~PART ONE~

Under the Mountain

Chapter One

5012 AS, Four Years Later…

The rainforest was meant to be riddled with perils. From quicksand, to poisonous frogs, to flash-floods. But Moonwatcher had never needed to fear her home. It was as much a part of her as her own scales. No. What she feared more than all those rational dangers, was her father.

Moon paced along the forest floor, dead leaves squelched under her talons. The constant downpour slid across her scales, the repetitive sound soothing. She fought down her anxiety that was ballooning up her throat. What if she tripped over her words, or stuttered? This had to go perfectly, her father wouldn't settle for anything else. Assuredness was the only way she was going to win this battle.

It was almost funny, in a morbid way, that she considered this upcoming encounter specifically as a "battle". In a way, it was. Every meeting with her father was.

Wasn't it strange, to live in fear of your father, and yet have your entire universe centre around him? He had dictated the entire course of her life for the past four years. He was her one constant interaction, her only link to dragon society. Was it wrong that a secret part of her looked forward to his visits, for someone to talk to, to not feel so alone? Even when all that happened was the same as the every time before: more training, more judgement, more instructions on how to be better. Moon's father had always made it clear that there was a plan in place, and she was a central part of it.

She was the tribe's secret weapon.

After her father had discovered her existence, he'd reported to Queen Battlewinner. The revelation of Moon's gift of mind-reading (and then foresight, a year later) had shaken them. But they quickly decided to use it to their advantage. Much to Moon's eternal thanks, they had decided to keep her in the rainforest. They feared that bringing her to the volcanic island might somehow disrupt her powers. Instead, Moon's father came to her every other night in order to train her, to teach her in the ways of being a NightWing. And he never settled for anything less than perfection.

"Whilst you remain cosy here, in your perfect little world of plentiful food and fresh air; remember that there are a dozen NightWing dragonets who died without those comforts. And that there are a dozen more who would literally kill for your privilege. Count yourself lucky and do not complain to me again." was what he once said to her when she nearly broke her wing during one training session. Those images he'd planted in her head had haunted her nightmares for days afterwards.

Moon glanced up at the canopy. Somewhere between the branches were the glittering stars. The radiant moons. A fleeting, crazy idea occurred to her; to climb up to the top and miss her father's visit. Some nights when he wasn't scheduled to come, she would climb the highest tree to gaze out at the night sky. It felt like the moons were pouring their light, their love, into her. It felt like she was held in her mother's wings again.

She could count on one talon the times she'd seen her mother since she was two. It was easier not to think about her, to not feel that gaping pit of guilt and sorrow inside her. Secretkeeper wasn't here with Moon, and it was all her fault. She'd panicked, she'd revealed her curse. All throughout those first two years, her mother always said: stay secret, stay hidden, stay safe. And yet on that fateful night, she hadn't listened.

Moon sometimes wondered where her mother was now. Her father said she had been made an attendant to the Queen, which meant she was always very busy. Moon didn't need to read her father's mind to know what that really meant: so she could be kept away from Moon. An ingenious punishment that aroused no suspicion from anyone else.

Realising she'd worn a trail into the earth with her pacing, Moon stopped and sat. She tried to breathe. Remain calm. Everything was different now, she told herself. She was almost seven. She could muster her courage to tell him what she had to tonight. It had to be tonight. Moon's dreams warned her of what would happen if it didn't happen tonight.

A whisper at the edge of her mind… numbers… counting in various sequences…

Morrowseer was here.

His footsteps were heavy, purposeful. He came into the clearing that had always been her home. Broad chest, massive shoulders, a hulking shadow that moved. Morrowseer seemed to make the rainforest feel too small. Talons as big as Moon's head, he moved without any regard for anything in his way. Golden eyes were hard and scornful like the sun, declaring him a master of all he surveyed.

Whilst his physical appearance was indeed imposing, Moon was more intimidated by his mind. Whenever she was near him, Moon couldn't seem to read him very easily, because Morrowseer always had his mind thinking of numbers. It was unnerving how he could talk, could hide his feelings behind his eyes, but Moon couldn't judge what he was really thinking. Because in his head, he counted backwards, then in multiplications, then in odd numbers, square numbers. Always numbers. Intentionally, he masked his true thoughts behind a wall she couldn't see through. And his skill at doing so was what unnerved her.

"Moonwatcher," he said.

Moon stood straight, wings folded back, head held high, as was expected of her. "Father."

He looked her up and down. "You've fed recently?"

"A jaguar this morning," she paused, and then added, "I left half of it in case you wanted any… It's hidden just south of the wind-rush canyon." Maybe if she got him in a good mood he would be more receptive to what she had to say?

"I am perfectly capable of obtaining my own food." The corner of his lip curled down. Moon dipped her neck in submission. And then, "But the offer is appreciated."

Moon's head shot up, eyes wide in surprise. Her heart lurched. Why was he being so nice?

"Have you been working on your visions?" he asked.

Usually, she would try to tell him that it didn't work like that. Seer's of old might have been able to catch glimpses of the future at will - the old scrolls said the most powerful could do so. Morrowseer had read all of the material he could in preparation to train Moon. But Moon struggled because nothing her father tried to get her to do made any sense. If he - or anyone - had her powers, they might understand and help her through experience. As it was, it felt like a scavenger trying to teach her how to fly.

But tonight, she held her tongue. She was too eager to please. "I have. The dreams can be confusing, but all I see is more of the same. IceWings fighting SkyWings. MudWings killing SeaWings."

He didn't notice the way her wingtips shivered in revulsion. "So the war continues as expected. Very good."

Just those two simple words, and Moon felt as if gravity no longer had a hold of her. Praise from Morrowseer of any kind was as hard to come by as water in a desert. She always took it when she finally managed to earn it.

"You might be pleased to hear that there will be no training tonight," he said, eyeing her. "I am leaving."

"Leaving?" Moon blurted, her stomach dropping. He was going to go? For how long? Despite how awful training with him was, the idea of Moon having no one to talk to was too much to bear.

Well, I won't have absolutely no one anymore…

Morrowseer cocked a brow in disapproval at the interruption. "Yes. At dawn, I leave for the mainland."

"But for how long?"

"Only a few days at most. Do not look so despondent, Moonwatcher, you are not a hatchling."

"Sorry-" she bit her tongue; that wasn't a very NightWing thing to say. "Why do you have to go?"

"We have only two years left. The Queen and I agree that it is time to make sure our plan is coming along as we would like." He lifted his head, golden eyes scanning the forest. "It won't be long now, Moonwatcher. Soon this forest will be ours."

Talons clenched into the ground, Moon felt herself teetering on the edge of a precipice. Her dreams were rushing up to engulf her. Memories of the last two days stabbed her in the gut with guilt.

"We can't!" the words leapt out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Morrowseer's head snapped towards her, incredulous. "What?"

It was difficult to swallow, but Moon mustered her courage. She tried to focus on the numbers in her father's head, to try and find calm in the repetition. "I don't want to do it. The plan - I, I mean…" Her father's golden eyes stared her down like blistering suns. Her talons trembled with fear. "Father, we can't just take the rainforest! O-Other dragons live here, if we s-steal it…"

"You want me to feel pity for a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing RainWings?" he growled in a low voice.

"They're not good-for-nothing or lazy!" even as the words left her mouth, she knew they were the wrong thing to say.

"And you know this how?" And then he did that thing, where he read her face so easily, that Moon almost wondered if he was a mindreader too. "You met one."

"Yes." She tried to see into his head. Her father's face was so unreadable she couldn't gage whether he was disgusted or about to explode in violent rage. Maybe it was both. But the numbers were so loud they were giving her a headache.

"You were discovered…" his words were gratingly slow, gravelled together behind clenched teeth. "You disobeyed the one rule I asked you to follow."

"It's fine! Kinkajou won't say anything, and she doesn't even mind that I'm here."

"It has a name."

"She." Moon corrected. Perhaps if she told the truth, Morrowseer might see things from her point of view. "It was an accident. She saw me by the river. But Father, she wasn't hostile! All she wanted to know was my name and then she wanted to play, show me around the forest."

Kinkajou was possibly the loudest dragon Moon had ever encountered (which wasn't saying much). But she was kind and funny and instantly called Moon 'My Newest Best Friend!' And Moon had never had any friend before, let alone a best friend. Kinkajou didn't treat Moon as if she needed to meet grand expectations, or that the fate of everyone rested on her shoulders. The little RainWing had made Moon feel normal.

Their initial meeting had only lasted all of two minutes, when Moon caught the loud thoughts in Kinkajou's head that she'd spotted the NightWing, before Moon fled. Then earlier today, Kinkajou had stalked through the rainforest all morning to find Moon and forced her to talk. Moon had been terrified at first, but she now doubted the RainWing had a single bad bone in her body. They'd both been so excited to have a new friend that the fact they were from different tribes hadn't even come to their minds.

"Don't you see?" Moon said to Morrowseer, hopeful. "If Kinkajou can accept me, then maybe we don't have to take the rainforest. We could live here alongside the RainWings! Together. Wouldn't that be better for everyone?"

Her father was quiet for a long time. With each passing second that dragged by, Moon felt that flicker of hope wither and die. A cloud shrouded the moons above the canopy, leaving the forest floor in almost pitch black. Moon could just about make out the shape of her father as he loomed over her, his golden eyes bright like starlight.

"You would have us bow to RainWings?" he hissed. "Have you no pride? You would have us cater to the whims of uneducated, weak, lesser dragons."

"They aren't lesser, they're just-just… different!"

"And we are NightWings!" he spread his wings, silver star-like scales seeming to surround her. "We are the most feared tribe in all of Pyrrhia. And we shall never give that up."

Moon backed up, trying to find a glimmer of light. "Wouldn't it be better than dying? It's better than being stuck on the volcano, sick and miserable."

"What would you know about it?" he snapped. "You saw a glimpse of it in your mother's memories and now you think you know what it is to be one of us? Never in all your years could you ever hope to achieve that."

Moon's wings drooped. Her scales felt like they were cracking, letting his words in to slice her open on the inside. Tears burned the back of her eyes. She couldn't look at him. She didn't need to read his mind to see how alien she was to him. There it was, in the open: she wasn't a NightWing, she wasn't one of them. Of course she'd known, it was in the subtext of why she was kept separated, why she had powers and everyone else didn't, why she had never been allowed to have her mother back. Blame for her mother's decision fell on Moon, a punishment for the luck of her birth. Resentment and disgust was all she was good for, because of course she didn't know what it was to be a NightWing.

No one wanted her.

A talon gently touched her chin and lifted her head to look back up. Moon's glistening eyes met her father's. Green on gold. For a fraction of a second, boosted by the contact of their scales, Moon caught a glimpse into her father's mind between the numbers.

Inside him there was a battle. On the one talon, he hated her for what she represented: that his mate had lied to him, that she was kept away from him in secret. And he was envious, because Moon - a dragonet frightened of her own shadow - had the powers of old, and he - the one leading the tribe from extinction - didn't. Yet, on the other talon, there was this feeling of… something… Moon couldn't describe it. She was his dragonet, his only surviving child. And she was the kind of NightWing the tribe should have been, and she was his.

He took his talon away, and Moon could no longer read him. His guard was back up, the numbers returned. One wing spread around her, tenting her in his shadow but not touching her. She desperately wished he would take her in his wings, embrace her, show her that emotion she'd sensed deep down inside him.

But he didn't. Instead, he sighed. "Moonwatcher, can't you understand? There is a reason that you were left out here, that you are the one born with our powers. You are going to help me secure our tribe's future. We are going to save them. Nothing is more important."

Moon ducked her head. "I just don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Play your part, and no one will. Get these fanciful delusions about consorting with other tribes out of your head. Our tribe is counting on us, Moonwatcher. You wouldn't want to be the one to disappoint them."

She wanted to argue her case, but even though he didn't touch her, the warmth in her father's shadow was comforting.

The next evening, she chastised herself for her weakness. At least her Father would be gone for a few nights and she could formulate a better plan. The sun still hadn't set, so she resolved herself to try and feel better.

She searched for Kinkajou all along the river, then into the mango-tree grove. But Kinkajou was nowhere to be found. Moon tried her best to stretch out her mind, but all it did was make her brain ache. Two of the moons began to rise and Moon combed almost half the rainforest looking for her new friend. There was not a flicker of her rainbow-mind, not even in sleep, anywhere. Moon began to panic. When dawn arrived and still there was no trace of her friend, Moon even dared to follow the thoughts of the sleepy RainWings to their village. She didn't get too close, only stuck to the edges and tried to listen in.

Being around so many dragons was so LOUD though. A migraine threatened to storm through Moon's brain. The RainWings weren't that active in their minds but there were still so many of them. Listening in, she tried to see if Kinkajou was here, or if anyone knew if she'd gone somewhere. But no. There was nothing. She had vanished.

Misery and guilt swallowed Moon up like a giant dragon eating her whole. This was all her fault. Her first potential friend, and she was gone.

For not the first time, as she stared up at the sky that night, Moon wished for some magical means for it all to end. She was so very lonely. No one to talk to. Scared to do anything except what she was ordered to. Told over and over that her best wasn't good enough, that she wasn't good enough. She wished her father would change. She wished she had a friend - a real friend. She wished someone would rescue her and her mother. That someone could love her, in any capacity, to fill that hole that made her feel starved without being hungry.

She wished she could learn to not be so scared any more.

Another day came and went. The first night of spring came. It was her seventh hatchingday. And she had no one to share it with.

Deep in the dark, a dragon slumbered.

A mind, after so long inactive, reached for any stimulation. The power of foresight reached out into the void and plucked the premonitions from the stars. The outside world was played before that sleeping mind, dreams to be seen as they appeared, but would not be remembered upon waking.

A war raged. All the tribes fighting one another as had never been seen before. Three sisters competed for the throne of sand, and in their squabbling had dragged every dragon in Pyrrhia down with them. And as the ground was soaked in blood, more and more desperately prayed for deliverance from the slaughter.

He saw five dragonets, each of a different tribe, each desperate to be free from the underground world they'd known the first seven years of their lives. They escaped into the big open world, only to be captured by a Queen of the Sky. Forced to perform for the Queen's sadistic pleasures, they fought in her arena. They killed, they almost died themselves, and even friendships were formed in the most unlikely of places. The Five managed to escape when they injured the Queen so badly that many thought her dead. But she didn't die, instead smuggled away by her SandWing ally to her fortress in the desert to recover. In the vacuum of power that remained, a princess took her mother's throne. And in a surprising twist, she pulled her armies from the front lines to instead treat the wounded and the starving in her kingdom.

The five dragonets went to the coast, to reunite a lost princess with her mother. Along the way, she met her brother, one whose appearance was so startlingly familiar that even that ancient mind stirred and nearly awoke. But the enchantment suffocated his awareness and sent him back into the dreams. It showed him the prince leading his sister and her friends to the Summer Palace, where mother and daughter were reunited, along with a younger sister, an animus. But not all was well in the kingdom of the sea, where princesses were murdered in their shells and the assassin remained undiscovered. The princess and her friends helped to uncover the identity of the murderer, yet in so doing revealed to ocean Queen how her SandWing ally was a manipulator. When the Five were detained, the cowardly little prince went to his mother, to speak on his sister's behalf. But in the process, his greatest secret was discovered by the ambitious advisor of the Queen - who was coincidentally killed by the little animus princess before he could spill his stolen knowledge. So when MudWings attacked the Summer Palace in blazes of fire, the unassuming prince fled with his sister and her friends into the wilds once more.

Their nerve shaken by the attack, the SeaWings fled to their Deep-Sea Palace, and broke off their alliance with their chosen would-be SandWing queen. As the war became disrupted, dark minds and wings began to panic that a carefully laid out plan, years in the making, was starting to fall apart. And so they set out to correct it, in any way possible.

Yet even as these forces conspired against them, the Five ventured onward towards the rainforest. There, they found a kingdom hidden from sight and forgotten by the world. Just as the inhabitants inside seemed to have forgotten about the larger world as well. There, they chanced upon the mystery of dragons abducted into thin air and began an investigation. It was also whilst in the rainforest, that the tag-along prince chanced upon a NightWing hidden deep in the thick of the forest floor.

When the dreams showed him her face, he once again almost awoke from the shock her familiarity caused. Yet, he dreamed on.

The NightWing was at first frightened by the strangers, but they slowly won over her trust. She confided in them of her friend's disappearance, worried for them in their quest that she knew would lead them to certain danger. She was torn between the duty to her blood and the duty to her heart.

The Five managed to find - rather by chance - a tunnel of magical means. And when a RainWing, desperately searching for his mate, dashed in recklessly, the one of the Five who always felt like she didn't belong, followed in after him. It was then that she found the volcanic island, the home of death and decay, and a once proud tribe brought low. She discovered the truth of what was happening to her fellow RainWings, and in her horror made a daring escape with the one she had come to rescue. In the process, she found the NightWing Queen caught between fire and ice. Enraged by the promise to thwart all the NightWing plans for salvation, the Queen drew herself from her fiery pit to attack - only to die. In the chaos, the imposter made her escape and managed to save the little RainWing that the NightWing worried about. Once safely returned to her kingdom, the one who never belonged decided to make herself belong somewhere, and so competed for the throne of the jungle. A secret heir to the RainWing throne, she won her heritage back and declared war upon those that would hunt her tribe.

And through it all, that great mind slept ever on as these events unfolded over the course of many weeks. Though his mind registered each of these dreams, the moment they were gone he forgot them. Lost to the oblivion of a two thousand year long slumber.

"We can't do nothing!" shouted a councillor.

A mass of black wings fluttered in squabbling outrage. Starflight huddled on the ground, doing his best to seem as inoffensive as possible. He was hungry, he was tired, he was scared out of his mind. Fatespeaker brushed her wing against his, doing her best to give comfort. But there wasn't much to be had - he could feel the tremble in her scales.

They were frantic tonight. The council of NightWings shouted over each other in different pitches of anger, fear and desperation. Starflight thought he should be used to this by now. It had been a week since the NightWings had kidnapped him, and they'd dragged him before them every night to interrogate him on his friends. Always afraid, always unsure, Starflight didn't know if the stuttering answers they forced out of him made the situation better or worse. When he'd first arrived, he'd thought he could parley with his tribe. Surely they were logical thinkers like he was, surely they would listen to reason and intelligence.

But then he'd seen them, seen their world. Crammed into a fortress that was half destroyed. Living on a volcanic island that clogged the air they breathed and made them sick. Hardly any prey left to eat, they were all starving. Miserable, ill, and the lives of their dragonets squeezed out of them day after day.

Now he believed Glory and the story she'd returned with two weeks ago. Of the NightWings evilly conspiring to steal the rainforest from the RainWings. That they were willing to kidnap, torture and experiment on defenceless, hapless dragons.

But Glory had changed everything. She did what everyone thought to be impossible. She'd escaped, taken the rainforest throne, and had started whipping her new subjects into shape. Within the first four days of her rule, she had turned the tide. No more were RainWings lazy, easy prey. They were focused, determined, willing to use their natural gifts for advantage in conflict. They had Tsunami to turn them into real soldiers. Clay to help the healers. And Sunny kept everyone organized. They were now a true threat.

Which was why the NightWings had kidnapped Starflight. He had been meaning to try and find them, to negotiate, to prevent war; but they beat him to it. Starflight could only imagine how much more formidable Glory must've been making the RainWings. As every day, his captors grew more erratic. Now, they were at breaking point.

Was two weeks enough time to make the RainWings a match for the NightWings? Starflight wasn't so sure.

"Enough!" Morrowseer raised his voice. Not enough to shout - Starflight had never heard Morrowseer shout, but he didn't need to. Everyone fell silent to listen to him, as if they too felt as frightened by those cold gold eyes as Starflight did. "While we sit here squabbling, those RainWings make a mockery of us."

"This is your fault!" one elder bravely accused. "Your Dragonets have gone rogue, Morrowseer! All they have done is ruin our plan from the moment you lost control of them."

"There is nothing wrong with the plan," he hissed. "We simply need to act. Now."

Everyone looked confused. "Now?"

"Are we ready?"

"General," said Greatness -

Starflight winced and corrected himself; Queen Greatness. The entire tribe had been thrown into chaos when Battlewinner had died. He was pretty sure that the main reason they were all so mad and unwilling to think of peace, was because they all wanted vengeance for what they perceived as the murder of their Queen. Now, as her mother's only heir, Greatness had had to take the throne. And Starflight could see that she wasn't cut out for it. She was quiet, indecisive, and lacked the regal conviction that Glory seemed to possess naturally upon taking her throne.

"The RainWings took out the scouts we sent through the tunnel," she was saying. "They know where we will come through, and they are waiting. We no longer have control of the situation."

"Then we take it back by force." He turned away from the new-queen dismissively to address the council. "We go through the tunnel en masse. Soldiers in the front will wear Mastermind's prototype armour. The ones behind will follow in close and attack by any means. The RainWings may have the advantage of terrain and their venom, but they will be useless in close quarters. The night will make us harder to see."

"We will lose more soldiers than we can spare!" someone cried.

"Not as many as you'd think. And all we need to do is get in there long enough to retrieve our weapon."

Starflight froze from where he had been trying to edge closer to the door, when Morrowseer was distracted. A weapon? What? Whatever it was, it gave Morrowseer the confidence not to appear the least bit intimidated by the thought of battling the RainWings. In fact, he looked ready for it. The tunnels to the rainforest were clearly animus-touched, so could it be some other enchanted object? Or the animus himself?

He had to clutch his stomach to stop himself vomiting at the panic that thought caused. Fatespeaker blanketed her wing across his back.

"Once we have it," Morrowseer went on, "Then this battle, and all those to come, will be ours."

The entire council started murmuring back and forth. With a sinking gut, Starflight realised they were whispering more in favour of Morrowseer's idea, rather than against. In one last hope, he looked to Greatness, sat on the dias by the wall where her mother used to look through. Would she say anything against Morrowseer? Would the council listen to her if she did?

But she remained silent and watched the council for their verdict, happy to not be the centre of attention.

Starflight wrapped the end of his tail around Fatespeaker's wrist and tugged gently. With a motion of his head, he urged her to creep behind him towards the door. No adult was paying attention to them. They had to slip away and get a head start.

Though Morrowseer had dragged him here tonight, he seemed to have forgotten Starflight's very existence. Which was fine with him, the less time Starflight had to spend around the terrifying older NightWing, the better.

When he and Fatespeaker reached the door, they finally began to run. Starflight led the way back to the dormitories. He had to get to the Dreamvisitor, he had to warn his friends! And then he and Fatespeaker had to escape.

The last thing he heard from the council chamber only made him run all the faster: "So it's settled. We attack within the hour."

High above in the heavens of Pyrrhia, amongst the stars, a celestial body moved across the sky. It was a comet, bright like a fourth sun, and leaving a trail of fire as it burned through the atmosphere. It was large enough that as it passed over the continent, from northeast to southwest, it was close enough to affect the world below.

The seas shifted with its magnetism, and they in turn moved the earth. Earthquakes ricocheted across the continent, not enough to do too much damage on the whole. But it was enough to make magma stir on an island in the north. And in the south, ancient stones shifted just enough that they grated on a bracelet of copper and wire, and snapped the old and corroded metal.

The bracelet fell from the body that wore it, it's magic finally gone.

And a dragon awoke.

A/N: if it isn't very clear, the comet has come earlier than in cannon, which is what causes the volcanic eruption due to the earthquakes it causes and it wakes up Darkstalker a little earlier than he's meant to.