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DARKSTALKER

How dare she?

How dare that rotten queen try and do this?

That wretched little thief! When Darkstalker the Menace got his talons on her, he was going to rip her to shreds. And when he did so, he was going to take great delight in hearing her begging for mercy.

She was hiding from him. Silly little dragonet: she couldn't hide forever. He'd find her, and when he did, she was going to pay.

"Mwahahahahaha," he laughed, letting the echoes bounce up and down the corridor. "Where oh where could she possibly be?" He knew she was close. He knew she could hear him. How she managed to get away from him the first time was a mystery, but she couldn't have gotten far.

He stomped down the palace hall, letting out a growl. Then he spotted the door to the custodial closet. It was open. It wasn't usually open.

He walked in, prowling, listening, smelling the fear in the air. "Is she in here?" he asked, listening for a response.

A rattling in the darkness — the sound of a mop falling over. Then he saw it: just for a second, there was a dragon tail slipping into the shadows of the closet.

Swiftly, he pounced at her. "There you are!" he roared as he pinned her wings to the ground.

The hiding dragonet screamed, struggling futilely from beneath Darkstalker's grasp.

The queen was tiny. So tiny, in fact, that Darkstalker had no trouble picking her up and throwing her out of the closet. Her back hit the wall of the hallway before she landed on the ground.

Darkstalker galloped over to her and picked her up again, squeezing her wings to her chest. By now, her screams were interspersed with excited giggles, and she was struggling against him with a wide smile on her face.

"Queen Remedy, you conniving little rascal!" Darkstalker boomed. "Where did you hide my treasure?"

"I will never tell you!" she said heroically. "You're an evil dragon, Darkstalker the Menace. The treasure will never be yours!"

"Is that so? Well then, I guess I'm just going to have to TORTURE THE ANSWER OUT OF YOU!"

At that, he started ruthlessly tickling her.

"Nooo!" she cried, squealing and squirming and laughing. "Stop it, daddy!" she begged.

"Not until you tell me where the treasure is!"

"I don't know where it is!" she admitted. "Solstice hid the treasure, not me!"

Darkstalker stopped. "Did he, now?" he said. "Well, then: in that case, you're going to help me find where he's hiding. Come: let's check the playroom."

Knowing that she had no say in the matter, Remedy rose to her feet and followed Darkstalker as he went looking for Solstice. She stayed beneath his wing as she trotted along to keep pace.

He saw Clearsight on the way there, returning from her study. She looked so tired and distressed, the poor dragon. He knew it couldn't be easy combing through the futures during these heavy times.

Seeing this as a good opportunity to get her mind off of the subject, he approached her with a devilish smile. "Ah, the lovely Clearsight approaches us," he said. "We are searching for King Solstice, who has hidden our stolen treasure from us. Do you know where he might be?"

Ah, there was that lovely smile of hers. "Have you checked the closet?" she asked.

"I have. It is where I found this mischievous hero," he said, patting Remedy with his wing.

Clearsight hummed. "Well then, have you checked the cellar?"

"The cellar! He could be hiding in the cellar! We will check there at once. Come Remedy, we must hurry! Would you like to follow us, Clearsight?"

Clearsight shook her head. "I need to go get Fathom and Indigo right now. We need to talk about the meeting again."

"Oh," he said. That was actually a bit relieving to hear. They'd gone so long now without discussing it. If Clearsight was ready to call them all together, it had to mean she'd made a breakthrough. "Alright, then. I'll talk to Whiteout about keeping an eye on the kids again. Remedy, would you like to spend some time with Aunt Whiteout again?"

"Okay," she said, though not very enthusiastically. It sounded more like she only agreed because she figured Darkstalker would want her to.

"I'll see you in about half an hour," Clearsight said before heading off to Fathom and Indigo's chamber.

"Now, let's make our way to the cellar," Darkstalker said to Remedy as he started towards the stairs.

Remedy was quiet as they went down into the cellar. Unusually quiet. When he looked down at her, he could tell by the look on her eyes that she was bothered by something.

"What's on your mind, Remedy?" he asked.

She looked sheepishly down at Darkstalker's talons. "Mommy's been worried a lot lately. And she doesn't play with us much anymore."

"She's just been busy, starling," he assured her. "Don't you worry about her."

"Is something bad gonna happen?"

Darkstalker felt his ears stand right up. "No, dear, of course not! Why would you think that?"

"Because Mommy can see the future." Remedy brought her eyes back to her father, looking for assurance. "Why would she be worried, unless something bad is gonna happen?"

"Ah, the future isn't set in stone, my little dragonsprout," Darkstalker said, stopping for a second to stroke her neck. "Mommy sees a few bad futures ahead of her. But she's not worrying because they're going to happen. She's worrying to make sure that they don't." He gave her an assuring smile. "Mommy and I are always working hard to make sure the future stays good and safe. She's been worried like this before, but things have always turned out alright, haven't they?"

"I guess," she said, looking down at the floor again.

"Hey, I'm still talking to you. Keep your eyes on me," he said, bringing a talon beneath her chin to guide her head upwards.

She gazed up at his eyes, listening closely.

"I am your dad," Darkstalker said. "And what do dads do?"

"Protect their dragonets," Remedy said, echoing words that he'd imprinted in her mind long ago.

"That's right," he said. "What else am I?"

"You're the king," she said.

"And what do kings do?"

"Protect their tribe."

"Very good. So if Clearsight saw any future where you or the NightWing tribe was threatened, do you think I'd ever let that future happen?"

"No."

"What do you think I would do to a dragon who threatened to make bad things happen to us?"

A little smile blossomed on Remedy's face. "You'd tickle them to death."

Darkstalker let out a half-playful, half-maniacal laugh. "That's right. They would face the true wrath of Darkstalker the Menace!" He then picked up Remedy and placed her on his back. She was growing so fast. Pretty soon, he wouldn't be able to carry her like this anymore. "Now, let's go find your troublemaking little brother and get that stolen treasure back."

Darkstalker, of course, was more worried than he was willing to admit. He wished that Remedy would have simply remained ignorant of all the treacherous things that were going on in the background of the Night Kingdom. But alas, she inherited her mother's keen eye and her father's intelligence. He couldn't hide even the most secretive of tribe secrets from her, it seemed.

Still, the promise he made to Remedy was one he intended to keep. As long as Darkstalker and Clearsight stood at the head of the NightWing tribe, he would make sure they stayed safe from harm. And as long as he remained Solstice and Remedy's father, he would make sure no harm would ever befall them — except in calculated and appropriate doses.

After he found Solstice (who, as it turned out, was hiding in the cellar), he took his dragonets to see Whiteout, who was busy working on a gigantic painting. She'd fallen into something of an abstract phase lately. This canvas was mostly black, with deep purple smears radiating from the center, blue cracks painted along the edge, and white web-like threads overlaying the entire picture.

"Whiteout," Darkstalker said as he entered her chamber. "Might you be able to keep an eye on the dragonets for a bit? Clearsight and I need to have a talk with Fathom and Indigo, and I don't think it can wait."

"I'd love to," Whiteout said, staring at her painting. "But you worry me with your suspicious cloaking, big brother."

"Hey, Clearsight is the one who's arranging this talk, not me," Darkstalker said. "And we need to keep these discussions to ourselves for political purposes. You know how cloak-and-dagger diplomacy can be."

"I do," she said. "But there's another cloak. Drawn by you with the tiniest dagger. I only ask that you be careful with how you put it on."

"I will be, I promise," he said, not really knowing how else to respond. He couldn't imagine what other 'cloak' she could be referring to with her cryptic words. He wasn't keeping any secrets from Clearsight or Fathom, was he?

"Now, where are the little waterlilies?" Whiteout asked before beaming down at Solstice and Remedy. "Ah, there they are! You two must be seeing daydreams. Shall we wind down with a few cups of chocolate nectar and a journey into the jungles of silk and poison?"

"Yay, story time with Whiteout!" Solstice cheered, his wings enthusiastically spread wide as he galloped up to her side with Remedy right behind him.

"Thank you, Whiteout," Darkstalker said. "They can stay the morning here if we're not back by the time they fall asleep."

With the little ones now taken care of, Darkstalker made his way back to his own room. Clearsight, Fathom, and Indigo were there waiting for him, and they wasted no time getting started on discussions.

"So, what have you discovered, Clearsight?" he asked, taking his seat beside her in the same room they'd spoken in before.

Clearsight took a deep breath. "My powers are being compromised," she said. "They're using animus magic on me."

A cold numbness poured over Darkstalker's back. That couldn't be right. Didn't they fear animus magic more than anything? "Tell us everything," he said, as suspicious as he was concerned.

And she did. She told them about the futures that she saw leading up to the meeting. She told them about the futures that she saw that directly followed the meeting. And she told them about how it was becoming more and more challenging to read the futures surrounding the meeting as they grew closer to it — how there was a cloud of haze surrounding that point in time that she couldn't penetrate no matter how hard she tried.

That was more than enough evidence that she was right. They were barring her out; there was no question about it.

This was an honest surprise. He knew there would be treachery afoot. This was a game of politics; treachery and secrecy were the weapons of choice. The other queens were organizing secret plans, and he was trying to figure out what those plans were.

But he wasn't expecting them to use magic. Magic! What hypocrisy! What complete and utter hypocrisy! Were they not specifically concerned about the misuse of animus magic? Wouldn't a spell that neutered the powers of another dragon be precisely the type of misuse that would drive them to paranoia?

Darkstalker had intended to play by their rules. He'd been playing by their rules for the duration of this entire war — at least, as far as they knew. And even those other spells were defensive in nature. They didn't hurt the SeaWings; they only protected the NightWings from further harm.

And this was how they responded? By robbing the NightWing queen of her future sight? If Darkstalker had suggested an equally destructive spell against them, Clearsight would have shot it down, and rightfully so!

"This shouldn't be a problem, should it?" Fathom asked. "We know that they're using magic to stop Clearsight from seeing the future. Let's just enchant something to protect her future sight from being influenced by animus magic."

"We can't," Darkstalker said. "Earlier enchantments take priority over newer ones. If Clearsight's powers are being influenced by an animus spell, there's nothing we can do to override it. We would have had to protect her future sight before they tampered with it."

"How do you know?" Fathom asked.

"Something similar happened to my mother. We discovered a while ago that she has two conflicting enchantments cast on her. The first is a protection from harm spell that Arctic cast on an earring she wears, and the second is some sort of brainwashing spell that possesses her to fly to the Ice Kingdom. She's immune to the second spell as long as she's under the effects of the first."

Fathom's eyes went wide. "Three moons. That's scary."

"Well, at least she was lucky enough to get protection before another animus tried tampering with her," Darkstalker said. "I didn't want to do this, but I think we'll need to use animus magic in place of Clearsight's powers here. I can write up an enchantment that tells us what they have planned, and we can proceed from there."

"Sounds reasonable," Fathom said with a nod.

"Agreed," Indigo said.

Clearsight nodded as well. "We can't walk into this unprepared. This is our only option."

Darkstalker pulled his scroll and ink out from his case, and began to unroll it. "Someone grab me a piece of parchment."

As he found the next open spot, he noticed that he didn't have much space left in the scroll. It was never terribly long to begin with, and his claw writing was so large and sloppy when he was younger. Depending on how many spells he planned on using, he might need to consider transferring the spell over to a new scroll soon.

Clearsight handed him a small scroll, meant for writing brief messages or notes. Darkstalker flattened the paper in front of him and wrote on his enchanted scroll:

'Enchant this piece of paper to have written on it a full description of the plans and intentions of the queens and animuses — excluding Darkstalker, Clearsight, and Fathom — with regards to the meeting scheduled to take place in the SkyWing palace on the next night with two full moons.'

After he finished his enchantment, Darkstalker examined the scroll.

Nothing was happening.

Darkstalker blinked. "That's … strange. Did I make the wording too ambiguous?"

He tried again, writing in the space below. First, he wrote 'Enchant this piece of paper to be three times longer.' He did this to make sure that the scroll understood what 'this piece of paper' was, and also to make sure that there would be enough room on it for the spell to work.

The paper grew in length, as Darkstalker was expecting. So that wasn't the issue. He pondered for a second, then wrote a more elaborate spell:

'Enchant this piece of paper to contain, in legible claw writing and black ink, a message in the Dragon language that describes what the Pyrrhian queens and animuses — excluding Darkstalker, Clearsight, and Fathom — intend to do during the meeting between the Pyrrhian queens and animuses, scheduled to take place on the next night with two full moons; if the intentions of the Pyrrhian queens and animuses have not yet been finalized, then instead write what their intentions will most likely be.'

Darkstalker waited for the message to show up. It didn't.

His talon curled into a fist. "Falling stars, they've compromised our animus powers too!"

"What!" Indigo shouted. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes, it's obvious," he said, flicking the blank paper away with his talon. "An enchantment like this should have worked. They're blocking the spell. They have to be."

They stayed quiet and angry for a few heartbeats while Darkstalker let his seething mind ponder. Now what? Could they still take the upper hand without knowing their plans?

"Let's send a message to Queen Pearl," Indigo said. "Tell her that we found out she's been interfering with our powers, and that we're not cooperating until she lifts the spells on us."

"I don't think that's so good an idea," Darkstalker said, pondering. "If we do that, it might just provoke them into casting even more spells on us."

"Then what do you propose?" she challenged. "You know we can't just walk in at the mercy of whatever they have planned."

"We can't rely on future sight this time, but that doesn't mean we can't be in control," Darkstalker said. "The problem right now is that they have a plan and we don't. We're treating this as if they're throwing a strike at us, and we need to dodge. Instead, we need to prepare something for them."

"Like what?" Fathom asked.

Darkstalker paused. "I … don't know yet," he said. "But it can't be something they're prepared for."

"It also can't be something that antagonizes them too much," Clearsight added. "Don't forget that we want to make peace, not enemies."

"They are our enemies. They made themselves our enemy when they decided to use their powers against us and threaten us with war." Darkstalker sighed thoughtfully. "But you're right. We need a plan that surprises them, but doesn't terrify them when we reveal it."

He looked pensively at the previous spells in his scroll, searching for inspiration. They didn't offer much. His spells really were mostly harmless and non-deceptive in nature. He was no stranger to deceit, but when he was deceptive, he and Clearsight were careful to make sure he didn't lean on animus magic too much.

Which gave him a crazy idea. One that he hated.

He started to scan through all of the spells he'd written down in the past. Were there any that were particularly malicious-looking or scandalous? There was the tail band that killed other dragons. But that was cast for self-defense purposes. And besides, he'd only actually ever used it one time.

What about — ooh. Darkstalker winced at a rather embarrassing spell that he'd cast several years ago. But it wasn't a bad spell. Just one that was obviously written while he was still going through puberty.

"What are you thinking, Darkstalker?" Clearsight asked.

"Nothing," Darkstalker murmured as he looked through the other spells he'd written down.

"No, you're definitely not thinking nothing," she said, leaning in closer to him. "You've got that glimmer in your eye that you always have when you get an idea."

Darkstalker paused his reading and sighed. It sometimes frustrated him that Clearsight understood him so well. "It's a backup plan more than anything," he started. "I was thinking, maybe I could … show them my scroll."

Clearsight's eyes widened. "You mean … tell them about it?"

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know." He returned to scanning his past spells. "Maybe I won't tell them everything. But if I show them the spells that I'd cast, maybe it'd prove that I'm not a dragon with malicious intent."

"What about the spells you cast during the war?" Clearsight asked. "Like the one you cast on the SeaWing that tried to take away Solstice? And the enchanted map?"

"Those aren't so bad," Darkstalker said. At least I didn't use animus magic on that SeaWing when I arranged for his torture, he thought. "If they choose to question those enchantments, we could remind them that they were using IceWing enchantments to aid themselves in the war. We could also remind them that they were trying to take Fathom away from us against his will."

"Don't you think it's a little dangerous to give this information away to the queens like that?" Fathom asked. "You'd be letting them know that you don't actually have any animus powers. What if they try to take the scroll away from you?"

"Yes, that's a good point," Darkstalker admitted. "Can I point out that just because I was the one who had this idea doesn't mean that I actually like it?"

"It isn't one of your best ideas, I'll say that," Indigo agreed half-heartedly.

"I'm sure there's a way around them trying to take it from you," Clearsight said. "You could enchant something to make it return to you when you want it. A bell, perhaps. It'll fall back into your talons when rung."

Darkstalker slumped. "I suppose it's possible. Can we go back to finding problems with this plan, though? I really don't want to reveal all my spells to the rest of the world."

Clearsight laughed a little. "Well, there is a problem with it," she said. "It probably won't be enough. The issue isn't whether or not you've done anything bad; it's whether or not you will do anything bad. They'd probably rather the scroll be destroyed, and your animus powers with it."

Suddenly, it clicked.

Darkstalker stood up, eyes shining bright. "Clearsight, you're a genius!" he shouted.

Clearsight raised her chin proudly. "You're welcome," she said. "Now, let's try and think of an actual plan."

"No Clearsight, don't you see? This will be the actual plan!" Darkstalker grinned shrewdly. "At least, that's what we'll have them think."

Clearsight tilted her head. "Weren't you hating this idea just a few seconds ago?"

"Yes, but that was because it's basically a surrender," Darkstalker said. "If all we did was show them my scroll, then we'd basically be admitting that we're afraid of them, and that we're willing to give away all our secrets to appease them. But if we make the slightest change, then this could work tremendously in our favor. All we need to do … is get them to destroy the scroll."

"What!" Clearsight said, standing up so that she was level with him. "But if you destroy the scroll, you'll get your powers back. Why on earth would they do that?"

"Well," Darkstalker started, "what if they didn't know that my animus powers would return to me when they destroyed the scroll?"

There was a silence as the implications started to dawn on them.

"They would think that they took away your powers," Fathom said, still pondering. "You wouldn't be seen as a threat anymore."

"You'd still have animus magic, but nobody would know," Indigo continued.

"And everyone is happy," Darkstalker concluded.

Indigo nodded. "It's a nice idea, but how are we supposed to pull it off?"

"Well, Clearsight herself said that they would probably rather the scroll be destroyed, if it destroyed my powers with it," Darkstalker said. "All we really need to do is let them get their talons on it, and convince them that destroying it will render me powerless."

"Which is easier said than done," Indigo said. "What are you hoping to do? Hand them the scroll and say, 'Here's all of my powers; destroy that and I lose all of my animus magic'? They'd see through that lie in a heartbeat."

"Yes, you're right," he said. "We have to coax them into it. Make them believe the lie."

Fathom placed a talon on his chin. "We should start by imagining how we'd act if the lie were true. Darkstalker, what do you think you would do if the scroll really didn't give you your powers back when it got destroyed?"

"I'd probably add some protections to the scroll," he said. "Make it impervious to fire, for example. I'd also probably be a lot more reluctant to give it up at the palace. Perhaps I'd try and hide it, so that they didn't know I had it until I showed it to them."

Darkstalker felt the gears turning in his head now. It was all starting to come together. "Here's what we can do: we'll step into the meeting acting as though we're going with our initial plan to show the other queens my scroll. My pretend plan will be to make sure that I am in control of the scroll at all times during the meeting. Clearsight, can you tell if the guards will be able to find my scroll if I cast an invisibility spell on it?"

Clearsight closed her eyes tightly, straining herself to look at the edges of the futures that she was being blocked from seeing. "I think so," she said. "They'll pat us down, checking for any hidden accessories. You won't be able to hide your scroll from them."

"Perfect," Darkstalker said. "When the guards do that, I can act all sheepish and pretend I wasn't expecting this. And when I reveal the scroll, I can try to convince them to let me hold onto it. When that inevitably fails, I'll reluctantly hand it over, and when we enter the meeting, it will become the subject of discussion. I can admit that the scroll contains all of my powers, and that I have no animus magic without it. That ought to be enough to get the idea in their mind to destroy the scroll."

"What if, again, they try to keep the scroll for themselves?" Fathom asked.

"In that case, we could go back to our old plan of escaping the meeting early, with Clearsight's idea to enchant something to return the scroll to me." Darkstalker tapped his talons on the floor. "Though, I might be able to convince them that I'd rather they destroy the scroll than keep it for themselves. I kind of like the irony in the idea that I don't trust them with that sort of power."

Indigo hummed. "This could actually work," she said. "But what if the pretend plan actually works? What if they decide to give the scroll back to you instead of destroying it?"

"Where's the harm in that?" Darkstalker asked. "That just means that they actually do trust me with my powers, so we have nothing to worry about."

"What I'm wondering is what we do if the actual plan works," Clearsight said. "Will you remain a true animus, or will you put your powers into a new scroll?"

"I'd put my powers in a new scroll, obviously," he said. "It'll keep my soul protected, which will keep bad futures from happening, which I know will make you happy."

She cast a golden smile at him, and for a second Darkstalker remembered the long honeymoon phase he'd had with her before they became king and queen.

A yawn suddenly crept into Darkstalker's mouth. "It's much too late to discuss this plan thoroughly," he said. "Let's talk about this more tomorrow, when we all have fresh minds and ideas. In the meantime, try to find out any holes in this plan that need to be filled. This needs to be fool-proof."

With the meeting adjourned, they all returned to their chambers and got some rest for the rest of the day.

There were a couple of vulnerabilities that were brought up over the following days, but none of them proved to be in any way problematic. Fathom noted that if they were going to write the necessary preparation spells in Darkstalker's scroll, then the other queens and animuses would see those spells when the scroll was given to them to read.

But Darkstalker wasn't so bothered by the idea that they would be made aware of those preparations. He could comfortably admit to them that they were temporarily invincible, and that they had a way of escaping the meeting if they felt threatened. If they thought that this was an irresponsible use of magic, then they would be more inclined to destroy the scroll.

Another problem that Fathom and Indigo brought up was the possibility that the other queens would be skeptical of Darkstalker's claim of what the scroll did. What if they wanted him to prove that he was telling the truth?

There wasn't a feasible way to prove this, since he wouldn't be telling the truth. But there was a feasible way to make it appear that he was. With the help of Fathom's magic, a new enchantment was added to the scroll — one that ensured that the consequences of the scroll being destroyed would be kept a secret. If anyone wrote down a spell in the scroll that asked it to recite the enchantments cast upon it, it would omit the enchantment Darkstalker had cast that made it so that his powers would be returned if the scroll were destroyed. They tested this by enchanting a piece of paper to write out these enchantments, and the paper obediently refrained from revealing everything. (The enchantment was written between two previously written enchantments, so that if the queens asked about it, Darkstalker could say that he'd cast that spell when he first showed Fathom the scroll.)

Darkstalker felt more and more confident by the day. But there was still something that worried him if he thought about it for too long.

His opposition had animus dragons. Three animus dragons, to be precise. Two of them were IceWings, both of whom proved that they were willing to use magic outside of the limitations of IceWing social law. And the third was a SandWing named Jerboa, who was a wild-card at this point that Darkstalker knew nothing about.

The other animuses have already used magic against them in order to keep their plans hidden. Who was to say that they weren't using other magic spells? Dangerous spells that they didn't know about? Without knowing exactly what other enchantments they might be using to sabotage him, Darkstalker wouldn't have any way of directly combating them.

It was good that he and his friends had their own plan. He didn't want to give the queens the opportunity to control him, and this new plan of theirs helped give them power.

But what if it wasn't enough? What if they had something bigger prepared — something that kept him from even attempting his own plan? The thought made him feel far too vulnerable.

He wondered if there was a way he could cast spells in secret. He remembered Clearsight telling him about how he'd used invisible ink to hide spells from her in the last timeline. It seemed like something he could replicate in this timeline as well, though he doubted Clearsight would like the idea very much.

What about his enchanted goblet? The one that he'd made for Listener, that he used to help him kill Queen Vigilance? He could use it to make himself smaller. Much smaller. So small that he could write words in the scroll that no ordinary dragon would be able to see.

As for what spells he ought to cast … he wasn't so sure. There were some he came up with off the top of his head that he thought would have helped — like secretly granting himself temporary animus powers in addition to his invincibility. But the futures indicated that Clearsight wouldn't approve of them.

He was in his bedroom as he pondered this, using Clearsight's desk as he stared at the scroll with the light of the enchanted candle that he'd given to Clearsight back when they were dragonets. It had been getting late, and he was starting to grow too tired to think about this any longer. He wanted to figure this out. He wanted to guarantee that he had control. And he was running out of time to do so. The meeting was only a few days away, and the chilling numbness of the anti-future-seeing spell was starting to mess with his ability to think straight more and more.

He rolled up his scroll and crawled into bed next to Clearsight, and the candle magically snuffed itself out. He'd talk about this with the others tomorrow.


A/N: My beta and I both independently noticed that there was a disappointing lack of Darkstalker's dragonets these past few chapters. I was planning on remedying that by adding in a scene with the little hatchlings in a later chapter, but after talking with her, I realized now would be a better time to do it. So you have her in part to blame for that cute little scene in the beginning.

And yes, Darkstalker did pick her daughter up and yeet her at the wall. But Remedy's a dragon; she can withstand a little bit of roughhousing when playing with her Daddy.

I hope the pacing isn't too wonky with this chapter. It was tricky to get into a writing groove with this one, so if the quality is a bit under par (or would it be above par, given the way golf scoring works?), I'm thankful to you for putting up with it.

Thank you all for your continued support and feedback. You've all been wonderfully supportive and helpful! I'm looking forward to hear what you think about this chapter. And the next one. And also the next one.