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CLEARSIGHT

Tomorrow, Clearsight was leaving the palace to join the soldiers. Darkstalker helped her pack. He also helped distract her from the sense of mortal dread looming over her.

"I've enchanted this water for you," he said, offering her a swollen leather flask. "Drink it before the battle begins."

Clearsight accepted it, turning the flask over in her talons and feeling its weight. "What does it do?"

"A few things," he said. "It'll heighten your awareness, make you a little bit stronger, boost your dexterity a bit. Small things. I was going to have it make you invincible, but I know how reckless it would be to let the IceWings know that we're using magic."

Clearsight nodded, holding the flask close to her body. "This is perfect," she said, smiling at him. "Thank you."

"And here's a ring I enchanted for you," he said, opening a small box he had on his desk and showing her its contents. Inside was a plain golden band, with simple star-shaped etchings all around it. "When you wear it, your voice will carry more weight. Everyone who hears your words will be more inclined to obey you, so you can command your troops better."

Clearsight felt her heart grow still. She shook her head, and closed the box, pushing it away. "Darkstalker, you know I don't like these types of enchantments," she said.

"But this is your life we're talking about here! General Blackhorn said it himself, didn't he? Whether you win or lose could depend entirely on how well you command your soldiers. Can't you make an exception this one time?"

"No," Clearsight said firmly. "I'm not going to get my way by manipulating the minds of other dragons, even in little ways like this. If I'm going to be leading the soldiers, I want it to be me that's leading them. And if I'm going to win their support, I want it to be because I earned it." Clearsight walked over to her travel bag and placed the flask in it. "Besides, this isn't going to be the suicide mission that we thought it would be. I won't need to do anything drastic to keep myself alive."

She mostly said that to convince Darkstalker (and herself) that she'd be fine, but she had good reason to believe it was true. The new battle plan that she'd ironed out with General Blackhorn was much safer, both for the troops and for Clearsight. At every stage of battle, most of the NightWings would have an easy escape route. Clearsight would also be near the middle of the body of soldiers — far enough away for her to be out of the front lines, but close enough for her to be able to actually lead.

In order to keep retreat routes available, most of the soldiers would have to stay outside, or stationed along the flanks of the cave system to slow down any IceWing pursuers. As expected, this underutilized the numerical strength that they would have over the IceWings, which hurt their odds of victory. Ever since they finalized the new plans, every future Clearsight saw pointed towards an early defeat.

But at least she survived those defeats. And at least she wouldn't be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of NightWings. It was hard, at first, to accept the bitter reality that this new plan was doomed for failure. But she eventually acclimated to it. She tried not to think of it as an actual plan, but rather as just a show. A formality — one that she only had to go through because she needed to appease the queen.

She picked up a thick woolen blanket in the bag and moved it to one side to make room for her leather harness, which would secure her pouches and water flask and weapons to her body. Beneath the blanket lay her golden pocket watch, still pleasantly ticking behind its shell.

Darkstalker looked over her shoulder at the watch. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "I shouldn't need to use it, but I'd like to have the option, just in case. If I end up getting captured, or mortally wounded, or …."

She couldn't finish that thought. The look Darkstalker gave her — he was so worried.

"Darkstalker, I promise I—"

The rest of her words were cut short by a sudden, tight embrace. Darkstalker squeezed her, draped his wings around her, curled his head around her neck. "You can't let it come to that," he said, nearly choking on his words. "You can't leave me. I love you too much."

"And I you," she said, though it was hard to make words with how much Darkstalker was crushing her lungs. Perhaps this was a last-ditch effort to keep her from leaving. If he broke her ribs, she'd have to stay in the palace until she was healed.

A little bit to her own disappointment, he didn't break her ribs. He released her from his embrace after a few moments and let her finish up her packing.

"Have some faith in me, you sentimental salamander," Clearsight said with a grin. "I'm going to be just fine. We'll go to Shooting Star Valley, we'll storm the fortress, we'll fail, and we'll run away. And we'll all live happily ever after."

Darkstalker smiled back. "Sounds like a prophecy," he said.

Clearsight would be setting off before sunset, so she decided to get an early day's sleep. Darkstalker invited her to sleep with him, and she graciously accepted.

She was asleep in his bed well before Darkstalker was ready to join her, and she woke up in the afternoon well before Darkstalker was ready to wake up himself. She slept soundly and dreamed peacefully, warm and sheltered beneath her mate's wing for most of the night. And although she didn't want to leave Darkstlaker's side, she knew that she was as ready as she'd ever be to set out.

When she tried getting out of bed, Darkstalker reached up and pulled her back down, forcing her to stay beside him for just a few more minutes.

Clearsight let out a contented sigh and curled her head around Darkstalker's. "I thought you'd still be asleep."

"You can't get away from me that easily," he murmured sleepily.

"You're going to make me wrestle you then, huh?" She nuzzled his chin. "Darkstalker, I really do have to go."

Darkstalker grumbled, but released her. "Why don't I come with you?" he asked.

"Because the queen wants you here," Clearsight said, standing up and stretching.

"I don't care," Darkstalker said, yawning. "The queen wants a lot of things, but she's not getting 'em from me."

"Go back to sleep, Darkie, you're not making any sense."

"Just let me tag along," he said, sounding a little bit more awake and a little bit more serious now. "I'm serious. I won't even do any fighting. I'll just carry your bag for you, and keep your bed warm in your tent. And if the queen starts nagging me for leaving the palace without her permission, then I'll shut her up by enchanting her to shove her tail down her throat."

Clearsight laughed — and was genuinely tempted by the offer. She wouldn't mind Darkstalker's company, but shouldn't they have talked about this before? Him tagging along was not part of the plan, nor was it something they had ever discussed or considered. She didn't study any of the futures where he joined her: what if it changed things somehow?

She looked ahead, trying to see what would happen if she said yes. To her surprise, it didn't look like she'd be facing any backlash from Queen Vigilance. She figured that with how paranoid Vigilance had become, she would be furious if Darkstalker left the palace without her knowledge. But perhaps it was the opposite: perhaps Vigilance would be happy to have Darkstalker as far away from her as possible for now.

Was there any reason his presence would ruin things on the battlefield? She couldn't reasonably imagine why, and there wasn't anything in her seer's intuition that was compelling her to worry.

And the thought of sleeping in his arms every day while they were at the campsite was really, really appealing.

"Alright, I'm convinced," she said. "But only if you leave your scroll here. I don't think it's safe to take it outside the palace."

Darkstalker sprang to his feet. "Done. I'll leave it with Fathom."

"You go do that, then. I'll get breakfast for us."

And so, just like that, her plans changed. It's a small wonder why the futures can be so hard to figure out sometimes, she thought to herself.

Clearsight tried to avoid running into Keen Eye before she left, but of course, that turned out to be a fool's errand. The older NightWing found Clearsight while she was on her way to the kitchens. Hopefully she wouldn't ask about Darkstalker.

"Good evening, Clearsight," she said. The look in her eyes were as sharp as ever, showing no sign of tiredness during these early hours. "I trust you're ready for your trip?"

"Ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," Clearsight said with a nod.

"Do not take any unnecessary risks. I know I've already told you that but it bears reminding."

"I've made peace with the fact that I likely won't be leading the troops to victory, Keen Eye," Clearsight said. "I just hope I can convince them to play along."

"You'll do just fine, I'm sure of it. Now, you wouldn't happen to know where Darkstalker is, would you? Per the queen's request, I need to interrogate him some more. Make sure he hasn't changed his mind on whether or not he's planning to kill her and all that."

Clearsight quietly grumbled to herself. "I'll be having breakfast with him before I head out," she said. It wasn't that she was afraid of Keen Eye finding out about the new plan. But Keen Eye might talk her into changing her mind and having Darkstalker stay in the palace after all. And now that she'd decided to bring him along, she didn't want to be convinced.

"Oh, alright then," Keen Eye said. "I don't want to bother you while you're eating, so I'll speak with him afterwards. Will he be free after you're gone?"

Clearsight tried coming up with a good lie to tell Keen Eye, but it was just causing her brain to churn in on itself. "Not really," Clearsight said. "He'll be coming with me, actually."

Keen Eye straightened up. "Oh," she said. "Since when?"

Clearsight looked away nervously. "Since … about ten minutes ago."

"Ah, a last-minute change of plans, lovely," she said, folding her brow. "He won't disrupt anything, will he?"

"The battle plans aren't going to work anyway, so it's not like him being there will do any further harm. All I know is that Queen Vigilance isn't likely to bother us about it when we get back."

"Well, I might need to do some work to make sure that that's the case," said Keen Eye, twitching her nose irately, "but I suppose I'm not surprised to hear that. Maybe Queen Vigilance can rest easier knowing that she's not in the same palace as Darkstalker."

"So you don't think it's a bad idea?" Clearsight asked.

Keen Eye squinted at her. "You're the better seer between us: you tell me."

Clearsight looked away nervously. "This isn't the sort of thing that my powers are always good for. When there's a lot of chaos, like there is now, I can't always rely on what my visions tell me."

"Well, my honest intuition is that it's going to invite some trouble," Keen Eye said. "But if you think taking Darkstalker with you is a smart decision, then I trust your judgment. And I think you should too."

Clearsight smiled. "Thank you, Keen Eye."

"I'll let you have your breakfast, then," she said. "Good luck on your excursion. And be careful."

"I will," said Clearsight, starting towards the kitchens once again.

"Don't take any unnecessary risks."

"You already said that."

"Because there's this nagging feeling in my brain that suspects you're not going to listen."

Clearsight looked back at Keen Eye one last time. "I promise you, Keen Eye, I will be safe."

But right after she said that, a short vision crashed into her mind. Daylight over the open hills. Serrated claws tearing off her scales and piercing her flesh. Spears and arrows falling from the sky. Fire and frost breath filling the air. Blue and red blood soaking the grass.

She took a deep breath and looked away, hoping Keen Eye didn't notice. Okay then, noted. I'll take your advice more seriously, Keen Eye.

It wasn't like her to ignore visions like those, but the last thing she needed to do right now was get herself worried. She had a plan. Her normal visions told her that it was probably going to keep her safe. Right now, the best thing she could do was stick to that plan and not die.

She walked away, and Keen Eye thankfully didn't say anything more. After making her way to the kitchens, she asked the cooks to make two servings of fresh lox with cheese, and waited at a table in the nearby dining hall.

Darkstalker joined her a couple minutes later. While they ate, he informed her that he gave Fathom his scroll, and Fathom agreed to keep it safe until they returned.

"I expected him to be a little more startled by the request," Darkstalker said. "I suppose he was a little bit grumpy when I woke him up."

"He's still in the honeymoon stages of his relationship," Clearsight said. "You remember what that was like for us, right? We didn't want anyone disturbing us when we were together."

Darkstalker smiled reminiscently. "I suppose," he said. "Still, I hope he takes my request seriously. I can't imagine how disastrous it would be if the queen got a hold of my scroll."

"I can't imagine anyone who would take the request less seriously than Fathom," she assured him. "Now, let's get moving. We won't make it to the base camp by twilight if we wait any longer."

After finishing their breakfast, the two of them left the palace and began to stretch their wings. It was a nice day out. One of the things that Clearsight enjoyed most about flying before sundown was how warm the air was. The shallow sunlight rested on her scales, easing her nerves just a little bit.

She gave Darkstalker her bag and took to the sky. Darkstalker flew behind her, making their way north as purples and oranges began coloring the horizon. It wouldn't be a long flight, but the camp was difficult to spot from the sky, and they would have to fly low in order to keep IceWing spies from seeing them. When Foeslayer had given Clearsight directions to the camp, she told her to expect to spend more time looking for it than flying there. And she warned that it'd be impossible to find once it was dark, even for NightWings, which was why they had to leave so early.

But Foeslayer might have forgotten that Clearsight was a seer: she could use her powers to find the right way much faster. After about a half-hour of flying, they closed in on the camp's location, and Clearsight started to comb the threads of the near future, searching for directions.

She spent a few minutes trying out different areas in her head. If they flew further north for another mile — nope, according to the futures, there wasn't anything there. If they flew northwest instead, still nothing. Northeast? It didn't seem like it was there either.

After some time, she ran out of options. The camp didn't seem to be anywhere here. Maybe she wasn't in the right place?

She extended her talon and pointed her thumb downward in a 'thumbs-down' sign — signaling to Darkstalker that she wanted to land. They found a small foothill with good clearance and touched down there.

"Lost?" Darkstalker asked, taking Clearsight's bag off of his back.

"Possibly," she said. "Don't bother looking in there for a map. I didn't think I'd need to bring one."

Darkstalker, who had just started looking through the bag's contents, immediately stopped what he was doing. He gave Clearsight a disappointed frown and fastened the bag back to his body. "Well, I think I know where we are," he said. "We flew over the Veteran Forest just a few minutes ago, so we should be directly east of North Beach, maybe twenty-or-so miles inland."

"Which puts us exactly where we want to be," Clearsight said, annoyed. She looked around at her surroundings, hoping to find some landmarks that would set her bearings straight. The foothills continued north for another two-or-so miles before they became the Talon Mountains. There weren't any particularly distinctive peaks along the mountain range, but there was a narrow lake just barely visible to their east. That was probably Buck Lake, which meant they were probably in the right place.

Now she was worried. If they were at the right place but the camp wasn't there, then that could only mean that the camp had moved somewhere else. But why would they do that? Did they get attacked by the IceWings and had to run away? Did they intentionally relocate so that they didn't want to deal with Clearsight commanding them? What was she supposed to do if she never met up with the others?

Darkstalker stepped forward. He was squinting at something in the distance, but when Clearsight tried following his eyes, she couldn't make out what he could have been looking at.

Suddenly, he took flight. Clearsight blinked, confused, before spreading her wings and chasing after him. "Hey, wait up!" she shouted.

They didn't fly far. Darkstalker landed atop an evergreen tree in a dense patch of forest between two foothills. The tree bent to his weight, and he hopped off of it, landing on the ground beneath him.

Clearsight lost sight of him until she landed as well, finding an area between two trees that was just wide enough to take her in without scraping her wings as she descended. She saw Darkstalker's eyes nearby, though he was getting harder to see now that the sun had nearly set.

"What are you doing?" she asked, raising a brow at him.

"I think it's in here somewhere," he said, wading through the trees.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because this is where I would set up the camp if I were them. And I thought I might have seen something moving near here."

They found a small creek passing through the forest and followed it north. Clearsight let Darkstalker take the lead, but mostly out of politeness. She wasn't expecting them to find anything, and she couldn't help but feel a little offended that Darkstalker felt otherwise. If their camp were here, she should have been able to find it by now using her powers.

"There!" Darkstalker said, pointing ahead. "See that tent?"

You have got to be kidding me.

They needed to get a little bit closer, but eventually she did see it. It was covered in a mossy camouflage, and it was just large enough to fit two fully-grown NightWings inside if they kept their wings folded and their tails curled up.

Darkstalker met Clearsight's jealous expression with a toothy grin. "I'm sorry, are you angry because you're supposed to be the omniscient one?"

"Shut up," she pouted, much to Darkstalker's amusement.

"Aw, don't be so grumpy. Let's just say that this was one of those cases where it's better to use your eyes to see."

'Better to use your eyes to see' was a turn of phrase that Darkstalker invented solely for Clearsight. He used it on her whenever she tried using her future sight to figure out something that she could have easily deduced by being more observant. Darkstalker was usually a lot more observant than she was, so he found himself saying it to her a lot.

"Now, let's see if we can find someone to point us towards the captain's quarters," he said.

But before they could even start looking, a pair of eyes emerged from behind a tree up ahead. It spoke. "Are you Clearsight?"

As they grew closer, a second tent took shape, just as camouflaged as the first, and the outline of the new NightWing's form began to make itself distinct from the shadows.

"I am," Clearsight said, nodding at the NightWing. "And this is my mate, Darkstalker. He'll be keeping an eye on my things while I'm here."

"Darkstalker!" said the NightWing, his eyes growing wide. "Oh wow, I didn't expect you'd be with us. Will you be a part of our planned siege?"

"I will not," Darkstalker said. "I'm only here to keep Clearsight company, and to keep her belongings safe. The only dragon between us that you should talk to about the plan is her."

The NightWing nodded. "I see. Well, it's still comforting to have you here. If things should go terribly wrong, you could always safeguard us with a little bit of magic, right?"

Clearsight and Darkstalker looked at one another, and Clearsight gave a wordless gesture that said, "You go on ahead and answer this one."

"I will not be using any magic here," Darkstalker said. "Not even in an emergency. There is an informal agreement between us and the IceWings to not use any animus magic for military purposes, and I plan on honoring that agreement."

The NightWing looked a little ashamed of himself. "Ah, of course. I apologize for suggesting something so reckless."

"No harm done. Regardless, you should have no reason to fear the worst. Clearsight is a brilliant seer, and she will make sure that the plan goes off without a hitch."

The NightWing's face brightened. "Yes, we've heard as much. We're looking forward to making your visions come true, Clearsight. We'll take back the Valley without a hitch!"

Clearsight cringed a little at the soldier's expectations. She looked away, hoping her expression would be interpreted as bashfulness rather than shame.

"You may call me Stormrunner," he continued. "But I'm not the dragon you should be talking to right now. Follow me: I'll take you to Lieutenant Morningstar's tent."

They wove through the forest for several minutes, passing by dozens of tents just like the ones they had already seen. The soldiers were already out and about. Some were eating breakfast together in groups of five or six. One was sharpening his spear with a crude whetstone. Another was reading a scroll while lying beneath a tree. The air smelled of cedar pine and musky unwashed NightWings — a combination that Clearsight actually found to be much more tolerable than she feared it might be. Having spent so much time in the presence of perfume-soaked nobility, it was nice to actually be reminded of how NightWings actually smelled.

The soldiers eventually began to take notice of them. It started with a few murmurs here and there, and heads being directed their way. But at some point, Clearsight heard one of the soldiers mutter her name, and after that, every dragon that she passed by was standing up to greet her.

Clearsight wanted to ask Stormrunner why everyone was looking at them, but she decided to leave it alone. She suspected she knew the reason why, and if she were right, it was a reason she didn't want anyone telling her outright.

They finally stopped at a tent about three times larger than the others. Stormrunner went ahead towards the entrance and called, "Lieutenant Morningstar, Clearsight has arrived."

"Excellent," came a female voice from the other side of the cloth. "Let her in."

Stormrunner looked at Clearsight, and used his talon to gesture to her to go in.

Clearsight and Darkstalker both stepped through, and they found a large NightWing looking over a map of the mountains. Between the blacks of her scales were hints of dark blue and indigo, and she stood over a head taller than Clearsight. She looked over and bowed her head. "Greetings, Captain Clearsight," she said. "I'm Lieutenant Morningstar. And who might this be?" She eyed Darkstalker.

'Captain' Clearsight. According to the hierarchy of military rankings, the title of Captain was above that of Lieutenant. Morningstar was acknowledging Clearsight as her superior. "That's Darkstalker," she said. "He's my mate, and he'll be helping me safeguard my belongings. I trust it won't be an issue if he shares a tent with me?"

Clearsight missed being able to talk like this — as the one who was giving permission rather than asking for it.

Morningstar thought for a second before answering. "It shouldn't be," she said hesitantly. "Though if he lacks the right authorization, he won't be able to participate in any secret discussions about our siege plan."

"That'll be no problem," Darkstalker said. "I don't want to be involved anyway."

"We'll be having one of those discussions right now," she said flatly.

"Ah — of course you will." Darkstalker started towards the tent entrance. "I'll make myself scarce, then. Clearsight, you can come find me when you're done here."

Darkstalker soon left, and Morningstar briefly glanced over Clearsight's figure, as though sizing her down. "I don't mean to sound rude asking this, but how old are you?"

"I turned six last month," Clearsight said. "But don't let my age deceive you. Queen Vigilance chose me for a reason, and I hope to prove that she made the right call."

"So you'll be taking this seriously, then?"

Clearsight was so surprised by the question that she had to repeat it in her head to actually process it. "I'm sorry?"

"There has been some speculation among the lieutenants that this siege isn't meant to be successful," Morningstar said. "Maybe it's just a decoy attack to distract the IceWings from some other assault, or maybe it's nothing more than a way to test the strength of the fortification. They've analyzed the numbers, and when compared to what we know about the sentinel guarding the fortress, our odds of success are slim-to-none."

Ah, that made sense. Clearsight should have known they'd have their suspicions from the start.

"The soldiers think otherwise," Morningstar went on, gazing at the cloth walls of the tent, as if seeing through them and regarding the soldiers just a few dozen feet away. "They have a lot of faith in you, Clearsight. They've heard the stories of your skill — of what you're capable of. They think you already know that we're going to win, because the future tells you so, and it tells you exactly how to make victory possible. They don't think you would try to run this mission if you weren't going to win."

Clearsight winced. It turned out she was right about why all the soldiers were looking at her like that.

And all of a sudden, it became a little bit clearer why Keen Eye had been so worried about her taking 'unnecessary risks.' Now that she was here, she found it difficult to admit that the lieutenants were right and the soldiers were wrong.

"I hope the soldiers are right, Clearsight, but it's hard to dispute the difficulty of the task ahead of us." Morningstar sighed, then locked eyes with Clearsight. "At the same time, your powers as a seer are second to none: nobody disputes that. I don't know if this siege will be successful, but I think you do. So tell me, and be honest: will it be?"

Obviously, the honest answer was 'No.' She couldn't delude herself into thinking otherwise when there wasn't a single future she could find where they followed the plan and actually won. And she couldn't lie either. She was a terrible liar.

There was only one way she could truthfully answer 'Yes,' and that was if she spontaneously decided to throw out the new plan. The possibility of victory was still there. It was within her grasp, now more than ever.

But also now more than ever, it was still reckless. It was still so risky. And she'd already decided a long time ago that she wasn't going to risk her life trying to retake this fortress.

Whether she liked it or not, she had to say no. She'd made a promise to Keen Eye. She had a boyfriend that would probably murder her if he found out that she changed her mind. She had visions swimming in her mind reminding her of how very, very real the danger still was. She was still far too afraid for her life to do anything other than play it safe.

She took a deep breath to calm her heart, and she gave her answer.

"Yes," she said, clenching her talons into fists. "We're going to win this. Consider that a prophecy."


A/N: Hey, all! NaNoWriMo went swimmingly for the first half, but then the new Pokémon game came out. I have a tiny monkey brain that's incapable of overcoming distractions when cute creatures run around on a screen in front of me, so my productivity took a huge tanking when I got it. I've still gotten quite a few chapters finished, though. I should be able to comfortably release them every other week at least until February, assuming I can budget my time well between writing, editing, and school. Once February rolls around, I'll hopefully have passed some scary oral qualifying exams and can spend some more time delighting in my exploration of what I want to do for this story.

I'll see you all in the next update! In the meantime, may your Christmas be merry, and your holidays be happy. A fa la la la la to you and your kin, and roast some figgy pudding on an open fire.