Chapter 10: Break It Down

When we got there, my fears came true. Clay was single-handedly destroying the library.

By "destroy" I mean that he had wandered into the fiction section and when I looked at the shelves every scroll was out of order. I knew it was Clay because he was the only one there, since Tsunami was sitting at my desk, lying in the chair that had become my most frequent place of residency over the past year. She glared at me (not at me and Sunny - at me) when we came in. "Finally," said Tsunami. "Now what are we here for?" I ignored her and walked over to Clay.

"You have no good scrolls here," Clay complained to me.

"What are you talking about?" I told him, looking at what he was holding. "You are literally holding a classic in your hand right now."

"What, this?" he said, showing me his copy of Duplications. "I read the first sentence and I became bored."

"Well, you have to stick around with it for more than a sentence! Trust me, it's an amazing scroll."

"Well, what's it about?" asked Clay.

"It's hard to explain. All I'll say is that it's about a family and it's a book that celebrates life and shows that even in the darkest of times, we can still find happiness," I told him.
"Pass. That sounds depressing," he said, putting it back on the wrong shelf.

"OK, can we stop talking about sad books and start talking about why we're here?" asked Tsunami.

"Right, that," I said. "Well…um…how do I put this…" I hadn't planned what I was going to say to them at all.

"Let me guess," Tsunami said. "You're going to live in the Rainwing kingdom with Mastermind."

"What? No!" I said. "But it is Mastermind related."

"Did he die?" asked Tsunami.

"No!" I told her. "My father is in perfectly good health."

"So then what happened to him?" asked Clay.

"Well, you know how Stonemover is Sunny's dad, right…"

"You said this was Mastermind related, not Stonemover related," said an annoyed Tsunami. "Just tell us what's going on."

"He would if you would just let him finish!" yelled Sunny.

Tsunami shut up at that.

"Thank you, Sunny," I said. "Now, the main point I'm trying to get at here is…that we, me and Sunny, visited Stonemover today and…it turns out he and Mastermind are brothers."

Tsunami let out a little laugh. Clay's face was furrowed with confusion.

"Why are you laughing?" I asked Tsunami.

"If you're trying to fool us," she said, "then it's not working."

"Tsunami, this is not some big joke," I told her. "This is real. Me and Sunny are actually cousins."

Tsunami raised her eyebrows. "On the moons?"

I nodded. "On the moons."

Her face turned shocked. "Oh wow. You never say that unless you mean it." She turned to Sunny. "You swear too?"

"On the moons, Tsunami, what he's saying is true," Sunny told her.

Tsunami's mouth fell open, silent.

"Well, that's cool," said Clay. "Now you guys have more family. That's nice."

He had a little smile on his face, or what was at least a neutral expression. He seemed happy with the news, and happy that we could find new familial bonds. He didn't seem to care that much, though. Clay cared about our safety, but he didn't really care about our personal lives. I could tell Clay that we were siblings and he would just say, "Oh."

I turn to Sunny, who is also looking at Clay, and give her a look that says,"told you."

Tsunami's original expression is neutral, thinking, trying to process what she just heard, deciding if she likes this news or not. And then she realizes something, and her face turns concerned.

"Aren't you two a couple?" she asked.

Clay's face also turned concerned. This was a fact that he had clearly overlooked.

"Yeah," I said. "Being cousins doesn't change the fact that we're still in love."

"Well, actually-" Sunny started, trying to contradict my statement, but she was interrupted by a furious Tsunami.

"UGH! You guys are disgusting!" she yelled.

"Calm down, Tsu. It's not that big of a deal-"

"Don't Tsu me, Starflight! This is not the time for that!"

"This is not the time for exaggerations," I told her.

"I'm not exaggerating!"

"Yes, you are. Right, Clay?" Clay usually agreed with me on everything. He just thought that what I said was right because I was smarter.

This time, though, Clay shook his head. "Yeah, no. I gotta agree with Tsunami here. This is wrong. Like, really wrong," he said.

Sunny gave me an annoyed look that said, "NO, TOLD YOU."

"What's wrong with this?" I asked them, placing my wing around her neck. "Didn't you support us before? Why not now?"

"Yes, but that was before you told us you were cousins!"

"That doesn't matter."

"Starflight, you are delusional. Of course it matters, because it's not right! This is not love! This is inbreeding!"
"Why can't it be both?" I asked her. I regretted the question as soon as I said it. I cursed my mind silently for thinking of that as the first thing to say.

Tsunami looked at me with a face of horror and disgust. I snuck a peek over at Clay, and he had a similar look plastered on his face.

"Did - did you just say that?" she asked me, mortified.

"Wait no, that wasn't what I meant to say, that-"

"Oh yes it was," said Tsunami. "I know it was. I don't believe you for a second."

"Tsunami," I tried to start, but she interrupted me again.

"I can't believe you. You - you've changed since you got unblinded. You're different. You're acting colder, and you're just plain weird."

"Weird? You're the weird one here," I angrily responded.

"I'm the weird one here. Yeah right. Says the guy who sits in a corner and reads all day," she said.

"Yeah, well at least I can read," I retorted.

"At least I actually have a social life," Tsunami angrily replied.

Oh, she went there. "At least my dad has time to see me." I was referring to her mother, Queen Coral, and how Tsunami hadn't seen her in over a year.

"Guys," said Clay, stepping in, sensing that things were about to go berserk, but before he could get a chance to speak again, Tsunami yelled,

"At least I don't have a dad who's a psychotic freak!"

"Well, at least I'm not a psychotic freak like you!"

"At least I'm not traumatized just because I couldn't read for a year!" Tsunami responded with a mix of sarcasm and anger.

At least my trauma wasn't my fault.

That was the first thing that my mind suggested I say.

I was, of course, referencing Tsunami's accidental father and his not-so-aciddental murder by his daughter. I knew she wasn't over it. I'd seen her dream in the Dreamvisitor. Gill lying in her arms, never to breathe again, not able to taste Tsunami's presumably salty tears. I don't blame her. Things like that are traumatizing.

Traumatizing actually understates it. Rarely is that true, as in my experience, the word "trauma" is used more as a hyperbole. A way to make yourself seem more worthy of pity.

The amount of pity one should give Tsunami is debatable. On the one hand, not only is she traumatized, she is also fatherless. On the other hand, it was she who killed her father, and she alone.

But then I think about what I thought about on the way back from my talk with Stonemover. I think about all the deep self-reflection I'd done. How I'd vowed to change, and told myself I would turn a new leaf forward and be a kinder, more likable person.

Yet here I was engaging in a battle of insults with one of my best friends. Some change that is.

Is this who I am? Someone who as soon as they are backed into a corner begins insulting dragons and hurting their feelings in self-defense? Someone who alienates their friends, their family, everyone they love, just so they can be with their thoughts who they are accompanied by every single second of every single day while their friends sit on the sidelines, watching the limited time they have to spend with their friend ticking away?

No. I'm better than this.

But I still really wanted to say it.

The urge to say it was like an itch on my back. An itch you have to scratch. You have to scratch it because the relief you get in that first second is worth the pain over the next few days.

This was something I had to say. The pride I would feel in the first second would be worth the hurt I would cause in the long run.

But then I remembered that I was better than this. I was a good-hearted dragon.

I had to prove that statement, though. You can't walk the walk without talking the talk. So I did what good-hearted dragons do. I empathized with Tsunami.

I considered how she hadn't had a choice to kill her dad, just like I didn't have a choice to become blind.

I considered that she was mad at me because I'd said some mean things to her. I'd called her weird. She wasn't weird. So I totally understood why she would want to make me feel horrible.

I considered that this argument might serve as a way to get rid of all the anger she'd felt towards her life over the past year. By insulting me, she was taking the anger that she'd bottled up over the years and dumping it all out on me.

I considered how this whole mess wasn't her fault.

So I began internally fighting with myself. The empathetic part of me versus the bully part of me. And it kept going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth -

"Starflight, are you OK?" said Sunny's voice.

I blinked a few times, looked around, and realized that this internal fight had taken place over the course of a minute of real world time. Worse, I'd done it while looking like an absolute idiot. My claws were balled up into fists for some inexplicable reason, my back knees were slightly bent like I was in a squat, and my face muscles were sore, which indicated that I'd likely had the same frown stuck on my face for the past minute while I'd cried.

A crying person who must have looked like they were trapped in squat purgatory. That must have been so humiliating.

I decided to answer Sunny's question honestly.

I think the empathetic side of me won.

"Maybe," I say.

"Maybe?" says Sunny.

"Yes. No. I don't know," I said.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" asked Clay.

I shook my head. "I honestly don't know if I'm OK. What is OK? When does one get to the point where they are considered OK? What does one need to be in order to -"

"Are you OK or are you not OK?" said Tsunami, and though her voice was filled with anger, there was also an equal amount of concern in her words.

"I don't know," I told her. "I mean, this past year has been really hard. I've…I've actually been completely miserable."

This revelation elicits a whole new round of shock from the gang.

"Miserable? You didn't seem very miserable," said Clay.

"Yeah, well, it's not that obvious, is it?" I said. "But I was definitely miserable. I mean, I've talked to no one for the past year. I know you all have tried to talk to me, but frankly that wasn't enough."

Everyone looked sad now, even Tsunami. My speech had made them all feel bad about themselves - and me. Their pity motivated me to keep revealing my inner emotional secrets.

"And maybe…maybe I've been acting weird because to me, this is weird," I said. "Like, seeing and stuff. I'm just trying to get used to living again. So…I'm sorry if I've been taking out my anger on you. But can you guys just please talk to me?!"

Now I was sobbing. These sobs were legitimate, for I was really this desperate for connection. I purposefully tinged my plea with equal amounts of anger and sadness to establish that I wouldn't forget their past ignorance, but I would forgive them for it if they talked to me now.

"I…I've just been so lonely. So, so, lonely," I wailed.

Oh, who am I kidding? I can't do this anymore. I can't hold back my tears any longer. I've suffered enough. I should be allowed to cry without being socially ridiculed. I should be allowed to express my inner sadness without being teased on by ignorant hecklers.

But what is social standing when you don't talk to anyone? When you don't use it?
I just needed to let everything out.

So I curled myself up into a ball and just sobbed and sobbed. I let the tears flow until my left eye turned into a leaking dam and my right eye turned into a waterfall.

A minute later, I felt someone wrap their arms around me. I looked up, still crying.

It was Tsunami. She was giving me a big, monster hug, and though she wasn't crying, I could see the rims of tears in her eyes. She too was scared of the hecklers. They'd be even meaner to her, given that her personality was very anti-crying.

"I…I had no idea," she quietly said to me.

I got up and hugged her back.

"Your turn," I said to her while crying, loudly enough for Clay and Sunny to hear. I looked over at Clay and Sunny, and unsurprisingly, they were both bawling. In fact, I would say they were crying more than me, the dragon who was having an emotional breakdown. It was like they were in a contest with each other to see who could cry the most.

"What?" Tsunami asked, confused.

"Your turn to reveal your inner emotions. We all know you're depressed," I told her playfully.

"What?" said Tsunami, her face half curled into a smile over seeing the playful side of me, half turned into a frown because she knew I was right.

"Come on. You can tell us that you're not over your father's death yet, that you still think about him every night. Don't be shy," I said to her, again in a playful tone, a smile on my face.

Tsunami blanched, because now my assessments of her had gone from a lucky coincidence to an eerily accurate picture of her private life.

"How…how do you know that?" she said desperately, starting to cry. "Was it that obvious? Do I sleeptalk? Do I-"

"Nightwing mind reading. I told you I can read minds, right?" I joked. I don't know why I was in such a jokey mood all of a sudden. Maybe everyone just becomes jokey after an emotional breakdown. Maybe it was because seeing Tsunami sad made me happy. I had no idea.

"Stop, Starflight, I'm serious!" she angrily said to me, giving me a light shove and letting go of our hug. "How did you know that?"

"Well," I said guiltily, "do you remember that time during the war when I sent Glory a message using a Dreamvisitor from the Nightwing Kingdom?"
Tsunami looked like she was going to be sick. "You didn't."

"I was trying to find someone who looked like they were having a boring dream to tell the message to!" I yelled defensively. "And you…well, you looked like you were busy, so I left immediately."

"But why my dream?" yelled Tsunami. She didn't even ask what I saw. We both knew what I saw.

"Oh, I didn't just go into your dream," I told her. "I went into your guys' dreams too," I said, looking back at Clay and Sunny. They both looked astonished. "Do you wanna know what Clay was dreaming about?" I asked them, laughing aloud at the memory.

"Don't you dare," warned Clay.

"What?" asked Tsunami, smiling and clearly very excited for my answer.

"Food," I said, cracking up.

"No way," said Tsunami, chuckling. Sunny was sort of laughing, but also sorta scared because she knew that her dream was about to be revealed next.

"I'm not joking!" I told her. "And the funniest part was, we were actually talking in his dream, and he didn't believe it!"
Now Tsunami started cracking up like me, and her laughter helped Sunny to start cracking up too.

Clay had a look of recognition on his face, and he was now smiling. "Wait," he said. "That was real?"

"Yes, that was real, you idiot!" I yelled at him. "And you said that-" I had to stop mid-sentence because I was laughing so hard, and had to collect myself - "that I always lectured you in your dreams."

Even Clay couldn't help but start laughing now. "I actually thought that was just my imagination!" said Clay. "I still remember that dream - didn't you want me to do something?"

"Yes, I had an important message for you, but you didn't get it BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO OBSESSED WITH YOUR STUPID DREAM BUFFET!"

I then fell on the ground, overcome by a fit of laughter, unable to form rational words anymore. Tsunami and Sunny were both doubled over with laughter. Clay just stood there, quietly laughing with a look of wonder on his face.

We stayed like that for a whole two minutes, laughing our faces off, tears of sorrow turning into tears of laughter.

Eventually, we all settled ourselves down. I was the last one to settle myself down by about 30 seconds. I had to take around fifteen deep breaths in order to stop the laughter.

"But what was my dream?" asked Sunny.

"Huh?" I said. It was weird for us to hear a serious question after the glorious fun we'd just taken part in.

"What did I dream about? What did I say to you?" asked Sunny eagerly.

"Well," I told her, "if I remember correctly, in your dream, we were all just flying around together. Me, you, Clay, Tsunami, Glory, everyone." I said.

"And what were we doing?" asked Sunny.

"Nothing," I responded. "Because back then, we were dragonets. We didn't have all these responsibilities. So we could afford to just do nothing for a bit."

All of a sudden, the mood turned very melancholic, as we all began to reflect back on our childhoods, before adulthood put our friendships to the test.

"I wish we could just be friends like that again," said Clay. "Before all this adult stuff happened."

"We're still friends, Clay," said Tsunami. "Do you not think that?"

"No," Clay clarified, "I just think that our friendships aren't as tight as they were before. I'm just saying that I wish they could be that tight again."

"Why can't they?" asked Sunny.

Everyone turned to her.

"Why do we have to drift apart as we grow up?" she said. "I mean, we're the Dragonets of Destiny, for goodness's sake. We stopped the war. We should be able to stop our friendship from falling apart."

Tsunami nodded in agreement. I didn't nod, but I was paying rapt attention to Sunny's every word.

"So how do we do that?" asked Clay.

Sunny thought for a moment. Then she said, "why don't we just do what we did in my dream? You know, fly around?"

Clay smiled. "I like the sound of that," he said.

"I like that too," said Tsunami. "What do you say, Starflight?"

I smiled a little wider, if that was even possible, given how big my smile already was. "Let's do it."
So we exited the academy, and we went for a little flight around the rainforest. We zoomed over rivers, circled around trees, and savored the beauty of the sun shining above. Birds chirped all around us like musicians. Most of the clouds had taken a day off from existence, and so the sky was mostly a big patch of blue.

We were simply flying, and talking, and joking around, and laughing. That was all we were recycling gags from the past, digging up hilarious memories from the past, and discussing the present with bracing honesty, just like true friends did.

A few minutes into the flight, Sunny came up to me in private.

"What did I say to you?" she asked.

"In the dream?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "You never told me what I said."

"Well, in your dream, there were two mes - the dream me and the real me," I told her. "And you looked at me and said, 'Oh, there's two of you in this dream!' And then you went back to flying."

Sunny giggled. "Thanks," she said. "I just wanted to make sure I didn't say anything stupid."

"Sun," I said, using her pet name, "you never say anything stupid."

Sunny smiled a sorrowful smile at me, this smile even unhappier than her previous one. It was like something was holding her back from being her full, joyous self. Her eyes were shifting their gaze constantly, and I could tell she was trying to avoid looking at me without making it seem like she was trying to avoid looking at me.

She took a deep breath, in and out. "Starflight," she started, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" I asked. "For what?"

"This…I can't do this," said Sunny. "Being a couple. I can't."

With those words, my heart broke.

"I just can't," said Sunny. "Tsunami, Clay, they're right. We're cousins now, and though we can be cousins, we can't be a couple too. This doesn't mean I don't love you. I just love you as a cousin. OK?"

"OK," I said quietly.

"I know this is gonna be weird, but like you said, we'll make it work. Things may not work out the way we thought they would, but we can still be together. Just as cousins. Got it?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. "Oh wait. I gotta go, Sunny," The word "work" had reminded me of somewhere

"What?" she asked.

"Guys!" I said to the whole group. Tsunami and Clay turned their heads back towards me.

"I have to go," I told them. "I have a diplomatic meeting to attend that I forgot about."

"Politics? Bleh," said Tsunami. "Can't you stay a bit longer?"

"Tsunami, I actually can't be late to this. This is a serious meeting."

"Fine," said Tsunami. "Well, bye, I guess."

I waved goodbye to everyone, then hurried back to the academy. Once there, I quickly went to the library. I retrieved my notebook, my special pen, and my bandana from my desk. Then, almost as quickly as I got there, I left. With my notebook in hand, and my spirits plummeting, I began my journey to the Rainwing Kingdom.