Here's another chapter from me. I wrote this one out quickly, and it was fun! Thanks to Romancehowler for the fav and follow. Thank you QueenGlorytheFirst for your review, I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Your question about the clocks has been answered in the chapter before this; I edited in a proper description, as I realize I should have done but forgot about. They're not particularly advanced and use no electricity. As for the metallic detector, the answer is already in this chapter! I was purposely vague about it, and you'll see that it's probably not what you might have been thinking of.

I've updated the cover for the story, as I felt the old one was a bit ugly and wonky, it should be much better now. Here's a link to the full image if you wish to see it: https*:*/*/* deviantart*.com*/*fictionalentity*/art*/*The-Stolen-Dragonet-cover-821190722 (remove the stars to use the link)

Anyways, in this chapter our heroes find out who this mysterious cave-lurker is and whether he is friend, or foe...

The dragonets tensed, each of them momentarily dazed.

'A NightWing...' Marble thought with awe, easily recognizing the features she'd seen countless times in books and in every mirror she'd looked.

None of them had prepared for running into a NightWing. All of Pyrrhia knew that the tribe had vanished entirely to lands unknown, years ago. As far as anyone in the remaining six tribes knew Marble was the only one left behind.

But clearly this was not so. The evidence, old and feeble as he was, stood before them.

As he felt the ground with his free foretalon, the NightWing's expression changed and he called out to the trio.

"Ho, there! No need to be afraid, I don't mean any harm." his wizened features crinkled into a smile, "I may not be able to see you, but I can feel you shaking from here!"

Marble blinked as a realization came upon her, 'He's blind. No wonder he kept feeling the ground, he can detect us moving through vibrations.'

The dragonets glanced at one another, unsure. In a show of peace, the old stranger relaxed and lay down. He spoke to them once more, his tone cordial.

"I know it may be a surprise to find an old thing like me living out here still. I don't know why the three of you are around these parts, but I'm willing to bet you aren't a raiding party." he lifted his snout to the air, in the direction of the fierce wind. "Day's gettin' old as me out here. Guessing you three were gonna rest in my cave!" he chuckled, a warm and pleasant sound. "Well, don't fret. I'd be glad of the company if you're still thinking about it."

There was a pause; Marble was the first to ease her stance, speaking at last.

"How can we be sure you're not our enemy?" she asked in a neutral tone.

The NightWing craned his neck towards them, "Well, there's three of you and one of me. Not to mention it seems you are all young and fit, while over here I'm a dusty old bag of bones."

The statement was true enough; though he was large, age had rendered him weak. Time was something that even the mightiest of dragons could not overcome.

Marble was inclined to agree with the stranger. The odds were in their favor in a fight, and truth be told she was positively burning with curiosity at what knowledge this dragon held about NightWings.

She relaxed herself and looked to her friends; they'd been leaning towards acceptance themselves.

"Alright," muttered Torque, sighing, "The old coot's got a point. He probably has food and some bedding in there, and I don't wanna be out here when the weather turns nasty."

Adder nodded, folding his wings so they weren't buffeted about by the strong winds. It wouldn't be very safe to fly as the weather got worse and it wouldn't be calming down till the next day at least.

"Okay, we'll take you up on the offer." he said to the NightWing, who smiled warmly.

"Excellent! Come in, come in, those gales will shred your wings if you stay out in them - and I should know!" he laughed, flaring one of his bedraggled wings for emphasis.

Marble had to admit, as she followed the NightWing into the cave, that his home was certainly cozy. A steady warmth filled the interior, generated by a wood-fired oven carved into the cave wall. There was also stone furniture, similarly carved, including a table with chairs and a large slab with animal skins that she supposed was a bed. Near the table was a wooden cupboard that looked as ancient as it's owner, worn smooth from years of use.

Off to one side was a pile of animal skins, some scraped and tanned. The old NightWing moved to take some from it and set about creating three makeshift beds for his guests.

"It's not much," he said with a shrug, "But it's home. I wish I could provide better, but I don't often get company these days."

"Don't worry," said Torque, warming his wings by the fire, "Sleeping outside is a lot worse."

"Indeed, and I suspect you've been doing that for the past few days." the stranger had finished his work and moved his head near the dragonets with a wry smile, "You three are travelers of some kind, right? You're carrying supplies and I don't know any other reason dragons would be around this moon-forsaken place."

Before any of the dragonets could answer, he continued,

"Not going to the old Night City are you? Only crows and bad memories live in that place. There's nothing left to loot, either. I don't believe in it being haunted by specters, but there is such a thing as ghosts of the past..."

Marble frowned, hesitant to admit their purpose. But this old hermit was of no threat to them, and anyway, what else could they be doing? She didn't think he'd believe her if she said they were just traveling around for the sight-seeing.

She glanced at her friends, and each of them nodded after a moment. So, together they sat down beside the fire and told the old stranger of their mission.

They left out some parts, such as Glacia and their sneaking out of the Sand Kingdom. The trio simply told the NightWing that they were on a mission to the Night City and that it was important.

He remained silent as they spoke, his expression turning grave. He ran a foretalon over his walking staff in thought for a moment. A sigh escaped his nostrils as he realized the determination of the dragonets. He would not be able to dissuade them from their quest. Instead, he would do what he could to help them with his knowledge and then send them on their way.

"Quite a tale, that is. I see that I can't stop you from going onward." He rose to his feet with a nod, "So be it. I'll try to help you with what information I have knocking around in this old brain." he tapped his head with a smile, "But first," he turned and opened the wooden cupboard nearby, "We ought to have a meal."

As if on queue, Torque's stomach growled loudly. He smiled sheepishly, "That's a good idea, we haven't really had a chance to eat today."

Suddenly, the NightWing gasped, "Oh, where are my manners! I haven't even introduced myself!"

He turned, a stack of clay plates in one foretalon, and placed the one holding his staff against his chest.

"My name is Equinox, pleased to meet you."

Adder was the first to respond in kind, gesturing at Torque with a wing. "I'm Adder, and this is my brother, Torque."

"And my name is Marble." finished Marble, wondering at the strange-sounding name of their host. It was certainly different to a traditional SandWing name, that was for sure.

Equinox hummed tunelessly as he set out the plates upon the stone table and turned back to the dragonets when he finished.

"Hmm..." he mumbled, feeling the ground and twitching his ears. "Curious," he said, "A SandWing.. or... a SkyWing? and-" he stopped still suddenly, head turned towards Marble, "How very strange! Another NightWing?"

Impressed, Torque exclaimed, "You can tell that without seeing us?"

"Indeed!" Equinox replied as he turned back to the cupboard, "I've never been able to see through my eyes, and so I learned to see through my remaining senses. I can tell what kind of dragon another is by the weight of their movement or the sounds that enfold them. I need time to analyze them, though, which is why I couldn't tell what kind you three were at first."

"Well, you're right." Adder interjected quietly. "Marble is a NightWing, like you. Torque and I are... uh, well, we're SandWing-SkyWing hybrids."

"Ah, that explains my confusion! It's been a very long time since I last met a hybrid, and this is the first time I've met one from those two tribes."

The brothers had braced themselves for some kind of insult but Equinox only seemed to be delighted at the revaluation. He was a strange old hermit, they concluded, but a nice one.

Within an hour the table had been set for their meal; salted orange cuts of a fish known as salmon, served with heaping clumps of it's eggs or "roe". It was all new to the dragonets, who had never even tried fish let alone seen one before leaving the desert. With some gentle encouragement from Equinox they dug in and were pleasantly surprised. The flesh was rich, fatty and very tasty with the addition of salt. The eggs had a strange texture and popped as they chewed, bursting with flavorful juice. Marble lamented that they'd probably never get to have such food again once they returned home. Moons knew they'd probably never be allowed to leave the Sand Kingdom for a very long time after this escapade.

The trio chatted with their host as they ate. They discovered that he hadn't always been a hermit, but had lived in the Night Kingdom with the rest of his tribe until shortly before it's abandonment. He talked of being an advisor and even getting to speak with the queen on important matters now and then. In his youth he had been a teacher. When a war with the MudWings broke out, he became a tactician. While his blindness barred him from fighting he had wanted to be involved in some way.

The dragonets continued to listen raptly after their meals were eaten as the old dragon told his tale. He spoke of being brash and eager to push back the enemies of his tribe, and of coming to realize the true horror of war as he grew older and learned of what it was causing. Eventually he withdrew and took on his job of advisor, settling diplomatic or trade disputes instead of matters of the battlefield.

"War is an ugly thing," he said, "But to young dragons it wears a mask of nobility and glory. It is only when they fight, when they find themselves surrounded by the screams of their friends and holding back their own spilling entrails, that they see it for what it is. But, like it or not, war is in our nature, and it will come and go. I suspect you three will have your own battles in the future and I encourage you to remember who you are. As you fight monsters, beware that you do not become ones yourselves."

His short speech rattled the dragonets. Thanks to the harsh, blunt nature of their training they knew something of the reality of war. Still, they could only hope they would be ready to face the horror that Equinox described when the time came. The most frightening thing was that they might lost themselves in the carnage.

Perhaps seeing the somber snouts of his guests, the old dragon changed the subject. At their request he told them the history of the Night Kingdom as he remembered it. They knew the important points from their education and what was written in Marble's book, but that was all. Equinox regaled to them the glory days before the war with the IceWings, when the kingdom thrived and grew. The Night City boasted some of the grandest and most advanced architecture in Pyrrhia for the time; it was not unknown for builders from other tribes to visit and study their making. Some of the most notable structures were the Queen's Palace, the famed school and the great NightWing Library.

Equinox's expression shone as he described his old home. He may not have seen the majesty with his eyes, but he knew every inch of the city from all his time spent there. Marble was in awe as she imagined such a wondrous place, a place that would have perhaps been her home if things had been different. Not for the first time she wondered how the NightWings could have left it all behind. She knew the story of course, all the tribes did; but Darkstalker was gone, so why had they never come back?

She voiced her question, and Equinox frowned.

"Well, I wasn't there when it happened, but I was there when everything that led to it was set in motion. You see..."

He went on to give some detail on the story of the dreaded Darkstalker. His parents, in a way, started the IceWing-NightWing war. According to what the dragonets had learned Prince Arctic the IceWing had fallen in love with a visiting NightWing called Foeslayer. Because he was valuable to his tribe, as an animus, when he left with the NightWings it was seen as stealing one of their most powerful assets. An act of war. It was from these tumultuous events that Darkstalker and his sister, Whiteout, were born.

"Alas, thanks to the war, and Arctic's isolation, their love soured. Their children grew up among domestic fights as they struggled to get on. Even so, nobody suspected what Darkstalker would one day become. He was merely viewed as a very gifted dragonet among his peers. Part of it had to do with his powers."

Marble blinked, thinking about what little she knew of so-called "NightWing Powers". Given that she possessed some herself it had always been an intriguing subject for her. Even so, it had taken her a lot of searching before she properly understood it.

From what she had scraped together some NightWings were born with either the power to read minds, or the power to see the future. Very rarely, some were born with the power of both. Darkstalker had been one such dragon. It was one of the reasons he was so frightening in stories; he could read your every thought and see what you would do before you did it. On top of being an animus like his father this made him nigh invincible. Nobody knew how he'd been defeated, or if he'd merely vanished.

"Ultimately," Equinox finished, "It came down to possessing too much power and simply being who he was. He began to believe he could mold the world however he saw fit with little thought to those he affected. It is a miracle indeed that he is gone. I don't wonder that my kin fled our home and never returned; after it all came crashing down, the powers that some had were no longer seen as gifts. Instead they were dangers, needing to be smothered lest they be wielded for evil. It shattered something that was part of the core of our society and I believe that, wherever they are, they're still rebuilding it."

Eventually the dragonets grew sleepy as the night set in and wore on. What they'd learned from the old NightWing hermit turned about in their minds even as they settled into bed. For each of them it was exciting to think that the three of them would be going to the city that was a nexus of such rich history, even if it was long abandoned. The thrill of adventure to come bolstered their resolve and strengthened their hearts.

Marble had the most difficulty sleeping. In this short time she'd learned so much about the culture of her kind. Growing up so different from her peers had made it difficult to learn much about the culture of the tribe she'd originally come from. In a way she was learning about herself, and her ancestors. While she pictured the great spires of the Night City in her mind once more, she started at a sudden sound.

It came from the slab that Equinox slept on; he seemed to be twitching in his sleep. As she was about to write it off as normal and go back to attempting to sleep, the twitching grew more violent, almost as if he was fighting an invisible foe. He flared a wing and growled angrily, muttering something under his breath. Marble waited in the flickering light of the fire, stock-still. His eyes flew open and shocked her with their startling whiteness. They flickered about frantically despite their lack of vision. After a few minutes, with strange suddenness, Equinox ceased his struggling. He turned over and returned to snoring quietly as before.

With a sigh of relief Marble turned over in her bed and closed her eyes. Something about the old dragon's disturbance seemed oddly familiar, but she shrugged it off. She was tired from the day's events, and began to drift off into her dreams...

It was a clear, windless night. Marble flew smoothly along on her way without hindrance. She looked down, mesmerized at the grand, spiraling stone architecture below her.

'The Night City? We're here already?'

Her mind felt confused and foggy. She swept her gaze around and took in the vast ruins of the once prosperous city. There was little real structural damage anywhere. Instead dark moss and creepers steadily grew to enfold what footholds they could. But though it was near-untouched, the utter silence of this place gave the greatest impression of ruin.

Marble lowered herself down to land upon the ground. The paved stone was cold beneath her talons; she looked around for her friends, but she was alone. Before her was a grand-looking stage of some kind, probably once used for important events. An ominous feeling of foreboding swept over Marble as she moved to climb upon it.

She looked down.

"Three moons... what.. who was that?"

Her friends had appeared suddenly at her side, yet she was not startled. For some reason she felt as if they'd always been there. Adder was the one who'd spoken, covering his mouth with a foretalon in horror.

Torque wasn't faring much better; he merely stared and shivered, nauseous.

'I can't blame them, really.' Marble thought. The sight before them was certainly grisly, doubly so in this haunted place.

Sprawled at their talons was the desiccated skeleton of a dragon. It would have been impossible to tell which tribe it belonged to, if not for the dark blue blood soaked into the ground all around it. It was lying in a pose that suggested a painful death, jaw open as if still screaming. Some of the ribs were broken but otherwise the bones seemed almost pristine. Nothing had dared to touch it in all the years it lay among the dust, it seemed.

"That must be what's left of Prince Arctic..." Marble said with a wince. She felt as if she wasn't speaking in the same instance as her thoughts for some reason.

She experienced a sudden sensation of being thrown rapidly forward by a strong wind; she was flying again, but this time in a frantic chase.

"Come here, you damn ghost! If there's any loot left in this City it's mine!"

A harsh, gruff voice was yelling at her from behind. She couldn't turn her head to see; it felt like her body was out of her control. In the corner of her eyes she spotted her friends flying in the same direction. To her alarm they seemed to be bleeding. Now that she thought about it, she hurt pretty badly herself.

A new voice responded like a boom of thunder, and Marble felt something large whizz past behind her.

"YOU SHALL NOT HARM THEM!"

Marble turned around to face her pursuer and whoever had just come to their aid. She was so shocked she thought her mouth ought to have been hanging open if she had any control over it.

The doddering old hermit Equinox seemed to be doing battle with a massive, grizzled SandWing. They clawed and bit at one another, roaring. With a sudden burst of light the SandWing breathed a burst of fire at his enemy. Equinox attempted to dodge the blast, but at such close range and slowed as he was he did not succeed. His left wing caught ablaze and left him floundering in the air. Intending to take his foe with him, he grabbed onto the SandWing and brought them both crashing down.

Marble shot towards them with a roar, a ribbon of blood streaming behind her...

Echoing the end of her dream, Marble awoke from the vision. The noise startled her friends awake and had them tense for an ambush. They relaxed when the bleariness of sleep left them and they realized that all was well. Equinox was already awake and had been preparing dried salmon, but now looked in Marble's direction with a curious expression.

Smiling sheepishly, she apologized for startling them and merely said she'd had a nightmare.

"Whatever that was, it sounded intense." Adder replied, yawning and stretching.

"Yeah, for a second there I thought we were about to be murdered or something!" Torque added.

Equinox had returned to preparing the salmon and shrugged his wings dismissively, "Ah well, nightmares are completely harmless. Better to fight imaginary foes than real ones, eh?"

The trio agreed with him, packing up their things and checking their supplies as they woke. Equinox insisted they not leave without breakfast and some additional supplies. He had some salmon jerky stored for tough winters and argued that they certainly needed it more than he did. He also gave each of them a blanket of animal hide so that they would at least be warm when they slept outside.

Breakfast was a tasty affair of fresh salmon along with something Equinox had called "Century Eggs". The dragonets had been appalled before he explained that it was just a name for the meal and that they weren't really a hundred years old. They were duck eggs wrapped in a mixture of clay, salt and ash, left to age for several months. The process caused some kind of chemical reaction which transformed the egg into a strange but delicious meal.

Afterwards, the trio said farewell to the hermit and thanked him for his hospitality as they gathered their things outside the cave. The weather had calmed some and would be easier to fly in today, to their relief.

"It was a pleasure! I hardly ever get company these days. If you ever need a place to rest and you're traveling through I'd be glad to accommodate you three." Equinox smiled, waving with his staff.

The dragonets took off, waving and calling out "Bye!", "Thanks again!" as they turned to resume their course towards the Night City.

When they were out of sight, the old NightWing sighed and returned to his cave. He settled down before the stone fire to think. He drummed his claws upon the stone floor and muttered something over and over under his breath. He had a bad feeling that he'd be meeting up with the dragonets much sooner than expected, and not under good circumstances...

Throughout the next day the trio didn't speak much. They were each made quiet by the anticipation of nearing the first big step of their quest. The Night City would be the first they'd see of another tribe's home. After all they'd read and the illustrations they'd seen they had a feeling it would be quite a sight. Lesser was a creeping chill down their spines; after all, they'd probably be the only living souls in the entire city except for a few animals. There was something very wrong about a once-populous place being so empty. It was like visiting the corpse of something once living.

Torque and Adder had noticed that something seemed to be bothering their friend. Marble had been silently brooding over her disturbing dream since they'd left. Over the years she'd learned that her visions did not always come true, at least not in the expected way. She really, really hoped that would be the case this time.

'Otherwise we could be flying right into danger. I don't know why a SandWing would be in the city so long after it's been looted. He said something about loot though, so maybe...'

She shook her head and sighed. Perhaps if they moved carefully they wouldn't even run into the dragon. After all, it was a big city. It was difficult to keep herself from warning her friends about him. On the one talon, she didn't want to freak them out with her weird NightWing visions which, by the way, she'd been having for years. On the other she didn't want them getting hurt, or worse. She scrunched her snout worriedly,

'Equinox caught fire, for moon's sake! We don't really know him, but he seemed nice and I don't want him to have his wings melt because of us.'

Eventually Marble concluded she'd just have to warn them in a more general way, even if it sounded like she was worrying for nothing. Better safe than sorry.

She chose her moment when they landed after sunset beneath a rocky overhang. They were eating some salted salmon for dinner when she brought up the subject.

"Looks like we'll get to the Night City tomorrow for sure," Adder was saying as he pored over the map. "It looks like it's past the canyons we're in right now."

Marble interjected, "When we get there we should be careful. I know it's a ghost city and all, but we don't know what might be there. Maybe some dangerous animals or... even other dragons."

Torque eyed her skeptically as he munched a strip of fish, "Any sane dragons wouldn't come near the place after it's been looted. Every tribe thinks it's haunted and bad luck."

"Maybe," Marble shrugged her wings, "But it doesn't mean the occasional nutjob or lost dragon doesn't pass through. If we can get there, others can too."

Adder closed the map and picked up his food, adding, "I guess we can be stealthy. If we see someone we can hide behind a pillar, or in a house. We probably shouldn't make too much noise either."

Torque winced and replied, "Ooh, about that..." he dug into one of his pouches and pulled out his metallic detector, "This thing isn't really quiet when it's in use."

The device was a curious-looking thing. It consisted of a short wooden rod that was partially hollowed out. In the middle was a small bell tied with string to the top of the hollow point. Another string tied it to the bottom part of the rod; specifically to a small but powerful magnet that was encircled by a clay bowl. When the magnet hovered over a metallic object, it was attracted to it. This force pulled the string and subsequently caused the bell to ring when something metal was below the magnet.

To demonstrate, Torque took a piece of iron he had in the same pouch and held it under the detector. The bell began to ring rapidly, and certainly not quietly. Silently pleased at his work, he quickly put the iron back and the bell fell still again.

"See? When we go looking for those bracelets and run into anything metal, it's gonna make a lot of noise." Torque concluded as he packed away his invention.

Marble agreed; the bell would broadcast their presence to anyone nearby. Still, they would only need to use it in the higher-up part of the kingdom if all went according to plan.

'Which it probably will, right?'

"Well, since we're gonna be searching up high where the council lived, maybe it won't attract much attention." she shrugged her wings with a smile, "I bet we'll just end up scaring some birds instead!"

"I just hope they don't peck us," Torque said with a frown, "They've probably built nests. I've been attacked by desert hawks before, and it hurts!"

Adder laughed and nudged his brother, "And that's why we stopped going egg-hunting. Not worth the pain."

Marble smiled to herself as she ate the last of her food. Perhaps she really was worrying for nothing, after all.

"Well," she yawned and stretched, "We can worry about deadly attack-birds tomorrow. If they bother the legendary trio, they're gonna regret it!"

"They'd probably make good snacks to keep up morale," joked Adder as he gulped down his last bit of fish.

The three of them took out their blankets and lay down close together to sleep. It was a chilly night, but with so much awaiting them the next day the dragonets barely felt it. Marble smiled to herself, letting the lure of sleep dull her fears.

'Tomorrow, our mission begins...'

Some foreshadowing of what's to come as the trio's last stop comes to an end. The story picks up again in the next chapter, and I hope you'll be looking forward to it. I welcome any comments or criticisms, I'm always looking to learn more as a writer. Feel free to fav/follow if you wish, and see you in the next chapter.