Swordfish awoke to screaming in the halls. He heard heavy talons outside his room. "What's going on?" Cedar asked sleepily. "I don't know!" Swordfish replied. Swordfish got out of his bed and opened the door to the cave. A Mudwing dragonet was running down the hall. Sunny and Clay were running the opposite direction. A young Nightwing was crying outside of a room. Sunny began comforting her while Clay went into the room. A crowd began gathering outside the room. Eventually, Fatespeaker and Webs came down and Clay went to them. "What happened?" Fatespeaker asked Clay in a whisper. "Ostrich was murdered last night." Clay said, barely audible. "What? Another student killing?" Fatespeaker asked in an angry whisper. "I just don't know who would do this. Especially Ostrich. Especially as gruesome as this." Clay muttered
"Somebody murdered a Sandwing student last night." Swordfish told Cedar. "What? Who? Why?" Cedar asked. "I don't know, they don't know." Swordfish replied. He flopped down on his bed. Maybe things were better back home, with his bum dad and his stupid brother and horrible school with everyone expecting him to be a guardsman. Cedar began fixing his bed of dried mud, smoothing out the crumbly bits.
The morning gongs never rang. Instead, Sunny came to their room later that morning. "Come down to the prey center." Swordfish and Cedar slowly exited their room. The whole school seemed to be dark. The prey center was alive with commotion though. Older students were yelling at the Dragonets of Destiny. "This happened with Sora! This happened with Icicle! Now it happened again!" "This school is a death trap, designed for war-revenge killings!" "We already have the Tragedy of Prince Winter! We don't need anything else!"
"Swordfish!" Swordfish turned his head to see Rattlesnake. "Come over here!" Swordfish left Cedar to follow Rattlesnake. Darkseer was sitting on a large rock with his eyes closed. "He's scanning the crowd for suspicious activity, something Moonwatcher did tracking down Sora." Rattlesnake said in a whisper. Darkseer sighed. "Nobody is guilty. I looked in every possible killer's mind. Nothing." "Did you check that intimidating Nightwing from our history class?" Cedar asked, startling Swordfish. "My sister? No… She doesn't kill unless they attack her first or she has good reason. She's a brutal executioner, not a murderer." Darkseer chuckled lightly.
"BROTHER!" Delta pummeled Cedar. "I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE OKAY!" "Oof. You too, Delta." Cedar said. He was much smaller than Delta. Delta was Cedar's bigwings, and she must have been worried for him. As she wrapped her brother up in her wings, Swordfish could swear he could almost see another Mudwing with them... Suddenly, the scars began to hurt, and Swordfish lurched forward in pain.
Stop it. Stop it now.
Chained up. Visitors. The Rainwing.
It all came rushing back in fragmented, glitch-like scenes. Through the visions he saw another Mudwing with Cedar and Delta. He looked like Cedar, but smaller. He was ghost-like. Back to the Rainwing. The shadowed figure grabbing the final hand. Now back to Cedar's sibs. The ghost-like Mudwing looked at Swordfish. And then Swordfish's vision dissolved into glitches.
When he awoke, he was in a Mudwing village, but a raging fire was eating away at houses. Two dragons were silhouetted against the flames. One tripped over something and the other advanced with strange steps. "No. No. Nonononono." The one on the ground sounded like Cedar. But was it? The other dragon was still anonymous. "Be free." They said in a voice as empty and frigid as an icy cavern. They thrusted a dagger into the screaming Mudwing. They fell silent. The killer stared at the body with eyes unlike anything Swordfish had ever seen. They looked normal enough, but there was nothing behind them. No soul. No conscience. The killer walked away as if nothing had happened, leaving the body to the hungry maw of the fire.
The glitches rushed at him again.
There we go. Now stay where you belong, Swordfish.
When Swordfish was back. He was looking at Cedar and Delta still. The ghost was gone.
"We will be conducting numerous investigations to try and discover the killer." Tsunami told the students. Swordfish was still recovering from the strange vision. "Including this." Tsunami finished. There was a dragon in the shadows behind Starflight. Now he stepped forward. It was Prince Turtle. A friend of Moon and Winter. Many Icewings hissed at him. Turtle held up a scroll. One of Turtle's talons was missing and he had numerous scars. Everyone knew he was one of the last animuses. "This is the most powerful magic in the world." Turtle said. The prey center fell quiet. "Moonwatcher stole it from Scarlet's Ally. It was created by an animus 2000 years ago. You may know him as Darkstalker."
The prey center gasped. Numerous Nightwings and Icewings began looking at each other with disdain. "Now this magic is dangerous, and we were going to keep this scroll a secret." Turtle said. "But with a new murderer about, there is no time for secrets." Turtle pulled a quill out of a leather pouch he was wearing. There was silence as Turtle wrote something on Darkstalker's scroll. After what seemed like days, Turtle frowned. "Starflight, do you know what this could mean? You're smart." Turtle asked the blind Nightwing. Fatespeaker was whispering something in Starflight's ear. "I-I don't know." Starflight stammered. Tsunami grabbed the paper. "How does that even work?" She whispered angrily. Clay suddenly began panicking and whispered something in Sunny's ear. All the teachers left as Sunny said to the students. "Please return to your caves. Do not leave the caves. Classes will most likely be on schedule tomorrow."
"Three moons this is boring." Cedar was saying. Swordfish and Cedar had been in their cave for at least 2 hours already. "Shhh." Swordfish replied. "I was almost asleep." Swordfish rolled over and pressed his snout into his seaweed bedding. The smell reminded him of a time when he was younger, and he fell asleep almost instantly.
The smell of the seaweed wafted up from the bed of it Swordfish was laying on. "Do you ever think they'll find us here?" His friend Tern said as she nibbled at some shrimp. "Tern!" Swordfish said anxiously. "You stole from the food table? What if you got caught?" "I didn't though, so why get mad?" Tern answered through a mouthful of the Queen's special shrimp. "Forget it." Swordfish said. "Let's just focus on why we came here anyway."
The two of them watched all the passing Seawing claws scrape by. "Look." Tern said, pointing out from under the hiding place of seaweed. Her talon pointed to 4 reddish talons going by. "That must be the princess." Swordfish said. "But it's not why we're here."
They waited for about 15 minutes until Tern said "Come on, where is he? I wanted to see a real-life animus in action!" "Shhh!" Swordfish hushed. "They can't let us know we're here! We aren't Seawing royalty!" "Well then he better hurry up and get here. I can't stay this cramped for long." Swordfish gazed at one of the many lotus flowers as she spoke. It wouldn't be long.
"Some people say one of the princes is actually an animus and the Queen hasn't told the public quite yet." Tern said. "Stop!" Swordfish cut her off. "Listen." The two listened closely as the Queen addressed the dragon they had come to see. Swordfish's brain whirled with excitement. A real-life animus!
Then they heard a "Thump!" and screaming. There was a knife on the ground.
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