Finding Peace: Winglets

Confessions of the First Somnus

This Winglet takes place during Chapter 27 and follows a different structure than the previous ones, as it follows the first-person perspective of the antagonist in a discussion with an old friend.

Hello Sirius. It's Adder. But you already know that, of course.

I know there is no way for you to speak to me. Yet you can hear me. If I'm honest I prefer it that way, I just need you to listen. Nothing more.

It's been so long since we first met. By the Great Tree, it feels like yesterday when I first met you. Do you remember? It was in the middle of the worst nightmare I ever had when I was a dragonet.

You appeared to me as the brightest light I had ever seen. The emerald green of your glow was like the leaves of the rainforest.

Do you remember what you said?

You said you would always be there.

Indeed you would remain by my side for years, showing me the mysteries of your world while I showed you my own. Whenever my parents left me alone in our swampland hut at first light, you would be with me, offering me the company I so craved until mother and father returned to scoop me into their wings.

In many ways, I have you to thank. If not for you encouraging me to enter the Rainforest, I would not have met her. If I had not met her, then my parents and I would remain outcasts.

But when I needed you after that, when I asked for your help in protecting the Rainforest, you ignored my pleas. Any information that you could give, any advantage the tribe could have used against the encroaching SkyWings and SeaWings: you were silent.

At times I didn't even know if you were with me.

What was the point of our friendship? If you were the only one whoever asked for help?

I ignored your pleas when I broke our bond. I was willing to bind with anyone, anything, in the Dream World to help protect my home.

Even if that meant reaching into the regions of your world you dared not tread.

Despite my new covenant, despite proving to be more useful than you ever were, I still sensed your presence. Your attempts to worm into my mind.

We both know you would still not help me.

After all, you did not save me when I was trapped in the Dream World, you did not even search for me as I spent lifetimes in this miserable void!

It was not you who kept me from giving in to despair while trapped in the darkness.

You weren't the one who kept my resolve from crumbling.

It wasn't even you who laid the foundations of my revenge.

I was the one who made all of this possible. Me!

While Darkstalker lived six years of undeserved ignorance and bliss, I studied his mind! I was the one who searched for weaknesses to exploit when the time was right!

Because of me, I laid the foundations of his destruction!

Darkstalker meeting my descendant was just a convenience, she unknowingly brought him to me. Now, I don't need to sit and watch as the memories of his past life tear him apart. I can, and will, be the one who makes sure that Darkstalker endures the lifetimes of suffering I am forced to live in.

Think of my acts as you will.

But I will never forget the moments where you were in my life. Without you, I would still be the lowly outcast, afraid of venturing into the Rainforest. Without you, I would never have met my beloved.

For that, I am thankful for meeting you, Sirius.

Do what you will to protect her. My quarrel is not with her. But nothing you do will stop me from gaining the justice denied from me centuries ago.

I am no longer the Adder you knew all of those centuries ago, I can't be saved.

But I will not vanish into the darkness alone. If I must fade, so will Darkstalker.