Clay's dreams were always strange, with flying scavengers, swords in stones, and the like, but this dream was different. This dream felt like it was real.
It began with him in the cave that had been his home for the first six years of his life, like he had just woken up. Feeling a little bewildered, but not sure why, Clay had stumbled out into the tunnel that led to the main cavern, only to be hit with a flying rabbit.
As Clay ducked, just in case more food came whizzing down the tunnel, he heard raised voices coming from the cavern.
"It wasn't like it was her fault! You were the one who decided it would be a good idea to try that spell!"
"I was TRYING to HELP!"
"Well, you did a great job of that!"
Clay cautiously crept down the tunnel to the main cave, where he was sure the voices were coming from. As he crawled, a new voice joined the others.
"Really, it's fine! Nothing bad happened, so no harm done, right?"
The first two voices both started roaring at the top of their lungs at the same time.
By now Clay had almost reached the entrance of the tunnel, and a black dragon stood outside of it, like a guard. And behind him was a copper dragon, in a submissive position as if someone was scolding her across the room. Which, Clay realized, was probably what was going on.
With a shock, Clay realized that he was looking at Starflight and Peril. Immediately he forgot about the danger of possible flying food and bounded up to Peril's side. "Hey, what's going on?"
Starflight turned to glare at him irritably, his unusually sharp gaze like flint. "It's about time you got here. I assumed you would show up five minutes earlier."
A mocking voice sounded from across the room. "Oh, I guess your visions still aren't very accurate, are they?"
Clay's eyes widened when he recognized Sunny. It was strange that the SandWing was being so rude, but even stranger was the cruel expression on her face, like I know I'm better than you in every way, so you should just lie down and die. He was surprised Starflight and Peril hadn't just curled up and started crying.
Clay blinked, and realized that he had missed Starflight's retort. But that didn't matter because he had to stop the fighting. "Guys. Guys. GUYS!" He waited patiently while they calmed down. "Where are Glory ad Tsunami? Maybe they could help resolve this argument."
Starflight immediately opened his mouth to reply, but Sunny cut off his response by stalking over to his side of the cave, still looking mildly dangerous but also more friendly. "Who's Glory?" She asked.
"That's what I was going to say," Starflight replied somewhat prissily. "He thinks Glory is a RainWing substitute for one of the Dragonets of Destiny, and that she's also the queen of not one, but two tribes. Clay, are you sure that lizard Sunny caught for you last night wasn't sick? That would explain a lot."
Clay opened his mouth, and then closed it. Then opened it again. "How did you know what I was thinking?"
Sunny snorted a laugh. "Don't we all wish we knew."
Starflight bored a hole into Clay's brain with his eyes. His decidedly not blind eyes. Clay choked a little. "You can see?"
"Well, yes. I was born this way." Starflight said clearly baffled by Clay's strange behavior.
Clay stood there, in the cave, as Starflight and Sunny started asking him questions and sniping at each other. He was frozen stiff because he had finally realized one important thing.
This was not a dream. This was reality.
And something was terribly wrong.
