It was yet another week passed of worrying for Cynder when Kuro pulled me away, tail twitching conspiratorially. I followed him with a tilted head and a leaping heart at seeing the strange hope in his eyes. It was like the blind seeing the sun for the very first time. And I'd know.

"Okay," I whispered after we'd spirited ourselves away in the more rubble-filled part of the temple. "What's happened and why's it so wonderful?"

He winked mischievously, grinning with his teeth for the first time I could remember since my childhood. "What do you know about the Night of Eternal Darkness?"

"That it's big and it's bad and it's scary. Or something," I said, more than a little confused. "...Why?"

"Because. Myssy, I've been reading up on it in the little library. It's not evil by nature. After a dragon dies, their spirit, bound to their element, remains and helps fuel and guide the world to new beginnings. Yes, the Night of Eternal Darkness lets the dark spirits of the dead roam free from the pits of hell they are drawn to, such as the Well of Souls and the great shadow rifts, but any other spirit strongly bound to the world gains the same power to materialize."

"Kuri, there's got to be a reason everyone stays in that night. Not just around those places. I just don't think it's safe for some reason."

He shrugged his lanky forelegs. "But why? Friendly spirits aren't about to hurt anyone if they return, and the murdered tend to be the most restless and thus likely to show up. What about a whole village murdered in cold blood? Every dragon, ness and child. Where would they go?"

Home.

"You want to see everybody again…" I murmured as my heart fluttered longingly within my chest.

"Yes! Your parents, mine. Flareth, Geodan, Ellerith, Zephith, Inferus, Gale, Emberlin, all of them! They'd all come to where they felt their home was." He turned his head to me. "Umbrous and Zenna, too, with everyone else."

My parent's faces sprang to mind and dug into my heart with stubborn claws. All the faces that had blurred; the names that had fled my mind… Those dragons I'd never taken proper time to remember. Ancestors, I could write them, leave something, remind everyone. Remind them of a village who would sacrifice their lives for a society that had shunned them…

"I…" My voice fluttered off with my heart behind it. "W-what about the dangerous spirits that roam on the Night of Eternal Darkness? We wouldn't be safe getting there."

"Then we go before the night. We get to the village while it's safe, and wait. By the time any beasties are about, our friends would be there to keep us safe." His long muzzle brushed against my forehead. "Please, Myst. I'm going no matter what, but I don't want to face them all alone…"

He was afraid, and I didn't have to ask the cause. What if Mom and Dad didn't like that I was fighting now? What if they hated me for it…? They'd hated the violence of the war, hated the killing, hated how worthless war made life seem.

It was only right… I'd become everything they hated, and I didn't regret the killing I did in defence. Not like Cyn did. Should I? Mourn every loss? Every injury inflicted? They attacked me, threatened my friends, threatened the world. Wasn't that worth fighting for? It was for me, but what would they say?

I had to know… Had to ask. Cynder wasn't there and everyone else was too weathered by this war to tell me from an unscarred heart. I needed people away from the war, away from the endless fighting, to tell me if it was all really okay.

I wanted Mom and Dad with all my heart, with a deep fierce ache that wrangled the doubts and pulled them into the swirling eddies of my grief, where they were drowned out and forgotten.

I pawed forward, laying my head against my old friend's chest and wrapping my wings around him to hook the curved blades behind his neck. "'Course I'll come, Kuri. Wouldn't miss it for the world. No matter what."

His warm wings cushioned me, enshrouding me from the world as he placed his nose to my forehead, his shining eyes holding me like Dad's once had. There was a lot of my dad I could see in him, and I couldn't help but wonder if he remembered seeing Dad hold me like this.

It was the same. A gift. A memory.

I slumped, relaxed, and lost myself in the old times. The times I hoped to see again come the Night of Eternal Darkness.

Our night of repentance. Our night of hope.

His wings tightened around me until all the light was gone away, and I couldn't help but think the dark wasn't so bad anymore. I'd been afraid ever since I got my sight back, afraid that I was going blind again with every fleeting moment of darkness.

But if blind was always like this, it wouldn't be so bad at all.

It didn't take me long to fall asleep to the rustle of light paws outside. I think Kuro beat me there.


(A/N:

See what such nice quick reviewing last chap gets you, my lovely readers? The more reviews, the more interested I tend to be in a story and the more I write! I want to become a real author and your opinion matters to me! More reviews are liable to keep spawning quicker updates!)