Chapter 3: Here Goes Nothing

How ironic that as soon as my vision is finally granted back to me, it is taken away just as swiftly. I didn't even get a chance to savor the gifts of sight for as much as an hour before I had to put the bandana back on. It's as if the divine forces that bestowed this miracle upon me said: "Sorry, Starflight, that was an accident, we were reserving that miracle for an orphan. We forgot your dad existed." It's very annoying to be screwed over by forces beyond your control, because you know these forces didn't screw you over for any specific reason. You just got unlucky.

How many times have I gotten unlucky in my life? Too many to count. I couldn't have known that the volcano was about to explode and that I should have flown faster. I couldn't control my mother's death on the battlefield. I can't control the fact that my father was/is an evil scientist who immorally experimented on other captive dragons and tortured them. I can't control the fact that while every other tribe had a flourishing economy, my tribe didn't have an economy. So I just can't understand how I can be any more unlucky than I already am. I at least deserve to be able to see.

I still can see, though, even with this ginormous bandana covering my whole face. The little pinpricks of light still appear in the corner of the bandana, taunting me, double-daring me to take it off. The temptation is strong, but I resist. It's just light; it can't hurt me. Plus, I've lived with being blind for a long time now. I've gotten used to it. I should be able to last another day or two.

I continue going about my day as normal, as if nothing had happened. It's a pretty unremarkable day. The gossiping students make their daily appearances, but so do the voracious readers, whom I try to recommend scrolls to using as little words as possible. The less I speak, the quicker my throat heals. After I take a break to get some water, though, all the pain basically goes away, and I am my old self again. Except that I'm not blind, but no one needs to know that yet.

The morning begins to turn into afternoon, and still none of my friends have come to talk to me. I sit at my desk patiently, waiting for someone to come. And finally they do.

"Hi, Star!"

Sunny! My dear Sunny has finally arrived.

"Hi, Sun!" I cheerfully greet her. I hold out my snout for a kiss, and she gladly obliges with a quick touch of her own snout to mine.

Yep, that's right. Sunny is my girlfriend.

I don't know what it was that made her realize her love for me right after I came out of the tunnel without my vision. I guess it was that in those few seconds that I didn't come out, she was faced with the prospect of losing me. Granted, she would also have faced the prospect of losing Clay, because Clay came out with me, but maybe in the moment she didn't even care about losing Clay. She just wanted me back. Maybe it was then that she realized that she couldn't live without me.

She confessed before we knew that I was going to be permanently blind. Back then, we thought I still might have a chance. She told me that she loved me too, not just as a brother, but as a boyfriend. She assured me that I would get better again, that my eyes would heal, and that then we would stop the war and live happily ever after. The craziest part was, at that very moment, I believed her. I believed everything she said, even the part where I got my vision back, because even at that point we knew it was a long shot. But right then and there, I felt like getting my vision back was a 110% certainty. Sunny just made me feel that way. She may not have been right about everything, but she got the part about ending the war right. She's at least better at predicting the future than Fatespeaker.

"How's the day going, Star?" she asked me. We call each other "Star" and "Sun" because as a couple, we need pet names for each other, and it just so happens that the first syllables of both our names are words themselves. Plus, I joked once to her delight, it makes our conversations shorter, and we're so busy these days so we need all the time we can get.

"Meh, you know. Same old boring librarian stuff. You do all the fun jobs, Sun, because you can see," I responded

"It can't be that bad, Star," Sunny reassures me.

"I'm overexaggerating, Sun," I tell her. "But yeah, it has been boring. You're actually the very first dragon to personally visit me today."
"Oh, do you think everyone's ignoring you on purpose?"

"Are you?"

"No, Star, we would never do that! We're all just busy." I knew it. "And I have a question for you."

"I bet whatever it is, there's a scroll that can give you the answer somewhere in this library."

"Actually, there isn't."

"We'll see. What's your question?"

"Where's Turtle?" she asks.

"Where's Turtle?" I repeat, knowing full well what she said. I just need to think about my answer very carefully.

"Yeah, no one knows where he is. Do you have any idea?" Sunny asks me.

Did Turtle forget to tell someone that he was going on a trip? That would be very annoying, because if so, that would mean that I have to now cover for him. Not to mention that when he gets back, everyone will be paying attention to him. Some dragons might even try and see what's in the box filled with "ingredients", though I doubt Turtle is stupid enough to let anyone look.

Ah, well, here goes nothing. Time to tell the world about my new business.

"Oh, did he not tell you? Turtle's out in the rainforest. He'll be back by evening," I said.

"What is someone like Turtle doing out in the rainforest?" Sunny asked.

"He's collecting some items for a special project of his," I truthfully inform her. "We've been working on it together."

"Really? What is it?" she eagerly asked.

"I can't tell you - then it wouldn't be a secret," I responded, a rare instance where I objected to something that Sunny wanted.

"You Nightwings are always so secretive," she sighed.

I let out a big laugh when she said that, because it implied that I was like the rest of the Nightwings, when I wasn't. We both know that I was out of place among the tribe, and we're OK admitting it.

We also know that I am likely a better dragon than everyone else in my tribe, but we're too humble to admit that, even to ourselves.

Sunny's responding chuckle is gloriously gleeful and sends a new surge of adoration flowing through my wings. Oh, I really want to just rip off my bandana right now and look at her again. I just want to make sure that she's just as beautiful as she was before. I know that she's too happy and pure to be affected by the toils of age and maturity, but the analytical part of me is skeptical. Pessimistic what-ifs, all of them unreasonable, surge through my mind. But love isn't an analytical field. It's an emotional field. And Sunny may be the only dragon I experience any real emotion around.

That's probably a bad thing. I don't want to be a megalomaniacal boyfriend.

The thing is, Sunny probably wouldn't even care if I was a megalomaniac. Sunny would probably just call me "extra passionate" or "worried". I love Sunny.

"I should probably go tell everyone that they're wasting their time looking for someone they won't find," said Sunny.

"Yeah, they'll tire themselves out," I said. "Especially Clay. I feel like Clay has no stamina. Don't tell him I said that."

"I won't, Star," she assured me, laughing.

"OK, bye, Sun!"

"Bye, Star! Talk to you later!" I held out my snout again, as I always did, and I felt that familiar poke. Then she was gone.

When she met up with everyone, she was without a doubt going to hype up Turtle's project as the next big step in the evolution of dragonkind. As soon as Turtle comes back, everyone will be paying attention to me and him. From now on, we have to be precise. Neither of us can make any mistakes, or the secret of Turtle's animus powers will leak out.

Turtle can not afford to make any mistakes. Turtle is the only person in the plan who can actually see, so if he makes a mistake, he has no excuses.

I'm so nervous. I feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest at any moment. I haven't been this nervous since the war. Why am I nervous?

I need to be with Turtle, to help him. But I can't help him at all. That's why I'm so nervous.

Before people start harking in the comments, I would like to clarify: this is NOT a Sunny X Starflight ship fic. There is an actual reason important to the plot for this relationship. Trust me here. Anyway, if you're reading this, that means you read the first three chapters. So thank you for doing that! Now, as I like to say, keep calm and read on!