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FATHOM

Fathom was envious of Darkstalker and Clearsight. Their powers enabled them to be better parents than Fathom could ever dream of being.

On the one talon, Darkstalker was a natural dad with natural charm, and he was the one spending most of his time with the kids. He'd parade them about the palace, take them on flights around the Night Kingdom, and play with them for hours on end. Fathom was sure that they got to see plenty of Clearsight as well, but while she was busy being queen and fighting an ever-worsening war with the SeaWings, Darkstalker was the one teaching them everything they needed to know.

Clearsight, on the other talon, seemed to be something of an invisible guardian to them. Fathom learned from Darkstalker that she got up early every day just to take an hour to study her dragonets' futures. She looked through all the things Darkstalker wanted to do with them for the day, and found which options were the safest, the most fun, and the most educational.

And then when she'd searched through the futures, she gave Darkstalker some seer advice before letting him have his fun. So, before Fathom and Darkstalker flew out to their secret spot in the woods that night, with one dragonet on each of their backs, Clearsight gave them a warning: "Make sure Solstice is careful around the ravine. If he falls, he can get pretty badly hurt."

It was dark out in the woods. Fathom touched down before the clearing and extended a wing to let Remedy off of his back.

Darkstalker stood before his two dragonets, both of whom very much took after their father. Remedy had gentle curls on her horns and little specks of white along the back of her wings. Her brother Solstice had deep black scales all throughout his body, just like Darkstalker did.

They were both three months from turning one, which meant they were tiny balls of unstoppable energy that were graced with the misfortune of not being able to fly yet. It also meant that there was a lot that they still needed to learn about the world.

"Before you become hunters," Darkstalker told them as they sat and listened, "you must first learn to understand what it is like to be prey. You must know where your targets will hide, how they will try to run, and what will be going through their minds when you get close to them."

"Why can't we just learn how to kill them?" Remedy asked, tilting her head at her father's explanation.

"Yeah, why can't we just learn how to KILL them?" Solstice asked. "I wanna learn how to RIP apart rabbits and tear off their FACES!"

"There are two reasons," Darkstalker explained. "Firstly, rabbits are smarter and faster than you think they are. If you underestimate them, you'll never be able to capture them, and one sure-fire way to underestimate rabbits is to not learn about how they think. Secondly,: both of you are too small to fly, which means you're also too small to hunt. You are, however, the perfect size to be rabbits for me and uncle Fathom to snack on before dinner."

"WHAT?!" Solstice squeaked. "I don't wanna be a RABBIT. That's dumb!"

"Quiet now," Darkstalker said, smirking. "If a rabbit is too loud, then the dragons will hear him, and then they'll snatch him up and eat him. Now, listen carefully: you and Remedy are going to go out into the woods and hide from me and Fathom. Then, we're going to try and find you. If we capture you, then you get eaten and you lose the game. If you manage to run away after we find you, then you win."

"What if you can't find us?" Remedy asked.

"Then you super win," Darkstalker told them. "If Fathom and I give up because you're too hard to find, we'll call your name and tell you to come back. Which means no going too far away, alright? You'll need to be able to still hear our voices."

"I'm totally going to super win!" Solstice announced. "I'm the BEST at finding hiding spots!"

"Oh are you? Remind me again how many times the guards didn't find you when you were hiding from me in the palace to avoid bath time?" Darkstalker said.

Solstice tilted his head. "But why did you need the guards to find me, though? Wasn't it because you couldn't find me all by yourself?"

Darkstalker frowned, then flicked his ear in an irritated manner. "Go out and hide, you clever little bunny. And remember what mommy told you: stay away from the ravine."

Solstice giggled and ventured off into the woods, hopping like a rabbit.

"You too, Remedy," Darkstalker said. "You're only going to get thirty seconds to hide before we start looking for you."

Remedy squealed and ran away.

"I can't remember the last time I played Hunter and Prey," Fathom mused as he listened to the disappearing footsteps.

"Really? There's a fun variation of the game for adults; you and Indigo should try it out some time," Darkstalker said to him. "How's she doing, by the way?"

"Indigo's doing great," Fathom said. "She's due to lay next week, and she cannot wait to get those eggs out of her."

Darkstalker gave Fathom a gentle smile. "Your life is going to get so different so quickly," he warned.

"I can tell." If it wasn't already an obvious logical conclusion that routinely looking after dragonets made one's life noticeably different, Darkstalker had made the fact abundantly clear when he became a father himself. He was practically always with his two dragonets in his free time. When Fathom and Darkstalker hung out together, it had become a given that there would be a pair of hatchlings attached to him.

Which Fathom didn't mind. He'd known he was going to be a father before Remedy and Solstice had hatched from their shells, and being with Darkstalker as he took care of them was a good learning experience.

"Alright, I think we've given them enough time," Darkstalker said, taking his first steps deeper into the woods.

Fathom followed beside him. "Did it feel like a special moment?" he asked. "The day Clearsight laid her eggs?"

"Not nearly as special as the moment they hatched," Darkstalker answered. "Though part of the reason was because when she was laying, we were dealing with that terrible siege at Whelk's Atoll. We didn't have time to celebrate."

Fathom winced. That siege lasted for months, and cost both the NightWings and SeaWings hundreds of lives. It seemed to mark something of a turning point in the war as well. After the NightWings successfully breached the fortifications on the atoll and raided their supplies, the SeaWings started playing dirtier out of desperation. NightWing civilians began to get assassinated regardless of whether they were soldiers or not. Villages along the northern crags of the Talon Peninsula started getting torched and the inhabitants slain. Caravans guiding wounded soldiers home began to get intercepted and destroyed.

Fathom knew that it would only be a matter of time before the assanination attempts against Clearsight and Darkstalker started to reappear. Clearsight was already seeing them in her futures.

He tried to take his mind off of the war, and began listening more closely for the hiding dragonets.

"When they hatched, however …" Darkstalker closed his eyes and let out a longing smile. "Reality really hit me, I guess. There was something whimsical about flying to the nesting site alone with nobody but Clearsight, and flying back to the palace with two brand new dragons in our care."

"Clearsight told me you cried your eyes out when they hatched," he teased, brushing his wing.

"If that's true, then Clearsight is a massive liar," Darkstalker said, puffing out his chest proudly. With a mumble, he followed it up saying, "It wasn't until after they hatched that I cried."

Fathom rolled his eyes, then heard a rustle in the nearby foliage. At once he stopped, and drew his ears up tightly.

As his night vision kicked in and he looked about the forest, Darkstalker slowed to a halt as well.

Unfortunately for Fathom, SeaWing night vision wasn't terribly effective for when it came to detecting NightWings. Fathom may have been able to see the foliage around him, but NightWings were known for their ability to camouflage into the night. Their colors washed in with all the other tones around them.

After a few seconds, Fathom heard a high-pitched scream. He looked to his side to find that Darkstalker had his head in a bush. When Fathom came closer, he saw that he was playfully munching on Remedy's head as he pinned her with his front talons. Remedy was giggling uncontrollably now and flailing her arms and legs about. "Daddy, cut it out!" she cried. "That tickles! And your breath really stinks."

Darkstalker did as requested, but not before licking her face a few times to annoy her. "Good hiding spot," he told her. "If you hadn't made any noise, I might not have found you."

"But I didn't! I didn't even make any noise!" she pouted.

"You moved ever so slightly enough for us to hear you shaking in the bush," Darkstalker said. "Don't forget that there are more ways to make a sound than stomping your feet and using your voice. Now, hop up on my back: you can help me find your brother."

Remedy climbed up Darkstalker's wing and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Can we play again, daddy?" she asked.

"After we find Solstice," he said. "Fathom, let's split up. I'll check the area up north. You can head west and see if he's near the rocky outcroppings."

"Alright," Fathom said, making his way towards the ravine to the west. "I'll meet up with you back at the clearing."

He split with Darkstalker and began creeping through the forest. The ground was covered in moss, which muted the sound of his steps. However, the terrain was rougher only a few steps outward: tree trunks, nurse logs, and large rocks replaced the flat detritus closer to the clearing. Fathom had to watch his step to keep himself from slipping.

He tried looking for footprints, but there weren't any soft patches of ground which would allow visible tracks to form. He tried catching the dragonet's scent, but the dew of the moss was all that he could smell.

Nonetheless, he diligently inspected the area to the best of his ability, checking every potential hiding spot for the hidden NightWing. He checked the squirrel holes in the trees for any curled up dragonets, and conspicuously large lumps in the ground that might have been tykes disguising themselves as moss-covered rocks. He checked bushes and crevices and cavities carved out by the roots of older trees. He checked hollowed out logs and shadowy patches of bracken, and even flew into the branches to check if Solstice might have climbed up one of the trees.

After searching for about ten minutes, he started to get bored. As he batted through a bush that was close to the wide, canyon-sized ravine, he found himself tempted to enchant something to point him in the right direction.

Obviously, it was just a temptation. He wouldn't actually use his magic for something so frivolous. He'd only been using his magic so far for the bigger things that made life significantly more convenient.

Like the sleep mask that he'd enchanted for Indigo, which made her more tired when she wore it. She never totally got used to the NightWing sleep schedule, and had always been a lot more tired than she needed to be.

Fathom never totally got used to the NightWing sleep schedule either, but he found that he slept much more soundly after he and Indigo started sharing the same bed.

He still had a soul that was worth worrying about, and he checked himself with the soul reader every day to make sure he wasn't getting too evil. And even though his reading never changed as far as he could tell, he still had worries in his conscience that he couldn't silence. He had voices in his head telling him that he was betraying himself with every new spell he cast. He had nightmares where he pointed the reader at himself one day only to find it suddenly filled with the brightest, whitest sand.

It was for that reason that he still kept himself from making too many enchantments. He made sure Darkstalker didn't know that he was using it again too. He didn't want his friend coming up with really clever ideas that he'd be too tempted to try out for himself.

After giving up on his search, Fathom made his way back to the clearing, where Darkstalker was waiting for him. Remedy was still sitting comfortably on his back, her curious black eyes just barely catching the starlight as she looked at him. Darkstalker sighed dejectedly when he saw him. "Did that little runt seriously end up beating us?"

"I think him being a little runt puts him at an advantage," Fathom said. "Should we tell him to come out?"

"I suppose so," Darkstalker said. "I'd keep looking, but I get nervous when I don't know where he is for too long." He lifted his head and shouted, "Solstice, come out! You win! We give up!"

Fathom raised his ears and listened. Solstice wasn't coming out.

"Solstice! Come back here!" Darkstalker shouted again. But still, there was no sign of Solstice.

"He must've gone too far out," Darkstalker grumbled, sounding a little worried. "Fathom, help me find him."

The two of them soon split up again, and in different parts of the forest they started calling Solstice's name. Fathom went back to the area by the ravine and Darkstalker went further south. All Fathom could hear in response to his shouting was Darkstalker calling for the same dragon.

A minute passed, and Solstice didn't reappear. And then another minute passed.

It didn't take long at all for Fathom to start growing nervous. Solstice should have heard them by now; why wasn't he responding? Did he fall asleep? Did he get distracted and start ignoring them? Did he fall down the cliffside and break something? Did he get carried off by bears? Was he okay? Where was he?

What was worse, however, was the sound of Darkstalker starting to panic. His shouts quickly got more and more urgent. "Solstice!" he cried frantically. "Solstice, where are you? Speak to me!"

Fathom's stomach began to twist. He'd never heard Darkstalker sound this troubled — not once. Every time Darkstalker shouted for his son, the terror in his voice stabbed into Fathom's chest like a stingray.

He picked up a stick and began to fidget with it. Solstice was … probably okay, right? Clearsight would have known if it was possible that he'd be in serious trouble. He was just being scatterbrained and ignoring his father. He did that a lot. He liked running off and doing his own thing, and he liked to pretend that he couldn't hear Darkstalker's voice so that he could give himself an excuse for staying distracted.

But … maybe he wasn't okay. Maybe they needed to find him right now. For Darkstalker's sake, he would much rather play things safe.

"I enchant this stick to always point towards Solstice, son of Darkstalker," he whispered to the stick in his talons. Instantly, the stick oriented itself in a new direction, and stayed fixed in that direction. When Fathom subconsciously tried rotating it, it refused to budge.

The weird thing was that the stick was pointing slightly upwards, suggesting that he was in the air, or in the trees.

Fathom cocked his head. Was Solstice flying? Was that why they couldn't find him?

But no, he and Remedy were still many months away from the time most dragons started to fly. Something wasn't right.

Fathom took to the sky and followed the stick. He broke through the treetops and looked around the night sky.

This is hopeless, he realized as he stared into the starry void where the stick was pointed. He's gonna be impossible to spot.

But oddly enough, after just a couple of seconds, he did see something. There was a silhouette blocking the stars as it flew away.

Fathom flew closer to the figure, now thoroughly confused. NightWings didn't block the stars like that. They had no silhouettes when they flew. That couldn't be Solstice, could it? But then, who was it? And why was the stick pointing at it?

The silhouette tilted its wings and changed directions. Its scales were ever-so slightly illuminated by the starlight, and Fathom immediately was able to tell that the colors were way off. The wings on that dragon weren't black, like a NightWing's. They were deep bluish, like a SeaWing's.

Like a SeaWing's.

Fathom nearly fell out of the sky in shock. He just barely managed to right himself before turning around and getting just close enough back to the ground so that Darkstalker could hear him.

"Darkstalker!" he shouted. "Darkstalker, there's a SeaWing in the sky: Solstice is being kidnapped!"

"WHAT!" Darkstalker roared. A heartbeat later, he crashed out of the trees and pumped his wings towards Fathom. He must have set Remedy down, because she wasn't on his back anymore.

Fathom began flying towards the SeaWing, who by now was perhaps a mile away. The dragon would have been tough to spot if Fathom didn't know where to look for them, but Darkstalker quickly saw where the silhouette was, and he quickly accelerated towards it when he did. Fathom felt an odd combination of terror and relief when he glimpsed at the raw fury in his best friend's eyes.

They quickly closed in on the SeaWing as they passed over the massive ravine below. Fathom tentatively decided to fall behind: the kidnapper didn't seem to notice that they were being followed, and Fathom might alert them if he got too close.

He was close enough to realize, however, that there was a black smudge that the SeaWing was tightly clinging to. It appeared to be squirming, and there appeared to be a thick piece of white cloth covering its snout.

Darkstalker bolted ahead and flew directly under the SeaWing. Soon afterwards, the SeaWing must have noticed a dragon was near them, because they started to pick up speed and height.

Fathom began to fly closer, but Darkstalker was already beginning his assault. Although he was practically invisible, Fathom was able to spot a remarkably dextrous maneuver he performed where he flipped his body around and latched onto the underside of the SeaWing, where Solstice was being carried. He heard a pair of dragon roars from the two of them, and soon their forms morphed into a pair of tangled wings that began plummeting from the sky.

Several heartbeats later, the SeaWing pried Darkstalker away and righted themselves. Fathom could see Darkstalker swerve back to go after the kidnapper again, and the SeaWing twisted their body around and clubbed Darkstalker in the head with their tail.

Then, suddenly, the stick that Fathom was holding started rotating downwards, pointing away from the SeaWing, and towards a plummeting dragonet that had just gotten thrown into the ravine.

Fathom let out a terrified yelp and dropped his enchanted stick. In an instant, he dove after Solstice, pumping his wings as fast as he could.

He wouldn't make it. He was way too far, and Solstice was falling too fast. Darkstalker, though — he was closer. When he recovered from the blow to his head, he instantly noticed that his son was falling. As he sped down into the ravine to catch him, the kidnapper flew off into the distant sky, quickly disappearing.

Fathom continued descending after Solstice, but the shadows of the ravine drowned out his vision. He knew that if he flew into the deep chasm at the speed he was going, he ran the risk of colliding with an invisible stalagmite or cliffside. He landed on a butte near the top of the crevice and leaned forward, listening carefully as Solstice and Darkstalker disappeared into the shadows.

A second later, there was a sickening thwack that echoed from the depths, followed by an agonized cry from Darkstalker.

Fathom blanched. I need to use my magic again, he thought. I need to find something to enchant — anything! He looked around for a rock or a pebble that could carry his magic. What should my enchantment be? How can I save them? What even happened?!

He began to carefully fly down into the ravine, continuing to search for some sort of enchantable item. His heart thrummed in his ears, and urgency overwhelmed every last one of his scales.

He grabbed onto a flower that was growing in one of the cracks and yanked it from its roots. As he was doing that, however, Darkstalker rose up from the depths, holding his child. He shot past Fathom and landed on the grass next to the surface of the ravine.

Fathom flew up and landed beside Darkstalker as he set Solstice down on the grass and pulled the cloth muzzle off of him. The dragonet's head fell back.

Both of the Solstice's wings were dislocated, broken, and severely shredded along the membranes. There was an evident skull fracture that was causing blood to pool on the ground where his horns were. A pair of cracked ribs poked out of his chest, and his neck appeared to be twisted to the side in a way that it really shouldn't be.

And he wasn't breathing.

Darkstalker shook his head. "No … No, Solstice, wake up," he said. "Solstice, please."

Fathom took Solstice's wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Solstice was gone.

"He has to be okay," Darkstalker muttered. "Clearsight would have known. How could she not have seen this?"

Fathom looked up at Darkstalker and pinned his ears sadly. "Darkstalker —"

"— Shut up," he said, his voice nearly a whisper. "And get your talons off of him."

Fathom withdrew his talon and averted his gaze from Solstice's body. Darkstalker hunched over it, looking almost as numb and lifeless as the child he just lost.

He lifted the flower he'd picked and studied its tiny white petals. He felt like he was being shaken from a dream that he couldn't wake up from — like reality was slipping away from him, but never completely fading away.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to try and save him. He couldn't let this happen without at least trying to fix it. It was going to be a big spell, one that could destroy his soul if it worked, but he had to at least try casting it.

"Bring this dragon back to life," he whispered to the flower. "Bring him back to life and heal him completely." Then he placed the flower on Solstice's body.

Deep down, he knew that it wasn't going to work. Animus magic couldn't bring back the dead. Albatross had told him so. It was one of its only limitations to animus magic known to dragonkind.

And yet … something was happening.

The flower began to glow faintly, and its petals hugged the dragonet's scales.

And then the broken bones began to recede back into Solstice's body and fuse back together. The tears in his skin flattened up as new scales covered the fresh wounds. The holes in his wings zipped themselves shut, and breathing peacefully returned to his chest. Gradually, color returned to his face once again.

When the flower had done its job and Solstice was completely healed, he muttered quietly, then curled up into a ball with his wings and tail covering his body, sleeping soundly.

Darkstalker placed a talon on Solstice's body, and curled his claws gently around him. Then he looked up at Fathom, relief and surprise flooding into his eyes. "You … you saved him," he whispered. "I …" He glanced back at his son, as if afraid that he'd disappear again if he took his eyes off of him for too long. "He's okay. Thank you, Fathom."

Darkstalker put Solstice on his back, and both of them went back to find Remedy. At first, Fathom feared that another SeaWing might have tried to take her while they were dealing with Solstice, but she was safe and sound, waiting by the clearing for her father to come back. He scooped her up on his back as well, and together the four of them started their flight back to the palace.

It felt like a long flight as they soared on, and even in the wide open air, Fathom found himself feeling claustrophobic as he passed over the ravines and promontories below. Darkstalker stayed deathly quiet, scarcely making a sound when he beat his wings or cut into the wind. Though he couldn't make heads or tails of the expression on his friend's face, Fathom could tell that there were heavy thoughts brooding through his mind. He must be thinking about how I used my powers, he thought. That was the first time I ever cast a spell in front of him.

And that was a serious spell — a spell that wasn't supposed to work.

Was he just a more powerful animus than his grandfather? Or maybe he lied about animus magic not being able to bring back the dead. Or maybe he was told that lie by someone, and never bothered to test it himself.

Were there any limitations to animus magic? He figured that a spell like that had to have eaten a hole in his soul at the very least.

And yet …

As a crescent moon began to lift its way up over the horizon, Fathom found himself reminded of the time when he saved Indigo from Albatross, and how torn he'd become between the recognition that he was dangerous and the reality that he'd just saved someone's life.

I'd rather be dangerous than harmless if it means I can keep saving other dragons, he thought. That wasn't something he believed once upon a time, but that simply meant that once upon a time he was a dragon that would have let his best friend's son die.

"I hope you're not worried about what I let myself do," he said to Darkstalker. "I made up my mind a long time ago about using my magic."

Darkstalker looked over at Fathom for a second, then brought his gaze ahead again. He couldn't tell what that look meant. Was it relief? Exhaustion? Frustration? Pity?

"I'm grateful you did," Darkstalker said, sounding troubled. "You're a good dragon, Fathom. That's never going to change."


A/N: Don't you hate it when you're in the middle of a story and the plot comes back and ruins everything?

I'll admit, I might have had a little bit too much fun making everything happy and good and conflict-free these past few chapters, to the extent that I forgot that I had an actual story to write here. I mean yes, there's a war going on now, and Clearsight is queen, which was never something she asked for (though it's a necessary corollary to Darkstalker being king). But the negative aspects of those things haven't gotten a huge spotlight in the story lately. The bad things haven't had a lot of impact, and for the most part, the world has been pretty kind to Darkstalker and Clearsight. I spent a long time building up this gradual positivity mostly because I really like it when things work out. I want Darkstalker and Clearsight to have their happy ending.

But stories have conflict, and happiness can't be perpetually building throughout the rising action. Clearsight can't get that happy ending for free.

This chapter sets a seriously different tone from the last one, which is why it was so hard for me to write. It underwent a number of major revisions, and my poor beta readers had to read through it two times over as a result. Also as a result, this chapter took quite a long time to get published. Thank you so much to those of you who have been waiting! I'm really grateful for your patience, and I'll try not to make a habit of making you wait this long again.

Anyway, that's all from me for the time being. I hope you're all staying safe and finding ways to keep yourself from getting too bored. I look forward to sharing more of this story with you all in the future!