Moon's eyes blinked open, and she groaned, her aching muscles complaining as she pushed herself up. She clutched her horns, a faint headache receding from the back of her brain, the visions that had so tormented her dissipating to a part of her mind she couldn't reach. It was midnight now, and the sky was perfectly clear tonight, the moonlight illuminating the area around her. She had crashed down in a small clearing, surrounded by tall pine trees, packed close enough together that she could barely see 6 feet into the woods.

She stretched her neck and back, trying to remember what she was doing here. Wasn't I just in possibility? This feels far too cold to be anywhere close to there though. She twisted her head to the side, and her gaze found a large black scroll case. Ah, of course.

She dragged herself over to it on painfully sensitive talons, tying the worn leather case under her wing. She looked around, twitching her tail uncomfortably. What now? She didn't exactly know. She figured it was doing her no good standing around doing nothing, so she found the thinnest section of trees and began walking with no sense of where she was going.I can't go back to face the others, not now at least.She had no idea how she was going to explain her sudden disappearance, and she was still shaken by the visions she'd had while talking to Darkstalker. Moon sighed. She was almost certain she had had a vision the night before, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what it was.

The scroll felt uncomfortably cool by her side, and she wasn't sure if she was imagining the itching, sickening feeling that radiated off of it. Helping Darkstalker was a terrible idea. She caught herself waiting for some kind of response before remembering her mind-reading friend couldn't reach her. Well, "friend" might be pushing it. She had done that a few times while in Possibility, it was rather surprising to her how quickly she'd adjusted to Darkstalker's constant presence in her mind. Well, at least I have some privacy now.

She continued walking until dawn when she found a short cliff-face to lie down and watch the rising sun. What a fine mess I've found myself in. Lines of pink and red stained the horizon and dripped into clouds. Moon had to look away as the sun edged past the trees on the horizon, the light stinging her eyes. She watched as the orange glow hit her talons and slowly moved up her scales, making her glow an odd shade of Amber that clashed horridly with her dark purple and green hues. She yawned, the warm sunlight seeping into her bones and tiring her immensely. Perhaps Darkstalker was right when he said Nightwing's are nocturnal. She lay her head on her talons, allowing herself proper rest for the first time in a while. The moment she closed her eyes, the vision found her.

Moon was back in the mountains, surrounded by dragons. She recognised them as her friends, Qibli was closest to her, with Kinkojou standing beside him, looking much better than she had been when Moon last saw her, Behind them were Peril and Turtle, both of whom looked impressively uncomfortable. A storm was brewing in the sky above them, and wind whistled so loudly in her ears she couldn't hear anything else.

Qibli was saying something to her, wearing a pleading expression, but she couldn't hear what he was saying., He stepped towards her, holding out his talons. She looked down realising she was holding the scroll and jumped back. She met his eyes, shaking her head. Suddenly a wave of defensive anger took over his face, and he reached of the scroll, wrestling with her for it.

Stop, I don't want to see any more of this

The wind roared louder, and now Kinkajou and Turtle were next to them, trying to pull Qibli off. They only succeeded in making it much harder for Moon to hold on though, and the scroll slipped from her talons.

Please, stop

Qibli looked at the scroll in his talons, awe written across his features. He held it up, saying something Moon still couldn't hear when Peril appeared behind him, brushing the scroll with her talon and growling something. Moon watched the ashes drift to the floor, as the world fell apart beneath her.

Moon shot awake, her heart hammering faster than a hummingbird's wing beats. She still had the horrid sinking feeling of falling from a great height lodged deep in her stomach, and she had to pause for a second, holding her head in her talons as she calmed down. She tried to think, but her brain seemed insistent in worrying itself to pieces at the moment, so she focused on her breathing instead.

In,
Out.

After a minute or two of repeating that she felt much more grounded, but her talons still shook slightly and there was still a painful twinge echoing somewhere in her mind. She focused on the vision instead, before its contents left her completely.

It had certainly been a much more understandable vision than most, but somehow she felt that was worse. It had felt so terrifyingly real, and she wasn't sure if she'd even be able to think about Qibli for the next few days without feeling ill. No sign of Winter though. The Icewing had been noticeably absent from any of her recent visions, perhaps that meant he had actually left for the Ice kingdom for good. She knew it wasn't personal, but it still hurt, had he not cared about any of them at all? I know his tribe means a lot to him, but Qibli was always so good at reading other dragons, and he had said-

No, this was stupid, of course Winter would choose his tribe over dragonets he'd only met two weeks ago, and she was a fool to let Qibli convince her otherwise, as if he'd somehow pick them over his perfectly planned out future.

Moon stood up, shaking out her wings in a poor attempt to distract her from the torrent of emotions bearing down on her. Surely a short flight would distract her, right? Her stomach growled angrily, and she realised it had been a long while since she had last eaten. I should probably catch something too, hopefully the only things to eat around here aren't songbirds, or else this'll be a massacre.

Moon lifted her snout to the air, picking a direction to fly in. She could smell some kind of indistinct mammal blood somewhere distant upwind, so she took off in the opposite direction, catching a draft and letting it carry her into the clouds. She knew it was likely just some kind of animal predator, but she didn't want to chance running into another dragon, having to explain a Nightwing being so close to Icewing territory wasn't exactly her idea of an enjoyable morning.

From this high up she had a clear view of the glimmering ocean just barely visible past the jagged cliffs off Pyrrhia's west coast. It was much closer than she had thought, how far had she flown anyway? She was rather confused however to see smoke rising from somewhere behind the cliffs. Surely someone had a fire going on the beach, but who could it possibly be? It couldn't be an Icewing, but what Sandwing would choose to be this far North?

Moon was distracted rather abruptly from that train of thought by the smell of blood from somewhere below. She advanced on where she thought it had come from, spotting a young doe drinking from a stream in the woods below. It was not quite full-grown and looked to have a small cut on its knee. A splotch of red dripped from the rock in front of it, and she realised the poor creature must have slipped and nicked itself while trying to get closer to the water. She would have felt sorry for the clumsy deer, were it not for her stomach screaming at her to find something to eat.

She dropped down slightly, keeping her eyes locked on its speckled brown coat before falling hard, folding her wings in close as her speed drastically increased. She snatched the doe in her talons, swooping up just before she hit the ground. The deer hadn't even enough time to bleat helplessly before she snapped its neck, drifting down and laying the carcass on the stone so she could enjoy her spoils. Her mother had always told her off for hunting like that when she was younger, saying it was too dangerous and one day she'd fly a little too close and crack open her skull. It came so naturally to her though, and the "proper" way of Nightwing hunting always made her feel ill. Why bother biting your prey and waiting for it to die of poisoning when you could just eat it now?

Moon was about halfway through her meal when she had the scale-crawling feeling of being watched like a thousand tiny eyes were peering at her from beyond the trees. It started slowly at first and ramped up until she felt almost too scared to look up for fear of seeing a pair of eyes staring straight back. She would have written it off as just being nervous about carrying the scroll with her when she heard the distinctive crack of a twig snapping behind her, and a slew of barely audible mental curses. Her head twisted back, scanning the area the noises emanated from, but nothing followed. The short snippets of thoughts she had heard were so familiar to her, but she couldn't for the life of her remember where she'd heard them before. It was almost as though there was a layer of thick molasses between her and whomever they had come from, stopping her from getting any closer, or examining what she'd heard more clearly.

Moon swallowed hard, standing up wearily and scanning the tree line, looking for any sign she hadn't imagined it. Nothing, genuinely nothing, she couldn't even hear any birds chirping, or leaves rustling in the wind. The eerie silence wasn't making her feel any more at ease, and she took a step back, almost slipping into the stream. She wasn't too keen on waiting for someone to show themselves, so she took off, leaving the rest of the doe to whatever that was. Whoever, She amended, shivering from snout to tail, I was being watched.

By who? Was the question that echoed in her brain through the rest of the night, and even as the sun began to rise and she lay down to sleep, it still tormented her, until she dropped away into fanciful dreams of the vengeful ghost of Darkstalker hunting her down for daring to betray him.