March 3rd, 4991

"How are the prisoners?"

Fox snorted. "You mean the Grumpy Grumps?" He nodded to the two bamboo cells, where the two "VIP" Nightwing prisoners were being kept. "They've been fed and cared for. They aren't too chatty, though."

"No," I sighed, "I suppose they wouldn't be. They wouldn't be good servants of their Queen if they told all their secrets after a few nights as prisoner."

"Yeah, that makes... What's that?" The Rainwing gestured to the small bundle I had on my neck, occasionally tinkling as I walked.

"You don't want to know."

"No, I think I do." He insisted, concern showing as wary, dark purple scales. "What're you going to do to them? You're not gonna hurt them are you?"

"Fox, have I ever told you what I used to do back in the Sandwing Palace? What I saw Burn do?"

"... Kind of?" Fox answered, turning a nervous green yet holding his ground.

"My boss was the Queen's torturer and executioner." I explained somberly. "She spent her free-time forcing criminals to confess, and then she'd slaughter them when she was done. She used to kill animals for fun, stuff the weird ones and mount them in a tower as a collection. I learned all about draconic anatomy by observing her victims. I know how to hurt dragons, and I know how to make dragons tell me what I want."

"Xero, you can't!" He protested. "You're not that kind of dragon anymore!"

"Am I?" I countered. "I've been King less than sixty days. I worked for Burn for over a decade. That's not something a dragon can just fly away from overnight."

"But that's not who you are to us!" The Rainwing insisted, red starbursts flickering across him like distant fires at twilight. "You're a good king, dude. A merciful king, that makes dragons' lives better, not worse. You can't torture them, Xero, it's not the Rainwing Way."

"I'm not a Rainwing, Fox."

"But you rule Rainwings, Xero! We trust and believe in you, and if you go in there and hurt our prisoners, it'll devastate us! We're better than that, and you should be, too."

I sighed. "Look, I don't want to do this. This isn't something I'll ever be proud of. But dragons like them will only respond to pain. I have to do what's best for the kingdom, even if we find it distasteful."

"But what if you didn't have to?" Fox pressed. "What if there was another way?"

"Like what?" I prompted, starting to get a little annoyed, "If you have any ideas, let's hear them."

He looked away, the gears turning in his head. His expression hardened as he came to a decision, and he held himself as tall as his tiny body could. "I can make them talk."

I snorted. He held his ground. I squinted down at him in disbelief. "How?"

"Let me talk to them." He said. "I can be persuasive when I want to be, too. And I won't need to cut them up to get them talking."

I stared at him, considering my options. We needed as much information as we could get on the Nightwing homeland, in case we had to force our way through the portal. But the last thing I wanted to fly down the same path Burn went, not when my life was already so great. I didn't want to cut a Nightwing open, for science or the Rainforest. I doubted that my friend's plan would actually work, but at the very least it'd get me a little more time for our spies to report back in, or at least mentally prepare myself for the worst case scenario.

"...Fine," I sighed, "We'll give it a shot. If you think you can get me results, then go for it. But remember we're on the clock here. If you can't get them talking by the end of the week, then I'll have to do what I must. Understand?"

"Don't worry, My King," He assured me, "Learning secrets is my specialty..."

As my Rainwing friend entered the cell with the former Nightwing Captain of the Guard, I thought for sure it wasn't going to work. I appreciated the sentiment, don't get me wrong, but Slaughter didn't end up being commander of Battlewinner's toughest force by being easily broken. What could Fox possibly say or do to make him talk?

"Helloooo, General Slaughter!" Fox chirped happily, sitting down in front of the much larger dragon. "My name is Flying Fox, and I will be interrogating you today!"

The Nightwing raised an eyebrow. "You?" He scoffed. "Really?"

"Trust me," The Rainwing assured him, "You'd much rather have me than the other guy. He was going to torture you for hours and hours and hours, until you died or talked. Fortunately for you, I convinced him to let me work my magic on you first."

"Oh really?" Slaughter scoffed. "What're you going to do, sing a little song? Give me a seizure with your flashing scales? Tickle me?" I couldn't help but agree with Slaughter's assessment - A few weeks ago, I would've been just as dismissive of my fruit-munching subjects as he was.

"Nope." Fox replied, not taking the bait. "I'm just gonna make you help me to help you."

"And why would I want to betray my Queen and my Tribe for a bunch of lazy tail-sniffers like you?" The general growled. I squinted, my back fin rising in agitation. I recognized the term - servants in the Palace would sometimes accuse Singe or Burn of being one, and rarely in favorable tones.

Fox flashed orange-purple, as he tilted his head. "'Tail-sniffer'?" He asked.

"Oh, I saw you lot last night," The Nightwing growled, "Celebrating your lucky break against us, sneaking off behind these cells to 'pick each other's mangoes', or whatever the hell you call your lustful acts of degeneracy. If any of you were half the dragons us Nightwings are, you wouldn't have to resort to laying with your own sex."

"Oh really?" Now the Rainwing had this knowing smirk on his muzzle, and I was starting to wonder where he was going to go with this. "So you think that because I find comfort in drakes and dragonesses, and you don't, that somehow makes you better than me? Because...?"

"Because it only makes sense that a Tribe that fornicates with strangers and deviants and eats fruit like prey would resort to letting a dragon from more civilized lands rule over you. It reeks of unnatural weakness."

"You know, I would've thought that reading minds and seeing the future is unnatural," Fox mused, "But then again I'm starting to think that it's unnatural to Nightwings as well." Slaughter stared back at him, and he explained, "It seems a little strange that a Tribe that likes to brag about their psychic superiority didn't see our ambush coming, or hear all the terrified thoughts we had until we were right above you. Kind of embarrassing, don't you think?"

He leaned back, his smile getting more smug. "In fact," He added, "Now that I think about it, I recognize you now. You're the dragon I landed on, weren't you? Your horns look sharp enough, at least. I took you out by accident. Didn't see me coming, did you? And if I'm a 'tail-sniffer', that would make you a tail-sniffer's bitch, wouldn't it?"

I stared at the little Rainwing in wide-eyed amazement. Slaughter had the look of someone who just received a fart to the face. The Nightwing opened his jaw as if to breathe fire, only for several of the guards to (very loudly) cock their crossbows. He closed his jaw, instead settling on glaring daggers at my friend.

"But enough of the dumb name-calling." Fox continued, ignoring the prisoner's look. "What I was about to say was that the Council's been talking about what to do with you. You see, quite a few of us have been raising the idea of letting you go." Noting the extremely skeptical expression, he quickly added, "I'm serious! See, considering how thoroughly we kicked your asses, some of the Council think we should send you back home, so we can keep beating you over and over again. But, as amusing as that might be, the King and I know better. Battlewinner isn't one to forgive failure, is she? You go back through that portal, you'll be dead by the end of the week." The Rainwing raised his eyebrows, daring the Nightwing to challenge him. Slaughter just continued to glare back.

"So," He said, inspecting his claws nonchalantly, "I believe that leaves you very few options. You can get sent back - in which case, you'll get executed. You can do something stupid and kill yourself, but I don't think you're the type. You can just stay here as our prisoner, and I can assure you you'll be treated kindly and fairly. But there is something that you can do that'll help yourself and your Tribe. You are, after all, the commander of the Royal Guard, which means you know more about your homes' strengths and defenses than just about anyone."

"You want me to betray my Queen and my people?" Slaughter demanded, outraged.

"I want you to help us save your people," Fox countered, "By helping us defeat a Queen who doesn't give a damn about you or your warriors. We're about to go to war with your kingdom. If we go in blind, a lot of dragons will die - not just Rainwings, but Nightwings, too. But if we knew about their numbers, defenses, strengths, we could take them down without having to kill anyone, quickly and bloodlessly. You would be a hero, because you'd be saving lives instead of taking them."

Slaughter scowled, but tilted his head in consideration. "If I help you," He asked after about a minute of silence, "Will you let me out of this cage?"

"I can run it by Our King," Fox answered, "But I'm sure he'd let you wander about with armed guards if you provided the right secrets."

Slaughter grimaced, as he thought things over. "...I suppose I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Fox shrugged, and the Nightwing sighed. "Alright then," He relented, "What do you want to know?"

Fox's approach with Morrowseer was... different, I'll give him that. Slaughter had been a mouthy son of a bitch the entire length of his stay, but Battlewinner's agent never said a word. Day in and day out, he would sit in his cell, taking his food or sleeping, utterly silent.

Not that the quiet act seemed to bother the little Rainwing. If anything, he seemed to take it as a challenge, talking twice as much to fill the perceived "dead air" of his interviewee. He also understood that, from Nightshade's view and my own, Morrowseer had no business staying alive in our custody. Slaughter, for all his flaws, made sense as a military leader, and had a ton of information regarding their armies, their movements and the like. Morrowseer didn't. More than that, nobody knew anything about him: How old was he? How long had he been serving Battlewinner? When was the last time he'd been to the Night Kingdom? It would be so much easier to just fill him with poison or bolts and just toss him in the woods for the ants.

But Flying Fox would have none of it. He would do his best to keep him alive, even if it meant he had to do all the talking. And talk he did. Every afternoon for a week, my friend would enter Morrowseer's cell, bringing a platter of fruit, and would just talk to him for two hours. He'd talk to him about all kinds of things: What life was like in the Rainforest, his favorite color, his favorite food and drinks, odd gossip around the village. what it was like being a Rainwing. On and on, just talking about inane nonsense. I had to tune him out most sessions, letting his chatter become white noise as I took notes or brainstormed.

"...So then Gecko offers these Sandwing guys a bunch of starfruits," He said on the fifth day, snacking on a pawful of dates, "And they ask him what they're supposed to do with them. 'Eat them,' He said, obviously, 'What else?' One of them says that dragons don't eat fruit, and he says that he's been eating fruit all his life, same as every other Rainwing he knows. One of them suggested that we were so small because we don't eat meat, but I think-"

"Do you ever shut up?" Morrowseer growled, saying his first words in days. This was so surprising that I looked up from my note-taking, making sure that the very deep voice I heard wasn't a ghost or something.

"No," Fox said, hardly missing a beat, "Because this one-sided conversation has been the only thing keeping you alive. The deal I made with Xerophilous was simple: I talk, you talk, or he starts dissecting. None of us want the last option. So as much as my constant chatter might annoy you, it's the only thing keeping you alive in one piece."

"Why do you even care?!" The Nightwing demanded, confused and annoyed. "I invaded your homeland, and you're trying to save me?! You don't know me! Why don't you hate me?!"

"That's just it!" Fox declared, extending his blue wings. "I don't know you! How can I hate someone that I know nothing about!? I don't know why you attacked us. I don't know why you're getting into everyone's business. I don't know why you think giving me the silent treatment is going to work - I promise you, I can keep these little talks going forever. All I know is you and your friends look half-starved, desperate and afraid, and my friend Xero is stretching his neck out trying to make you guys allies. He wants to make you guys friends, not enemies, and that's what I want, too!"

"But why?"

"Because Rainwings don't have enemies! Life's too short to spend being angry at strangers." Fox sighed, sipping from a coconut. "Look, you don't have to tell me all your super-special-secrets right here and now, but I want to at least get to know you. What's the Night Kingdom like? What do you do for fun? Do you have anyone back home waiting for you? Girlfriend, boyfriend, parents, siblings-?"

"Secretkeeper."

I blinked. Fox stopped, and smiled. Morrowseer winced, realizing what he just did. "...Yes?"

"There's a dragoness," The Nightwing sighed, "Named Secretkeeper. She's someone I've been... talking with for some time now. She's an absolute beauty - far more attractive than you garish-looking Rainwings." The last part came with a glare and a condescending tone, but Fox merely nodded and urged him to continue. "She's... Spirits, she's perfect. Tall, graceful, scales of the blackest sky, eyes of the deepest ocean. Her smile, her laugh, the only points of light in our dark, miserable home."

"'Dark and miserable home'?" Fox asked. "What do you mean?"

Morrowseer sighed, perhaps finally admitting to himself what he had to do. He then proceeded to go into detail about... well, everything. Through talking about his feelings and relationship with his crush Secretkeeper, the Nightwing told us all about the current state of the Kingdom of Night. And indeed, the situation was far more dire than I ever could've imagined. The Nightwings lived on an island far to the north of Phyrria, just large enough to sustain their small population for many hundreds of years. The island was once a lush, green paradise not too different from the Rainforest, resting in the shadow of a colossal mountain. But a few decades ago, something changed. The ground began to shake. The mountain which they lived on began to smoke. The forests began to turn brown as though poisoned, and the once plentiful prey was starting to become scarce. Battlewinner started enforcing rationing among the Tribe, and those who weren't on missions would go days, even weeks without being allowed to hunt or eat.

"The worst part is the dragonets." He sighed, as he accepted an offered cup from Fox, "We give them what food we can, but once they're three or four, they're forced to ration just like everyone else. To see them get so skinny, to look so sad and hungry... it hurts her heart."

"You want to start a family with her?" Fox asked.

Morrowseer drank, and nodded. "More than anything," He admitted, "But I know that she won't want to have one now. Not in the condition our Tribe's in. She wants our dragonets to grow up somewhere with clean skies and full bellies. Somewhere where we don't have to worry that the very land won't swallow us or burn us alive."

"That's why you've been working with Nightshade, haven't you?" Fox asked. "You wanted the Sandwings' help to find a new home for your Tribe, before the volcano gets you?"

"Yes," The Nightwing admitted. "We were intending to take a portion of the Sand Kingdom, but after we heard about Xero, the Rainforest was just far too tempting a target. It's big, and lush, and unexploited. Under the proper guidance, we could turn this place into a true powerhouse. Battlewinner believed that, as do I, but now..." He trailed off.

"Now what?" Fox asked.

Morrowseer looked up at me, now. I blinked, not realizing he could see me from beyond the bars. "You made things personal with her, you know. You spied on us, captured her best soldiers and her ex, and then demanded that you fight together? And if she doesn't she has to hand over her daughter and our Animus to use our own portals?"

"It was OR, not AND," I corrected, forgetting to stay impartial, "Battlewinner forced my paws!"

"And what do you plan on doing," Morrowseer pressed, "When you have to fight her?"

"I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep my kingdom safe, and put my homeland in a better place. If Battlewinner doesn't want to get behind me, then I'll find someone who will."

The Nightwing scoffed, smirking. "Then maybe you have what it takes to win. But what will you do with my Tribe, should you emerge victorious? I won't betray my Queen just to let our dragonets starve on a boiling rock."

"I am not Burn," I told him, leaning into the sunlight, my tan and black scales illuminating me in what I hoped was a dramatic fashion, "I don't engage in cruelty for cruelty's sake. If things are as dire as you say, then I'm perfectly capable of working out a deal that benefits everyone. I promise you, on my honor as a drake and a king, that I won't let the Nightwings die out. If there's a way to help all three of our Tribes, I'll do it."

Morrowseer and I stared at each other for a long time, waiting for one of us to blink. The Nightwing broke first, helped by the gentle tap of Fox's tail on his. And with a sigh and a gentle nod, he started talking again.

By the time he was done, I knew everything I needed to know about the Night Kingdom...