Chapter 4

A Dark Thought

Winter awoke the next morning with the dreamvisitor clutched in his talons. He sighed, remembering the events that had taken place. Moon had thought the prophecy was about him. Why him? Why not his murderous sister, Icicle? She seemed the obvious choice. Or perhaps his cousin Snowfall, a typical IceWing bully, who was queen now. She seemed a pretty likely candidate also.

Whoever it was about, it couldn't be him... could it?

He decided to find out. Winter fiddled with the dreamvisitor, poking it with a claw. How did this thing work? "HELLO? Can you hear me?" He felt silly talking to an inanimate object, but- wait! Was it just his imagination or did the sapphire quiver in his talons?

Suddenly, the world faded to black. Winter panicked, waving his arms frantically. He had the strangest sensation that he was falling. Was he in danger?

"HEY!" a voice said, startling him. A forest appeared suddenly, and he was near where he'd been when he was dreamvisited the night before. Looking up, Winter saw the scrawny figure of Moon and Qibli's dragonet, Sandcrawler, above him.

The little dragonet's brow creased. "Winter?" Sandcrawler asked, sounded perplexed and almost scared. "Why are you here?"

Winter stood up and dusted himself off. "I wanted to know... if maybe you could tell me more about the prophecy," he said, unable to hide the curiosity in his voice.

Sandcrawler shuddered. "Mommy said she saw a dragon in a prophecy. She said he was covered in blood, but he had to be... to be you. You were haunting me and my siblings using the dreamvisitor. To bring justice on her for... for not..." The dragonet didn't have to finish the sentence for Winter to know what he meant.

"For not marrying me," Winter finished.

Sandcrawler nodded, rubbing his back legs together nervously.

Winter was deeply hurt. "Moon was my FRIEND!" he cried, more to himself than to the dragonet. "Now she thinks I'm some sort of monster! Do I look like a monster to you?!"

The little dragonet began to scribble in the dirt with one claw. "Well, n-no..." he stuttered unconvincingly as a response.

"AARGH!" Winter yelled, pounding on the rocks below him. It didn't matter how much his talons hurt because Moon hated him, Qibli hated him, and even this dragonet was scared of him! Why couldn't other dragons see him in a good way? He was a nice dragon! NOT the subject of some little dragon's bad dreams.

As soon as Winter thought the word "dreams," his surroundings disappeared from around him. Shucks! Sandcrawler must have woken up. Again, Winter was shrouded in darkness for five long seconds. Then, he found himself in his room again, still holding the star-shaped sapphire.

It was still nighttime, so Winter crawled back to bed once again, trying unsuccessfully to fall back asleep.

As he stared into the dark room, he thought. Why him? He was no Darkstalker. Darkstalker was the sort of dragon who haunted people's dreams. Darkstalker was the sort of dragon who would "destroy the land". But even if Darkstalker had been entirely ice dragon, he was gone now. He'd been transformed into a new dragon by Moon and Kinkajou, so the prophecy couldn't be about him.

Just before Winter fell asleep, a dark thought popped into his head. Suppose I am the dragon this prophecy is talking about. Would Moon and Kinkajou have to do the same thing to me as they did to Darkstalker?