The ground under Peacemaker's talons squished loudly. The dragonet glanced down, startled to find that instead of the usual mud of the rainforest floor, he was standing in a vast expanse of squashed strawberries.

The pink mush looked like one of the smoothies Peacemaker would sometimes make for Firefly, but he decided against trying to eat it, even it did smell sweet and tangy.

The dragonet's head snapped up as his ears picked up the faint sound of laughter. That was certainly strange.

"Hello?" he asked. He began creeping towards the sound, each step sinking deeper into the strawberry juice. Suddenly he felt his talons slip into something wet and cool and smooth, and the dragonet suppressed a startled yelp. He looked at the strawberries again, wondering if he should turn back, but with a start realized that the vast expanse of pink and red had disappeared.

It was replaced by an endless void of black mist swirling over the surface of obsidian water, however the laughter remained. Now Peacemaker could even make out voices.

"How's it been with Undertow?"

Undertow? Aren't they one of the SeaWing princesses' dragonets? Peacemaker wondered.

"Same old nightmares. Not that I've made them any better."

"You seem disappointed about that. You do realize your entire existence is based off those nightmares."

"Yes, I know."

What was that supposed to mean? Peacemaker crept closer, willing his scales to change to the dark hues of the background. It was much harder for him to camouflage the way the other RainWings did, but with this much darkness, even a normal NightWing would be nearly impossible to spot. Finally he came within viewing distance, and the dragonet gasped in shock.

He got a glimpse of dark, hibiscus-orange scales, black and yellow stripes, and dark green scales. He also thought that he could see a large, black shape on the far end of the circle of dragons, but it's outline was blurry and it could've just been the fog.

Suddenly eyes the color of sapphires, bright yellow sunrises, and completely black were all turned in his direction, and that's when the hybrid dragonet was jolted out of his strange dream with a yell.

"PEACEMAK- oh, you're awake," the dragonet sitting on top of him amended. "FIREFLY! YOUR BOYFRIEND IS CONSCIOUS AGAIN!"

"HE'S NOT MY BOYFRIEND," Firefly roared back, stepping into the room. "Also, Peacemaker, are you okay? You were talking to yourself in your sleep about smoothies and fog. Must've been some dream. I had a dream about flying tigers once..."

Peacemaker blinked rapidly, looking up into the large, dark eyes of Prince Lightseeker, Firefly's younger brother. He and Peacemaker almost never talked - mainly because the grey-silver dragonet was barely two years old, and therefore not very conversation-worthy.

Peacemaker wondered what he and his sister were doing in Hope's hut when it was barely even suntime yet, and most of the NightWings in the village were still fast asleep.

"Why are you guys here?" he asked without responding to Firefly's question. Instead he focused on Lightseeker's shifting grey-silver-white scales, with hints of opal black under the swirling monotones. If a dragon were to meet him on the streets of Possibility, they'd probably think he was some sort of IceWing hybrid - but there wasn't a scrap of blue blood in him at all, unless Glory or Deathbringer's families had been involved with IceWings at some point in the past, which Peacemaker doubted.

"Because..." Firefly wrung her talons, purple shimmering through her wings. Guilt. What had she done now?

"It's a surprise," Lightseeker chirped obediently, jumping off of Peacemaker. The princess looked relieved as she glanced at her brother.

"Well, come on, then," she turned back on Peacemaker, brushing his wing with her's. "Let's go!"

"Wait, already?" Peacemaker moaned. "I haven't had breakfast-"

"You can have breakfast after," his friend promised.

So three NightWing-RainWing hybrids - two royals, and one being dragged - scampered out of the hut. Hope didn't even bother to question what they were doing. Actually, she was still sleeping (somehow not woken up by the commotion) and was twitching slightly, obviously in a dream. Peacemaker wondered if he should go wake her up, but thought better of it as Lightseeker launched into the sky.

"Wait, where are we going again?" Peacemaker questioned, but Firefly just said "It's a surprise, you goof!" and that was the end of that conversation.

They flew for a while over the treetops, mainly because Lightseeker had complained that he didn't want to dodge branches the whole way there. Then Firefly has slowed to a hover, and dove into the overlapping green leaves. Lightseeker and Peacemaker followed her, emerging into the RainWing village. Peacemaker had only ever been here once, when Queen Glory and King Deathbringer had officially welcomed him into the kingdom. It was even more beautiful than he remembered it.

Dragons the colors of the rainbow and more were hurrying around, gathering fruits and writing reports and being trailed by large groups of students and laying in hammocks - there were even a few NightWings, one chatting with an orange-purple RainWing holding a sack, another hovering next to a sleeping platform, mot likely inspecting it and not liking what she found (judging by the obsidian dragon's sour expression).

But of course Firefly and Lightseeker barely stopped to check where they were going, and Peacemaker had to run to catch up with them again.

"Oh, hey Firefly!" a familiar bright pink-and-yellow face smiled down at the two dragonets. "And Lightseeker," Kinkajou nodded at the other royal.

Her smile disappeared - just for a brief second - as she glanced up at Peacemaker. Orange and green flickered through her ruff, but neither of the royals seemed to notice.

"And Peacemaker," she amended, the kind smile returned to her face. "Wow. A lot of dragons. Here to see the queen?"

"Yuh-huh," Lightspeaker said. "Did Reef come today?" Prince Reef, Peacemaker thought. Kinkajou and Turtle's only dragonet, I think. Doesn't he normally live in the Kingdom of the Sea? Well, I guess it only makes sense he'd visit the rainforest with his mother sometimes, and of course he'd be friends with Lightseeker, they're about the same age and his mother works for Glory. Wait, Glory? Wasn't the queen supposed to be negotiating with the IceWings?

Tick tick tick, that's all your brain does. Not as bad as Qibli, but yeesh.

"What the-?"

But suddenly Peacemaker was being dragged into the Royal Pavilion by the elbow - and there was Queen Glory, sitting majestically across a beautiful throne adorned with flowers and a few tiny gemstones. There were no walls in this structure, only a roof that sheltered out the rain. Glory herself was wearing a crown of twisted copper wires, and the sight of it sent a brief flash of pain through Peacemaker's skull.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Firefly stuck her snout in his face, still gripping his elbow uncomfortably. "Because your face looks like the face of a dragon who isn't okay."

"I'm fine, Firefly," Peacemaker hissed, pulling his elbow out of her grasp. Oops, he realized. That came out meaner than it was supposed to. He looked back up at the queen, but he didn't have to look at his scales to know that they were pink and purple - embarrassment and guilt.

"Peacemaker," Queen Glory said, her tongue flicking out of her mouth. "Firefly has been absolutely ecstatic for nearly the entire morning - worse than Kinkajou used to be - so I think it'd be best if she told you." By the doorway, Kinkajou managed a surprised expression.

Firefly inhaled, and instantly Peacemaker knew where this was going.

"Peacemaker," his friend said in a rush. "We're going to Jade Mountain and we're going to get to be in the same Winglet and it's going to be awesome andwe'llgettolearnaboutscavengersand THREE MOONS I'M SORRY I'M FREAKING OUT BUT IT'S AMAZING!"

There was a pause.

"You're back from your negotiations already?" were the only words Peacemaker could find, and he immediately wanted to step on his own tail for saying them.

"It went better than expected," Glory said, a light emerald green slipping through her wings as she tilted her head at the dragonet. "Snowfall asked to be forgiven for his mistakes in the past few months, then basically threw a light globe at us."

Peacemaker nodded quietly. Finally what Firefly had announced hit him, and the dragonet gasped in delight.

"We're going to get to be clawmates?" he asked excitedly, yellow bursting through his wings.

"I know! It's so awesome!" Firefly squealed. "This is going to be the best year of our lives!"

A/N: Thank you all so much for being so patient with Chapter Four, and to reward that patience I'm bringing you Chapter Five right now! Enjoy, my loyal followers, and I'll see you in the next chapter!
Just a heads up, the next chapter will be the end of Part One - so exciting, I never actually thought I'd get this far!