Chapter Five

For three days, Moon anxiously waited for Darkstalker to come back. She felt oddly distressed. After so long on her own, she'd seemed to find someone that understood what it was like to be her, someone who knew her dark little secret. It felt crazy, because she'd only known Darkstalker a few hours and yet it already felt like she was dependent on him for company.

Darkstalker was an unusual mind because he had a wall of solid stone around his thoughts that she couldn't penetrate. She could only hear from him what he wanted her to hear, and the rest of him was sealed away tight. Yet, when he'd said he was a prisoner, Moon had felt the walls that kept her out crumble just a little bit, and she saw inside him. There was a deep, hollow void inside him, a desperation, a fear. It made her want to go out and find him, help him. He'd saved her, why couldn't she do the same?

But then she'd told him the date, and he'd freaked out and vanished. Frankly, Moon was starting to wonder if he had been a figment of her imagination all along.

Moon shook her head, as if she could physically rid herself of her worries. She carried on down the tunnel, scroll tightly tucked under her wing. A child-like excitement bubbled up. Moon had only ever read scrolls that contributed towards her training, yet she loved them, especially history. Scrolls allowed her to transport herself into the past, or into stories and fairytales that captured her imagination. It was simple escapism and she adored it.

The first RainWing scouts had left Jade Mountain for the first mission of the Rebellion. They'd been instructed to simply gather intel on what was going on in the outside world. Glory's brother, Jambu, had been on that mission, and had decided to grab as many scrolls as he could find. Starflight had of course been overjoyed to have any scrolls back in his possession - before he remembered that he was blind now. Fatespeaker had brightly volunteered to read the scrolls to him until they could come up with a solution to his problem.

Considering that Jambu couldn't read, only a couple of the scrolls he'd picked up had been of any use. One of the more pointless ones had been a copy of a famous SkyWing fairytale: Prince of the Sun. Moon had asked to keep it, as the others weren't using it. She'd carried it around with her ever since, reading and re-reading it. Starflight and Sunny had showered her with tales of things called libraries, where stacks on stacks of scrolls were kept. Moon had wished more than anything to have one of her own!

"Come on!" shouted a voice, making Moon jump. She peered out of a ledge to see Tsunami pacing up and down a line of RainWings on the valley floor, each holding long sticks. "Hold the spear the right way up! It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, Dazzling! Now, there's only one rule to remember when you attack an enemy with a spear… stick 'em with the pointy end!"

The rainwings all looked at their sticks, some of which had pointy bits at both ends. Moon chuckled to herself. She practiced the raindrop trick, as she'd promised, and stored away each of the mental-voices to where she could not hear them. Testing herself (as if being impressive enough would win back her invisible friend), she lounged on the rock ledge and pulled out her scroll to read.

She lost herself in the words so well that she almost didn't hear Turtle's quiet thoughts approach. He'd been the one that'd found Moon, back in the rainforest. He wandered away right into her little grove. SeaWing's could see even in pitch darkness, so he'd seen her even when she'd tried to hide in the deepest shadows. But he wasn't very loud, and Moon had instantly seen that he was kind, gentle. Eager to please but always wanting to fade into the background. It was through him that she'd met the Dragonets of Destiny.

Moon smiled at Turtle as he laid down heavily beside her. He was plumper than other dragons Moon had met, but he was strong. How else could he have pushed over that half-dead tree all those months ago?

"I've read that one," he smiled. "Mother had it imported and rewritten with her water-proof ink."

"I never knew the SkyWings used to worship the sun," Moon said. There was a lot about the other tribes that she didn't know. But through being around the RainWings, around the Dragonets of Destiny, she was learning so much more about all the tribes. It proved what she'd heard in their heads - if only they all knew how alike they were, then maybe there wouldn't be any war.

Turtle shrugged. "Makes sense, doesn't it? SkyWings love the high places, don't they? What's higher than the sun? What dominates the sky?"

"You like to read too?"

"Mother likes to write stories. Between being the Queen, running a kingdom, worrying about heirs… 31 sons aren't that important. Reading her scrolls was my way of being close to her, you know?" he looked away sheepishly. "I used to write my own when I was small."

The image of a piece of slate popped up in his mind, his small talons writing on it and then wiping the words away. Before Moon could concentrate on the image, Turtle's mind shoved it aside. Instead he thought about his mother, about her holding him and proclaiming him the heir to her heart, whether that be through his writing or because he was heroic. Turtle often did that - his thoughts would shift very quickly, as if he were trying hard not to think about something.

"I used to think," he continued, "that if I wrote a good enough story…"

"She'd notice you," Moon finished. It was almost painful how much Moon could relate to that. When her father had begun to take care of her, she'd done everything and anything she could think of to impress him, to make him smile.

Turtle nodded slowly and finally looked at Moon. His dark green eyes had a beautiful golden-hazel centre like there was secret electric at the heart of him -

Moon felt the ground tilt underneath her. Pressure pressed against her brain. A whirlwind swept her up and spun her into another place, another time.

Cold marble floors under her talons, dirty from disuse. Large arched hallways, higher than any dragon, stretched both in front and behind her. A broken window on her right, the light of two moons streaming through the jagged fang-like edges. In front of Moon was a different SeaWing dragonet, a female. Her scales were a subtle blue-grey, the membranes of her wings and fins pale pink. A torch was brandished in her talons, the flames accentuating a dangerous glint in her large, glaring blue eyes.

"You don't know anything!" the other SeaWing hissed. "Crawl back home, brother! I'm fulfilling my destiny!"

Movement on Moon's right; it was Turtle. He was glowering at this SeaWing - his sister? His expression was so harsh, so quietly angry… Moon couldn't imagine this being the same dragon she felt was so safe. Turtle widened his stance, his wings slowly flaring. "Then you leave me no choice."

He launched himself at the little SeaWing. They grappled across the floor. It was clear Turtle had the advantage of size, age, and strength. He pinned the little SeaWing to the dusty marble, his claws digging into her shoulders. She screamed and writhed pain. Turtle reached for her head. Was he going to snap her -?!

And just like that, Moon was spun out of the vision and plopped back into her own body. She came back to herself wobbling woozily, her breathing coming in quick gasps. Bewilderment. Her brain tried to catch up with itself. Where was she? When was she?

"Hey," said a voice. A talon touched her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Moon leapt away from the contact. She saw Turtle's face, confused it with the dangerous one she saw in her vision and scrambled ungracefully to her feet. Her heart was racing. She placed a talon to it and tried to calm down. It was like she was trying to drag her mind back into the present, unstick it from the quicksand of the future.

"S-Sorry," she mumbled. "Just… I get these… episodes…" she trailed off lamely.

"Oh," Turtle looked a little overwhelmed. "I saw a soldier like that once. Post Traumatic Stress, right?"

"Yes, right," she nodded vigorously. How else could she explain it away? It had taken her a little while to understand that these episodes were visions. Usually they came in her dreams, oddly specific and usually about dragons or things she'd never seen before. There was no control over them, no matter what her father said. But they'd saved her life a few times, warning her of trees that might fall on her in storms, or of crocodiles readying their ambush when she went to drink.

Turtle's mind was flashing all sorts of weird things at her, and with her concentration gone, the raindrops had let loose all the voices and she was struggling to put them away again. She had to get out of here. Trying to hide her shaking claws, she snatched up her scroll.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "But I've got to go - talk to you later!"

And she ran so fast, she didn't see the royal blue eyes watching her from the valley floor.

"I don't trust Moonwatcher," said Tsunami later that evening. She and the four other Dragons of Destiny (because really, they weren't dragonets anymore so why should they be called that?) were sat in what they'd designated their 'war-room'. From Sunny's mother, they'd managed to get a large map of Pyrrhia and pinned it to the cave wall with wooden stakes. In the centre of the cavern was a large stone they'd all carried in to act as a table, so they could compile notes and strategies and reports. But it wasn't going very well so far, seeing as how the majority of the rebellion was illiterate.

"What, why?" asked Sunny.

"For one: she's Morrowseer's daughter, how can we trust she's not here to spy on us. For Two: she's a NightWing, none of them can be trusted-"

Starflight turned his head in her vague direction. "Hey!"

"And for three…" the SeaWing paused, considering. "I don't know! She just… she's too quiet. Keeps to herself too much. It's suspicious."

"She's the opposite of you," said Glory. "That's heaven in my book."

Before Tsunami could retaliate, Clay nudged her shoulder with his own. "Come on, Tsunami, don't be like that. Moon's not a spy. She stood up to her father for us."

"Could've been an act. Maybe being master-liars runs in the family." Tsunami said stubbornly.

"But her mother fought Morrowseer, she fought him to get her daughter away from him. Starflight, you saw it too right?"

"Funnily enough, Clay," Starflight sighed, "I didn't see much of anything."

"Oh, right, sorry."

"Whatever grudge you have, Tsunami," Glory spread her colour-changing wings to call seriousness to the matter. "Deal with it. It's smart to be suspicious, but we can't kick her out. Moon's here now, and like it or not, we need to keep it that way."

"We do?" the other four said simultaneously.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes. Know why? Because Moon knows about us and where we are. She knows about the shield, and she's also one of the few dragons who can invite others in. And most importantly, she knows about Stonemover and can give him permission for any spell. All that information is too dangerous to be allowed to leave this mountain."

"But, wait!" Sunny pipped up. "We're not keeping her… a prisoner, are we?"

"Not officially. But if Moon is debating which side to belong to, we need to make sure it's ours she chooses."

"But she's already chosen our side!" Clay stressed. "She had months to turn back if she wanted to. All of us have family that we're not proud of, but we're here anyway - just like Moon."

They each looked at the ground, shame-faced. For a moment, Tsunami even cursed Clay's big heart and his way of getting under their skin with the truth.

"Okay," said Starflight. "Everyone's got a point. Moon's not a prisoner here and we shouldn't jump to conclusions about her just because of her father. However, she hasn't really done anything to prove her loyalty, either."

"She's not once offered to go beyond the shield," said Tsunami.

Sunny gave her a look. "Which also means she's never once tried to get away to send back a report, or whatever you imagine."

"But right now," Glory brushed her tail along the flimsy collection of scrolls and notes on their table. "We need all the able-bodied dragons we can get. My RainWings are great spies in theory, but they can't read, so we can't have any reports to keep track of, just their say-so. How's their battle training coming?"

"Slow," Tsunami admitted. "I'm doing my best, but the pacifist lifestyle is hard for some of them to shake."

"We need allies." Starflight gingerly felt his way along the floor, until he stood beside Glory. "We can't fight two tribes on our own. And we don't even know what Blister and Morrowseer are doing beyond the immediate land around our borders. We need alliances."

"My mother might help," said Tsunami. "But unless we can find a way to get a message to her at the bottom of the sea, she's won't come to us."

"We helped Ruby get her throne," Starflight tapped his chin with a claw. Glory's scales briefly shifted colour to a mottled yellow before she got them under control. "Maybe we can use that fact to make her more sympathetic to our cause."

"The NightWings have this ancient rivalry with the IceWings," Sunny nodded. "My father was telling me. Apparently, it goes back over a thousand years."

"And us opposing Blister will make it look like we're choosing Blaze, Glacier's candidate." Tsunami grinned. "Surely they can't not side with us!"

Sunny made a face. "I don't think we should lead them on like that."

"So long as the war comes to an end, what does it matter?" said Glory.

"Fatespeaker and I can come up with some letters," Starflight began gathering up papers eagerly. "Then you can have your best RainWings deliver them. If nothing else, we can start a conversation."

"Maybe I can write a letter to my sibs too!" Clay beamed.

Tsunami couldn't stop her talons already carrying her towards the entryway. "I'll double the battle-training. Oh, Sunny? Why don't you help me?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. You're quick and small, like they are. And you're smart, you can tell them where to hit, rather than being the brute fighters, like me. And hey, maybe your cheery personality might have a better effect than mine."

The golden hybrid literally bounced for joy. "Oh wow! Of course! Let's start right now!"

Glory smirked. "Then let's get to work."

It was the early hours of the morning, still dark out, when Moon finally returned to her cave to sleep. Once again, she'd waited to hear Darkstalker's voice. She'd waited for him each night, believing he slept during the day - wherever he was. After the catastrophe of seeing that vision of Turtle attacking his sister, she needed to hear her mystery voice's guidance.

But nothing. Just like the last three days.

So, she returned to her cave, to her little nest made of moss and leaves that she'd scavenged from the mountainside. Her body was reluctant to get into her new routine of sleeping half the darkness away. But she had to in order to appear more approachable to the daytime dragons.

Almost instantly, she fell into dreams.

At first, it was the usual, as far as dreams went. A mixture of unusual fragments of her day, her thoughts, or the thoughts of dragons she'd heard. Then it became more focused, and she saw memories.

Waiting for her father to return for days. Having been instructed to stay hidden and undetected, she'd waited patiently in her little den. But he didn't come. Eventually, she grew so worried, so hungry, she was forced to leave her nest and hunt for herself. When she finished her kill, her father appeared and praised her for finally growing to be self-reliant. He'd purposefully stayed away, starving her, testing her to see how long she would obey orders, before finally giving in and hunting for herself.

And then it went into a nightmare.

Her father stood over her whilst three other NightWings pinned her down by her wings and tail. Morrowseer's gaze searched over her, something unreadable in his gaze. He bent to inspect her face. Moon tried to crane her neck away from him, but he used the movement to rip off an earring out of her ear.

No, it wasn't a nightmare, Moon realised. It was another vision.

Morrowseer held up the earring in front of Moon's face; small, bright silver with a diamond centre. His expression turned hard. "Finally," growled out her father, "you will be of use to your tribe."

And then she was being dragged away. She struggled, she fought, but then her ankles and wrists were being chained! Hard, tight iron pinched her scales.

How could this be the future? Please, don't let this be the future!

The NightWings were taking her into the deepest depths of the forest, their minds shouting into her that she was a traitor, dirty scum that needed to be taught her place. She was going to stay there forever, the chains binding tighter, and tighter -

"Talons and teeth, you poor thing." The vision broke like a mirror splintering into a thousand shards. A huge shape loomed out through the cracks, and Moon got an impression of a shape made of silver and black. Vast talons closed around hers and she was suddenly yanked out of the chains, out of the forest, out of the vision… and into darkness.

Cold, peaceful darkness. No voices in her head. No impending visions of doom. Nothing at all. It was the first silence Moon had found since coming to Jade Mountain, since being with the Rebellion. She wanted to hide in it forever.

"I've got you," came a voice - the voice! "Breathe."

And Moon did. First one deep breath, then another. Gradually, her heart-rate slowed down.

"You came back," she croaked into the dark. She was still asleep, she knew that much. Darkstalker had pulled her out of her nightmare and brought her mind somewhere quiet. She sensed he was waiting nearby.

"I couldn't exactly ignore you, trapped in… that." He gave a low growl. "Someone should be punished for letting you get this way."

"No one knows how to fix me," she said quietly. "Thank you, for… for what you did… back there…"

"You should be able to do that yourself," he said. "Take yourself out of your visions. Not be lost in them."

"That wasn't a vision." Moon refused to believe it. It was too frightening to believe she was bound to somehow be imprisoned by her father, forced to help her tribe do evil things.

"You think so?" he sounded amused. And then he went quiet for a while. "Was that your father?"

"Yes." There was really no point in hiding it. "I was raised outside the tribe, in the rainforest. My father was the one who tried to train me. He said I had to become the perfect instrument for our tribe, to secure our future."

"I can understand that. More than you realise."

"But like you said, I'm pathetic. Until you came along, I had no idea how to control my powers - I still don't."

"Oh, Moon, don't you see?" he said. "You aren't the defective one, they are! You are the one born with a NightWing's true gifts. You have power, and they don't. That makes you better than they could ever hope to be. Once you learn control, once you have confidence, they'll know how much of a mistake it was to shun someone like you. Everyone will respect you, will be drawn to you. You'll be able to do anything you want."

"What if I want to have friends? Dragons that aren't scared of me? What if all I want is to be rid of the taint of my father's name?"

She felt a talon reach out and touch hers. "I'll be your friend. I'm not even remotely scared of you." It sounded like he was joking, but it was a little hard to tell. "Tell me, would you give up your powers if you could?"

Moon thought about it for a moment. If she'd never been born with powers, had been raised on the island, she would've had a normal life, maybe her family could've been normal. But on the other talon, she'd seen into all kinds of dragons, into their hearts, and found humbling truths. If she got rid of her power tomorrow, would her head forever be quiet and empty like it was now?

"No," she finally admitted. "I don't want to be like other dragons - I just want them to not mind that I'm different. I want to show them that I can do good things with my powers. And I want to stop being scared: of being discovered, of what my visions mean, of other dragons, of everything."

"I think I can help you with that."

"You won't leave me again?" she asked, that knot from the past three days growing tighter. "You worried me for a while."

"Sorry," said Darkstalker. "But you kind of took me by surprise - not an easy thing, I'll have you know."

There was more to it. "Why didn't you know the date? It upset you."

In the dark, there was a long, weary sigh. "I've been asleep for far longer than I thought. My life… I think it's all gone."

"Darkstalker," Moon tried to reach out into the dark. Her talons met her stone, deep grooves scratched into the surface. Like someone was trying to dig through the rock with nothing but their bare talons. "What happened to you?"

"Classic fairytale, really. Boy meets girl, they fall in love and they plan their whole futures together. Same boy has a best friend he loved like a brother. But in the end, the brother and lover turned on the boy, trapped him where he couldn't get out, and made him sleep until they were gone."

Moon didn't like the way he spoke, emotionless, devoid of any inflection. "With something like the RainWing darts?"

"A spell."

"What?"

"I wanted to change the world. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to make a world where little dragonets wouldn't be abused with the expectation to save their tribe." his words seemed to hum beside her ear, as if he was right behind her. "But no NightWings shared my vision, I was deemed an enemy of the tribe. My best friend - well, my nemesis, if you want to be dramatic. And my love… they feared me too. They lured me away and tricked me."

"And you've been imprisoned ever since."

"I woke up six months ago. I don't know why."

Memories of that fateful night in the rainforest flashed through Moon's mind. "A comet. It flew across the sky at the same time - so low it caused earthquakes. That's what made the volcano erupt."

"Must've been that." Darkstalker hummed thoughtfully. "There was a spell on a bracelet. It must've snapped off in the quakes."

"Is there no way to free you?" there was such sadness in his voice, a choked back despair, that Moon felt herself be moved to desperate pity. "I can try to find you. It must be close by for you to hear me-"

A talon closed around hers again. Moon caught a brief flash behind the confident and charming persona Darkstalker wanted her to see. Instead she saw an infinite well of loneliness, of yearning.

"Don't worry," he said. "I don't exactly know where I am, or how you could help. But I do know for certain that you would need to step outside the shield to get to me. That would put you in unnecessary danger, and I won't have it. Not on my account. I am not in any pain, so don't fret."

"But I can't just leave you-"

"Talking with you is enough. Now that we have each other, neither of us are alone."

For some reason, that made Moon smile. "It would seem we're kindred spirits. I wouldn't mind being haunted, if it were by a friend."

"Well, I wouldn't say this is a haunting, exactly. More like me desperately clinging to my only means of conversation," he said. Moon laughed. "And I meant it, earlier. I'll help you with your powers, as much as I can. Just you wait, little Moon - under my tutelage, you shall learn to wield the powers of your mind like a god!"

"Um, maybe just being competent would be a good start?"

"Baby steps, my dear. Baby steps."

"And I won't give up," Moon said. "We'll find a way to find out where you are. Get you free."

"Moon, you have no idea of the comfort that can be found in a simple promise."

Darkstalker stayed this time. And he was true to his word. Every evening, when Moon would wander Jade Mountain's caverns whilst all others were asleep, he taught Moon better control of her powers. It was slow going, and progress was hard won. And though Moon feared harsh reprimands like under her father, none ever came. Darkstalker was patient with her, and would only ever voice his frustrations at her father's lack of teaching-ability.

During the day, he was mostly quiet, and Moon suspected that was when he rested. But he would often pop into her head to offer some commentary about what was happening during her day. He was funny, if a little rude in his observations, like calling Qibli once a 'frenetically intelligent, strangely desperate SandWing'.

And in the quiet moments, after Moon suffered a nightmare (the regular kind, not born of visions), he would be there to offer comfort as best he could. It was a little sad at times, to realise he was just a voice, not a body that could brush her wing with his or hold her until she calmed like her mother used to. It wasn't until much later in life that Moon would realise that it was Darkstalker that helped to put her back together again after everything that had happened with her father, losing her mother, and being on the run.

It was the beginning of a friendship that they both came to depend on.

Over the coming weeks, Moon's confidence grew as her powers were not so harmful to her psyche anymore. She could stand to be in crowds of others and not feel the headaches. She knew how to avoid looking at dragons certain ways, or thinking in certain ways that might prompt visions at unwanted times.

And that new confidence helped to (unknowingly) save her. She went to the Dragons of Destiny and proposed that she contribute more to the rebellion. It was unwise to expose her secrets - Moon didn't need to look into the future to know telling them she had powers was a bad idea. But there were other ways she could help. Like for example, teaching the RainWings to read and write. Starflight was blind and Fatespeaker was like a full-time helper for him. The others were always very busy, and Moon had the time to spare.

So she taught entire classes of RainWings how to read. From the small dragonets right up to dragons twice her age. And with her mind-reading, she could help them more accurately. Being around them and poking inside their heads more deliberately did exhaust her most days. But Darkstalker assured her that it was like muscle; she just needed to build up the strength.

And she even got to have friends! Kinkajou loved her lessons, and pulled Moon along to lunch and dinner every day. Turtle was a great assistant, helping her to select the right scrolls for exercises or to set as 'homework'. Qibli slowly began to hang out with them more and more, his slight-suspicions falling away. And as if with his approval given, every other dragon in the mountain began to be at ease around Moon.

It was like a dream come true.

Until the IceWing prince arrived.