," she said, voice quavering as she retraced the steps that had led to her best friend stuck in a sack, thrashing and screaming but unable to escape, and Moon unable to save her before what she now assumed was yet another Nightwing carried poor Kinkajou off where Moon couldn’t follow.

"Here." She stopped, feeling her eyes burning with unshed tears. "I followed the sound of her screaming, and then... there was another dragon, a... a Nightwing, I think, carrying a big sack that was... that was thrashing around, a-and the screaming was inside the sack, but it was too late, and..." Moon trailed off, not trusting herself to continue. She just looked at the ground and tried to control the tears and knew were coming.

Oh, moons, we've shaken her up.

"Sorry," Moon said when she eventually remembered how to speak. "Um, this is... this is where..." 

“Stop,” Clay interrupted, placing a talon on her shoulder. “We can probably figure out what happened from here. Thanks, Moon. I can’t imagine how hard that was.”

Moon blinked back her tears. “Anything if it helps you find her. She must be so scared…”

A ridiculous amount of pity rose up in Moon, and she couldn’t help but feel that for some reason it was at least partially for herself, which confused her. She should be feeling all this pity for Kinkajou, taken who knows where experiencing who knows what for the past three weeks.

“Let’s get you back to the village,” Clay said, effectively snapping her out of her spiral.

Moon couldn’t do anything but nod in response.

Chapter Text

Moon didn't hear much of the conversation between Glory, Clay, and Starflight as she was led back to the village, and even if she had, she didn't care to say much.

How could she?

They'd barely been here a day and had already done more to look for Kinkajou than Moon had done in almost a month. Sure, she'd visited the Queen with Mangrove in many attempts to get the missing Rainwings back, but shouldn't she have figured out at some point that asking the queen the same thing over and over again was pointless?

By the moons, she'd been close enough to stop Kinkajou from getting kidnapped altogether! If she'd just taken her to another part of the rainforest for hide-and-seek, or maybe if she hadn’t even asked her to play in the first place, there was a pretty good chance Kinkajou would still be here.

Suddenly, Moon was forcefully yanked to the side. She yelped in surprise at how quickly she'd been pulled from her thoughts, only to see Clay's warm brown eyes staring back at her.

"Careful there, you almost crashed headfirst into that tree. That would NOT have been good," Clay admonished gently, landing on a platform and gesturing for her to join him.

Moon didn't respond, but she did follow Clay to the platform.

Is she alright? Moon suddenly found herself wondering. She didn't seem all there. Maybe she's still thinking about her missing friend?

That was the crux of the issue, wasn't it. If she wasn't even fast enough at comprehending her surroundings to realize that she herself was thinking about Kinkajou until now, then there was no possible way she'd ever be fast enough to have saved Kinkajou. Which probably meant she wasn't fast enough to ever save Kinkajou.

~~

The few times Moon saw the five new dragons again since that day, they were deep in conversation about holes in boulders and finding the missing dragons and "stopping the war." The latter of those topics had sent Moon's mind into a spiral of dragons being pierced by pointy sticks, dragons burning and freezing each other beyond repair, dragons that looked far too angry the first and only time she'd heard them talking about it. She'd had some pretty bad nightmares that night, but these somehow felt different from the ones she usually had in a way she couldn't quite put her talons on.

Moon spent the next few days mostly hanging out with Tamarin and sometimes a few of the other dragonets around her age, talking about nothing in particular and playing various games. The guessing games went about the same as usual, with Moon being wildly good at them for no conceivable reason, so they usually stuck to games like stop-and-go or tree-gliding races that didn't require too much thinking. 

(They did, once, try to play "scale, scroll, and claw" to see who got to be "it" first in a game of stop-and-go. They had to give up that idea after Moon and Tamarin found themselves in an infinite loop of tied rounds. It wasn't Moon's fault she kept agreeing with the thoughts that randomly appeared in her mind shouting, "SCALE!" or "SCROLL!" or "CLAW!" immediately before it was time to reveal which one she'd chosen to reveal, and it certainly wasn't her fault that said thoughts happened to always say the same thing Tamarin had chosen. After around twenty rounds of this, however, they gave up and Moon had simply decided that Tamarin could be it.)

Today was another day spent with a crowd of dragonets, and Moon had thought it was going to be a normal day in the village. So naturally, Glory's somewhat triumphant return shocked her.

Mostly because it wasn't even a week after her arrival and she'd already returned with Kinkajou on her tail.

Moon grinned widely, running up to greet her friend after weeks of separation.

"Kinkajou! You're back!" She shouted, joyfully sprinting toward the two Rainwings.

It seemed to take the pair a minute to notice her, but then Glory seemed to point her out

And then Moon and Kinkajou made eye contact

And Kinkajou's expression morphed into one of shock and fear

And Moon's mind was filled with images of emaciated Rainwings being given nothing but rotting carcasses to eat and prodded with pointy sticks and trying to escape and being forcefully thrown back into deep, dark caves, slowly starving to death and losing hope as one by one, three Rainwings lost their lives to starvation-

Something Moon couldn't explain told her that this new fear Kinkajou seemed to have developed probably had to do with her experiences while kidnapped, and with that thought, Moon slowed her pace. Kinkajou's face had morphed back into an awkward smile, but it didn't reach her eyes and Moon was pretty sure that Kinkajou wanted to be left alone for awhile.

So Moon, not knowing what else to do,  turned around and left Kinkajou alone.

Maybe all the kidnapped Rainwings just needed some alone time to process... whatever had happened to them.

It was the only reason Moon could think of that Kinkajou would look at her with genuine fear in her eyes.

The mental image of a spectacled Nightwing taking notes on various aspects of Rainwing venom didn't leave Moon's mind, and her head still fluttered when she looked at Glory.

Chapter Text

Moon left Kinkajou to her "alone" time, most of which was spent with Glory. She settled on a platform, disappointment creeping through her scales. Kinkajou had finally returned, but something had changed.

She seemed almost... scared now.

Of Moon.

And Moon had no idea why.

She folded her wings back, making herself as small as possible in case someone else decided to rest on the platform with her. She didn’t plan on falling asleep. How could she, when the incapacitating images of Glory challenging Queen Magnificent for the throne only grew more frequent and her nightmares were riddled with Nightwings and Rainwings alike fleeing in terror from what seemed like liquid fire?

Regardless, she supposed, Kinkajou was usually the one to start their conversations, and if Moon doing so scared her like that, then Moon would simply keep her distance until Kinkajou felt ready to talk again.

~~~~~

The next day were a blur. Rumor had it that Glory was vying for the throne of the Rainwings, which was certainly an odd coincidence, considering that Moon had quite literally been knocked flat by the very idea the second it appeared in her head.

It felt like more than mere coincidence.

Rumor also had it that Kinkajou was staunchly on Team Glory. Moon agreed. It had long since been time for a little change. It was just unfortunate that Glory was hardly more than a dragonet and somehow still the only one capable of triggering it.

Moon didn’t know how exactly the challenge was going to work, as Kinkajou had been attached to Glory at the hip since she’d returned and Moon was keeping her distance. However, she did hope that it was something Glory was able to win. She knew enough to know that a competition of some sort would be involved. Glory, who had been raised away from the Rainforest her entire life, would therefore be at a significant disadvantage.

~~~~~

By some miracle, Glory had won.

Apparently, she had been forced to do the venom test on Queen Grandeur’s venom after Kinkajou had been hit while saving a sloth. It had worked, and since Grandeur was from the original line of Rainwing Queens and Glory was related to her, she decided to forfeit the challenge.

Naturally, she hadn’t wasted any time in training the Rainwings. Moon found herself watching as many of the sessions as she could see while hidden from sight in the treetops. The Rainwings seemed a little confused, but they were trying their best, and wasn’t that what mattered?

On an unrelated note, she hadn’t seen Starflight in awhile.

Because he ran away.

From what she’d seen, Glory’s friend group seemed pretty tight knit. It was highly unlikely that one of them would just up and leave, especially not in the middle of something so important. Maybe, in an ironic twist of fate, the first Nightwing to tell Moon that she was a Nightwing had himself been kidnapped by the Nightwings?

No. He ran away. He ran away to try to negotiate with the others.

Moon groaned quietly, trying to ignore her own thoughts. She really hoped the other missing Rainwings would be rescued before any more of them died.

But how do you know any of them died? You didn’t hear anyone say that, did you?

“Shut up, brain,” Moon muttered, trying to focus on the Rainwing that kept trying to balance a spear (as the pointy sticks were called) on his snout whenever Glory or her blue friend (Tsunami was her name, if Moon had heard correctly) weren’t looking. 

~~~~~

Chaos.

That was the only word to describe the current state of the rainforest.

The missing Rainwings were now back, yes, as was Starflight, but they were joined by what appeared to be the entire Nightwing tribe.

Moon’s head hurt (more than usual) trying to keep up with it all.

Her thoughts seemed to have taken on some new voices as well, some of them using words she’d never heard in her life, “volcano” and “erupted,” to name a few.

None of it made sense, and it was all just too much to try to pick apart. So she didn’t. She just continued with her own life in the rainforest, ignoring the sudden influx of Nightwings as much as possible.

~~~~~

Moon had left the Rainwing village for a few minutes to gather fruit. Nobody else had been available, and Moon was trying to put a distance between herself and Kinkajou anyway, so this worked out for the best.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice came from behind her.

“Moonwatcher? Is it… really you?”

Moon turned around at the unfamiliar voice calling her name. Her full name, too, the way no one had for years.

A Nightwing was standing there, looking at her with what looked like barely concealed hope.

“Yyyyes…” she finally answered. “How did you-“

Moon stopped, shocked at the sheer amount of joy her brain decided to produce. She hadn’t known that was possible.

“You’re alive! I can’t believe it, my dragonet is alive!”

Well, this was supremely awkward.

“I’m sorry, but… I think you’ve got me confused with someone else,” Moon responded, deciding to head back toward the village. 

As she flew, though, she had a deep, instinctual sense, perhaps even some long buried memory, that this dragon had made no mistakes in claiming to be her mother.

~~~~~

It had been months. Almost a year. Kinkajou still hadn’t told Moon she wanted to be friends again. Moon was beginning to doubt she ever would.

In a rare situation, Queen Glory had called both the entire Rainwing AND Nightwing tribes to a meeting. 

“I’ve called you all here to announce that in one week, Jade Mountain Academy will be opening, and its first students have been decided. As such, I am pleased to tell you the names of our Nightwing and Rainwing students.”

Many of the Rainwing dragonets began to whisper excitedly amongst themselves. Moon grinned, trying not to let the more bored thoughts she found herself having bring her down. They’d all heard about the school through the grapevine and most of them had been vying to go there ever since it had become an option. Now, it was finally time to reveal who would be chosen to attend.

“In the Quartz Winglet, we have Mightyclaws and Siamang, in the Silver Winglet, Fearless and Boto, in the Copper Winglet, Mindreader and Coconut, in the Gold Winglet, we have Bigtail and Tamarin…”

Well, Moon supposed there was always next time, if the school ever expanded.

“And in the Jade Winglet, Moonwatcher and Kinkajou.”

…Oh.

Chapter Text

It was time to fly to Jade Mountain Academy, and Moon was panicking. If she'd heard correctly about the concept of "winglets," then she was pretty sure that she and Kinkajou being in the same winglet meant they were sharing a cave.

As far as Moon knew, Kinkajou was still scared of her. (Although, it didn't seem to just be her. The few times she'd seen Kinkajou around Nightwings from a distance, she'd been wary of all of them, with the exception of maybe Starflight and another one, who Moon was pretty sure was named "Fateseeker" or something.)

How in the moons would they survive constantly being in classes and sleeping caves together? Last Moon checked, they could barely even make eye contact without Kinkajou freezing up. (Granted, they hadn't done so in almost a year, but the point... probably still stood?)

She flew next to Secretkeeper, who had volunteered to chaperone the Nightwing students on their flight to Jade Mountain. 

(After the awkward first conversation, if it could even have been called a conversation, Secretkeeper had continued to visit, and Moon had decided that she at least seemed nice enough. They'd had a fair few conversations in what Moon assumed was a genuine attempt to reconnect. Apparently, Secretkeeper had "abandoned" Moon because she'd been trying to save her from living on the volcano by hiding her in the rainforest, and the plan had been to visit her a few times a week to check in. Obviously that had backfired, and Moon still preferred living in the Rainwing village, where everyone seemed generally kinder to both her and each other.)

The large group of Nightwings and Rainwings flew all day towards Jade Mountain, but even that wasn't enough time to get there, and they had to stop for the night to rest.

Moon, having noticed Kinkajou's leeriness at the Nightwings she was flying with, decided to sleep as far away from the Rainwing group as possible. Kinkajou being within Moon's line of sight would make striking up conversation irresistible, and somehow she got the feeling that Kinkajou wouldn't exactly take to that.

Moon placed her things in the pile everyone had made before settling down to rest.

~~~~~

Are you still mad at me?

(pleasepleasepleasedon’tbemad)

Moon?

(Can you even hear me?)

Aw... I know what the Dragonets of Destiny say, but I REALLY thought that would work. It would explain SO MUCH.

Chapter Text

The ground was shaking.

Moon looked up from her talons, and what she saw was, unfortunately, just as horrifying as the last million times she’d seen it.

An entire mountain was quickly crumbling to the ground.

Dragons were fleeing from the scene on fire. They cried out for help, but she couldn’t move.

She didn’t recognize most of them, but a few of them still flew directly at her, even as she stood frozen in place.

There was one familiar dragon, though, among all the chaos.

Pain-white scales blackening in flames as she screamed, (and oh, Moon hadn’t realized the sound could be more terrifying than coming from inside a burlap sack,) was the burning body of Kinkajou.

<~~~~~>

Moon jolted awake with a gasp, chest heaving as she took in her surroundings.

She swore that something about that weird comet appearing in what everyone was referring to as the “false brightest night” had somehow altered her nightmares for the worse.

Or, she supposed, “nightmare,” singular. Her dreams had all been the same since that night: mountain crumbling, dragons on fire, and Moon unable to do anything but watch.

Perhaps it was simply the earthquakes that followed the comet’s passing, made worse by Moon’s already overactive imagination?

Whatever it was, there seemed to be nothing she could do about it except let the nightmares happen and hope she hadn’t caused too much of a ruckus for the other dragons she was traveling with. (She already hadn’t exactly endeared herself to most of her fellow Nightwings; she didn’t need to be waking them every morning with her own troubles.)

Moon spent a few moments trying to regain control of her breath and her thoughts, which consisted almost completely of absolute nonsense and wayward emotions that didn’t feel entirely hers, which was common for the middle of the night. Eventually, her breathing slowed to a normal rate and sleep claimed her again.

(So did the nightmare, but at least she was awakened by her mother before it ended again.)

The group continued off towards Jade Mountain until the entrance was in sight, and everyone stopped for a moment to take a break and take in the view from one of the ledges in the nearby mountains.

“Whoa…” Moon whispered. She looked towards the entrance and watched as dragons in all shapes, sizes, and colors flew into the building. Secretkeeper had taught her to read in the year they’d known each other, and she’d apparently picked it up impressively quickly. More recently, she’d begun to read up on some of the other dragon tribes. Mudwings, (like Clay,) Seawings, (like Tsunami, who still scared her a little bit even to this day,) Sandwings, (like Sunny, or at least mostly like Sunny,) and even two other tribes she’d never seen before: Skywings and Icewings. Once she’d learned that there were entire tribes she’d had absolutely no experience with or prior knowledge of, she’d decided to save researching her own tribe for after she knew more about them. (She had a feeling that knowing something about the tribes of her future classmates would help smooth things over when trying to befriend them.)

Even so, the scrolls she’d read could have never prepared her for the sheer newness of the landscape and dragons around her. She’d known that Skywings, for example, had larger wings and were usually taller than most tribes, and she’d known that Icewings were usually blindingly light colors, usually blues and whites, that gleamed in the sunlight, but to see the contrast between tribes in front of her, it was clear that simply reading a scroll could never do them justice.

That wasn’t even mentioning the mountain. She’d only ever seen mountains in scrolls and dreams, but seeing it now? It was so much bigger than she’d imagined.

No, it isn’t. Somehow, some way, it looks EXACTLY like that nightmare you’ve been having.

Moon scoffed a little, annoyed with her own thoughts for the umpteenth time that week. Lately, the lines had been blurring between the “main” path of thought she could actually track and the ones that simply appeared out of nowhere. A thought path could seem like she knew where it was coming from and going to, but the next moment, it would make some inane comment about how something Moon had never seen looked intimately familiar.

In those moments, there was no longer a way to tell the difference, and sometimes, like if she found herself in a crowd of other dragons, she felt like she was drowning in her own mind.

It can’t possibly ALL be your own mind. Do you even know what half of the things in it mean?

…

Moon decided that trying to answer that question would send her down a rabbit hole she might never find her way out of. She shook her head in a futile attempt to clear it and joined the other Rainwing and Nightwing dragonets at the entrance to the academy.

Immediately, they were greeted by the familiar face of Fatespeaker.

“Hello! I’m glad you all made it! If you don’t already know, I’m Fatespeaker. Now, let me guess, don’t tell me… Kinkajou, Coconut, Siamang, Tamarin, Boto, Fearless, Bigtail, Mightyclaws, Mindreader, and Moonwatcher, right?

Moon wasn’t too sure about some of the others, but she knew Fatespeaker had guessed Kinkajou, Tamarin, and herself correctly.

“That’s at least six of us right! Wow!” Kinkajou exclaimed, scales flashing brilliant yellow and pink.

Fatespeaker grinned. “Awesome! What about the rest?”

Kinkajou shrugged. “Oh, I don’t really know those four,” she said, gesturing to the Nightwings that weren’t Moon.

“No, no, she got us right,” said the dragon Fatespeaker had called “Fearless,” rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m pretty good at guessing. Almost as if I’m reading your minds, eh?” Fatespeaker asked with a teasing glint in her eyes.

Moon didn’t get the joke.

Okay, Moon, I don’t know if you’re still mad at me or what, but I’m like 99% sure you can hear me, and it’d be REALLY FUNNY if you said something right now!

Moon jolted a bit. Her thoughts were now talking to her? This was getting ridiculous!

Well, she supposed, it wouldn’t exactly hurt to say something now. It could at least help with her confusion.

“It’s like you’re… what?”

At Moon’s words, every eye she could see turned to look at her if she’d announced that she wasn’t actually a dragon and had actually been a mango the entire time.

(Except Tamarin, who was trying (and failing) to hide an astonished grin, and Kinkajou, whose eyes seemed to convey a sudden understanding that made no sense to Moon.)

After a few seconds of silence, Fatespeaker spoke again. “Anyway! Let’s get you all to your sleeping caves, shall we?”

Fatespeaker led everyone through the mountain, stopping every so often to say the names of one or two dragonets to usher them into a cave. Finally, when only Moon and Kinkajou were left following her, Fatespeaker walked back to the entrance and down another hallway. Somewhere along the way, Moon began to feel a piercing anger grow within her. It made her head pound painfully, and she resisted the urge to grab at it, settling instead for a wince.

As if summoned by her pain, a new voice bloomed in her mind, this one somehow different from the rest.

Well, this is interesting. Hello, Moonwatcher.

Chapter Text

Moon tried her best not to flinch at just how powerful this new voice seemed. She really didn’t feel like explaining how her mind worked to Fatespeaker right now.

Are you okay? What happened? Is it your head again?

…

Oh… you probably have no idea it’s me you’re hearing, do you?

…

Wait, I have no idea if you’re hearing me either. For all I know you’re just good at guessing. Like Fatespeaker.

Something in her face must have given her away, though, because Kinkajou looked at her with something that resembled concern.

That doesn’t make sense, though, Moon thought, confused. She’s still scared of me, right? Because of… whatever happened while she was kidnapped by the Nightwings.

Realizing that she and Kinkajou had been staring at each other for an awkwardly long time without saying anything, Moon’s eyes dropped to her talons.

Eventually, just when Moon’s head felt like it was getting sliced in half and she was sure her inexplicable anger was about to explode out of her, Fatespeaker stopped at a cave.

“Moonwatcher, Kinkajou, this cave’s yours. Feel free to explore the academy today! Classes start tomorrow, so you should probably know where those are.” Fatespeaker gave them a smile before leaving to continue whatever work she was doing.

Moon walked into the cave with Kinkajou on her tail. She noticed absentmindedly that there was another dragon sharing their cave, a Skywing. Said Skywing was lying on a rock ledge with their back to the two new dragons that had entered. Moon assumed that meant her new “clawmate,” as Fatespeaker had called the groups of dragons who would be sharing caves, wanted to be left alone. She decided instead to look through the scrolls that had been provided for the three of them to read.

After a few moments of thought, she decided to pick up a scroll that seemed to be about the plant life in the mountains around the Sky Kingdom and settled down to read.

That fish-for-brains had NO RIGHT…

Or, well, she tried to settle down to read.

Oh, that’s new, when did she learn to read? Who taught her?

What kinda prey even lives this high on a mountain anyway?

I’m so bored. When’ll it be time to DO something?

I can’t believe I’ve been dumped at this place as a student while a dragon my age is somehow a member of staff I mean how did FATESPEAKER of all dragons end up in a position of authority here this whole system is bogus

What am I even DOING here???

Moon gave up on reading for the moment and closed her eyes, resting her head in her talons. Usually, when she was reading with her mother, they were in an isolated clearing, and Secretkeeper somehow managed to silence most of her random, darting thought paths, allowing her to focus on the text in front of her.

Reading just wasn’t the same without Secretkeeper there. It was MUCH harder, in fact. Her focus couldn’t seem to stay on one thing, or, moons, even on things she understood.

Whatever way her mother had found to stop her thoughts, she wanted it back.

But they’re NOT your thoughts, they CAN’T be, you’re supposed to at least know the words your own thoughts are using, something isn’t right…

Or at the very least, she wanted to learn to block them out herself, if there was even a way to do that.

Oh, there is, little Moon, but it requires your knowledge of… certain truths first.

Moon’s head shot up. There it was again, the mysterious voice. It seemed… almost too much to  be hers.

You’re correct, it’s not yours. That’s a start, at least.

…?

Moon decided to ignore the ominous new thoughts she’s discovered and locked eyes with Kinkajou.

Both of them quickly looked to the ground.

“So…” Moon finally began after what felt like hours of silence.

And that, it seemed, was enough of a signal for Kinkajou.

“I don’t know what I did, but whatever it is, I’m SO sorry!!!” She heaved out, speaking so fast Moon had to pause for a few moments just to gather what she’d said.

She opened her mouth to ask why Kinkajou was the one apologizing, but was quickly interrupted by Carnelian, who she’d forgotten was there.

“Can you two keep it down over there?” Carnelian grouched, not even bothering to turn toward them.

There was silence for a few moments. Then Moon finally spoke again.

“Why are you apologizing? I scared you!”

Kinkajou cocked her head. “I don’t know, I thought I did something and you were mad! Why didn’t you ever talk to me?”

“Because you were scared.”

“…What?”

“When you came back, with Queen Glory… I ran up to meet you,” Moon explained. “I’d been looking for you for AGES, so when I heard you were back, I got really excited and went up to meet you. But when you saw me, you…” Moon trailed off, not sure exactly how to describe what Kinkajou had looked like that day.

“For a moment there, you saw me, and… and you looked like you were being kidnapped all over again.”

She took a moment to rein in her emotions before continuing.

“I thought it was something to do with whatever the other Nightwings did, so… since I’m also a Nightwing, I guess I just… thought you needed some time, and you’d talk again when you were ready.”

When Moon finally gained the courage to look back at Kinkajou, she was standing there absolutely gobsmacked.

So… she’s not mad then??? I guess???

“No! I stayed away because I thought you were mad at me and didn’t wanna be friends anymore!” Kinkajou practically yelled, surprise evident in her tone.

“Oh. Oh!” Moon responded, grinning. “Three moons, this could’ve been SO much easier if we’d just said something…”

Kinkajou giggled. “So I’m guessing this is us being friends again?”

Moon nodded. “If you want it to be.”

Kinkajou’s scales flashed in bright pinks and yellows Moon hadn’t seen even from a distance in months. “Are you kidding? Of course I do! Now come on, let’s explore this place!”

Kinkajou practically bolted out the door and down the hallway, and Moon scrambled to follow.

…

Well, thank goodness that’s over with. This could have gotten VERY tiresome.

Chapter Text

Moon followed Kinkajou down multiple hallways, chatting with her about nothing in particular and just enjoying the company of her best friend for the first time since she’d been kidnapped.

She was no longer alone at the academy, and that made it all the easier to ignore the fleeting thoughts and feelings that, when Moon was alone, would suddenly crowd her mind until she was sure she’d lost any ability to think at all.

“And they have the most AMAZING library! Not that I can read yet, but oh my gosh, I’m working SO HARD on it! Come on, come on! Let’s go!” Kinkajou grabbed Moon’s talon and started practically dragging her down the hallways.

“Wasn’t Queen Glory supposed to be teaching you guys how to read?” Moon asked, trying to keep her balance.

“Well, yeah, but there’s just SO MANY of us and she’s also the queen of TWO WHOLE TRIBES, so she’s SUPER busy.”

“Huh. Yeah, I guess you’re right. Well, if you need help…” Moon left the offer open, knowing that Kinkajou would see it for what it was.

“Who taught you to read, anyway?” Kinkajou asked, skidding to a stop near the library.

Moon felt herself smiling at the answer. “Well, you’ll never believe this, but it was my mother.”

Kinkajou’s mouth fell open. “WHAT?!? I thought she abandoned you!”

“So did I! Apparently she was trying to save me from having to live on the volcano, but she couldn’t be in the rainforest all the time or the other Nightwings would get suspicious.”

“Huh. Crazy .”

“I know, huh? It totally is!” Moon was practically bouncing with excitement. Even after a year, the conversation between herself and Kinkajou seemed to flow effortlessly.

“‘Totally is’ what?” Kinkajou asked with something shining in her eyes. (Was it a challenge? Concern? An odd mix of the two? Moon wasn’t sure.)

“Crazy. Obviously.” Moon responded, losing some of her verve in the confusion.

“Uh huh,” Kinkajou answered, smile slowly reforming on her face as she led Moon into the library. “Sure is.”

Almost as crazy as how you STILL haven’t figured out you can HEAR ME! Which I’m ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE ABOUT NOW!

Moon flinched a bit at the noise and sudden contact, but she wasn’t given much time to process before another voice, this one external, snapped her out of her thoughts.

“Hey, Kinkajou,” Starflight greeted them. “Is that Moon with you?”

“Yup! Hey, Starflight.”

“Wonderful! You know, Queen Glory practically begged us to put you two together in her letters. She said Kinkajou couldn’t stop herself from complaining about how you wouldn’t talk to her.” Starflight continued, rifling through various shelves seeming to search for something.

“Yeah, there was… a bit of a misunderstanding,” Moon acknowledged, nodding.

“Well, I’m glad you got it settled. Here, these are your library stamps.” Starflight said, holding out two nearly identical strange objects for Moon and Kinkajou to take.

“Library stamps?” Kinkajou asked, beating Moon to the question.

“We’re trying out a system,” Starflight explained, brushing his talons over a roll of scrolls and picking one out. He unrolled it, revealing that it was completely blank.

“When you want to borrow a scroll, you bring it up here to me. Each one has a unique carved stamp on the end, like these do.” Here he held up another of the strange objects, or “stamps,” as they were called. “I’ll stamp your name scroll with that end when you check it out, and when you bring it back, we stamp your card over the first image to show that it’s been returned. Does that make sense?”

“I think so…” Moon responded, turning the stamp over in her claws.

“Oh! One more thing,” Starflight began, fumbling under his desk again. A few minutes later, he pulled out two black leather pouches on silver chains. “Here, you can keep the stamps in these.

“Thanks, Starflight,” Moon responded, putting the stamp in the pouch and the chain around her neck.

“No problem. Let me know if I can help you find anything.”

But what if I can’t? There’s so much, and I barely know this place at all… No, I can’t be thinking that way.

Thinking WHAT way? Moon thought at herself, resisting the urge to scowl in annoyance.

Well, for starters, you certainly can’t continue thinking that EVERY thought in your head is yours. You HAVE realized by now that this logic is faulty, no matter how hard you try to deny it.

And there was that new voice again. Just perfect.

“Ooh! Moon! Let’s go see the prey center next!” Kinkajou squealed almost directly into Moon’s ear.

“Alright,” Moon responded, trying not to notice the looks and thoughts (voices?) directed at Kinkajou’s volume.

~~~

Chaos.

That was the only thing Moon could register before she looked through the archway into the prey center.

Small groups of dragons sat around the room, all holding various conversations. There were chickens running rampant throughout the cave, and too many dragons to count were chasing after them. (She recognized one of the dragons as Clay.) And that wasn’t even mentioning the  noise in her head.

“Ow…” Moon muttered, slowly lifting a talon to her temple.

Ohhh, right! Moon gets headaches in crowds, doesn’t she? I guess I should’ve seen that coming with the mindreading thing…

Well, now Moon was SURE she was losing it. One of the voices (because she was fairly certain by now that they couldn’t be her thoughts) somehow knew she got headaches in crowds. Ironic, considering that the voices themselves were the source.

But more confusing was a certain phrase it had used. “Mind reading.”

Had that had something to do with the joke Fatespeaker had made earlier?

But even if it did, why did her Voices need her to hear it?

She sighed, deflating. It just didn’t make sense.

Chapter Text

Moon stood at the entrance to the prey center, her head a swirling mess of thoughts and voices she no longer understood. She grew more nervous by the second, unsure if she could brave the crowd without completely losing her mind.

“Do you need to head back?” Kinkajou asked, snapping Moon from her thoughts. “We can always get food later, when it’s less crowded.”

Moon steeled herself. “N-no, it’s fine. It’s just… something I’ll probably have to get used to.”

Moon took a deep breath and walked into the prey center, staying near Kinkajou for some semblance of stability. She wasn’t quite sure how long she could’ve held out otherwise.

The pair of them walked to the fruit pile, plunging into the endless stream of noise much faster than Moon would’ve liked. When they finally arrived, Moon was practically dizzy with pain.

She was used to this sort of cacophony, but the atmosphere of the academy radiated fear, anxiety, and anger in a way that made everything so much more difficult to ignore.

Oh, come now. Surely you know what’s happening? Your little Rainwing friend thought it DIRECTLY AT YOU just a few moments ago!

Moon groaned, knowing the sound would get lost in the chaos of the prey center. Oh, thanks. You’re a TREMENDOUS help, she thought at the mysterious voice with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

She felt a little foolish after remembering that the voice wasn’t real.

But I AM real, Moonwatcher, it responded, very obviously holding back no small amount of annoyance. A few moments later, in a much calmer tone, the voice added, And thank you. I try.

“Moon? Mooooon?” Kinkajou practically shouted, waving a talon in front of Moon’s face to get her attention.

“Huh???” Moon flinched a bit, blinking as she remembered where she was.

“Sorry, you seemed pretty out of it. Are you sure you don’t want to leave and come back later?” Kinkajou asked, concern evident in her features.

“Y-yeah, just… thinking,” Moon responded, reaching for a mango from the pile of fruit Kinkajou had led her to.

She’d barely gotten a grip on it when her mind was stabbed by something cold and sharp that seemed to shatter on impact. She cried out, reflexively crushing the mango to bits in her claws as she tensed up.

Kinkajou, who had been talking with a Rainwing Moon recognized as Coconut, immediately rushed to her side.

“Moon??? Are you okay??? Oh, I knew coming here while it’s so crowded was a bad idea!” Kinkajou rested one of her talons on Moon’s, patting it on a comforting gesture.

Strangely, it did seem to help with the pain. One of the voices did grow louder, but to her great surprise it was familiar, and focusing on it helped drown out the noise around her.

She turned around to try to find the source of the commotion and saw a tiny creature with strangely-colored pelts on it, running from a large group of dragons.

Her curiosity got the best of her, and she ran towards the creature, gently picking it up and bringing it back to the fruit pile with Kinkajou.

“What’s that?” Kinkajou asked, inspecting the creature in Moon’s talon. “It’s adorable!”

“I don’t know. It looks kind of like those drawings of scavengers I’ve seen in scrolls, but I have a hard time believing one of these tiny things killed a queen.” Moon inspected the creature, noticing that it seemed to be shaking.

(Of course it was shaking. She could practically feel the waves of fear coming off of it.)

Actually…

“Hey! Nightwing!” a harsh voice interrupted her thoughts. Moon started a bit and turned towards the source.

An angry-looking Icewing was glaring at her, scales so bright her head hurt worse just looking at them.

(Because that was definitely the reason her head hurt.)

“Uh… hi?” Moon responded after a few moments of confused staring. 

“Give me back my scavenger or I’ll slice your face off.”

“YOUR scavenger?” Kinkajou asked, bursting into the conversation. “I didn’t even see you anywhere NEAR it!”

Lo and behold, the Icewing somehow managed to glare even harder.

(Which definitely didn’t increase the pain levels in Moon’s head. Nope. It was just… adrenaline. Yes, adrenaline, making her more aware of her current physical shortcomings.)

“Well, my idiot clawmate let it out, and it is mine, and I want it back!” The Icewing snapped, stamping a talon for emphasis.

Moon stood there, stunned speechless. She honestly wasn’t sure what was happening. All she knew was she’d seen a terrified scavenger and saved it. And now suddenly there was an angry Icewing here about it.

Winter didn’t seem to notice her confusion. Or if he did, only saw fit to add to it. “I could freeze your wings, then snap them off. Your tail, then do the same thing. Need I go on?”

Suddenly, a Sandwing sidled into the group next to the Icewing, seeming much calmer. “Alright, that’s enough, no one is getting frozen or snapped apart. What’s the matter with you? Did you even try asking nicely?”

The Sandwing turned to Moon, grinning. “Hi, I’m the idiot clawmate, although most dragons just call me Qibli. My intimidating acquaintance here is Winter, and if he hasn’t already mentioned being Queen Glacier’s nephew, you would’ve heard it anyway in five more minutes at most.”

Upon making eye contact with Qibli, Moon suddenly felt as though she was drowning in a speeding river of WORDS PICTURES EMOTIONS hitting her all in the span of a second. When she could finally come up for air, the currents took her back under again.

So could she really be blamed if she hadn’t heard what Winter had said the next time his mouth moved?

“What?” she muttered, keeping a grasp on the scavenger so it couldn’t run away again.

“Your name, Nightwing. I won’t ask again.”

“Oh! Uh… Moon,” Moon responded, trying to keep track of her mind.

“Moon what?” Winter snarled.

Come on, Nightwing. I know your names are all lies.

Is this the “two-part name” thing again? Moon wondered for a few moments, choosing to worry about whatever “your names are all lies” meant later. She decided calling herself Moonwatcher wouldn’t hurt to try.

“Technically my name’s Moonwatcher, if that’s what you’re asking,” she began, “but everyone calls me Moon, so it’s kind of a moot point.”

Winter… looked like he was done yelling at her after that. Moon wasn’t sure though.

If she was being honest, she wasn’t sure how she was feeling either. It was getting harder to tell her feelings apart from the voices the longer she stayed immersed in them.

(For some reason the familiar one of them seemed to have developed a crush on Winter. That was certainly something she hadn’t expected to experience.)

“Listen,” Qibli began, jolting Moon back to reality, “This is my fault. I wanted a closer look, so I opened the cage and that thing was halfway down the hall before we could even sneeze. But I promise you the scavenger does belong to Winter, so please give it back.”

“Get your teeth anywhere near Bandit and you will lose them,” Winter added, not exactly helping the situation.

“You are not at all clear on the concept of asking nicely, are you?” Qibli noted.

“Bandit?” Moon repeated, starting to wonder if maybe she’d misunderstood what was going on here.

“Indeed, the scavenger with the silly name is Winter’s pet,” Qibli responded, nodding. He opened his mouth to add more, but Moon interrupted.

“Oh! I… kind of thought you were trying to eat him. Here.” She gently handed the scavenger back to Winter, shivering at the chill of his talons and the sudden feeling of comparative fullness in her stomach.

“Ew,” Winter protested, taking another look at the scavenger. “You got him all sticky.”

“Better than getting him all eaten,” Kinkajou asserted. “You’re lucky Moon’s so fast.”

Winter shrugged absently, staring at his scavenger. Now that Moon looked again, it almost seemed to be wilting.

What does she know about scavengers? I wonder if I could ask her what’s wrong with Bandit. Not that I would ever ask a Nightwing for anything.

“I think he’s hungry.”

The words slipped from Moon’s mouth before she’d even realized she’d said them, and when she looked back at the dragons around her, Winter and Qibli were looking directly at her with varying degrees of confusion. (Kinkajou seemed to be trying to stifle a giggle, for some reason.)

“No he isn’t,” Winter protested. “I offered him a piece of desert rat this morning and he wouldn’t even take it. He hasn’t eaten since Queen Glacier gifted him to me, so I gather that scavengers eat fairly infrequently.”

“Have you tried-” Moon began, before immediately being interrupted by a small golden Sandwing she assumed was Sunny.

“Hello! What’s all the excitement?” she asked, studying the scene.

“Fatespeaker told me you brought a pet, Winter! Is that it? Aw, cute! You know, I met a couple just about that size once,” Sunny said, smiling down at Bandit.

Moon tried to listen to the conversation Sunny had with Winter. She really did. It was just… too chaotic to catch anything, both inside her head and out.

All this to say that she wasn’t exactly… present when Sunny’s wing brushed up against her and the voices all rearranged themselves around another one that sounded… a little too familiar for comfort.

Did that sound bossy enough? Or too bossy? Will anyone ever take me seriously as the boss of anything?

Moon flinched a bit, trying to  adjust back to the conversation at hand after the jarring volume of the voice.

“I don’t mind,” Qibli said just moments after Moon had readjusted her senses to the room around her. “I mean, I don’t mind the scavenger. His owner is the one I might be allergic to.”

Sunny looked at Qibli, then at Winter, then at Qibli again. “Don’t cause trouble.”

“I’m not!” Qibli responded, putting on an exaggerated face of innocence. “Someone should probably mention that the scavenger‘s not going to last very long. It looks like it’s wilting. Hey, what if it has some kind of disease or something?”

“It doesn’t!” Winter replied, glaring at Qibli for a split second before looking desperately down at his scavenger.

Don’t die!

“What were you going to say before?” he asked, urgency clear in his tone. “About feeding Bandit?”

“Oh! I, uh, think I just remember reading that they cook their meat. Or something,” Moon responded, feeling very much put on the spot.

“Oh, yeah, that’s true. I had a… friend? Former jailer? Dragon who nearly got me killed? …I knew someone who kept a scavenger, and I think he cooked all her meat for her.”

“Well, how am I supposed to cook anything for him?” Winter humphed, venom leaking into his tone.

“Someone will help you,” Sunny said. That’s one of the many great things about making friends from other tribes.”

Ha.

“Do you want help, or…?” Moon asked, not entirely sure how desperate Winter truly was to keep the scavenger from starving to death. Something told her he wasn’t the type to accept help easily.

“You could feed him fruit instead,” Kinkajou suggested, grabbing a blueberry from the fruit pile and offering it to Bandit. “Mm, blueberry. Eat that.”

Bandit looked up at Winter, then at Kinkajou. He then reached out and took the blueberry in both his paws, stared at it for a moment, and bit into it.

A profound sense of relief washed over Moon.

“Ha!” Kinkajou said, giving the scavenger another blueberry. “See? Moon was right! He’s hungry.”

Moon smiled down at the scavenger. It really was cute, and its eyes reminded Moon a little bit of those on the sloths she’d seen. She could see why Winter liked it.

“How did you know” Winter demanded. “How did you know he was hungry?”

“I have no idea,” she answered, looking back up at Winter. “Instincts, I guess.”

“Pretty good instincts, then,” said Qibli.

“Thanks,” Moon responded, taking a few steps towards the fruit pile on an attempt to outrun the growing suspicion present in the voices around her.

Watch out for Nightwings, Thorn said. Never trust them. She looks too pretty to be evil, but what could she be hiding?

“Actually,” Moon said, starting towards the fruit pile, “I think Bandit’s got the right idea. That fruit does look pretty appetizing. See you around, I guess.”

Moon took off without another word, trying her best not to listen to the last words of the voice that had originally been too focused on the scavenger to notice her.

(Emphasis, of course, on “originally.”)

I thought they said Nightwings couldn’t read minds after all. So why did it feel like she read mine?

Well. It sounded like she was probably going to have to learn what “reading minds” was if she ever wanted to survive at Jade Mountain Academy, because apparently it was part of everyday life here.

Chapter Text

After they finished eating, Kinkajou and Moon parted ways. Kinkajou was going to explore more of the school while Moon went back to the library. Maybe there, she’d finally learn the meaning of the “mind reading” thing that her Voices suddenly seemed so obsessed with. While she understood the two words separately, they simply didn’t fit together in a way that made sense.

(The image of taking out a dragon’s brain and opening it the same way one would a scroll was… less than pleasant.)

As she walked into the library, Starflight perked up. “Who is it?”

“It’s Moon again,” Moon replied, already walking towards the “m” section of the library. “Didn’t really get to look around much earlier.”

“Alright,” Starflight said, acknowledging Moon with a nod before going back to sorting library stamps.

Marine biology… medicine… military history, mountain ranges of Pyrrhia, myths and legends… no, I must have missed something, Moon thought, looking through the scrolls again. When her search turned up no results, she figured that maybe the “r” section would have some answers.

She walked over to the R section and once again began her hunt for information.

Wow, there are a LOT of beginning reader scrolls here, Moon noticed. I guess it makes sense, what with all the Rainwings still learning how to read. I think the plan is to expand the school at some point, so it would probably make sense to have more scrolls than Rainwings right now.

Moon looked through the entire “R” section to no avail. It seemed that either the library just didn’t have what she was looking for, the scroll (or perhaps “scrolls,” plural,) she needed had been misplaced or damaged, or someone else had already checked it out. She supposed she would have to look again later, after she could be certain any scrolls checked out today would be returned.

Moon went back to her cave and saw Kinkajou missing (Moon felt an instinctive spike of fear upon that realization until she realized that Kinkajou was presumably still exploring) and Carnelian fast asleep.

Y’know, she’s got the right idea, Moon thought to herself, noticing that Carnelian seemed more comfortable than she had all day. A nap sounds nice.

She crawled into the mossy nest she’d been provided and fell asleep almost instantly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jade Mountain is falling.

Why is Jade Mountain falling?

Wait a minute…

Is that Kinkajou?!?

She’s burning alive.

But I can’t move.

Why can’t I move???

HELP!

Talons and tails, you poor dragonet, a Voice came suddenly, as if to prove that even in dreams she wasn’t safe from her own mind.

It only took a split second for the sensation of giant talons lifting her off the ground to shock her awake.

Moon sat bolt upright in her nest, breathing heavily.

What was that? she wondered absently, trying to gain control of her lungs.

Oh, Moon, dense little Moon, can’t you see there’s nothing to be scared of? The voice from her dream returned, and Moon felt distinctly like she’d been caught in a trap. It’s like you said. I’m only in your head, aren’t I?

Moon shuddered. In her head though the voice may have been, there was something about it that terrified her to her very core.

The next few moments were a blur of unease, fear, and quick, shaky breaths, and Moon wasn’t sure how long they lasted before Kinkajou found her curled up in her nest with tears in her eyes and her wings over her head.

“Moon? Moony, what’s happening??? Are you okay???”

Kinkajou’s talon landed on her shoulder, clearly meant to comfort, and with it came the Voice that was so familiar to Moon that it felt surprisingly right to call it an old friend.

Is it your mind reading again? Did you hear something, or was there just too much going on? Oh, I wish you weren’t so set on keeping it all a secret… that IS what’s happening, right? Surely you would’ve figured out the whole “Nightwing powers” thing by now if you’ve been reading scrolls about all the tribes the way you said you were…

Slowly, Moon removed her wings from her head and turned to look into Kinkajou’s worried eyes as blue swirls frantically moved throughout her friend’s scales. She gave the aforementioned friend a tired grin.

“Oh, hey, Kinkajou,” Moon muttered, trying her best to seem at least somewhat less nervous and confused than she was.

“Are you okay??? You looked TERRIFIED when I got here!” Kinkajou responded, giving Moon a little shake as she spoke.

An image appeared in Moon’s mind of herself, barely awake, clutching her head in her talons with frantic eyes.

“Yeah, just the nightmares again.” Moon looked down at her talons. It wasn’t technically a lie, and she didn’t exactly know how to explain the rest of it.

“Oh,” Kinkajou responded. “Do you need a minute, or…?”

Moon shook her head. “Being alone is worse.”

“Okay,” Kinkajou responded, promptly climbing into her hammock. “We can just hang out here. It’ll be like old times.”

“Yeah, it will be,” Moon responded.

A smile grew on her face, and with it, her mind was filled with memories of herself and Kinkajou spending many a sun-time lying on a platform chatting away.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Moon woke to Kinkajou frantically shaking her.

“Moon! C’mon, we’ve gotta get to small group discussion class! Do you wanna meet the rest of the winglet or not???”

Moon definitely did want to meet the rest of the winglet, so she got up and followed Kinkajou down the hallways until they found a cave with a deep blue Seawing in it. Moon recognized Tsunami from the time the Dragonets of Destiny had spent in the rainforest, so she knew they were in the right place.

“Hey. Kinkajou and… Moon, right?”

“Yup!” Kinkajou responded, a large grin growing on her face.

“Nice to actually talk to you,” Moon greeted Tsunami. “I only really saw you in passing back in the rainforest.”

“That’s right, you hung around more with Clay and Starflight and Glory, didn’t you?” Tsunami responded.

“Yeah,” Moon responded, hoping to end the conversation there. Bringing up the reason she’d talked to those three dragons specifically could have brought back some bad memories for Kinkajou.

Also, there was just something about Tsunami that spooked her a little bit. Moon couldn’t put a finger on WHAT, exactly, but there was a sense of unease there, that was for sure.

More footsteps sounded at the doorway.

“Hi, Tsunami,” came a voice from the doorway.

“Turtle! Tsunami responded, beckoning the owner of the voice closer. “This is my brother. Can you believe I have a brother? Or a million brothers, apparently. I’m just assuming this one’s the best, since he’s here.”

“It’s true, I am,” a pudgy green Seawing responded, entering into Moon’s vision radius.

Moon hadn’t even had the chance to blink before her head was painfully pierced by an image of Turtle, attacking and pinning a blue and white-pink dragonet to a beach while the dragonet struggled.

When she blinked back to reality, it didn’t look like too much time had passed, but Tsunami and the green Seawing (Turtle, she supposed) had twin expressions of confusion on their faces.

(Well, now she saw the family resemblance.)

“Sorry,” Moon muttered, looking at her talons as they tapped the floor awkwardly. “That… doesn’t usually happen.”

“Okay, yeah, great, what exactly IS “that” anyway?” Tsunami asked.

Moon opened her mouth to answer, but it was Kinkajou’s voice that sounded next.

“She’s been getting pretty bad headaches since she was a dragonet. It’s been awhile since she’s had one THIS bad, though. At least she didn’t pass out this time,” Kinkajou responded.

Okay, THAT’S probably not from the mind reading… so what is it? Maybe another Nightwing thing? Haha, how crazy would it be if Moon just had a vision of the future?

Moon blinked a few times, trying not to show her confusion. A vision of the future? It sounded like something straight out of a dragonet’s tale.

Which, by the way, I won’t tell anyone about, especially not in front of Tsunami, of all dragons. Moon I promise I can keep your secret(s) now please let me HELP YOU.

Moon tried her best not to react to the Voice as another dragon entered the classroom. A Mudwing, this time.

“Hey,” he greeted everyone. “I’m Umber.”

“Oh! You’re Clay’s brother, right?” Kinkajou asked.

“Yup,” Umber replied. “And you two are…?”

“I’m Kinkajou, and this is Moon.” Kinkajou responded.

“Hi, Umber. So is Turtle your clawmate, then?” Moon inquired.

“Yup, we spent most of yesterday just kind of getting to know each other.”

“Nice. I wonder who our Icewing and Sandwing will be,” Moon pondered.

Tsunami chose that moment to interject. “Oh, actually, we switched a few things around last minute, but since you all seem to be interested in scavengers, it seemed like a good fit. Let’s just hope they actually ARE a good fit, and this little idea of Sunny’s doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

Moon opened her mouth to comment on the last thing Tsunami had said, the part about ideas blowing up in faces, but the thought was quickly shoved out of her mind when she saw that the Jade Winglet’s Icewing and Sandwing were Winter and Qibli.

And suddenly, in two familiar Voices she heard two words:

It’s her.

Now I can keep an eye on her, went the one with a cold, brash edge to it.

Now I can figure her out, went the other, warmer Voice, proceeding to go down a rabbit hole of questions about Moon and something called “Outclaws.”

Moon decided to keep focus on Tsunami, resolutely trying not to react to the warm Voice psychoanalyzing every dragon in the winglet as they introduced themselves.

After introductions finished, Tsunami explained to the Jade Winglet that they could converse about whatever they wanted on the first day, as a way to get to know each other a little better.

Tsunami had presumably been expecting a discussion of everyone’s various hobbies or interests, and Moon has as well. So naturally the both of them were shocked at what Winter proposed as the discussion topic.

“Alright,” he began, I want to talk about Nightwing powers.”

Chapter Text

Winter’s eyes scanned the room, authoritative and confident, almost daring someone to contradict him. (The way he ended up staring at Moon, he probably expected the dragon who would speak up next to be her.)

So speak up she did.

“Oh, perfect! I hadn’t actually gotten around to reading any scrolls about Nightwings yet, so this is great!”

Kinkajou’s eyes widened suddenly, almost seeming to pop out of her head.

Oh my moons she really doesn’t know??? I thought she was just pretending this whole time! Moon please listen to me YOU CAN READ MINDS.

Is… is she serious?

How does she not know what Winter’s talking about?

I’ll bet she’s just playing dumb to mess with our heads.

Moon gave her head a quick shake to clear it. The Voices around her were only getting louder and more indignant after her response.

“What are you all looking at me for?” she asked, noticing the stares from her winglet.

“Well, you’re our winglet’s Nightwing, so we, uh… kind of assumed you’d know about Nightwings,” Umber responded.

Moon shrugged. “Nope. For most of my life all I knew was that I wasn’t a RainWing.”

Winter opened his mouth, looking like he was about to protest, when Kinkajou interrupted him.

“It’s true, she’s lived in the Rain Kingdom pretty much since she hatched. As far as I know, the only thing she really knows about Nightwings is what they look like, and I thiiink she said it was Starflight who told her that…?” Kinkajou looked to Moon for confirmation.

Moon nodded, remembering belatedly that Kinkajou wasn’t there for that conversation, because she was learning of the Nightwings in a… different way.

(Moon still had nightmares about the image that had appeared in her mind upon Kinkajou’s return, of Rainwings being chained, experimented on, emaciated, and tortured in all manner of ways that caused Moon’s stomach to roll just thinking about it. Or, well, she would still be having nightmares about it if her nightmares hadn’t consisted solely of Jade Mountain falling to the ground for the past six months.)

How DID you know what Jade Mountain looked like, anyway? You can’t dream stuff you don’t know when you’re awake.

While for most dragons that may not be true, you, Moonwatcher, are not “most dragons.”

Moon tried not to react, even as her mental alarms were blaring again. The Mysterious Voice had returned, and at the worst possible time.

She doesn’t look too happy about this topic of conversation. Somehow I don’t think she’s quite as clueless about her tribe as she seems. She plays the part well, but there was something in her eyes just then… and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but the way Kinkajou immediately stepped in to cover for her…

Moon snapped back to reality and noticed that Qibli was giving her an intense look, and almost seemed to be staring directly through her.

She felt like her very thoughts were on display.

Was this what Fatespeaker (and her Voices) had meant by “mind reading?”

“Actually, wait, I’m still confused about that joke Fatespeaker made yesterday when the Rainwings and Nightwings all showed up together. Something about ‘reading our minds…?’” Moon asked, suddenly wondering if maybe anyone here had the information she wanted.

“You’re joking, right?” Carnelian spat out, giving Moon a scathing glance.

“I don’t… think so?” Moon responded, unsure what she’d said that could have caused Carnelian to make that assumption.

“Well, this is a new one,” Moon thought she heard Tsunami mutter.

“What?” She asked, hoping Tsunami would elaborate on what she meant by “a new one.”

What she didn’t expect was for Tsunami to give here a confused look and respond with, “I didn’t say anything.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, sorry,” Moon responded. “Must’ve been someone else. Nevermind.”

“You were asking what mind reading was, right?” Turtle asked, reminding Moon of the conversation at hand.

“Yeah, thanks… Turtle, right?” Moon asked, making sure she remembered his name correctly.

“Yup.”

“Well, first of all, it’s fake,” Tsunami interjected, “so if anyone tells you they can read minds, assume they’re either lying or just way too committed to some weird bit. Or… whatever Fatespeaker has going on. ”

Moon’s first instinct was to ask what the Fatespeaker comment was about. Her second was to notice that somehow, Tsunami’s voice had kept going even after her mouth had stopped moving.

How is she DOING that??? Moon wondered for a second before realizing Tsunami was about to continue.

“Usually, the way a dragon would fake mind reading was to stare really hard at you, and then usually they’d say something frustratingly vague but somehow also accurate enough to seem like they know what you’re thinking,” Tsunami explained.

“Oh, do you mean like what he’s doing?” Moon asked, pointing at Qibli, who was still staring intensely at her.

To say that Kinkajou burst into giggles on the spot would be an understatement. Within seconds, she was gasping for air in between peals of laughter. Eventually, Umber joined in as well.

“What?” Moon asked, as the laughter finally began to die down. “What’s so funny?”

“Hold on, hold on, I’m sorry, I need to breathe, I was NOT expecting that, oh my MOONS,” Kinkajou responded through gasps.

“I’m pretty sure the reason Kinkajou’s laughing is because faking being able to read minds was kind of a Nightwing-specific thing,” Turtle responded.

“I think you might’ve broken Qibli,” he added, gesturing to the Sandwing in question, who kept opening his mouth to speak and then shaking his head, as though he was coming up with words to say and then tossing them out the window on the fly.

“Not broken, just… confused, I guess. Mostly on how you managed to avoid being told anything about what Nightwing powers are. Were? Whatever.”

“Yeah, the Nightwings have been in the rainforest for over a year now. You had to have heard something,” Carnelian agreed, eyeing Moon with scrutiny.

“Weren’t you listening?” Kinkajou responded, clearly growing annoyed. “Moon hasn’t been living with the Nightwings! Ever! Even after they moved to the Rain Kingdom, Moon stayed with us!”

“Wait, then how did you learn to read?” Qibli asked. “I was told the Rainwing village was pretty much illiterate.”

“I had some help,” Moon explained. “When my mother found out I was alive, we started talking and she taught me how to read. Didn’t really think to ask about the other Nightwings though, and Mom never mentioned anything about them either. I guess she must’ve thought I already knew whatever it is Winter’s trying to get us to talk about.”

Huh. She seems pretty genuine. There’s something about her that I can’t quite figure out, but I can tell she’s not lying. Kinkajou’s giving her some odd looks, though. That might be worth looking into.

Moon slowly moved her eyes towards Kinkajou. Sure enough, Kinkajou WAS giving her a look similar to that of someone trying to stop a young dragonet from telling a secret.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Moon asked her.

“I… have GOT to tell you something later,” was Kinkajou’s response.

“It seems to me like you know something she doesn’t. Care to share with the rest of us?”

Winter asked, sneering at Kinkajou.

“It’s… kinda personal, Winter. We just met you today,” Kinkajou answered, and while Moon could tell by the way one of her talons twitched that she wasn’t telling the whole truth, it was a very convincing lie.

What Kinkajou had to lie about, however, Moon didn’t know.

“Can we maybe get back to Winter’s first idea? Does the “mind reading” thing have to do with that, or is it a different Nightwing thing you were talking about?” Moon interjected, trying to save Kinkajou from talking herself into a corner.

Kinkajou took a deep breath.

“So, basically, the powers Winter wanted to talk about were mind reading and visions of the future. The first one is pretty much just knowing what other dragons are thinking, and the second one is probably just finding pictures in your mind that end up coming true later.”

“Oh,” Moon responded. “Yeah, I haven’t experienced anything like that, if that’s what Winter’s asking. Also, how would just knowing other dragons’ thoughts even WORK?”

Kinkajou’s answering giggle seemed very forced.

Moon!!! Moon, I’m shoving the reason you can hear me thinking this at ALL right now DIRECTLY into your face so PLEASE understand me when I say that YOU CAN READ MINDS.

Moon blinked a few times, trying to figure out why Kinkajou was staring so hard at her.

The gong rang, signaling that class was over. Moon tried to follow Qibli, Umber, and Turtle, who’d made plans to find the music cave, but was quickly yanked in the other direction by Kinkajou, who took her down a series of tunnels Moon would have gotten lost in without her.

Finally, they came to a secluded cave that was slightly damp.

“Why are we here?” Moon asked. “And why so far away?”

“I had to make sure no one would hear us. We need to talk. Like RIGHT NOW. Because I found out a secret, but it’s not my secret to tell.”

“Wait, so why are you telling me?”

“Because this secret I’ve found out is yours.”

Chapter Text

Moon searched for any sign of a joke or a lie behind Kinkajou’s gaze.

She couldn’t find one.

“Mine?” Moon repeated, confused. “Then why wouldn’t I already know it?”

“I don’t know! I’ve been wondering the SAME THING! But I KNOW I’m right! It would explain SO MUCH!”

“So much of what?”

“You know those voices you always talked about hearing in your head?” Kinkajou asked.

“Yeah… I don’t think they’re just thoughts anymore. Ever since I met the Queen Glory and her friends, the voices keep saying words I don’t know. I don’t think thoughts are supposed to do that.”

“Well, yeah, not if they’re all yours, silly!” Kinkajou giggled.

Moon spent what felt like an eternity trying to piece together what Kinkajou could have meant. The words themselves were understandable, but the order and context in which they were used made them seem more confusing than anything else she’d heard to date.

“What are you saying?” She finally whispered.

“I’m saying, Moon, you can read minds.”

Safe to say, that was not the secret Moon had been expecting to be told about herself.

(To be fair, she’d expected to be told something she knew to be true. This… was far from that.)

“But… Tsunami said-”

“I KNOW what Tsunami said, and she’s wrong! I KNOW she is! And I’m POSITIVE that anyone who’s ever played a guessing game with you would agree with me! Maybe the other Nightwings were faking it, but YOU can ACTUALLY read minds.“

Ah, finally, someone’s telling you outright. Surely you can’t deny your powers when even the best friend who’s known you since dragonethood agrees with me?

A talon landed on her shoulder, and Moon jumped. Seconds later, she realized it was just Kinkajou.

“Sorry. I just…”

“Yeah, this is probably a lot, huh?”

Moon nodded, although she still wasn’t entirely sure she believed what Kinkajou had told her.

“I… need a minute,” she eventually said, running down hallways with little care for what direction she was going.

Eventually, by some miracle, and partially thanks to the Mysterious Voice that still terrified her, Moon made her way back to the main hallways.

For some reason, her talons brought her to Tsunami’s classroom again.

When she walked in, Turtle was already in conversation with her, but he noticed her very quickly.

“Oh, hey Moon. What brings you here?” he asked.

“I… just had a weird conversation. And now I have questions. Mostly for Tsunami,” Moon responded.

“Alright, what’s up?” Tsunami asked, turning towards Moon with a small smile on her face.

“It’s… about the discussion we had in class earlier. I know you said not to believe someone if they say they have powers…”

“Yes…? Moon, where is this going, exactly?” Tsunami’s smile seemed slightly forced.

Moon took a deep breath.

“What on EARTH are you supposed to do when someone tells you that YOU have powers???”

Chapter Text

Turtle looked at Moon with a quizzical expression.

“Someone told you that YOU have powers?”

Moon nodded. “Yeah, and I have NO idea what to make of it.”

Tsunami let out a laugh that sounded more like a scoff. “That’s… not the question I expected you to ask. But, no, don’t believe them, whoever they are.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Moon left the cave without another word.

Moonwatcher! Don’t listen! The Seawing is leading you down the wrong path!

Moon ignored the Voice, continuing on her way.

Oh, by the moons, you were SO CLOSE!

_______

A few hours later, Moon found herself in the library, looking for something to read.

Eventually, something caught her eye: a scroll titled “The Animus Histories.”

She picked it up, curiosity piqued, and began to read.

Time sped by as she sat there reading, fascinated by the things created by the animus dragons of the past.

She read about the summer palace, created entirely out of animus power and enchanted to grow like a tree over many years, and the subsequent Royal Seawing Massacre committed by its creator, Albatross.

She read about the history of the past Icewing animi and their gifts, most notably that of Princess Caribou, who enchanted three pools in lower-circle towns to always have seals for dragons to pull out.

However, what caught her attention most were the dreamvisitors.

Created by a dragon named Darkstalker, for his best friend Fathom, and his beloved, Clearsight, they allowed the user to visit a dragon of their choice in dreams.

Darkstalker himself was described as having been a “formidable” Nightwing that was said to have had both the power to read minds and see the future, as well as his animus abilities.

As she read, she noticed that there was a section dedicated to Darkstalker’s best friend. Moon supposed that meant that Fathom must have been an animus himself. She skipped forward, intrigued.

Fathom, it turned out, had been a Seawing animus. He was the grandson of Albatross, the perpetrator of the Royal Seawing Massacre, and after witnessing firsthand what it truly meant for an animus to lose their soul, he took an oath never to use his magic again.

He’d been sent to the Night Kingdom in the hopes that his caution and fear of his power would help instill similar values in the young Darkstalker. However, in the end, Fathom was unable to sway his new protégé, and Darkstalker went mad with power.

Legend said, Fathom broke his oath only once, to enchant something that could keep Darkstalker, who’d made himself immortal and invulnerable, away for good.

Presumably, it had worked, as Darkstalker hadn’t been seen since.

How sad, Moon thought, remembering that Fathom had been Darkstalker’s best friend. I wonder what he enchanted.

Moon made to put the scroll away when the Mysterious Voice appeared in her head, and its response sent chills down her spine.

It was a bracelet.

Chapter Text

Moon shivered. She did not need any of the Voices in her head claiming to be a long-lost ancient Nightwing animus right now.

I’m not “claiming,” Moon! I AM Darkstalker, and we’ve been reading each other’s minds ever since you landed here. How else could we POSSIBLY be communicating right now???

Moon shook her head, both to clear it and as an answer to the Voice. “Shut up,” she muttered through her teeth.

“MOON!” Kinkajou’s voice sounded from across the library, and Moon flinched, head shooting up.

“Didn’t you hear the gong ringing three times? That’s our warning! We’ve gotta get to history class!” the Rainwing continued, beckoning Moon out of the library.

However, it had barely been five seconds before a dragon Moon didn’t recognize yelled, “IT’S THE SKYWING! SHE’S HERE TO KILL US ALL!”

Within minutes of that exclamation, Moon’s head positively exploded with pain and foreign images.

A Sandwing with a spear sticking through their eye sockets, blood dripping down the sides of their face.

A Skywing head, bleeding from the neck, the rest of their body nowhere to be found.

A Mudwing and a vaguely familiar Icewing locked in battle. The Icewing smiled wickedly as she slashed serrated claws across the Mudwing’s neck, killing them instantly.

A Seawing, so thin Moon could count every single rib, burning alive as a Skywing, bedazzled in all manner of gems, grinned menacingly at his screams.

Moon backed into a corner, clutching her head and trying her absolute hardest not to whimper in pain. It was all too much, and she couldn’t feel anything but paralyzing fear and panic. She wrapped her tail and wings around herself, trying in vain to block any of the noise.

MOONY!!! ARE YOU OKAY???

Moon, this is Darkstalker. you need to find someone calm and use their thoughts as an anchor. I realize you’re in no small amount of frankly ridiculous denial, but now is the time to at least TRY to follow the advice of those of us who know what we’re talking about. For both of our sakes.

Moon scrambled back into the furthest corner, tightening the hold her wings had on the rest of her body. She could neither see nor think straight through the pain, and her brain felt closer to bursting than ever before.

She curled in on herself as much as possible. Somewhere along the way, she realized she’d started screaming, and a set of worried-green talons were gently stroking hers.

When she looked up, she saw what she assumed to be Kinkajou’s face, but it was blurry and distorted from the pain in her head, and the colors were all too bright. It seemed that even that slight movement had been too much for her to handle, though, as the next thing Moon knew, she was waking up in the infirmary with Clay standing over her.

“Oh, thank the moons, you’re awake!” he exclaimed with relief. “Does anything hurt?”

“Just my head still,” Moon responded. “What happened back there? All I remember is hearing someone shout about a Skywing coming to kill everyone.”

“Your mind reading must’ve acted up,” Kinkajou responded from behind her. “You just kinda looked like you had a REALLY bad headache all of a sudden.”

“Sorry, what was that first part?” Moon asked, not believing her ears as she turned to look her best friend in the eyes.

“What first thing? I just said you looked like you had a bad headache.”

Moon’s head tilted to one side a bit. “What…? Huh. Alright. Must be hearing things.” She gave her head a little shake, regretting it immediately when the pain flared up again.

Huh… guess she must not’ve believed me when I told her about her powers. Or maybe she’s still figuring it out. I dunno how mind reading works. Can she tell when it’s only in her head or no?

“Moon?” Clay’s voice cut through her thoughts (and… whatever else was happening) and shocked her back into reality.

“Yeah?” she responded.

“Kinkajou said that this happens a lot. Is there anything that might help if it happens again?”

Moon shook her head. “Nothing we’ve figured out,” she responded honestly.

“Well, it does usually help to get you away from big crowds…” Kinkajou pointed out.

Goodness, I wonder why THAT is, Moonwatcher. What a mystery.

“Uh, yeah… yeah, that helps,” Moon confirmed after around a minute of Clay and Kinkajou staring at her with concern.

“Thanks, Clay! C’mon, Moon, let’s get back to our cave,” she grinned, pulling her away to whisper, “before you get stuck in someone else’s head again.”

“Wh- someone else’s? And what do you mean AGAIN???”

Chapter Text

As Moon and Kinkajou walked down the hallway towards their cave, they ran into Turtle and Umber, who were having a discussion.

“…not the most normal Seawing behavior, but it works for the thirty-two of us,” they caught from Turtle.

“I’m sorry, how many?”

“Hey! Whatcha guys talkin’ about?” Kinkajou asked, causing Turtle and Umber to startle.

“I think he’s saying he has thirty-two brothers???” Umber responded.

“Nah, thirty-one. There are thirty-two of us guys, counting me,” Turtle explained, sounding far too blasé for how wide Umber’s eyes were.

“And Tsunami’s your sister, too, right?” Moon asked, shocked. She wasn’t even sure she could recite the names of thirty-two separate Rainwings off the top of her head. (Heck, didn’t the entirety of Jade Mountain Academy only have thirty-five students?)

“Yeah, and I’ve got two others. One of ‘em’s in the Silver Winglet, actually.”

“And I thought Mudwing sib groups were big,” Moon muttered, eyes falling to the ground as she processed the information Turtle was giving out as casually as breathing.

“Hey, our groups don’t usually get much bigger than ten. Turtle, though… What in the moons, dude?” Umber, apparently, couldn’t seem to fathom Turtle’s family situation either.

“Mom really wanted daughters,” Turtle responded in lieu of explanation.

“How’d she come up with so many names for you guys, anyway?” Kinkajou asked.

“She didn’t,” Turtle answered. “After the first five or six princes were born, they all decided that naming each other was the only way they were gonna get named, and after that we just all kinda met up and voted on names every time a new brother hatched.”

“Huh. That’s, uh, something…” Every sentence Turtle spoke, it seemed, caused Umber’s eyes to go ever so slightly wider.

What in the moons??? That’s messed up.

“Moon? You good? You’ve been staring at our collective talons for a while,” Turtle eventually said.

Moon, who didn’t exactly want to go into detail on The Voices with dragons she’d just met, simply nodded.

“Sorry,” she said, “I was…” she trailed off for a few moments before her eyes landed on Turtle’s wristband.

“I was looking at your wristband. What kinda stones are those? I don’t think I’ve seen anything like them before.”

Moon wasn’t sure if Turtle believed her, but he seemed alright with the subject change.

“It’s a pretty crazy story, actually,” he began, lifting up the leg with the armband on it so the others could see. “I was exploring with around five or six of my brothers, when one of them pointed out something shooting through the sky.”

“Oh!” Moon realized. “Was it the comet? On the false brightest night?”

“Must’ve been,” Turtle responded. “So we all went above water to see it, and a big chunk of it landed not too far from where we were. I asked if we could go see it, but none of the others really wanted to. So I went off by myself to check it out, brought some pieces back, and had them put into a wristband.”

“Whoa,” Kinkajou said, staring intently at the tiny rocks embedded into the gold band.

“You wanna see it up closer?” Turtle asked, slipping it off to let Kinkajou inspect it.

“Ooh, YES!” Kinkajou responded, grinning madly. “Moon, look! The little rock bits are kinda iridescent when you see ‘em up close!”

“Really?” Moon asked, peering over Kinkajou’s shoulder to get a closer look.

“Yeah, check it out!” Kinkajou held out the armband for Moon to inspect.

And Moon took it.

And the world went more silent than she ever knew was possible.

Chapter Text

Moon’s eyes widened as she held the wristband. Somehow, as if by magic, the Voices had all disappeared from her head the second she touched it.

Was this what “normal” felt like? She hadn’t known it was possible to hear herself think this clearly.

“Wow,” she whispered, a small smile growing on her face as she relished the precious moments of blissful quiet.

She realized, distantly, that this was the first time since she could remember that her constant headache had completely vanished.

The gong rang, signaling that free period was close to ending.

“Can I, uh… have that back now?” Turtle asked, tapping his front claws awkwardly.

Moon blinked, shaken out of her happy stupor. “Oh, of course, sorry! Here you go.”

The noise that reappeared in her head the moment the bracelet left her talons was nothing short of overwhelming.

-OON! Oh, thank goodness, there you are! You vanished so completely I thought you were dead! Don’t DO that, you’re going to give me a heart attack!

Huh. When did Moon become so interested in rocks?

Wait. Where IS Sunny’s classroom, anyway?

Moon tried her hardest not to rub her temples. She’d powered through much worse pain than this before. The fact that she now knew what life was like without it meant nothing.

“You okay?” Kinkajou asked. “You’re getting that look you get when your head’s bothering you.”

“My head’s always bothering me,” Moon responded without thinking, eyes still on the ground.

“Moon… Moon why did that sound like you were realizing it for the first time?” Kinkajou asked.

“I don’t know,” she responded, frustrated. She was still trying to figure out what it was about Turtle’s bracelet that quieted her mind so completely, and if it was possible to replicate it.

“Don’t know what?” Turtle’s confusion was evident, despite the fact that Kinkajou had asked her question fairly loudly.

“Why it sounded like I was realizing that for the first time, or whatever she said.”

When Moon looked back at Turtle and Umber, they were looking at each other with twin expressions of concerned confusion.

“Did… did she say something and we didn’t hear it?” Umber finally asked.

Moon, realizing that it must have been one of The Voices again, simply told the two drakes that she’d be heading back to her cave and immediately made good on her word.

As she walked back, she continued to wonder why Turtle’s armband, of all things, was able to block out the Voices so well.

She came back to the mossy nest she slept in to find a scroll on it.

Right. She’d checked out The Animus Histories before she’d passed out.

She curled up to continue reading, when suddenly a realization hit her.

She vaguely remembered having heard something, somewhere, about Anemone, the Silver Winglet’s Seawing and apparently Turtle’s sister, being an animus. Whether it was true or from one of the Voices, she wasn’t sure, but she definitely remembered that animus magic was genetic.

And Anemone was one of thirty-five.

Was it possible that Turtle had inherited animus abilities as well?

Chapter Text

When Kinkajou returned, Moon didn’t hesitate to spill her theories to her best friend. Soon, the cave was filled with half-crazed whispering. (The only reason it wasn’t louder was because neither of them wanted to deal with the consequences of waking up a sleeping Carnelian. She was already pretty scary when they HADN’T done anything to her.)

“Turtle? An animus??? That’d be SO CRAZY!!!” Kinkajou was practically vibrating with excitement.

“I mean, I think I might’ve heard something about his sister being one,” Moon responded.

“Y’know, if you’re right, that’ll be TWO dragons in this winglet with secret powers. How crazy would that be?” Kinkajou giggled.

“Who’s the other one?”

“Moon, the other one is you, remember?”

“But I asked Tsunami about it, and-”

“Out of ALL the teachers here, WHY would you ask TSUNAMI???” Kinkajou interrupted, growing in volume.

“Because Tsunami was the first one who ever said ANYTHING about Nightwing powers AT ALL!”

A charged silence filled the room for a few minutes, broken only by Carnelian shuffling in her sleep. (Apparently, she was a heavier sleeper than Moon had given her credit for.)

“Seriously, though, how long were you genuinely thinking I could read minds?” Moon asked, even as she wasn’t sure if she could bear the answer.

Kinkajou looked down at her talons for a few moments, deep in thought.

“Honestly, I started suspecting pretty much as soon as someone explained the concept. It only made more sense the more I thought about it. Actually, I totally thought YOU knew until yesterday.”

“Kinkajou?”

“Yes?

“I didn’t even know mind reading was a thing until yesterday,” Moon deadpanned. “Literally, the concept itself didn’t exist to me until I got here.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Wasn’t exactly able to tell you when I thought you hated me. Not the best conversation to have when you first see someone after being kidnapped.”

“IS there a good first conversation to have after being kidnapped? I don’t think that’s a thing that exists,” Moon pointed out.

Kinkajou giggled. “Yeah, probably not.”

They continued talking, and Moon eventually remembered how the conversation had started in the first place.

“The only thing stumping me about this animus thing is why Turtle would enchant something like that,” she suddenly brought up.

“Huh. Yeah.”

The two sat in silence for a minute.

“Maybe it was supposed to, like, clear the wearer’s head? Or something? And the enchantment got a bit too literal on me or something?” Moon wondered.

“Huh, maybe. Who knows? The best way to figure that out might just be to ask him.”

Moon nodded. Yes, asking him would be the best way to find things out conclusively. However, that was a task for another time.

Chapter Text

The moment the Jade Winglet had any free time the next day, Moon and Kinkajou immediately asked to talk to Turtle.

The trio went to one of the less popular underground lakes where they wouldn’t be followed.

“So, what’d you two want to talk about?” Turtle asked.

Moon’s answer was immediate and to the point.

“Are you an animus?”

Kinkajou’s jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh, Moon, you’ve gotta to be more subtle than that!”

When Moon looked back at Turtle, his laid-back demeanor had gone entirely out the window. Eyes wide, and talons shaking, he finally responded.

“How did- why- what gave you that idea?” Turtle stammered, his eyes sliding towards the exit.

Moon grinned. “You gave me your wristband to look at, silly!”

“And…?” The Seawing’s panic slowly gave way to confusion.

“And… it’s enchanted to clear the wearer’s head, right?” Moon asked.

Turtle shrugged, confusion only seeming to increase. “If there’s an animus enchantment on my wristband, I didn’t know about it.”

“Huh. Okay.”

The three of them sat in silence for a few moments.

“So you two knew each other before coming here, right?” Turtle asked, so very obviously trying to fill an awkward silence.

Or maybe it wasn’t obvious. Moon couldn’t tell anymore. She’d always seemed to notice things like that quicker than the dragons around her did. That fact was one of the few things that made Kinkajou’s “mind reading” theory make sense. Not that she’d ever admit that to anyone.

“Yup!” Kinkajou responded. “We’ve been friends pretty much since hatching.”

“That’s right, you grew up in the rainforest, didn’t you?” Turtle asked.

“Yeah,” Moon confirmed. “Took me about half a year to realize I wasn’t a Rainwing.”

Turtle chuckled. “Really? You weren’t put off at all by your inability to camouflage?”

“I was a hatchling, Turtle!”

The three of them laughed as Moon and Kinkajou shared childhood stories with Turtle. He seemed deep in thought after Kinkajou told him about Moon’s disastrous rock-paper-scissors attempts.

“Hang on, Kinkajou wouldn’t happen to be the dragon you were talking about earlier, would she?” Turtle asked Moon.

“Huh?”

“He was there when I talked to Tsunami about the stuff you told me. Yeah, she is. Why?”

Turtle looked between the two clawmates, seemingly deep in thought. “You might want to look into that “powers” theory a little more. Based the stories she’s been telling, and some things you’ve said, the idea’s… more plausible than Tsunami gives it credit for.”

I never thought I’d be saying this about a remark from your pudgy little Seawing associate of all dragons, but I swear to the moons that everyone else in your winglet knows more about you than YOU do.

Moon tried not to react. She wasn’t sure if she succeeded.

“Huh. I… okay. I’ll… think about it,” was eventually what came out of her mouth. “And… uh, sorry about the animus thing.”

Turtle gave an awkward smile. “It’s fine. That’s… not a question I’ve seen used as a conversation starter before. You certainly know how to grab a dragon’s attention.”

Moon chuckled. “Thanks.”

Turtle was taking her out-of-the-blue accusation of him being an animus surprisingly well. She didn’t know Turtle enough to know how good a liar he was, however, so Moon decided to keep the possibility in the back of her mind. Just in case.

~~~~~~

Eventually, Moon and Kinkajou got back to their cave.

“Ooh! Moon! Have you seen the art cave yet???” Kinkajou suddenly asked, voice high-pitched with excitement.

“I… don’t think so,” Moon responded after wracking her brain.

“PERFECT! You HAVE to come see it with me! Maybe we can make AWESOME PAINTINGS and DECORATE OUR CAVE WITH THEM!!!” Kinkajou began to bounce gleefully.

“Can you two keep it down?” Carnelian snapped from her ledge. “I’m trying to focus, but with you two blathering on like this I can barely hear myself think.”

The sooner I learn everything this school has to teach me, the sooner Queen Ruby will let me leave this awful place.

Moon, feeling a sudden jealousy at the idea that being able to hear yourself think was a thing that actually happened to other dragons, simply apologized to Carnelian and went on her way with Kinkajou.

As the two of them started painting, Moon’s mind was once again brought to Turtle.

If he truly wasn’t an animus, then how would his wristband have been enchanted?

Perhaps the armband itself was enchanted by an ancestor of his and kept as a family heirloom, with the rocks only being added when it was given to Turtle?

But out of thirty-five dragonets, why would Turtle have been chosen to receive it? The way he talked about the Queen, an animus-touched family heirloom would have more likely gone to one of her daughters.

It then occurred to her that maybe, somehow, nobody had known it was animus touched. Perhaps it had been seen as simply an old gold wristband, and Turtle happened to be the one who expressed interest in it, later adding the comet’s remnants.

But how would an enchantment like that fly under so many dragons’ noses?

Was it possible that the effect of “clearing one’s head” was so subtle on other dragons that Turtle hadn’t even noticed?

Chapter Text

When Moon and Kinkajou arrived back to their cave, Moon decided there surely wasn’t any harm in at least trying to take Turtle’s advice.

She took a deep breath, staring at Carnelian’s now-empty ledge to try to give herself courage.

“So… hypothetically, if you were right, about me, and… and mind reading, then… then what does it mean if one of the voices is talking to me?” Moon’s voice quavered. The very concept of mind reading somewhat scared her, so the idea that she could do it was nothing short of terrifying.

“Ohhh, that’s probably me. It’s gotta be, because until today I was the only other one who knew.” Kinkajou responded flippantly.

“Okay, but… this voice I’m talking about doesn’t really… talk like you. Or act like you. Really, the only thing you and it have in common is being  weirdly sure that I can read minds,” Moon explained.

Excuse me! I am not an “it!”

Aaaand now it’s upset that I called it an “it,” Moon thought, annoyed.

“Really? What’s the other one talk about?” Kinkajou asked.

“Mostly it tries to get me to acknowledge its existence,” Moon admitted, “although it did give me a name once.”

“Really? What’s their name?” Kinkajou seemed intrigued by this new development.

Maybe this other someone can help me help Moon see sense! I think I’m getting close as is, so maybe all she needs is one more little push!

Moon thought back to that day in the library.

“He said his name was Darkstalker.”

Kinkajou blinked a few times. “Whoa, creepy.”

“I know, right?”

Oh, come now, it’s not THAT bad!

“I don’t think any of the Nightwings at Jade Mountain have that name.”

“They don’t,” Moon agreed, pulling out The Animus Histories again. “But… well, just come here and read as much of this as you can.” Moon pointed at the article on Darkstalker.

Kinkajou pored over the page, stopping every so often to sound out a word.

When she finished, her eyes were wider than Moon had ever thought could be possible.

“No way.”

“Yeah. Do you see why I’m kinda having trouble believing you? That would imply that Darkstalker is somehow still alive, which would fit with the rumors the scroll mentioned, but...” Moon shook her head helplessly.

“Yeah, that’s… wow,” Kinkajou agreed.

“Besides, if it IS him, where in Pyrrhia is he?” Moon wondered.

Somewhere dark, and cramped. I can’t move, and can’t see any light.

Moon’s eyes widened and she sucked in a breath.

“What??? What is it???” Kinkajou asked.

“Kinkajou… if you’re right… about me… then I think Darkstalker might be trapped under this mountain.”

Chapter Text

Kinkajou’s eyes bugged out. “WHAT?!?”

Moon frantically shushed her friend. “When I asked where he could be, he responded. In my head. And it sounded like he was underground.”

“Oh my MOONS, Moon, this is… oh my moons. Wow. What do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should see if we can find out more about him. There’ll probably be other scrolls with more details in the library,” Kinkajou suggested.

“Good idea!” Moon replied, and the two went on their way.

They arrived at the library and decided to split up, as they’d be covering more ground that way.

Moon searched the shelves, idly humming a tune that had been playing on and off in her head since the day before.

She wasn’t sure if it was truly from her or not.

As she looked through the shelves for anything that could possibly lead to more information on Darkstalker, she began to realize that the voice that had been with her since dragonethood and that was now so adamant about Moon having mind reading abilities could easily have been Kinkajou’s mind.

Which… did line up with what Kinkajou had been saying.

The confirmation made Moon a bit sick to her stomach.

Dragons weren’t meant to see inside others that way, right?

Sure, she’d grown up around Rainwings, most of whom openly showed their emotions on their scales, but this? Hearing and seeing what seemed to be the actual words and pictures in  the minds of everyone around her? It felt like everyone she interacted with was forced to be too open.

Honestly, knowing what the Voices WERE only brought with it more questions than answers.

Questions like, how in the MOONS would she explain herself to not only the rest of her winglet, but also her teachers, who were so adamant that mind reading didn’t exist?

Or, was there another possible explanation that made more sense than the one she and Kinkajou had come to?

Perhaps the fact that Moon was a Nightwing was completely irrelevant to the voices in her head.

(Oh, how she wished she could believe that as easily as she had mere days ago.)

Unfortunately, Kinkajou’s theory made sense, the more she thought about it.

And Moon hated it.

Chapter Text

“I want you to look at my scavenger.”

Winter’s voice (when exactly had he arrived, anyway?) shocked Moon out of her spiral.

“Why me? I don’t know anything about them.”

“Just… use your instincts or whatever.”

Or… whatever. I’m not entirely sure if my suspicions are correct, but there’s only one way to find out, and unfortunately that involves spending time observing her.

Moon, trying her best not to wonder what Winter’s suspicions could possibly be, or if it was even Winter she was hearing at all, gave him a quick nod.

“I’ll… try my best.”

And that was how Moon had been dragged by Winter to the opposite end of the library with a scavenger in a cage sitting on the table there.

“Oh, wow,” Moon said, noticing the little wheel on one side of the cage. “Did you build that yourself?”

“I built just about everything in here,” Winter responded, “But he hasn’t used any of it.”

“Scavengers are supposed to be intelligent, but all this one does is laze around.”

“Yeah, from what I’ve read on scavengers, this definitely isn’t normal behavior,” Moon agreed, much to Winter’s shock (for some reason.)

There’s no way, right? No, surely she was just talking about what I said. He really hasn’t been using anything, and that probably isn’t normal.

Moon looked up at Winter and realized that he was staring at her with a barely concealed expression of shock.

“What?”

Winter quickly fixed his face. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

She’s looking at me! Why do I feel like this? It has to be a panic response, right? Even that would be more dignified than… NO.

“Winter?” Moon asked, interrupting his spiral. “Are you okay?”

Did she hear that?

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Moon pressed, not entirely sure what she was trying to accomplish or why she was trying to do it.

Winter looked away.

“You send me into a panic response whenever we make eye contact. I highly doubt that would constitute “fine” by your standards.”

Moon hesitated. She was only mostly sure that Winter had said that aloud.

“Oh. Huh. Uh… Sorry?”

Winter turned around again.

“For what?”

His eyes were positively daring her to say something, and Moon could hardly back out now.

“For… sending you into a panic response somehow? I don’t know why the sight of me does that to you, but…” she shrugged, not noticing as Winter’s eyes widened until they were the shape of two miniature moons.

I knew it.

Chapter Text

A charged silence permeated the room when the two dragonets finally made eye contact.

Or, at least, Moon assumed it was silent to Winter. She was suddenly barraged with so much shock and panic (and perhaps a little bit of anger) that she found herself flinching away from him completely by reflex.

If asked, Moon would not have been exaggerating in the slightest if she said that absolutely nothing in her head was coherent.

“You were asking how Bandit was doing, right?” Moon asked, trying not to tremble or let her fear show in her voice.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Winter growled. 

“What subject?” Moon forced out, and nope, she hadn’t been imagining Winter’s anger at all.

“My suspicions were right. You do know more about your tribe than you let on.”

“W-what do you mean?” Moon squeaked, slowly backing away from Winter’s vindication and rage.

He seemed to soften at her response, even if only for a moment.

She seems so genuinely confused… NO. Be strong, be vigilant, strike first. Don’t fall for her lies. She’s just like every other Nightwing.

Winter shook his head. “No. I want to hear you say it.”

“Okay??? What is it you’re trying to get me to say???”

Winter looked around the library, and upon seeing only Kinkajou within earshot, he relaxed. 

Kind of.

“You can read minds, can’t you?” he whispered.

“You know, this is the second time this week I’ve been asked that.” Moon noted.

“That’s not an answer.” Winter snapped.

“Does “apparently” work for you?” Moon asked. “I’m still figuring all this out myself.”

Winter finally sat back down a bit, mind spiralling.

Does she really not know? How would that even be possible? Oh, right, raised by Rainwings. How much DOES she know? Can she hear me right now? Has she been hearing me this whole time? Oh, Great Ice Dragon, she’s probably been hearing everything I’ve thought about her. She knows just how weak I am. No, Winter, don’t think about that. If she hasn’t heard anything, maybe you can still salvage your reputation.

Moon gave her head a little shake, trying to blink away the strange daze she’d found herself in. Winter’s downward spiral was difficult to ignore, and even more difficult to follow.

“What are you doing?” Winter whisper-shouted, panic in his eyes.

Was that from me? Am I… thinking too loudly somehow? I suppose I should try to think quieter, if only so she can focus on telling me the truth.

“Thinking quieter,” unfortunately, simply made his thoughts, while sounding like a whisper, seem infinitely louder to Moon.

She wasn’t sure why that was.

Moon finally looked back up at Winter. His scales suddenly seemed blindingly bright, and she wasn’t sure if it was the sun finally peeking through the clouds or just her usual sensory overload. “I don’t know…” she responded, voice barely above a whisper herself.

Winter opened his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice Moon heard next.

“Moony! Come on! You’ve been standing there like a sleepy sloth for AGES! We’re supposed to be looking for information on Darkstalker, remember?” Kinkajou shouted from the other side of the library.

Winter tensed again as he turned toward Kinkajou. “What was that name?”

And Kinkajou, all innocent excitement, responded, “Oh! Do you know stuff about Darkstalker? Maybe you could help us!”

Chapter Text

“Why in all of Pyrrhia would you need to know about him?” Winter roared as Moon made her way back to her best friend’s side.

She could feel the hatred in his words in more ways than one.

“Well, we read The Animus Histories yesterday…” Moon started before realizing that might not have been the best place to begin.

She didn’t figure out where that place would have been before Kinkajou took over.

“And we got curious. We’re going in the order the animi it mentioned were named.”

“Kinkajou-“ Moon began, but Winter stopped her, voicing exactly the concern on her mind.

(Was it truly on HER mind, then?)

“Why would they not start with the old Icewing animi? A scroll like that would most likely go in chronological order.”

“Oh, they did,” Kinkajou replied. “We just assumed all that information was, like, super top secret. Hey, Moon, can you reach that big scroll up there?”

Moon looked at where Kinkajou’s talon was pointed and realized that she’d been about to take the same scroll her best friend was pointing at.

She tried not to read too much into that fact and grabbed the scroll, placing it in Kinkajou’s talons.

“Thanks!” Kinkajou grinned, and Moon felt her earlier apprehension melt away.

(That, however, only brought more anxiety. Where did her thoughts and feelings end, and other dragons’ begin?)

Are you finally prepared to listen to reason, little Moon?

Moon’s head shot up as she remembered why she and Kinkajou had entered the library in the first place.

“Right, Darkstalker. Uh, Winter, you said you knew about him?”

“Everyone who’s anyone knows about him,” Winter responded.

Moon and Kinkajou looked at each other, neither one knowing quite what Winter had meant.

“But we’re all anyone,” Moon pointed out, tilting her head in confusion. “Aren’t we?”

Winter made eye contact with Moon for all of two seconds before his eyes went to his talons.

Oh, Great Ice Dragon, even her EYES feel like they can see more of me than any other dragon I’ve met.

Moon, upon hearing that and being hit with no small amount of flustered embarrassment, quickly looked towards the scroll racks again.

“Any luck, Kinkajou?”

“Nope. Everything on Nightwings is SUPER recent. No Darkstalkers here.”

“And thank goodness for it. He ruined everything,” Winter snapped.

“How’d he do that?” Moon asked, trying to press Winter for information.

“Well, first of all, his father was the last animus of the Icewing tribe. So when the Nightwings kidnapped him, they took his animus magic for their tribe. Obviously, since they were less practiced and didn’t have the rules in place that we had, it all ended in disaster. That disaster was Darkstalker.”

Really now? Blaming me for just HAPPENING to be my father’s son? If anything, that was my father’s fault for running off with my mother.

“Okay, so then what did DARKSTALKER do?” Kinkajou asked. “Why was he such a disaster?”

“He killed Prince Arctic. His own father.”

Moon’s eyes widened. Really? she thought at Darkstalker.

I had to! SOMEONE had to! He was planning to cause the extinction of the entire Nightwing tribe!

Moon shuddered. She, personally, liked existing. (Most of the time. Everyone had their bad days, though.)

“And there’s more, too. Now, the exact details of this particular set of incidents are unclear,” Winter prefaced, “but there are records of Icewing corpses being found with stab wounds throughout their bodies and messages written in their own blood on the ground next to them. Messages that said that Darkstalker had done it, and that he wouldn’t stop doing it until every dragon in the Icewing tribe was dead. Even after he disappeared, the bodies and messages kept turning up for almost nine months.”

By now, Moon’s eyes were as wide as the moons she was named for. Could Winter’s story have been true?

You know, I would probably remember having done something on that scale. It would certainly have left a mark on my mind, if nothing else.

Moon tried to keep her breathing in check. This was too much. Too much to believe or too much to handle, she didn’t know. All she knew was that with every detail Winter added, Moon grew more terrified of the (very likely) possibility that the dragon he was speaking of was buried directly below them, audible only to Moon’s mind.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Chapter Text

Moon decided to end the conversation while she still had some semblance of courage left. She signaled to Kinkajou that leaving was probably a good idea, hoping her friend got the message.

From what Moon could tell, she did.

“I just realized, I totally forgot to show you the music cave!” Kinkajou suddenly spoke, immediately grabbing Moon by a talon and yanking her out the door.

“Bye, Winter!” Moon said as quickly as she could before being dragged out of his earshot.

“So… you wanna actually head in that direction, or…?” Kinkajou asked.

“Back to our cave is fine for now,” Moon responded.

As they walked down the hallways, passing cave after cave, Moon took notice of just how many thoughts, feelings, and images were all welling up inside her, fighting for her attention. No wonder I get headaches all the time, she reflected. Honestly, it’s a wonder they aren’t any worse.

What’s a wonder is that you’re still as tenuously sane as you are. You feel it, don’t you? The lines between yourself and others beginning to blur?

Moon jumped a bit. Right. Legendary immortal animus who’s also apparently a GENOCIDAL MURDERER stuck under the mountain where only I can hear him. That’s just perfect.

Don’t believe everything you read or hear, little Moon. After all, history is written by the winners.

“You okay, Moon? Is it something in your head? ”

“More like someONE, but yeah. Should be fine. If I just ignore him.”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean Winter?” Kinkajou giggled as they passed by Qibli and Turtle.

“No. Not Winter.”

“Hey, Qibli, Hey Turtle,” Kinkajou greeted the two drakes as a way of signaling Moon that they were there.

“Hey,” they responded in tandem.

They were talking about Winter? Or, I suppose, Moon WASN’T talking about Winter? Then who, or what, was she talking about? Did they stop that line of conversation because they saw us for a reason, or simply to be polite? Does it have anything to do with the way Kinkajou was defending Moon so much in class the other day? I still can’t put a talon on either of them.

The sudden barrage of what she now knew to be Qibli’s mind sent Moon off balance for a moment. (After the disastrous encounter with Winter, her own mind was still… recovering, for lack of a better word.)

“Careful there,” Qibli said, catching her.

His torrent of thoughts only grew louder with the physical contact, and Moon tried not to wince.

She stood back up on shakier legs than she would have liked.

You really are a mess, aren’t you?

She stumbled back, having once again completely forgotten about Darkstalker’s existence in the wake of everything else.

A few moments later, she noticed Turtle’s talon on her shoulder.

“You sure you’re okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Being near enough to Turtle, apparently, had a similar effect to holding his wristband. Lessened, but similar. (That was something to add to the growing Pile Of Weirdness in her head.)

Regardless, it was enough of a help to get Moon back on her feet.

“Something like that,” she muttered under her breath.

“What are you saying about me?” Qibli joked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

On the inside, though, he was going through possible reasons for Moon’s apparent dizzy spell that Moon wouldn’t have even known to think of.

She slowly inched closer to Turtle.

Chapter Text

Turtle, upon noticing this, began to back away.

“Uh-what are you doing?” he asked, sounding a bit worried.

Moon perked up a bit, realizing that she might have been getting too close for Turtle’s comfort. “Sorry… I don’t know what came over me,” she responded, looking away.

Does she… have feelings for Turtle? But how? And why him? He certainly doesn’t seem all that remarkable. Perhaps they bonded over a shared love of scrolls? That would make sense, I guess. As long as she’s happy.

Moon turned toward Qibli again and saw him giving her an oddly forlorn look.

Or maybe she was biased by his thoughts about her. She’d kind of thought dragons her age were too young to have feelings like that. Maybe she was just a late bloomer.

There was also the possibility that she DID have those feelings and had just assumed they were someone else’s.

Moon looked at the ground, shuddering. She needed something else to think about, and fast.

“ Is she alright? ”

“I’m fine,” Moon muttered, stepping back to where she’d originally been.

Did I say that out loud?

Kinkajou placed a wing over Moon. “No one said you weren’t,” she noted. “I mean. I’m worried now, but…” she trailed off.

Then, Qibli’s face, for a split second, looked like he’d been given the secrets of the universe on a silver platter.

So I DIDN’T say that out loud! By this point, that’s happened enough times with enough dragons that it’s probably not just a coincidence that she’s saying these things. It also lines up with the way Kinkajou was defending her the other day, when Winter was trying to interrogate her about Nightwing powers. Maybe she was hiding them, or maybe she’s only recently found out. But then how could Kinkajou have known of Nightwing powers, if not through Moon?

Moon slumped into the walls of the cave, letting some of her weight rest there. Qibli’s inner monologue seemed to steal all of her attention and energy in a way she couldn’t quite avoid. There was just so much. How did he deal with it all?

“MOONY!” Kinkajou quickly ran to her side. “Oh, no, is it your head again?

Moon could barely muster a nod in response.

Qibli, meanwhile, was giving her a quizzical look.

Well, that’s probably the closest thing to a confirmation I’m going to get. This… is definitely something I’ll need to process.

The four members of the Jade Winglet went their separate ways, with Moon and Kinkajou eventually reaching their cave.

“What’s with her?” came arguably the nicest words Moon had ever heard from Carnelian’s mouth.

“Oh, she gets these really bad headaches sometimes,” Kinkajou responded, saving Moon from having to speak.

Moon, for her part, practically fell into her nest, and in the moments before she fully surrendered to unconsciousness, she began to hear a foreign set of words in her mind.

Beware the darkness of dragons…

——————

Moon woke up to the first warning gong before her next class. Her head still twinged as she got up, but it didn’t suck her energy from her quite the same way it had earlier, so she took that as a win.

She packed her things and started out the door. Students technically didn’t HAVE to be in class until the third gong, but Moon always liked to arrive early, just to be safe.

She walked down the hallways, stubbornly ignoring the thing fluttering in her head as she passed by classroom after classroom.

The fluttering felt familiar, but she didn’t quite know why.

She stubbornly shook her head as she turned down the dark tunnel that led to the history cave, but it seemed she’d shaken something loose, because the next thing she knew, her vision was flooded with a blinding light.

Chapter Text

What was that? Moon wondered, blinking the afterimages away as she caught up with the rest of her winglet.

“You sure you’re alright?” Turtle asked. “You’re still looking kind of unsteady on your talons.”

Moon gave a small nod. “Yeah, I should be fi-“

Moon, look out!

Darkstalker’s voice cut through the haze in Moon’s mind, but in the end, it was pointless.

She cried out, clutching her head as it filled a sudden, splitting pain that somehow felt urgent.

The next thing Moon knew, she was surrounded by her winglet, and her winglet was surrounded by fire.

She wasn’t entirely sure if this was imaginary, and she couldn’t risk finding out it wasn’t.

“The history cave’s on fire!” she shrieked, gasping for breath as her vision righted itself, only for her winglet to be plunged into fire again, with her standing safely outside.

She couldn’t tell which scenes were real and which were her imagination trying to scare her.

Moonwatcher! Breathe for me. You are safe. The history cave is not currently on fire-

“What’s she on about?” Carnelian asked, appearing suddenly in Moon’s vision.

“How am I supposed to know?” Winter snapped in response. “We were walking to class, and she suddenly started screaming like a hatchling.”

“You can’t go in there! No one can go in there!” she pleaded, tears streaming down her face as a confused Tamarin ran out of the cave and her vision was once again plunged into disaster.

What’s going on???

Moon couldn’t tell if that thought was hers or not.

“You all are ridiculous. I’m going in.” Carnelian’s voice was the next thing Moon heard, followed by talonsteps.

“NO!” Moon cried, grabbing her Skywing clawmate by whatever she could reach (Moon was pretty sure it was one of her legs) and trying to shove her away.

The next thing she felt was a burst of heat and the force of being thrown back from the history cave and into a wall.

She wasn’t sure how long it had been when she woke up.

It was complete mayhem. The entire history cave was up in flames, and everyone was terrified.

As she sat frozen in everyone else’s panic, Moon began to wonder if she herself was feeling anything at all.

Maybe that had never been the case.

Moon! Listen to me! I’m the calmest voice you can hear. Focus on me, and use me as your anchor.

Moon still wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Darkstalker, but if he was willing to help, it couldn’t hurt just this once, right?

You are alive and well. The excitable Rainwing you’re so attached to is alright. She and the blind one both only received blows to the head from the wall that will only leave bruises. The Skywing was far enough away to come out with only a few minor burns, thanks to your efforts. The Icewing and the Seawing, regrettably, are also alright.

Why regrettably…? Moon asked, memories surfacing of Winter’s lecture on how horrible Darkstalker had been to the Icewings.

Ah, so you ARE listening. Good. Keep your focus on me until you can get out of the crowd.

Moon, the Jade Winglet, and Tamarin all started away from the history cave while Clay and Peril scouted the area for anyone who’d been caught in the blast. They’d all decided that heading outside for some air that hadn’t been tainted by the smoke would do them good.

Moon started to register a pain in her shoulder, but after the day she’d had, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She stumbled out the doorway, blinking at the sudden light of the sun.

“Are you all okay?” she asked, looking around at the group of gathered dragons. (She noticed belatedly that she could barely hear herself.)

“What?” Tamarin shouted. “I can’t hear you! The explosion was too loud!”

“I asked if you were all okay!” Moon yelled back.

Everyone gathered gave some sort of affirmative, except for Winter, who was giving Moon a strange look, and Carnelian, who was glaring daggers at her.

“I just have one question,” Carnelian snarled as Moon’s hearing began to return to normal.

“Alright... What’s is it?”

“You started screaming before the cave exploded. How did you know that was going to happen?”

Chapter Text

“What do you mean the cave wasn’t on fire?” Moon asked, confused. “It sure looked like it…”

Winter sighed, resting his head in his talons.

Oh, Great Ice Dragon, how much denial is she in?

Qibli, for his part, seemed to have his mouth stuck open.

Moon had learned her lesson about making eye contact with Qibli. Even without it, she could already hear his mind buzzing with essentially the same question Winter had, but somehow more.

“Nope,” Turtle responded, popping the “p.” “The cave didn’t explode till a few minutes after you started shouting.”

“That’s… weird…” Moon responded honestly. 

Because it was weird. How had nobody else seen the blinding flash of light and the fire that came before whatever time Carnelian thought the cave had exploded?

“That can’t be all you have to say for yourself,” Carnelian snarled. “It was obvious. You told everyone the cave was on fire, and then the cave exploded. Are you trying to tell me that was coincidence? Because I don’t believe you!”

Turtle gave Moon another look. “Can you… maybe tell us what you saw?”

Moon nodded slowly, thinking back. “I was walking down the hall to the history cave, when I saw this bright flash of light out of nowhere. I ignored it, and then I caught up with you guys. Then everything was kind of a blur, and the next thing I knew, we were all on fire, and then we weren’t on fire. And then all of you guys were on fire, and then you weren’t. And then just the cave was on fire, no dragons in there that I could see, and then we all got thrown backwards.”

“That would’ve been the actual explosion,” Tamarin supplied. “I ran out of the history cave because I heard you screaming. If I’d still been in there when the cave was actively on fire, I probably would have at least been burned pretty badly.”

“Then… why did…?” Moon trailed off. There were so many questions she could have asked, but none of them seemed appropriate. “I’m so confused…” she muttered under her breath.

This didn’t seem like mind reading, mostly because Moon had no idea who would’ve just been randomly thinking about the history cave being on fire.

So it had to have simply been her imagination. Obviously. This “forcing random images to the forefront of her mind” thing had been a fairly regular occurrence for… well, for awhile now.

“What I’m about to say might sound… crazy, but… I think something like this has happened before.”

“Something like what?” Carnelian scoffed. “The history cave exploding? If that had happened before, we’d ALL know about it.”

“No… no, not the explosion… I don’t think…” Moon trailed off at the sheer shock coming from her Skywing clawmate.

Then Tamarin asked, “Who said anything about the explosion having happened before?” and Moon realized she’d definitely messed up.

She froze. If she just stood still and didn’t say anything, there was the slightest chance that her winglet would ignore her slip.

(By the moons, she really needed to get better at telling apart the actual voices from the mental ones.)

I can help you with that, if you let me.

Moon’s head shot up, eyes wide in fear. Now was not the time for Darkstalker to show up.

“Moony?” Kinkajou asked, coming to stand by Moon’s side. “Are you… alright?”

Moon gave Kinkajou the tiniest of nods, trying her best not to look Carnelian’s way. The Skywing seemed to have been stunned into silence, and Moon hoped that silence would last at least until she could gather her thoughts better.

“There’s something in this wound,” Kinkajou noted. “Is it okay if I grab it?”

Moon nodded blankly, barely even registering the feeling of something being pulled out of her shoulder.

“Uh, Moon?” Qibli asked, breaking the tense silence. “I think I might know what was happening to you.”

Moon shook her head, already having heard what he was about to say from his mind.

“It can’t be,” she breathed, trying to ignore the prickling feeling behind her eyes and the pain in her shoulder. “It can’t. If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, that shouldn’t even be possible, let alone happening to me, of all dragons.”

“Well, based on a lot of guesswork,” Qibli responded, “I’m pretty sure I’m thinking what you think I’m thinking.”

“Uh, can you maybe explain it to those of us who aren’t thinking what Moon thinks you’re thinking?” Turtle asked, raising a talon.

Moon shook her head frantically, both to clear it and as a negative. “As far as the other Nightwings are concerned, I don’t even count as one of them. It doesn’t make sense.”

“What are you even talking about?” scoffed Carnelian, who seemed to have finally remembered how to make her voice work.

Moon stifled a sob. “Why, out of all the Nightwings in Pyrrhia, would these long-lost powers the tribe’s been faking for centuries suddenly reappear in me?”

She stared at the ground, trying to hold back the panic she could feel coming. She still wasn’t sure if it was hers or not.

Then, finally, softer and more broken than she’d ever heard herself, Moon’s voice sounded again.

“And why both of them?”

Chapter Text

“Okay, just to clarify,” Turtle interrupted, tapping his talons awkwardly, “when you say “both of them,” you mean…?”

Moon snapped her mouth shut, internally berating herself. Why, oh why had she said that?

“Sure can’t think what else it would mean,” Qibli put in.

Why did that sound like she just found out…?

“Why aren’t any of you upset?” Carnelian asked, incredulous. “She basically just admitted she’s been poking around in our minds since we got here!”

Moon’s eyes widened in fear. She tried to respond that she truly hadn’t known on that first day, but her throat squeezed shut when she opened her mouth and her eyes began to blur with tears.

Kinkajou was quick to defend her, insisting that she truly hadn’t known until very recently, but Moon didn’t see a point. Even though it was true that she hadn’t known, that didn’t really change the fact that Carnelian was right.

She couldn’t tell what happened next. Everything sounded like she was underwater, and she couldn’t put together a single coherent thought in her mind.

This felt different than being stuck in a crowd of terrified dragons, though. Here, at least, Moon could be certain that her panic was all her own.

…Mostly.

As far as she was concerned, there would always be some shred of doubt as to who the emotions she was feeling belonged to.

Her lungs grew tight with the effort of trying to keep her breathing steady enough to function. Something warm and wet ran down her face, and she realized belatedly that she’d begun to cry.

When had that happened?

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t tell where she ended and the rest of Pyrrhia began. All she knew was fear and confusion.

Maybe that was all anyone else knew, too.

Distantly, she registered a gentle talon on her shoulder.

It wasn’t Kinkajou; she was still explaining everything to a very skeptical Carnelian.

“Can you try to breathe with me?” came Tamarin’s voice, much closer than it had been before.

Moon nodded almost frantically, trying her best to match Tamarin’s breathing pattern with her own shaky lungs.

Eventually, she’d at least gained enough oxygen to let out another broken sob.

“I don’t know what’s happening…” she confessed, voice wavering.

Another set of talons tapped her on the shoulders.

She turned around, and there was Carnelian, looking supremely awkward.

Alright, I can do this. It’s just like with Copper from the battalion.

Except that unlike Copper she can apparently hear EXACTLY how out of my element I really am.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve done this… Alright, tell me three things you see,” Carnelian instructed.

“Um… you, I guess…” Moon began, eyes flicking to the ground.

“What else?”

“The ground… and… and Tamarin.”

Carnelian gave a small nod. “Good. Now, three things you can hear.”

“…Can I say you again?” Moon asked, voice still breaking a bit.

“Yeah, that’s one. Now two more.”

Moon frantically listened around for something, anything, other than the minds of the dragons around her. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t count. Not to mention that Carnelian might not take it very well.

So it was a good thing that, according to Winter’s mind, Qibli had been pacing back and forth for a few minutes now.

“Someone’s talonsteps… Qibli’s, I think.”

“Alright, one more.”

Moon wasn’t sure why Carnelian was leading her through this. Was it some kind of game? Or a test? If she couldn’t hear anything other than thoughts, would her winglet take it as proof that she couldn’t be trusted around them?

It wasn’t like she was entirely sure of the difference between herself and others in her head to begin with.

This is growing tiresome. Please just let me help you.

(Besides the obvious, of course.)

Moon wasn’t sure how long she’d been trying to listen for when she distantly heard an upset Kinkajou yelling something along the lines of, “You said this would HELP!”

To which she was pretty sure Carnelian responded by shouting something else back at Kinkajou.

Arguing. They were arguing again. Moon didn’t know what they were arguing about, but she felt annoyance and anger that could have been theirs swirling through the already tumultuous emotions in her mind.

It was all too much. Even away from the site of the explosion, Moon felt her sense of self stretching thin and mixing with other things that she shouldn’t know about and shouldn’t be feeling and she couldn’t tell where or who or apparently even WHEN any of it was coming from and none of it made sense and who even was “Moon” anymore?

She just wanted it all to stop.

Chapter Text

Moon wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she suddenly found herself forcibly shoved out of the torrent of thoughts and feelings around her.

Apparently, her eyes had been closed for a fair amount of that time.

She took a few shaky breaths, trying to gain back the oxygen she’d lost.

When she opened her eyes, the first dragons she saw were Kinkajou and Turtle.

“Are you okay???” Kinkajou asked. “You looked kinda… frazzled.”

“Uh, yeah… Yeah, I should be fine. I don’t know what came over me.” Her eyes flicked to her talons, and she realized that, for some reason, Turtle had given her his armband.

“Oh! You’ll… probably want this back…” she said to him, slipping the armband off of her wrist and holding it out to him.

“From the looks of things, you need it more than I do,” he noted. “Still don’t quite know what it does, but if it helps, it helps, right?” Turtle gave her a little smile.

“Oh, no, Turtle, I can’t just take this from you!” Moon balked. As nice as it was to have a break from the minds of everyone around her, she couldn’t just steal the first thing that happened to help.

Maybe there was some way to replicate its effect?

“Does wearing that armband actually help?” Winter asked, incredulous.

Moon gave a little nod. “Don’t know why, but everything’s a lot quieter when I’m wearing it. It’s… nice.”

“You do realize how unbelievable that sounds, right?” Carnelian asked.

“Now that I think about it… yeah, you’re right. It is weird.” Moon responded, nodding. “But honestly, if it works, it works. You know?”

“Moon, your shoulder’s still bleeding… do you think maybe you should head to the infirmary and get it checked out?” Kinkajou asked, pointing out the wound that Moon had been dutifully ignoring in favor of trying her best to answer her winglet’s questions.

“Sure, okay,” she responded, placing the bracelet at Turtle’s feet and blinking a few times as her head filled with noise again.

“Hold on,” said Carnelian, who was now inspecting the thing Kinkajou had pulled out of Moon’s shoulder.

“I think I know what caused the explosion.”

_______________________________

True to her word, Carnelian explained that the thing pulled from Moon’s shoulder wound was the seed of a dragonflame cactus, a mountainous plant that exploded when set on fire.

Turtle nodded in response. “That makes sense,” he agreed. “We found seeds just like that around the ruins of the Summer Palace.”

“We should tell the founders,” Winter suggested. “They’ll need to know as much as possible in order to find out who caused this and prevent any further catastrophes from occurring in the future.”

“Do they really need to know everything?” Kinkajou asked, eyes drifting to Moon as she spoke.

“If they need to know, then sure, you can tell ‘em. Honestly, that might be better. I’m… not sure I want to be there when they find out.”

Moon’s eyes fell to the ground again. She really wasn’t looking forward to the reactions from the founders when they did find out. From what little she knew, they’d all been at least somewhat relieved to find out that mind reading and seeing the future “didn’t exist.”

In the minds of every dragon in Pyrrhia, those powers weren’t supposed to exist.

So what right did Moon have to come along and be the exception to that rule?

_______________________________

Moon didn’t hear the conversation her winglet had after that. When they all decided to take a break from thinking about everything they’d learned, she immediately took the opportunity to go back to her sleeping cave and spend the rest of the day there.

She didn’t really know what the others in the winglet (and Tamarin) were going to do, and at the time, she hadn’t really cared. She was really only worried about whether or not Winter and/or Qibli would tell the founders, and what would happen if they did.

So naturally, Clay’s voice at the doorway asking to see her caused her to freak out a little more than she would have liked to admit.

Relax, little Moon. He heard about your wound, that’s all.

“Hard to relax with you here,” Moon grumbled under her breath.

“What was that?” Clay asked.

I hope she wasn’t talking to me… but then again, who ELSE would she be talking to?

“Nothing, just… thinking, I guess,” she responded, not quite meeting his eyes.

“Well, Kinkajou said you’d been hurt in the explosion, so I figured I’d check up on you.”

“Oh,” Moon responded numbly. “Uh, yeah, my shoulder. It’s really not that bad, though. Just got a few seedpods in it, that’s all.”

Clay did a once-over, presumably checking to make sure her shoulder truly was “not that bad.” Satisfied, he eventually left her alone.

I’m not trying to frighten you, you know, came Darkstalker’s voice after Clay left her earshot.

Well, you’re doing a WONDERFUL job of it, Moon shot back at him. Always just BEING THERE out of nowhere when I’m trying to talk to other dragons. Do you have ANY idea how close I get to jumping out of my scales when you talk to me???

Well, yes, I will admit that only being able to talk through mind reading can be quite startling if it’s not something you’re used to. Unfortunately, it’s our only way to communicate, and if I’m going to help you understand your abilities, we’ll certainly need to communicate.

Moon sighed, curling up in her nest with her history scroll. You say you can help me.

I don’t just say it; I CAN help you. You’ve surely noticed by now that seeing inside every dragon around you your whole life has caused you to question who you truly are. I can help you figure that out again, if you let me.

Moon paused. Darkstalker was right, as much as she hated to admit it to herself. She’d been hearing the voices of others in her mind for so long, she’d practically forgotten which one was her own.

Fine, she thought at him. I’ll at least hear you out.

I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

Chapter Text

Alright, pay attention, Darkstalker began. This is important. The first thing I’ll need to teach you is how to silence the minds of everyone around you.

You mean how to block them out, right? Moon asked him. And NOT stop them from thinking?

It may have been a rather stupid question, but from the stories Winter had told, Moon figured she couldn’t be too paranoid.

Darkstalker gave a chuckle that sounded a bit forced. Well, yes, I suppose that wasn’t the best way to word it. What I’m about to teach you is how to silence the incessant echoes of your peers in your mind.

So… how to block them out? Moon tentatively asked.

Exactly. Now then, imagine the sound of ocean waves.

But I’ve never heard ocean waves. I’d never even left the rainforest before coming here.

Fine then. Some other repetitive, soothing noise.

Moon thought for a moment. Would rain work?

Yes, precisely! Fill your head with rain.

Moon closed her eyes, imagining the storms she was used to from the rainforest, some of them bad enough that everyone was huddled inside huts for the day. Usually, she’d end up crammed into a hut with a large number of other dragonets, terrified beyond reason of every flash of lightning and crack of thunder. Which was strange, because she hadn’t been scared of storms before…

You tragic little dragon, Darkstalker interjected, snapping Moon out of her focus.

I wouldn’t say “tragic,” Moon responded. I mean, I had Kinkajou, and Tamarin, and all the other Rainwings. I’d have probably been a lot worse off if I’d been left COMPLETELY alone.

Yes, that’s true. Without the bouncy one, you probably still wouldn’t realize what you can do.

“The bouncy one” has a NAME, you know, Moon thought almost bitterly, being reminded a bit too much of Bromeliad.

You’re distracted. Start over. Fill your head with rain.

Moon sighed and returned to her mental rainstorm.

Is there a point to this? she asked.

Yes, we’re getting there. Now, take the voices of the dragons around you and imagine them slipping into raindrops.

Moon began by trying to silence Darkstalker that way, since he happened to be the one she was talking to.

Oh, it won’t work with my thoughts, dragonet. I’m not so easily submerged.

Moon practically jumped out of her scales.

Well THAT was ominous.

___________________________________

After a few minutes of actual practice, Moon was practically giddy with relief.

I can HEAR myself! That’s ME! THAT’S what I sound like in my head! She bounced a little bit, excited at this new development. This is AMAZING! Thank you!

This is the first lesson a mind reading dragonet should learn, Darkstalker responded. I don’t have the slightest idea how you’ve managed to keep your sense of self even REMOTELY intact for as long as you have.

He paused for a moment, as if to let his words sink in.

You were dangerously close to slipping off the edge, Moonwatcher.

Moon shuddered. She didn’t need to be reminded. She hated how disoriented and confused she always was. In all honesty, she still wasn’t entirely sure who she was, even with this newfound way to quiet her mind. That was going to take more than a few minutes to parse out.

This technique WILL take practice, and it will be harder if the thoughts you’re trying to bury are specifically about you, Darkstalker warned.

I’ll practice, Moon vowed.

Honestly, she’d have done just about anything to keep some semblance of peace inside her.
_______________________________

The next day, the entire school was set to meet for an assembly concerning the explosion at the history cave.

Unfortunately for Moon, when she, Kinkajou, and Carnelian began the walk to the main hall, all she could hear both inside and outside her mind were other dragons.

Someone set a bomb?!?

Will I be next?

This is it, we’re all gonna die, this school is a death trap!

Go to Jade Mountain, they said! It’ll be FUN, they said! I am NOT having fun right now!

Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, Moon froze in fear. There was so much going on, and none of it felt good. Her head pounded, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. This was the purest terror she’d ever felt. She tried to coax her legs to move and follow her clawmates, but they stubbornly refused.

Carnelian and Kinkajou seemed to notice, and they both tried their best to snap her out of her stupor. Moon didn’t feel that they were making much progress, but somewhere in the background of her mind, she remembered that raindrops might help.

She tried to fill her head with rain again, but Darkstalker’s voice cut through the white noise.

That won’t work here. Everyone’s too afraid. Find the calmest voice you can hear and use it as your anchor.

Moon gave a small nod, trying her best to focus her mind reading on singular dragons as opposed to the entire crowd.

She chose a dragon at random, a Skywing with a nasty scar across his face, and tried to zero in on him.

Immediately, she regretted her decision.

But will this convince her to come get me no of course not she’d rather leave me with fools and killers even after what the Nightwings did to me even after what Viper did to me even after what the Talons of Peace did to me she’s the one who’s supposed to care about me but she doesn’t no one does will she even worry about me when she hears probably not she hates my face as much as I hate my face I wish I could rip off every Sandwing’s venom barb and then use them to stab all the Nightwings in their smug snouts—

Listening to him made Moon’s stomach ache. Whether with fear or a shared rage, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that his mind seemed to suck her in and keep her there, almost like a Venus flytrap. It felt like what little of herself she knew existed was being forced to mix with the most primal fury she’d ever had the misfortune of coming across.

She wasn’t able to catch much in the torrent, but what she did hear shocked her to her core.

Stupid half-baked, or all-baked haha, idiot dragon he’s lucky he’s dead or else he’d be a shambling scarred monster like me.

There wasn’t a flicker of remorse, shock, or even basic respect for the dead in his words, and he barely even seemed to think about the explosion.

Could he have been the one who caused it? Carnelian had said it was a Skywing weapon blowing up that had done it…

Moon grimaced. Trying to think while stuck in this Skywing’s head made her feel sick to her stomach, not to mention terrified for the possibility of somehow ending up alone with him.

I wish I’d done it everyone would take me seriously then but I wouldn’t hide it I’d roar it to the world—

Moon tried once again to escape his mind, but it was like being stuck in quicksand, and it became abundantly clear that she wouldn’t succeed without a miracle.

Desperate, she tried to sort of… shove his thoughts out of her way and escape.

WHO’S THERE?

The last thing Moon remembered was feeling herself being violently forced out of the Skywing’s mind.