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CLEARSIGHT
There were too many emotions coursing through Clearsight's brain for her to fly straight. The overwhelming sadness, fear, and confusion churning inside her competed with her need to focus on flying in the right direction and at a steady pace. When a light gust of wind hit her, she lost her balance and plummeted towards the rainforest. Many slow heartbeats passed until her mind snapped back to attention and she realized she was falling. After flattening her wings and returning on-course once again, she sighed tiredly. In an effort to stagnate the battle warring on inside her, she tried to find one thought to latch onto so that the others would migrate further into her cognitive periphery.
Her visions … they were pointing her towards Fathom. He was in the rainforest somewhere, on an island somewhere, planning a future with Indigo somewhere. It wouldn't be long before she spotted him.
But it wasn't until she had spent nearly an hour traversing through different futures before she'd decided to go into the Rainforest Kingdom. Would she really have searched all of those other regions to find him? She saw futures where she did. She saw futures where she scanned the Claws of the Clouds to find any trace of Fathom and Indigo. She saw futures where she stopped in SandWing cities to ask locals if they'd seen them. She saw futures where she ran into IceWing platoons and got torn apart by their razor-sharp claws. She saw futures where she made the tireless journey to the Kingdom of the Sea, just to see if the two had actually returned there. They were all hopeless futures that yielded months of dead ends and frustration and hunger and sleeplessness.
She could only imagine that she would have only decided to take any of those paths if she'd known she'd find Fathom at the end of them. But using her powers, she confirmed that none of those paths were the right ones. Why would she be able to see them? Why would she able to see the outcomes of directions she would never take? The only path that led to Fathom took her into the Rainforest. So that was the path she took, and as a result she found herself in a paradox where she was following a direction that her future self never would have taken without the help of her future sight.
Some time last year, she went to the library and dug through the shelves to find anything that would tell her more about this phenomenon. Her effort lasted a week, even with the help of her clairvoyance. And in the end, she found only one passage on it, written by a NightWing named Nocturne.
This curious case of anticipatory causality, where future visions guide present actions even when future visions don't seem likely to occur, is not due to any ripple in reality's fabric, nor is it due to divine intervention. (Nor am I lying about this phenomenon, as some of my colleagues have suggested.) Instead, I believe it's simply a mechanism that fixes instabilities. What happens when we seers seek the counsel of our own clairvoyance? We use our most vivid visions to guide our actions, and so the probability of our actions becomes a function of the vividness of our visions. But the vividness of our visions is already a function of the probability of our actions! When this degeneracy happens, there's only one way to resolve it: our powers collapse to focusing on one vision at a time. And that vision is simply whichever one we are most inclined to do.
She found the explanation lacking in some way. It felt it was simply saying, 'our powers are able to do this,' when she wanted to see a broader explanation for how her powers worked that way. Still, the author seemed knowledgeable. Clearsight was always too busy to read more of her writings; she regretted never finding the time to look more into her.
The rainforest trees blurred below her. Murky rivers and black marshlands dwelled between the great canopies that hugged the south Pyrrhian sea. The chirping of the cicadas and katydids reached up to the sky, piercing the winds, and the poignantly organic smell of soggy humus mingled with the fresh evening mist that surrounded her.
After she'd put Darkstalker to sleep, reality started to feel surreal — as if the world around her were on the verge of vanishing completely. Of course, in a significant sense, it was. The only option that seemed viable to her at the moment was going back to her old house and finally using that watch. And now that her mind was committing to actually using it, the world suddenly felt like it didn't matter — like it was nothing more than an empty, unpopulated shell that lost all of the hope and potential that it had once harbored.
She'd done her best to forget about the watch — to put it in the back of her mind and act like it never existed. Had she done a good enough job? The memory of the night he gave it to her came back from time to time, but she always dispelled the thought of actually touching it again. Every time she'd remembered it, she told herself she would only use it if she absolutely had to.
But did it change anything? Did her knowledge of its existence keep her from fretting too much? If she'd known that she didn't have the option to turn back time, would this all have been avoided the first time around?
She could never forget the look that Darkstalker had given her before her bracelet slipped onto his wrist. The genuine hurt and disbelief that was in his eyes — that would be burned in her memory forever. My poor, poor Darkstalker. She closed her eyes tightly. I'm so sorry for hurting you. Right now, she felt like falling into the rainforest, curling up into a ball, and never showing her face to anyone ever again.
A vision flashed. She'd be talking with Fathom and Indigo soon. There was more to her vision, though. Flared teeth, the swinging of thick tails, angry snarls. Huh? What does that mean? They wouldn't actually hurt me, would they?
Up ahead was an island not far off from the shoreline. It was mostly sand and tropical shrubs that inhabited it, as if it were a chunk of the Bay of a Thousand Scales that broke off from the Sea Kingdom and drifted too far from home. That was it. That was where they were.
When she landed on the beach, the sand gave to her talons, sifting carelessly around her claws. When she turned around, she could see the sun setting over the ocean. She imagined that they could see the sun rising on the other side of the island too. She wondered which side they'd build their house, which side of the sky they wanted the balcony hand-carved by Fathom to overlook.
A guarded looking SeaWing came out from the grasses further in the island, and Clearsight immediately recognized her as Indigo. She glowered unwelcomingly. "What do you want?" she snapped.
Is something wrong with her? she immediately wondered. Did her mind warp from what Darkstalker did to her? "Indigo, it's me, Clearsight," Clearsight said gently, taking a step forward. She'd hoped that letting Indigo know who she was would calm her down, but nothing in her features changed.
The SeaWing spread her wings slightly. "Just tell us why you're here and leave, alright? You've given us enough trouble already."
Behind her, Fathom rustled forward and emerged from the ferns behind Indigo. His eyes widened and he blinked a couple times. "Clearsight? What are you doing here?" He trotted ahead of Indigo. Darkstalker's scroll was still strapped to his shoulder. "Did it work? Did you stop him?"
Clearsight nodded. "We're safe. He can't hurt anyone anymore."
"Then what do you want from us?" Indigo pressed, baring her teeth. "If you need Fathom to use his magic again, then forget it."
"No, no, I don't! I just came here to find out what Darkstalker did. Indigo, what happened to you?"
Indigo paused for a second. "You didn't know?"
Clearsight's expression crumpled as if she'd just been betrayed. "Of course not! Darkstalker was doing so many things with his magic without me knowing. I never would have let him do what he did if I'd found out about it, I promise!"
Indigo cast her eyes off of Clearsight, but didn't say anything back. Fathom answered for her. "He trapped her in that dragon statue. Remember? The wooden one that I made for him?"
"Oh my stars." Clearsight shrunk down and pinned her ears as she faced Indigo. "I'm so sorry."
"I didn't experience anything while I was trapped, so it wasn't that bad," Indigo said. "Not that Darkstalker would have cared if I did, though."
"Did you find any other spells?" she asked. "Was there anything else he did without me knowing?"
"Yeah," Fathom said. "A lot of things. He enchanted a knife to kill an IceWing every full moon until he summoned it to stop. He enchanted Queen Diamond to have terrible nightmares of the ways he planned to kill her. He enchanted a goblet to make me forget about the feelings I had for Indigo, and —"
"WHAT?" Indigo shrieked. "So he did enchant it! I was right!"
"You were," he replied, remorse breaking through his eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have doubted you. I should have listened."
"How did he cast these spells without me knowing?" she pressed. She couldn't let this happen again. She couldn't let him do anything like this without her knowing.
Fathom fidgeted a little bit, then opened up the leather case containing Darkstalker's scroll. He unfurled it on the sand and pointed at some spaces between the enchantments. "See these empty spaces?" he said. "There are enchantments written there, in invisible ink. Those are the enchantments he didn't want you to find out about."
Now that Clearsight looked more closely at the scroll, she noticed the gaps between the visible spells. Were there enchantments written in all of them? Had he really cast that many spells behind her back?
He wasn't always like this. That was clear enough in the spells: they were so kind early on. They were selfless, and thoughtful — little windows into the profile of the dragon that Clearsight had fallen in love with long before they'd ever met. But then he transformed. The spells became more self-serving, or cast out of hatred. The gaps began to form between the words. The handwriting became sharper and more anguished. Something — or many things, perhaps — had changed him.
"I can fix this," she said, mostly to herself. "This didn't need to happen."
Fathom looked up at Clearsight and rolled up the scroll and slid it back into its case. "What do you mean?" he asked, sounding a little worried.
"Darkstalker enchanted something for me a long time ago," she explained. "A watch."
"The one that can take you back in time? That huge enchantment near the beginning of the scroll?"
Clearsight nodded. "I'll go back," she said. "I can make things better."
"Clearsight, wait!" Fathom scrambled forward a couple steps, looking like he was ready to sprint into the sky at a moment's notice. "Don't go back, please. This outcome isn't that bad, is it? We're all safe from Darkstalker. You don't need to fix anything. I think we won in this timeline."
"Darkstalker didn't need to turn evil," Clearsight said, shaking her head. "He could have become so much better."
"I don't care," Fathom said, his voice quivering. "I can finally be happy now. I can settle down somewhere here in the rainforest and spend the rest of my life with Indigo, and I don't think I could ask for a better life. Please don't change it, Clearsight."
A dark vision thundered into Clearsight's mind. This was where the violence was coming from. She saw it more clearly now — claws raking against her scales, teeth ripping into her wings, the underwater image of the rippling sun, slowly fading away as Indigo pulled her down into the ocean.
The urgency pulsed through her with every heartbeat. Forget about convincing Fathom that this timeline ought to be changed; she might not even get out of here alive. He was desperate to keep things the way they were, and he was going to let Indigo do whatever it took to keep her from changing the past.
Neither of them were at that point yet. At least, not by the looks of it. Clearsight could save herself, but the only way she could was by lying. Saddening her eyes, she looked down at the sand and nodded. "Okay," she said.
Fathom straightened up a little. "...Really?" he asked, relief flooding his features.
"Yes," she said. To accentuate her act, she somberly lowered her ears. "I'm sorry, Fathom. You're right. It wouldn't be fair to anyone if I undid everything, I know that. I just — I don't want to live without Darkstalker. I still love him so much." Real tears began welling in her eyes. Sorrow wasn't a hard emotion for her to summon right now.
"Oh, Clearsight." Fathom stepped forward and nudged her with his snout. "You don't need Darkstalker with you to be happy. You deserve to be with someone better than him — someone who isn't a liar and a villain."
Darkstalker can be that dragon, she wanted to say. I don't want anyone else but Darkstalker to be that dragon. "I know," she said instead, curling her head around his neck. "But I don't know what I'm going to do without him."
Fathom looked back at Indigo. She hesitated for a second, then nodded. Turning back to Clearsight, he said, "You can stay with us. For now, at least. Until you've gotten over your grief."
"No," Clearsight said. "I'm sorry Fathom, but I can't stay with you. I gave you Darkstalker's scroll partly to make sure I would never find it either. If I stay with you, then I might find out where you hid it. And if I find out where you hid it, I might use it to bring Darkstalker back, even though I know what he'll end up doing."
Fathom gave her a look of pure understanding — as if those words had pierced through his scales and spoken directly to his heart. "The stupid things that love could make us do..." he murmured quietly. "You should probably go, then. We'll make sure not to let you stay if you change your mind."
"Thank you, Fathom." She stepped forward and hugged him tenderly. "I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you too." He brushed his cheek against hers. "You'll find a happier life, Clearsight, I know it. Keep searching for better futures and one will show up."
That's exactly what I plan to do. Clearsight nodded, then backed up towards the shore. She wanted to say one or two more words to him, but she already felt an uncomfortable sense of guilt starting to settle inside of her, and she was worried that it would start to show if she stayed any longer. So she turned around, spread her wings, and took to the sky.
It was well into the night when she made it back to the Night Kingdom. Its emptiness was haunting. At an hour where NightWings would normally slip in and out of the skyline like a city of shadows, the same skyline was desolate. No dragon was perched atop any of the crooked brown canyons. No puffs of fire ignited from hungry NightWings hunting for sleeping grebes. There wasn't even a stray candle in any of the windows of the deserted houses. The entire kingdom was quiet.
Not even her parents were there. In some of her earlier visions, the ones that warned her of what could happen if she went back to the Kingdom too soon after putting Darkstalker to sleep, she saw that her mom and dad had fallen back to go looking for her. She was able to tell that they'd stayed behind for a long time trying to find their daughter again, but she didn't know if they ever caught up with the rest of the tribe after they gave up. Poor mom and dad. I can't imagine how worried they must be right now.
She dipped into the canyon where her house was. Pitch black shadows swallowed her. She had no trouble seeing, but without the rushlights and lanterns that normally dotted the cavities, it was hard for her to figure out where she was going. After all this time, her family had never moved. They'd had enough money to do so, thanks to Clearsight's patronage with the Queen, but there was a sentimentality attached to their dwelling that compelled them to stay. Her parents didn't get along very well with Queen Vigilance either, and they preferred living somewhere where she would have been reluctant to visit.
As luck would have it, the one candle that remained alight in all of the Night Kingdom happened to come from her house. It was dimly lit within one of the inner rooms, and she could only catch a glimpse of the glow it cast on one of the walls inside. But it called out to her like a raven's caw in a snowstorm. Maybe they're still waiting for me after all. She wouldn't have minded that. It would be a nice last memory of this reality — letting her parents know that she was alive and safe and that they didn't need to worry about what might have happened to her.
But when she walked into her house, no one called her name or rushed forward to sweep her into their wings. She was greeted with silence, and nothing more.
She stepped through the living room and into the hallway that led to the bedrooms. The light that she spotted from outside was coming from her own room. The door was open, and when she stepped inside she saw that Darkstalker's candle was burning brightly. The enchantment that he'd cast on it must have prevented it from ever going out, because after all these years, the last stub of wax never fully burned away.
She opened the drawer to her desk, and reached inside. She panicked for a moment when her talons didn't immediately brush on the watch: she worried it might have gotten stolen, or her parents had hidden it for some reason. But she when she reached further, all the way to the end of the drawer, she felt it tucked away in the back corner. She gripped it tightly and pulled it out.
It was just as shiny and spotless as it was the day Darkstalker had given it to her. The etching of the hourglass was just as beautiful. The ticking sound was just as pleasant and quiet. She opened the protective cover and looked at the ticking hands. It was nearly midnight.
It was an easy decision — she'd made up her mind the moment she slipped the bracelet onto Darkstalker — but she hesitated before pushing the button on it. There was a rumbling feeling in her gut that was forcing her to really think about it. A feeling of guilt. Fathom and Indigo — of course she didn't want to have to lie to them. And of course she didn't want to ruin their happiness by erasing a world where they both were happy for once. In the midst of all this chaos that Darkstalker and this terrible war had thrown on them, they were the only ones that managed to leave this adventure in a better shape than when they'd started it.
She felt terrible for them, but she knew she had to do this. Foeslayer deserved a better fate than the one she ended up with. Whiteout deserved to live her life with a family who loved and accepted her. The NightWing tribe deserved to not have to flee from the land that they'd lived on for thousands of years. Darkstalker deserved to be happy and safe with the love of his life. And she deserved to be with him.
I'll make it up to you, she promised Fathom and Indigo. I'll make sure all of us end up on a brighter path. The future will be better for you two as well. If she couldn't ensure their happiness as well, then she would have failed just as much as she did this first time.
A draft flew into the house and licked the candle flame. Clearsight took a deep breath. There would be no turning back after this. Once she pressed the button on this watch, the past two years would be permanently undone. Meeting Fathom, freeing the scavengers, becoming the Queen's lead seer … she'd have to redo everything, even the things she did right.
She'd happily do it for a better future.
Clearsight pushed the button, and for a flash of a moment time stood still. Then midnight turned into seven twenty-two, and everything was different.
The first thing that she noticed was how much smaller she was. She never felt very large, especially when Darkstalker and Fathom's older ages ensured that she was the shortest among them. But she'd definitely grown a lot over the past two years than she realized.
Her wings were weaker too — she could feel their frailty without even extending them. She had Darkstalker to thank for that: he had to have taken her on a hundred different dates since this time. He had her flying all over the Night Kingdom constantly, building up her wing strength to what it should have been for someone her age.
On her desk lay history and math scrolls with content that she'd long since learned about (and long since forgotten, she realized). Old earrings and necklaces that she no longer cared for lay in a little jewelry box with paintings of red and purple flowers on the cover. Darkstalker's candle was taller and more full, though it still burned with the same brightness. The enchanted bracelet that shielded Darkstalker from her thoughts was once again on her wrist.
She was back. She was in the past — when Darkstalker was happy and lovable, and she was happy and in love, and the world enjoyed a bounty of hope and a promise for peace. She was back to the time that she'd decided she wanted to return to when things got too out of control.
Relief pulsed through her veins. When she looked ahead, she saw the bright futures that had once been lost. She saw her dragonets, and their delighted father teaching them how to wrestle. She saw their big house on a hill overlooking the ocean where the sunsets glowed like bonfires. She saw a set of old talons clutching hers as a big NightWing with big horns held her close under his wing.
She saw her second chance. Now she needed to take it.
A/N: My good friend RayDaquaza is now a second beta-reader for this story: special thanks to him and ShadowVulpi for making sure these chapters are in tip-top shape. Their feedback has been delightful so far.
I'm so excited for the upcoming chapters! It's finally time for a new world of possibilities to unfold. Please let me know your thoughts. :)
