Come night, and Starflight was once again forced to do nothing about his actual experiment. His special delivery still hadn't come yet, even after a month. At this rate, he suspected that the delivery dragons just hated him for some reason, or that the headquarters exploded and they had to get a new vial. So, instead of working on the project, Starflight had to contend with drawing or whatever he'd assign himself to take his mind away.

Sitting down by the table, he lit the lamp with a quick shot of flame and proceeded to take his notebook out from the shelf, along with a pen, and one of those new "pencils" someone at the academy invented, and its eraser counterpart. It was basically a pen (but with erasable ink) and he found it useful for sketches. Starflight's mind idly brought up that they were due for shipment to the kingdoms by next week.

After a while of staring an empty page, trying to come up with inspiration, Starflight looked outside. Inspiration struck.

I don't need to make something complicated. Just make something really simple!

Picking up the pencil, he drew a grid, converging towards the horizon (a straight, horizontal line at an arbitrary position) and then drew a setting sun, behind the horizon. The sun simply had some diagonal lines erased off, separating small portions from each other and the mail body. Starflight smiled. That didn't take any time, at all. It was simple, and he knew it would look far better in color. Now, he could try another dragon…

4 days later, and Cometchaser had to admit, it was fun. Nothing except himself and nature, it was beautiful. (and lonely, but not in a bad way. More like… peaceful solitude.) Spotting the two peaks of Jade Mountain up ahead, he checked his visions again for a confirmation on where he was supposed to go. This time, they were much clearer (probably because it was in the very near future now) and he was able to discern from the scene that it was on Jade Mountain's eastern side (because of the rainforest around vision-him) and that the cave was illuminated with light spilling outside. It would be easy enough to find it. Popping back into the real world, he landed gracefully on the ground, before beginning to look around for the cave. It would be almost impossible to search from the air.

After around what felt like half an hour, Cometchaser was getting frustrated. He had been searching for so long, and still hadn't found it! It had to be this way– after all, he'd landed at the boundary between the rainforest and the eastern foothills of the Claws of the Clouds. This was the only way to go, and he still hadn't reached it, even after flying for short distances to save time. But eventually, he would find it. He had to.

It had been what felt like another 20 minutes, but Cometchaser had done it. He had found the cave. It had taken another look into the future, where he realised that it was next to a large tree and almost surrounded by bushes with pink flowers. Entering the little clearing around the cave, he peeked in the opening, and saw what he'd expected: a Nightwing, looking at a book in lantern light. Stepping back for a moment, Cometchaser closed his eyes.

Alright Comet, you can do it.

Just pretend this isn't, like, the literal point where your life starts, according to the visions.

NO! STOP IT! JUST GET IN AND GET IT OVER WITH!

Inhaling deeply, he stepped towards the cave entrance, and exhaled slowly.

"Hello?"

Starflight had just finished a sketch of a dragon, and was flipping the page. Looking out, he reminded himself to make a full star chart soon: it would help much.

You need flatland first. But isn't that simple? Just sit somewhere in the desert. Ugh, I really need to remember to do this.

So he flipped the page, and wrote the words PUT STAR CHART HERE in big letters on the top.

And right then, he heard the word. The word that would change his life forever, looking back.

"Hello?"

He saw the dragon within jolt quite hard. But then , of course it must have been quite the shock. After all, a random voice just said something out of nowhere in a place where you didn't expect to be disturbed. Cometchaser saw the dragon (a Nightwing, of course, like in all the visions) instinctively look towards the total opposite direction of the cave.

There must be some doorway there, right?

Cometchaser could also hear his thoughts: they were an absolute jumbled mess. Not too painful to listen to, but just… annoying to push through.

Who's there?

There's no one at the door!

But who could it be?

Eventually, Cometchaser decided he should probably intervene.

"I'm here. You know, the only other entrance to the cave," he said.

Mystery Nightwing turned to face him.

"Oh."

He just barely stopped himself from laughing.

Mystery Nightwing walked towards him, and Cometchaser could now see him more clearly. He was midnight black, with a slightly lighter underbelly. He also had green eyes, and burn scars on his body.

"So, who are you and why are you here?" the mystery dragon asked, "Oh, and my name is Starflight, by the way," not-quite-a-mystery-dragon-anymore hurriedly added.

"Huh. Alright then. My name's Cometchaser, and I just… found this place. In a vision. Yeah, I can mind read and stuff," he replied. Cometchaser was (of course) reading Starflight's thoughts the whole time:

Wonder why he's here. He barely looks even three… how did his parents allow this?

Wait, he's a mind reader?

"Yes, I am. I'm two, and my parents allowed this because I live basically in the middle of nowhere and there's no one I can befriend. I came from the Old Night Kingdom, in case you're interested. Surprising, I know. And… yeah, I came because of a vision I had," he listed.

Wow.

Old Night Kingdom.

How did his parents get off the island?

Cometchaser continued butting into Starflight's train of thought.

"I don't know. Anyway, can you show me around here? It's just, well, vision. Need to understand. Maybe I'm here to fix one of your problems."

Of course, he knew it was much bigger than that. Cometchaser didn't know how, he just knew. This dragon here would have his life changed singlehandedly by this event.

"Alright. Follow me, then. There isn't much here, by the way."

Following Starflight deeper into the cave, he could feel a deep friendship forming.

Yes, he drew the vaporwave background.

Also, for some reason when this was first developed in my mind all the way back in like 2020, Comet was orphaned. And he was originally known as Shadowblade, and had a sword. But was still 2 years old. My mind works in strange ways.