Chapter 1: The First Steps

Nearly Four Years Later

Bloodwalker pumped his wings across the ash infested clouds that were ever present on the volcano that was unfortunately his home. He had thought of just leaving many times, following Morrowseer to the mainland. Seriously, Morrowseer seriously needed to be more aware of the cloud covers, or Bloodwalker could literally just hide under his snout. The only thing that strayed his wings was his mother and father. He loved them dearly, he would never abandon them. Her mother's sister, Quickstrike, recently had told them that his cousin was coming home for a visit.

For Bloodwalker, he idolized his brother's and parents' line of work. While he realized that all things combat, assassination was not particularly smiled upon, people seeing it as nothing more then sabotage and espionage, both seen as dishonorable, but hey, you could not argue with results. A single kill, especially a well connected person, could do more damage than an entire army. His cousin had been sent on several missions to turn the tide of the War of Sandwing Succession, such as killing one of Burn's generals. He had to say, Deathbringer really lived up to his own name, and Bloodwalker silently counted down the days until he would be able to join his cousin, and maybe even do some joint missions.

"Stop it, you are getting ahead of yourself. First, land, then think of something else." He thought to himself as he avoided a plume of ash erupting from a geyser. Setting down at the place Quickstrike described, he saw a vague black shape flapping it's wings, an adult male, but unmistakably Deathbringer as he pulled into a dive. Remembering something he had thought of doing, Bloodwalker closed his eyes and retreated into a nearby ash plume. As Deathbringer settled down onto the black sand, he looked around, confused why nobody was here, he was sure he had sent a letter.

He heard shifting sand behind him, turned to see nobody there, turned back around to see Bloodwalker staring at him, eyes two inches from his.

"Holy shit!" Deathbringer yelled out in alarm, jumping back. Readying himself for a fight, he jumped into a defensive stance, but quickly desisted as he saw who was standing there. "Bloodwalker! How many times do I have to tell you, DON'T DO THAT! It scares the crap out of me every single time. It's not fair, you have that weird thing with your eyes. Assassination would be much more fun with that attribute." He mumbled the last sentence under his breath as Bloodwalker collected himself after laughing hard. Shoving his cousin a bit on the shoulder, he started to fly inward toward the room in the castle specifically designed for specialized assassins.

One unfortunate but begrudgingly efficient method copied from the Icewings, assassins had the ability to live in the palace if they so wished, so that the Queen could call upon them in an instant. Quickstrike had her status and position in the palace upheld by Deathbringer's work, where as Deathstalker had to temporarily retire due to a problem in his lungs after a new geyser shoved ash in his face as he was inhaling. Knifewielder still resided in the castle, and Bloodwalker spent most of his time in schooling, but he never was able to get along with the other dragonets. There weren't that many, but instead of going to lessons on how to pretend to read someone's mind, or how to make up a convincing prophecy, instead, he was taught how to kill and fight as effectively as possible. Knifes, chakrams, poisons, all of them drilled into his mind by his mother and father, instead of a specialized professor. Admittedly, he did have to visit Mastermind from time to time to check for progress on new poisons. Rainwing venom was interesting, although Bloodwalker admitted the ways of getting them were, a little extreme.

He was soon approaching his 4th hatchday, when he could be assigned to minor missions, like, disrupt this supply chain, go injure this dragon. Normally he would only be able to do this on his 6th, but he had been shot ahead by the increasing desperation of the Nightwings, upon learning that the volcano was only a few years away, they had become more driven to get the "secret plan" done. Despite his parents status and commitment to teaching, he was never aware of what the secret plan actually was. He assumed it had something to do with the Dragonet Prophecy, the first real one in generations. He was excited to meet Morrowseer at first, but he found him to be... indescribably boring. There was no magic about him. The only reason he respected him was A) He was higher in authority, and B) he was the one who made the prophecy. Bloodwalker's mind turned back to the task at hand, as Deathbringer dived into one of the openings, and Bloodwalker followed him into the superstructure. Recently Morrowseer had become more subdued. Apparently, his wife Secretkeeper has recently laid an egg, but the egg came out broken. But she had made a staggeringly large amount of trips to the rainforest afterwards. After one recent trip, she came back with a killed animal, Preyhunter, and barely contained joy. She may have appeared sad, but secretly, her eyes were ful of joy. Something his eye issue did was allow him the uncanny ability to read emotions off of the eyes.

This train of thought was abruptly halted when he tumbled over Deathbringer as he came to a stop, the two rolled for about 46 talon lengths, until they came to a stop. Groaning more in irritation than pain, Deathbringer extracted himself from the pile. Bloodwalker got up, a little dazed, but nothing could hurt more than the reprehensive look on Deathbringer's face. He hated it when he disappointed his cousin with his childish behavior or not paying attention. Deathbringer decided to let this one slide, and continued on his way toward the assassins' wing.

Soon however, a female crossed his path. Bloodwalker knew this one. Being an acclaimed sibling of the Nightwing Dragonet of Destiny definitely got you some popularity points.

"Ah, Fierceteeth, how's it going good looking?" Deathbringer greeted in his usual flirtatious manner.

"You shut your snout before I claw your face off!" Fierceteeth responded hotly.

"Sure, but can I get you dinner first?" Deathbringer responded quickly, seemingly oblivious to the obvious threat.

"You are INSUFFERABLE!" growled Fierceteeth as she turned away back down the way she came.

"I swear Deathbringer, you are going to get your name turned into something horrible if you keep doing that. What if you flirt with Princess Greatness and she makes it a law to call you Jackass?"

"Bah, she could never do that to a handsome fellow like myself."

Jumping up and knocking his cousin on the back of his head for his comment, Bloodwalker left him to go down another corridor. Down it was the meeting chamber, where there was supposed to be nobody there. Going into it he saw Morrowseer, and he was talking to the same wall that Queen Battlewinner seemingly spoke out of. So Greatness wasn't faking.

"Soon? Ready?" Came a voice that without the normal din of the meeting chamber, he would never gave been able to hear. He assumed this was Battlewinner, but her voice sounded as if talons were lightly scraping across ice.

Morrowseer seemed to understand the notion and replied, "Yes, he is approaching the necessary requirements. He shows great promise. I really think the plan will go off without a hitch."

"And if fail?" The voice responded.

"It won't. It is if a gift from the moons. Terror will reign. He will scare them, he physically can't help it." Morrowseer replied, smirking deviously.

Bloodwalker's heart beat faster. They were talking about him. This was what he wanted. Why was he so hesitant to be happy?

Morrowseer said one last bit before the conversation ended. "With Bloodwalker's eyes being the terror that we need them to be, the Rainforest will be ours for the taking!".

Wooooooo! 2 chapters in 2 days! Peace!