"Wait here, Starflight!" Fatespeaker said, rushing off unexpectedly. "I've got something special for you!"
Starflight was quite surprised by this sudden burst of energy from Fatespeaker, and listened as the sound of her footsteps echoed in the entrance to the library before disappearing down the hall. He hadn't seen...well, heard her sounding this excited in a long time. Although Fatespeaker was normally by his side or at least in his general vicinity for most hours of the day, in recent times she'd been taking longer and longer absences to work on some unknown project of hers, and she seemed oddly reluctant to speak about it whenever he asked what she'd been up to. She still came to rest with him at night and read through a scroll of his choosing, but Starflight was beginning to find himself feeling rather lonely without the constant sound of her voice nearby as he worked. He hadn't said anything to her, as he knew she would likely worry about him, but he still missed her company. His one consolation was that it seemed that now he was going to find out at last just what she'd been up to over the past few days.
"Here!" Fatespeaker's voice suddenly echoed from the entrance to the library, and Starflight could hear from the noises she was making that she was struggling with something heavy. He reached out in front of him, to show that he wanted to help, but Fatespeaker only said "No, no, I'm okay," in response, and continued to carry whatever it was she was holding towards his desk. As Starflight followed her, he heard the sound of Fatespeaker dropping something large down on his desk, and he ran to it; reaching out once as he neared the familiar wooden edge. He ran his talons over the edges of the mysterious item.
"It's...a panel?" Starflight said, his brow furrowing.
"Sort of..." Fatespeaker said from beside him. "Here, let me show you," she said, and Starflight suddenly felt her paws on his, guiding them to a place at the top of the board. She let go, and Starflight felt grooves in the wood below his talons.
"Is it a picture?" he said, immediately feeling foolish for asking. Why would Fatespeaker want to show ihim/i a picture?
"No. It's better than that." she replied.
Confused, Starflight began running his talons against the nearest groove, only to suddenly recognise it as a shape...a letter. A. iA?/i Starlight thought, as he moved his claws to the right; encountering more letters. Shortly after the library had been built, Starflight and Fatespeaker had begun looking for a way to help Starflight identify and find specific scrolls in the library, and Starflight had soon discovered that if he tried hard enough, he could recognise certain shapes and letters simply by running his talons over them and visualising the shape in his mind. He was still quite slow at doing this, but he was steadily getting faster at it.
iN...A...T...Natural?/i he thought, excitedly. It was a word!
"Fatespeaker, what is this?" he said, moving more quickly over the board. iHistory...of...Un-/i
"It's...it's your favourite scroll, Starflight." she said, audibly trying to contain her delight.
Starlight choked. "Not...you don't mean-"
Starflight was sure that Fatespeaker was smiling at him. "Yes!" she said, happily.
"A Natural History of Unnatural Dragon Abilities?" Starflight cried out, running his talons over the board excitedly and feeling the many carved letters that made up the old text. "Did you make this? All of it?" Starflight said, turning to face the direction of her voice. Things suddenly started making sense to Starflight; Fatespeaker's long absences, her reluctance to talk about her day projects, her sore foreclaws...one night, when she'd come to read to him, he'd reached out to hold her paw and help her with the scroll, and she'd yelped in pain. Starflight had instantly leapt back, apologising, but Fatespeaker had said that she'd simply hurt her paw earlier in the day, and had avoided the subject from there on.
Starflight frowned. "But Fatespeaker, this must have taken you..." Starflight paused, returning to the board. "I mean, it's-"
"I know. But now you can read again, Starflight." she said, tenderly.
Starflight froze. Read? By himself? He found himself speechless, unable to think of anything to say that could express just how happy he was.
"I...this is amazing, Fatespeaker." he eventually managed.
"I knew you'd love it, Starflight." she said, sharing his happiness. "And it might take a while, but we can make other boards like this one! Soon..." she paused. "Soon you won't need me to read to you, Starflight."
Starflight looked up in the direction of her voice. She'd said it quite casually, but he'd caught the unhappiness in her tone. Once, he would have wanted nothing more than to be able to read to himself again, but now it didn't seem as important to him anymore. It had been during one night when both Sunny and Fatespeaker had come to sit with him and go over a new scroll that had just arrived from Queen Coral's personal collection that Starflight had realised that it wasn't reading he had enjoyed, it was learning. And since losing his sight, he had come to enjoy the path his life had taken; every night, resting against Fatespeaker and listening to her voice as she read to him, or talking with her about the subject of a scroll that they'd read together, or laughing with her as she read out a funny line...
"No, Fatespeaker." he said, moving back down to the floor. "That's not what I want."
"What...what do you mean, Starflight?" she said, trying to mask the nervousness in her voice.
"I'd love to be able to read by myself again; you know that," he said, moving around the desk to where he knew she was sitting. "But I wouldn't want to if it meant losing you."
He reached out, trying to find Fatespeaker, and felt her talons entwine with his as she moved over to him.
"Fatespeaker, you're amazing, and clever, and...and..." Starflight stuttered, reaching up and placing one foreclaw against the side of her face.
"Starflight..." she said, softly.
With his foreclaw to guide him, Starflight leaned closer towards Fatespeaker's face, and kissed her. Almost immediately, Fatespeaker threw her wings around his back and pulled him close into a deep embrace; one which lasted long after their heads pulled away from one another.
Starflight felt Fatespeaker rest her head on his shoulder, and he moved his own head to nuzzle her side.
"You know," Fatespeaker said, after a while, "I had a vision that you'd read again one day."
Starflight chuckled at this, knowing that Fatespeaker was grinning back. "Is that so?" he said, moving his own wings around her back. "Did you see anything else of us?"
"I might have..." Fatespeaker said, coyly, and Starflight soon felt her face nuzzling against his. Deep down, he had a feeling that whatever she had seen for the two of them was going to be true.