Crystal stared at her reflection, cracked and blurred by the wall of crystalline glass pressed up against her snout. She blinked for a few moments, recalling where she'd been a second before. The rainforest. There'd been something in her paw, and she'd been woozy, and then . . .
"I'm dreaming again, aren't I?" Crystal snorted, turning away from the mirror-like wall. She remembered this place. She'd dreamt it back in her Darkstone coma. Same as before, a long platform of the same crystalline material extended out her in a bridge across a pit. A NightWing entrapped in ice was at the middle of the bridge, and in front of him floated the strange spectral MudWing.
He flicked his tail with a grin as Crystal turned. "Very true."
Crystal glanced towards the walls of the cavern. The frozen NightWing seemed to have a reflection in it, but the MudWing was absent. Was this just a feature of her dream, or was there some strange magic going on here? She knew myths of dragons speaking to others in their dreams, but had never really payed close attention to them. She turned back to the MudWing and sighed. She tried to think back to her first dream with him, but the details were still blurry. "So, it's you again."
"You sound unhappy to see me," the MudWing replied. He extended his forepaws and pushed them back, as if he was swimming through the air. The action seemed to propel himself over the bridge, until he reached the point where Crystal stood, almost bumping into her.
The IceWing took a step back. "I can't say I'm super excited," she retorted. "What was your name again. "Cal . . . ?"
"Calamity," the MudWing answered. "Unusual name, isn't it?" He rolled onto his side midair, resting a wing beneath him as if he was lounging. With a twitch of his tail, he circled to Crystal's left. She carefully kept her eyes on him, turning as he did. She wasn't sure how to hurt a floating ghost dragon, but she didn't want to be caught unaware.
"Yeah, sure. So, who are you, and why are you speaking to me in my dreams? Did Queen Glacier summon you or something to haunt me?"
Calamity snorted. "Queen Glacier? No, nothing to do with that. I'm just a friendly MudWing ghost, trying to give you some advice in your dreams."
A quiet growl rumbled through Crystal's throat. "So you're a ghost? How does that happen? Animus magic?"
Calamity flicked his tongue. "Somewhat right. You've had animus magic on your mind a lot lately, haven't you?"
"Shut up," Crystal hissed, irritated. It was true. How had he known that? Had he been spying on her? Or maybe he was just a vestige of her own subconscious, manifesting itself in her dreams. "And how does being a ghost let you speak into my dreams?"
Calamity shrugged his wings, Crystal wincing at the strangeness of him doing it unbound by gravity. "Spooky ghost powers. And I told you a little last time we met."
Crystal frowned, before suddenly recalling some of their conversation. "The Darkstone," she realized. "You knew about it. You said I was 'incompatible' with it. What's that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said," Calamity grinned, his tail flicking beneath him. He changed directions in his air-swimming like a shark, causing Crystal to quickly turn the other way, her claws outstretched. "Any holder of the Darkstone is able to use some amount of animus magic, depending on how long they've held it and their physical fortitude, but it can't work well unless you have animus blood."
"'Animus blood'?" Crystal asked. "Like, you have an animus parent?"
Calamity nodded. "Or, if you're lucky, you can get it if you've got an animus grandparent. You know what I'm talking about. Your father researched animus genetics extensively."
"He didn't determine that it was recessive," Crystal replied. "It didn't match the data we had available." Boreal's research had been drawn from centuries of secretive IceWing geneticists. How did this MudWing know about it?
"The mechanism is complex," Calamity explained. "I'll explain it to you in more detail a few years from now, but animus-determination relies not just on a single allele, but a few alleles of varying rarity, methylation, and some more . . . unnatural factors. The Darkstone is a extremely powerful mutagen. With enough time, it's bound to give any dragon a few trace cells with the animus phenotype. But unfortunately, one who is incompatible will likely end up dying from cancerous mutations before they develop the magical ability needed to save themselves."
"Like the animals Boreal tested it on," Crystal answered, remembering her father's failed experiments. "Wait, are you saying I'm going to die?"
"Everyone dies," Calamity yawned. "But you won't die from the Darkstone. You haven't worn it long enough." He swam up to Crystal's neck, giving it a small poke where Crystal had previously worn the Darkstone.
She shivered as his talon passed into her, before he pulled it out again. She took a step back. "Don't do that again," she threatened him.
"There would be clear markings if you had worn it too long," Calamity continued. "But there aren't. Your natural lifespan might be shortened, but in a world like this, how many dragons live out their full natural lifespans?"
"How do you know all this?" Crystal interrogated the MudWing. "About the Darkstone. You know more about it than my dad did. Were you a MudWing spy that got killed by the IceWings?" No, that wouldn't have worked, he couldn't have gotten past the Great Ice Wall. "Did the Mud Kingdom have their own Darkstone source?"
"I died long before Boreal hatched," Calamity tsked. "Don't fret, Queen Mudhen knows nothing about this, and except for your small group of friends and a select group of IceWings, no one else has any clue."
"Moorhen," Crystal quickly corrected him. Calamity shrugged his wings in response uncaringly.
"It's besides the point what her name is now," Calamity snorted. "I visited you because I needed to warn you. You and your little troupe are going into the rainforest to find an animus, correct?"
"Yeah," Crystal said with a frown. "How do you know this? Are you watching us? Is the animus dangerous?"
"Sure, I'm watching you," Calamity sardonically answered, rolling his eyes. "And the animus isn't dangerous yet, which is what makes him so dangerous."
Crystal gave out a huff, letting out a puff of cold white mist onto Calamity. It passed through the MudWing, who seemed completely unaffected. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"He appears innocent now, but if you are unable to stop him, he'll overuse his magic and end up causing the deaths of many dragons," Calamity yawned, stretching out his wings.
"Are you telling me you can predict the future?" Crystal asked. "Don't give me that 'I'm not a NightWing, I can't do that' crap. You're like Fracture, aren't you, with some weird vague sense of what everyone is doing that you refuse to explain to me!"
Calamity snorted, almost wheezing. "You're completely wrong," he laughed. "I'm nothing like your brother-in-law. For starters, I'm half-dead." He raised up a translucent wing, showing it off to Crystal, who could see through it to the cavern. He gave her a wink and a grin. "I told you, spooky ghost powers."
Crystal bared her teeth. It felt like this dragon was intentionally trying to get on her nerves. "So what you're saying is that the animus will kill a bunch of dragons in the future, but hasn't lost his soul or whatever yet? Why not just say that clearly?"
The ghostly MudWing flicked his tail, and didn't offer up an answer to his own actions. "You're correct. So will you promise me to make sure that Torrent kills the animus?"
"No," Crystal replied, causing Calamity to give out a small sigh. "Sorry. There's no way I can just trust a weird ghost dragon in my dreams who claims to know the future. I'll take your advice into account, but no promises."
"I didn't expect one," Calamity continued. "But if you want proof that I know the future, the first thing Torrent will say after you wake up is that his head feels like someone dropped a coconut on it."
"What?" Crystal asked. "Why would he say that? Did his head get hurt or something?"
"You were drugged by RainWing sleeping darts," the MudWing quickly explained. "They're a bit less partial to intruders than they claim to be."
"Oh. So that's why I fell asleep." Calamity nodded to confirm. Crystal sighed. "Alright. So if Torrent says this, I'll know you can predict the future, but that doesn't mean you're not lying to me."
Calamity grinned, showing his sharp fangs. "You're right. But is me telling the truth a risk you're willing to take? A lot of dragons' lives depend on your decision."
Crystal glared at Calamity, and suddenly swished her spiked tail through his ethereal body, a small chill running up it. "I hope you realize that this is just making me hate you more."
"We're on the same side," Calamity comforted Crystal. "And in time, I'll be your most trusted ally."
Crystal shivered. She hoped that was a lie.
"Well, the sleeping drug is starting to wear off," Calamity commented, swimming back away from Crystal. "I'll see you soon. Hope that you remember my name next time. I already know that you will, by the way, I'm just saying that to make you feel slightly guilty for forgetting it."
"Great," Crystal grumbled. So now she was having mysterious dreams with an unhelpful undead prophet. "Thanks for the heads up. I'm not going to have to fall into that chasm again, am I?"
Calamity licked his ethereal fangs. "Nope. Just open your eyes."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Crystal laughed. "My eyes are already o —"
Crystal woke up with a start, opening her eyes to the scenery around her. Bright light flooded through her eyes, and a feathered face looked down at her.
"Oh, you're awake!" Griffin exclaimed. "Finally!"
Crystal attempted to hoist herself up, though her limbs barely responded to her will.
"What happened?" she groaned. She looked around. She seemed to be on a small pavilion made of woven vines. Behind her, Torrent and Schist were lying down, fidgeting slightly in their sleep. Looking back at Griffin, there were five dragons around the platform, all of various bright colors, hues of purples and oranges Crystal had never known existed. RainWings. She frowned, memories of her dream already starting to drift away from her. That's right. She'd had a dream. There was an annoying MudWing ghost, and he'd told her something about RainWings? She tried to remember, but it was already fading. "No, no," she winced, desperately trying to recall it. "Come back."
"They used sleeping darts on you all and brought us back here," Griffin answered. He scratched beneath his wing, where there was still a small poke from one of the darts.
Crystal looked around, and noticed the pack she had been carrying over at the edge of the pavilion. The Darkstone! she remembered in worry. It was in there, not around her neck. She staggardly scrambled to her pack, to have a midnight blue RainWing warily step in front of her, blocking her path.
Crystal hissed at the RainWing, baring her fangs. "Are we your prisoners now?" she growled.
"Prisoners?" the RainWing, Liana, asked herself. She chuckled a little. "Oh, don't worry, we're not savages. No, no, we normally just put any hapless dragons which wander into our rainforest to sleep and fly them outside the borders."
"Then where are we?" Crystal asked. She looked out of the corner of her eye. Torrent seemed to be stirring awake. That was good, she'd want another dragon if it came to a fight; she doubted Griffin would be too effective, even against a RainWing.
"Well," Liana continued, "we don't usually have dragons fly right up to our largest village, and your talking dragon-bird didn't fall asleep when we darted him, so we just brought you here for now."
"Gryphon," Griffin corrected Liana.
The RainWing nodded. "He's much smarter than the other talking birds here!" she commented unhelpfully.
Torrent started to woozily lift his body onto four legs, stretching out his tail. He had heard some of what Liana had said, but was still trying to parse it. They were captured by the RainWings, but apparently weren't prisoners? He'd trust an eel more than that. He put a claw to his side, and noticed that his dagger was no longer resting against his scales. Torrent glanced around the pavilion, and noticed its jeweled handle next to one of the other RainWings. It started to shake, and slowly moved towards Torrent, but the RainWing put a claw on it with a sigh, and moved it back to where it was. "My head feels like someone dropped a coconut on it," the SeaWing grumbled.
Crystal suddenly snapped awake at the phrase, her wings stiffening up and her tail smashing into the wooden pavilion. Her dream started to come back to her. There was the ghost MudWing, and he'd told her about the Darkstone, and about the animus. There was an animus here, one who would be very dangerous in the future. Torrent looked towards the shocked Crystal, unsure why she appeared so suddenly agitated. The SeaWing glanced around the rainforest, wondering if they were under attack.
"So, why are you here?" Liana asked. "This wasn't an accident, was it?"
"No," Torrent grumbled. "We're looking fo —"
"For some mangoes," Crystal quickly interrupted, giving Torrent a look of caution. And cacao. We had some while up north, and it was very delicious. We were wondering where to find some more."
"Oh!" Liana exclaimed. "You must have met Mallow! He goes up north for whatever reason every so often, taking a bunch of unripe mangoes and cacao with him! It's so weird, why would he ever want to leave the rainforest?"
"Who knows?" Crystal replied with a smile. "It's so nice here, isn't it? Nothing at all like the cold, frigid Ice Kingdom."
Liana grinned, then looked behind Crystal with an expression of concern. Five young RainWing dragonets were bounding down a small bridge to the pavilion, with an adult RainWing running behind them. "Stop!" the older RainWing called. "Come back, it's not safe!"
The five dragonets didn't heed their teacher's warning, and crowded around the four newcomers. As Schist was just rising, two looked at him curiously. "It's a MuddyWing!" one exclaimed.
The second dragonet poked at one of Schist's fused and scarred scales, causing the waking MudWing to flinch in pain. "Wow, what happened to you?" she asked. Schist tried to mutter something in reply, but couldn't get any intelligible words out.
"Oh, I'm very sorry," the older RainWing apologized, reaching out a burgundy forearm to grab one of the dragonets by the tail, though the dragonet got away before she was able to grab her.
"Ooh, look at this!" a pinkish white dragonet said in fascination, walking over towards Torrent's dagger. It was shaking slightly, and moving towards Torrent again on its own. "It moves on its own! It's magical, like me!"
Torrent tensed up, wondering if he'd misheard the dragonet. Magical, like the dragonet? That couldn't be right. This dragonet couldn't be the animus, he didn't seem evil, or powerful, or anything like that. Torrent gulped. Maybe this was just a mistake; the dragonet could just be playing pretend, or maybe the actual animus had given the dragonet an enchanted object?
He glanced over to Crystal, verifying that she'd also heard what the dragonet had said. The concerned frown on her snout indicated that she also understood.
"Don't touch that!" the RainWing teacher yelled in alarm, seeing the dragonet trying to grab the dangerous weapon. She quickly lept over to the dragonet and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dangling the little RainWing from her mouth. "Svo mvere svopfry," she tried to say, unable to properly reply while holding the dragonet with her mouth.
Meanwhile, Liana and Simian had been rounding up the other dragonets, including one who was pouncing on Crystal's tail, distracting her from her thoughts. They pushed them back onto the bridge and stood in their way as the dragonets' teacher, with the final dragonet, exited the pavilion, leading the crowd of dragonets away.
"I'm sorry about that," Liana continued, "even Bromeliad can't control all her students sometimes. Now, you're welcome to stay in our village for as long as you'd like, I'm sure you'll be able to find someone who can direct you to the best mango trees."
Crystal thought for a moment, still worried by what she'd overheard the dragonet say. If Calamity was right . . . did she have a choice? "Yes, mangoes," she said with a start. "Yes, thank you for your hospitality. Can we get our stuff back now?"
"Oh, yes, of course! But please, keep weapons away from our dragonets, and anyone else." Liana stuttered, worried that she'd been rude to her guests. Torrent walked over towards his dagger, which moved towards him in reply, as if to greet him. When reunited with it, he pressed a talon on the amethyst, and pointed it in the direction to where the dragonets had gone off. It was warm. He gritted his teeth. He couldn't do this.
Crystal immediately scrambled for her satchel. Opening it up, she saw the Darkstone was still inside. With a sigh of relief, she carefully took the silver chain out and draped it around her cold neck. Seeing that Crystal was putting it back on, Torrent turned towards her, wanting an reason for why she was wearing it again after they'd explicitly agreed to leave it off.
"I want to keep it safe," Crystal explained. "I need to make sure it's not lost or stolen; that would be a disaster." Anyways, if Calamity was right, there wasn't much danger of her wearing it, as long as it wasn't for too long.
"Oh, don't worry!" Liana clucked assuredly. "No one here would ever steal anything! RainWings just don't do that!"
"Just in case," Crystal quietly responded. Torrent, meanwhile, had decided he was satisfied with this reasoning — only wearing it for a little bit couldn't hurt, and it was pretty unlikely she'd be able to successfully use animus magic again.
"Here, let me take you to the hammocks!" Liana suggested. Crystal hesitantly accepted, and followed the RainWing as she glided down off of the pavilion. Torrent, Schist, and Griffin tagged behind her, and tried to keep up with the RainWing as she nimbly glided around branches, using her tail to balance herself mid-flight.
Through the short flight, Torrent realized why he hadn't seen the village from above: most of the houses had roofs made of leaves, camouflaging the village in a way strikingly similar to the Summer Palace. RainWings stopped what they were doing and uncomfortably stared at the four as they flew past; it didn't look like they got many visitors here. As they approached a large woven pavilion, Liana made a quick burst up, and glided onto the pavilion, landing like a feather on the vines.
On the other claw, Crystal, Torrent, and Schist landed much less gently. Torrent almost ran into the side of the pavilion, and just reached over the edge, scraping his underbelly on the woven flooring. Griffin had a lot easier of a time landing, stopping mid-flight to touch down, but then again, he was as small as a dragonet. Crystal looked at Liana with a hint of envy — if all the IceWings were as good fliers (or gliders, in this case) as her and the rest of the RainWings, then maybe the war could have been over years ago.
"C'mon," Liana said, looking slightly smug of herself, "some of the best hammocks are this way." She quickly took off across the pavilion. The four followed behind her at a walking pace, as RainWings looked on at the little procession.
"Is that a bird?" one orange and yellow colored RainWings whispered to his friend as Griffin walked past.
"No," Griffin muttered in exasperation, inciting a cry of amazement from the crowd. The four continued on past the onlooking RainWings to a small bridge to another pavilion. Hammocks were strung between the trees all around; many of the ones that sunlight shone directly on were filled with RainWings who were either fast asleep, bathing in the few golden rays that penetrated the rainforest, or were curiously looking at the four newcomers.
"Alright, here we are!" Liana said to the guests. "This is where you'll sleep while you stay here! Or any other hammocks, but these are my favorites, if you want my expert opinion. I'm sure Olive, he's the dark green one pretending to be asleep beneath the banana tree, will be happy to tell you about the best mango spots in the rainforest when you ask him!"
"Right, thank you so much!" Crystal replied with a generous smile. She turned to Schist with a bit of anxiety in her eyes. "Schist, go ask Olive about the mangoes. Torrent and I need to talk. In private."
Before Griffin or Schist could respond, Crystal shoved the SeaWing off the side of the bridge, causing him to spread his wings out in a reflexive glide, almost flying into a sleeping RainWings. With a quick leap, Crystal was after him, gliding down down to the rainforest floor.