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DARKSTALKER

The look on Clearsight's face wasn't the most promising.

"What? What's the matter?" he asked.

"You branded the moon!" she said, flailing her arms at him.

"Yes, I know!" Darkstalker couldn't help but smile at the fact, even though Clearsight was for some reason obviously not into it.

"This is insane, Darkstalker. Everyone can see that mark!"

"Yeah, that's kind of the point," he said pointedly. "It's like I'm telling the world that the night sky is ours. Plus, isn't it kind of funny to have a little symbol of a moon on a moon?"

"Can you take it off?" Clearsight asked.

"No," Darkstalker said. Then he noticed the shock-confusion in Clearsight's eyes, and promptly corrected himself. "I mean, yes, I can. But I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

"Because it's cool!" Darkstalker spread his wings and lifted an arm to gesture at the moon. "Look at it, Clearsight! It's the royal NightWing insignia branded on the moon! Did you know that animus magic was capable of travelling that far?"

Clearsight was still having none of it. "Put it back the way it was."

"No! It's just a little mark; why is it a problem? I'm not hurting anyone, am I?"

Clearsight shook her head. "How do you not realize how insane this looks?"

"Because it's not insane?" Darkstalker said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Clearsight, seriously, you're overblowing this. You're acting like I just gave Remedy a tattoo."

"This is a little bit more serious than a tattoo, Darkstalker!" Clearsight rose to her feet, stepping closer to him. "Can you please put it back to the way it was? This is important."

Darkstalker blinked, and tilted his head her way. "Important how? Are you getting visions?"

"Yes," she said. "I know this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but keeping that symbol up there could decide whether or not you'll turn evil and go mad with power."

Darkstalker froze. "It could?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder back at her.

She simply nodded.

Darkstalker soured his face. The symbol of the Great Diamond wore itself proudly on the moon, like a badge that Darkstalker himself had put on it. He didn't want to take it off. He still didn't see why he should.

Maybe Clearsight was wrong. She'd been wrong before. This didn't seem like the type of thing that would have any long standing consequences. It was just a little mark! How could a little mark do anything like that?

"How about this?" Darkstalker said. "We'll keep the moon as it is for the rest of the moon's cycle. Once it becomes a new moon, check the futures again and see if there are good paths out there where I still keep the symbol on it. If there aren't, I promise you I'll remove it."

Clearsight pinned her ears to her head. "I really would rather you just removed the symbol now."

"And I really would rather you just agree with me about how awesome it is," he said. "It looks like we're going to need to compromise on this one."

Clearsight's face fell. "Fine," she said in a defeated voice. "But I'm telling you right now, my answer isn't going to change. I'm just going to stay upset with you until you turn it back."

Darkstalker huffed. "Oh, you don't know that," he said as he started back towards the window.

"Um, actually, I do," she retorted as she followed behind him.

"No, you don't," he said with a smarmy grin.

"Future sight, Darkstalker," she said. "Yes. I do."

"Not all futures come true, Clearsight!" he said, leaping through the window before turning around and offering Clearsight a talon. "I have faith you'll warm up to the idea."

Clearsight took his talon and climbed into the tower herself. "I guess I can't stop you from having faith," she told him, now wearing a tiny smile that immediately made Darkstalker feel like everything would be okay.

As they walked down the tower stairs, Clearsight spoke again. "By the way, didn't you say that you would put your powers into a new scroll if the old one got destroyed?"

Darkstalker hid a wince. "I did, didn't I?" he said.

"Why haven't you?"

"Well … I mean, that was before the meeting," Darkstalker told her. "I wasn't expecting my powers to nearly get taken away from me like that. Putting all my powers in a scroll … it makes the magic kind of vulnerable, don't you think?"

"Maybe, but it also protects your soul," Clearsight said, giving him those big cute eyes that made it hard for him to keep his heart from melting. "Have you checked yourself with the soul reader yet?"

"Do I seem more evil now than I was before my scroll was destroyed?"

"A little," Clearsight said softly.

Darkstalker frowned. "Oh. Well … that's probably just because I'm a little angrier than usual," he said. "Can you really blame me, after what Pearl tried doing to me and Fathom?"

"Well, no," she said. "But that doesn't mean I can't worry."

"I don't think my soul is in a sorrier state, Clearsight," he assured her. "I think I'd know if it started turning bad."

"No, you wouldn't," she quickly corrected. "That's the whole point of the soul reader."

Darkstalker paused. "Well—whatever," he then said with a flick of his wing. "The point is, I don't think I need to transfer my powers back into a new scroll right this instant."

"Darkstalker—"

"—I almost got it taken away!" he said before she could say anything to convince him. "They used my scroll against me, Clearsight. I don't want to give anyone that opportunity again."

"Then this time, enchant it so that only certain dragons can use it," Clearsight told him. "Please, Darkstalker. That scroll was one of the best enchantments you've ever made. You'll make the futures a lot brighter if you make it again. Right now."

Darkstalker stepped to the bottom of the stairs, his mind batting between the two options. Eventually, his trust in Clearsight won out, and he nodded. "Okay," he said with a nod. "Let's go find a scroll."

With a beam, Clearsight trotted up beside Darkstalker and nuzzled her snout against his neck. "I've got a fresh one on my desk."

"You mean the one that has flower petals painted on the scroll holder?" he said with a scoff. "I don't think that'd be the right style for the container of all of my animus magic."

Clearsight snorted. "How old are you, five? Look, after you put your magic into the scroll, you can enchant the holder to have skulls and fireballs painted on it instead."

They made their way back to their chamber. Solstice and Remedy were laying side-by-side on a cushion in the living room, sound asleep.

Darkstalker grinned at them. Just how I left you two. He'd spent nearly all of his free time today playing with them — partly because he missed them and hadn't been able to spend time with them since the meeting in the Sky Kingdom, and partly because he wanted to make sure they were out cold by the time he and Clearsight were ready to go to sleep.

They went to their room and Clearsight opened a drawer on her desk which contained the blank scroll. She pulled it out of its holder and handed it to Darkstalker. This one was quite a bit wider than his old scroll; it would have a lot more room in it for him to write his spells.

"You ready?" Clearsight asked.

Darkstalker's brain started to whir as he thought more deliberately about the spell. He needed to make sure he got it perfect this time. What else would the scroll need? What could be added to it to make sure he couldn't be made powerless like he almost was at the meeting?

"Not yet," Darkstalker said. "I need to think carefully about how I want to enchant it. Can you get me a smaller piece of paper? I'd like to draft up the spell before I say it."

Clearsight found a smaller roll of scroll and tore off a piece of it for Darkstalker to write on. She then pulled out the vial of ink that she had stowed away in the far compartment of her desk, and produced a long quill from the tray beneath the writing space. "What else are you thinking of adding to the spell?" she asked, looking at his talons as he took the quill from her claws.

"It needs an enchantment that lets me summon it when I need it," Darkstalker said. "When we were at the meeting, I didn't have control of the scroll. I can't let anyone have the power to take it away from me."

"Alternatively," Clearsight started, "you could keep it in one place where no one else can get to it."

Darkstalker shook his head. "What if I need to use it in a pinch?"

"But you haven't needed to use it in a pinch," Clearsight said. "We've gone years without using magic, and that was while we were at war, and while we had to deal with other animus dragons."

"We could still be surprised," Darkstalker said. "We've been caught off-guard before, and each time we only just barely managed to avoid calamity because of either my magic or Fathom's."

"Darkstalker, be reasonable," Clearsight said, softening her voice.

"I am reasonable! What am I saying that's unreasonable?"

"You're trying too hard to cling to your powers. If you keep your scroll beside you at all times, that'll just make you more likely to cast an impulsive spell without thinking of the consequences."

"Oh, now you're just sounding like Pearl," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Who had some good points. Her proposition wasn't all that ridiculous."

Darkstalker tilted his head, scrunching his face lopsidedly. "What are you talking about? Yes it was."

"Her idea was to put boundaries in place that can filter out bad spells," Clearsight said. "That seems like a good idea to me. Animus magic can be really dangerous."

"And it can also be really helpful," Darkstalker said. "Pearl's plan was to let its use fall into the talons of dragons that I didn't trust. They would have kept us from casting the spells that would help our tribe."

"But we won't have that problem here, Darkstalker. Do you trust our council?"

"Not as much as I trust myself."

"They should still have a say in which spells we cast for the betterment of our tribe," Clearsight said. "They were put on our council to help us make better decisions as king and queen."

"I agree, but I might not always have the luxury of being able to wait for word from the council." He wrote down the first part of the spell on the torn piece of paper that Clearsight had given him: Enchant this scroll to teleport to me whenever I utter the words, 'Bring me my scroll.' "I'll only use it in case of an emergency. Or maybe, every now and again, when I want to surprise you with something cute. For all other spells, we can run things through the others."

Clearsight nodded. "That sounds fair," she said, looking pensive. "But, in that case, maybe I should be able to summon the scroll as well."

Darkstalker pondered that for a moment. Did he really want to grant Clearsight access to his scroll like that? He could very easily see her undoing all of his brilliant spells for silly reasons. As much as he loved her, he still felt that she didn't have enough faith in him most of the time. And it was a wonder why: the world was a great place right now, all thanks to him.

"I'm not sure," Darkstalker finally said, though it was painful to say so.

"I'm the queen," she said. "I could easily end up facing an emergency that you won't be around to help me resolve. You trust me with your scroll, don't you?"

"Of course," Darkstalker said. Do I? It wasn't just her erasing his spells, now that he thought about it. He started worrying about the ways in which Clearsight could accidentally cast a spell that did something inadvertently terrible. Clearsight, I think I'm starting to understand why you're so concerned about my powers all the time.

At the end of the day, though, he had to trust his soulmate that had future-seeing powers that were even stronger than his own. "Yes, of course I do. You're right; let me write that in." On the paper, he wrote, Enchant this scroll to teleport to Clearsight whenever she utters the words, 'Bring me Darkstalker's scroll.' "But only use it this way in case of emergencies," he said. "Don't go around undoing all of my spells the moment you see them."

"I shouldn't need to do that if you're not going to cast any serious spells without permission from the council first, right?" Clearsight asked. "And besides, I think we should only cast spells that we both agree to. Don't you?"

"If we did, then the moon wouldn't have the royal NightWing symbol on it," Darkstalker retorted. "And soon you'll realize how great that idea was."

"Yeah, sure I will," Clearsight grumbled. "But fine; I'll only use it on special occasions, as long as you only use it on special occasions too." She glanced back at the paper. "So what else does the enchantment need?"

Darkstalker tapped the quill to his chin. When another idea came to him, he wrote it down: Enchant the spells cast on this scroll to recognize claw strokes without ink as written word. "I might need to modify the wording to make it more precise," he murmured, "but I want to make it so that I can write down spells without needing to use ink. I may not always have ink with me, after all."

"But the way it's worded means that I won't be able to see the spells you write down," Clearsight said. "How about instead you say something like, 'Enchant this scroll to make the words written in it visible, regardless of whether or not they are written in ink'?"

Darkstalker felt some weird grumblings in his heart at what Clearsight was implying. "Why would it be a problem if you couldn't see the spells? Obviously I'd tell you about them if they weren't visible. You know I'd do that, right Clearsight?"

Clearsight winced a little and looked away. "You didn't last time," she said softly.

It took a second to understand what she meant, but once he did, he softened. "Oh. Right." He sighed, and crossed the last sentence out, replacing it with, Enchant this scroll to make any word written in it visible to dragons as though it were written in ink, regardless of whether or not it actually is. "This does mean that we'll have a harder time hiding our spells from other dragons, if there are ever any spells that we don't want them to know about."

"I think it's worth the trade-off," Clearsight said. "We won't have any trouble with other animus dragons until a new one is hatched, meaning nobody else will be able to discover the spells in this scroll unless they actually look inside of it."

Darkstalker soured his face, not really wanting to agree with that. "Anyway, let's write in the main spell now." He dipped the quill into the inkwell and continued writing.

Enchant this scroll to absorb all of my animus powers and act as my spellcasting device, subject to the following conditions:

Firstly, when a spell is written in the scroll by a dragon that I, Darkstalker, trust, the spell will come true as though it were an animus enchantment;

Secondly, when a spell is crossed out by a dragon that I, Darkstalker, trust, the enchantment associated with that spell gets removed;

Thirdly, if the scroll ever gets destroyed, it will return all of its powers back to me.

"I think that's everything," Darkstalker said. "Teleport to us when we need it, let us write in it without needing to use ink, and make it cast spells. The only issue is that if I ever come to not trust myself, then I won't be able to use my scroll."

"Somehow, I doubt that that'll ever be a problem," Clearsight said with a flat smile. "Ready to cast the spell?"

Darkstalker nodded, reading through the spell once more to commit the words to memory. He took a deep breath and put his talons on the scroll.

But when he was about to utter the words, something stopped him.

It was a feeling. A doubt. Something that was difficult to put to words when it first took hold of him, but silenced him nonetheless.

He tried to utter the spell multiple times, but the first words kept getting caught in his throat. There was some powerful instinct in his mind that told him that this spell would be a bad idea. That he was throwing away innumerable opportunities by putting his powers back into the scroll.

Clearsight picked up on his hesitation and nudged him with her snout. "Darkstalker? What's keeping you?"

Darkstalker slowly retracted his talon from the scroll. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. "But now that I think about it, I don't think I'm ready to part with my magic just yet."

Clearsight folded her brow at him. "Darkstalker—"

"—Well why should I?" he interrupted. "Fathom still has his powers and he's doing just fine. I was hatched with animus magic; it belongs to me! What if someone I trust ends up betraying me? I don't want anyone to use my powers against me anymore."

"Darkstalker, quiet down; you'll wake the dragonets," Clearsight said, urging his silence by nuzzling him under his mouth. It was an annoyingly soothing gesture. "Everything will be okay. You don't have to be afraid of the dragons you trust. And you won't be giving up your magic. It will still be yours to use."

Darkstalker sighed, twining his tail around Clearsight's. Immediately, he felt his doubts starting to vanish. "I know. You're right," he said. "I'm sorry, Clearsight. I just … I don't want to be powerless again."

"You won't be, Darkstalker," she said. "You never were."

Of course Clearsight was right. The spell was designed to keep Darkstalker from being powerless, wasn't it? Why did he have anything to worry about?

He didn't. This whole thing was just him being irrational and defensive, and he knew that.

He placed a talon on the scroll again and took a deep breath. He readied himself to cast the spell …

… but then the doubts resurfaced. They popped right back into his mind, as though they'd completely ignored the past ten seconds where he snuffed them out.

Ignoring them didn't work. Rationalizing them away obviously wasn't working either. It was like a wall in his mind, barring him from committing to the spell.

There wasn't any way to shake it. Now that he had his powers again, he wasn't ready to give them up. He wanted to keep them. He needed to keep them, at least for now.

An idea struck.

It wasn't an idea that he adored, because it involved keeping a secret from Clearsight. But it wasn't a bad secret by any means either. If everything went well, then he wouldn't have to keep the secret for very long. And if anything went wrong, then Clearsight would be thankful that he kept this secret from her anyway.

Flattening out the paper with the enchantment written on it, Darkstalker silently said, I enchant this paper to give me animus powers after my magic executes the enchantments written on it.

There. Now, after his animus powers gets absorbed into the scroll, he will be given animus powers once again. He won't be losing anything; he would, in effect, just be copying his animus powers into the scroll.

This time, Clearsight responded to Darkstalker's hesitation by elbowing him in the arm. "Any day now," she said.

"Be patient with me!" he said, whipping the tip of his tail at her. "This is an important spell; I need to get it right." He took another deep breath and gripped the scroll. "Okay, here we go. Enchant this scroll to teleport to me whenever I utter the words, 'Bring me my scroll'…."

One by one he cast each enchantment, testing each one after it was cast. The spells, as usual, worked exactly as they were supposed to, and after the last spell was cast, his scroll was imbued with animus magic.

And after making a quick enchantment in his mind where he made Clearsight's eyes turn yellow for half a second, he confirmed that he still had animus powers.

He would get rid of them soon enough. His powers would only stay there until his doubts vanished. And he would never actually use his animus powers except via the scroll, unless he absolutely had to. Which he wouldn't have to do. And if he did, then it was a good thing that he enchanted himself this way.

Holding onto his animus powers for the time being was just to let him make the scroll without being stopped by this irrational mental block of his. In a few weeks, he'd surely be ready to get rid of his powers for good, and he wouldn't have to keep any more secrets from Clearsight.