Introduction: Why I Started Writing

I used to be a princess.

The dragonets of destiny have asked me to write down my story. At first I was really scared to. I was sad and angry about a lot of things, about the truth of what went on in the NightWing fortress. And I was ashamed. Like a lot of other NightWings, I wanted to bury our past and pretend it never happened.

But now everyone knows about my tribe. The crimes, the plans, the experiments - all of it. More importantly, everyone is judging us. Not a day in the rainforest goes by without someone arguing about my mother, about what she did. Some dragons claim that, since the war is over, we have peace. We don't. Now that the truth is out, I don't think there will ever be peace.

That's part of why I decided to start writing. The story I'm about to tell will make a lot of dragons mad. It's ugly, and I wish it never happened, but I'm telling it to help my tribe. The world needs to know our reasons. The world needs to hear our voices.

The dragonets of destiny, especially Starflight - that blind one who uses big words, have told me that they would like me to contribute to history. At first, I didn't understand. I thought, Why would anyone care about my life? No dragon wants to read about a former princess, a daughter who never became queen (and who never wanted to in the first place).

Then I realized that no other NightWings were speaking up. Nobody wanted to admit what we'd done. They were all just as sad, angry, or ashamed as I was. But we have to share our stories. If we don't, then history will never know truth. We will be remembered as monsters. Our real hearts, lives, and stories will die with us. That isn't right. We can't let that happen.

I witnessed history. I stood in the rooms of the council, walked the halls of the fortress, and was the voice of every statement that my mother - Queen Battlewinner of the NightWings - made to her tribe. I've spent my whole life repeating things, mostly falsehoods. It's time for me to start writing down some words of my own.

It would be useless to try and cover things up, to lie. So I won't. I'm going to tell the truth. I'm going to tell the story again. I'll try to tell it fairly.

Maybe this will convince some of you not to judge us so harshly.