"The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world..."

Requiem

Weightless.

Falling.

Floating.

Oblivion.

Darkness.

Timeless.

Void.

Empty.

Gone.

Lost.

A roar of an inferno.

A flash of lightning.

A cry of mourning.

A roar of command.

A whisper on the wind.

A summons before the end.

'Who are you, dark wing...'

'I'm sorry, dad...'

'You don't have to go up there...'

'Stay with me, bud...'

'I hurt you. I broke tail...'

'Fly the same air in the skies of life...'

'Almost sounds like us...'

'Teach me flying...'

'I will make fighting not happen...'

'And even if you did have that power...'

'You were looking for me...'

'Yes, you are my egg-mate and best friend... and my brother...'

'We can do this, you and me as one...'

'I am safe now...'

'You would not be able to give it...'

'You are not a Monster...'

'I will fly this flight with you...'

'I do not want to be alone...'

'You are the wind in my sky...'

'Unless life was in true danger...'

'If you had to choose the two-leg world or me...'

'I would choose you...'

'I promised to keep you safe...'

'And your want for it eclipsed your own will to live...'

'I would die for you...'

'I will destroy everything you love...'

'We will turn this hunt on it...'

'Who are you, dark wing...'

'Do not make me lose you...'

'I am glad to be flying with you... at the end...'

'I saw your Haven... It should not be... Peace is a lie...'

There was light.

Life was in him again?

With each breath of air?

Who was he?

Why was he?

When was he?

Where was he?

What was he?

He opened his weary eyes, blinked away the confusion, and beheld a strange island covered in snow. Despite the snow, there was a warm wind blowing in from the sea. A twilight glow seemed to burn at every horizon as the stars and the aurora adorned the heavens. The sun, slowly rising to welcome a new day, was still hidden beyond the horizon.

He wearily pushed himself to his feet in the long grass and tried to ignore the faintly burning pain all throughout. It all hurt. His wings, his tail, and his chest especially pained him. The pain vanished almost as soon as he noticed it though, apparently blown away on the warm wind.

Memories were slowly taking shape from the void. Everything that had happened in the last few minutes, hours, weeks, or years seemed oddly distant, almost as a part of a different world or life entirely, and did not seem to concern him at the moment.

He was too busy staring with wonder at a massive, gaping cave glowing with a faint green light before him. And he knew exactly where he was without questioning how he could have gotten there. It was the island on which the spectral dragon Mimir, that strange seer who told him such impossible things about the world around him, apparently lived. The island that hid a door, possibly one of the few ones, into the mysterious hidden world where many dragons lived in secret, hidden from the rest of the world.

A shape slowly emerged on foot from the mouth of the massive cave. It was almost the same strange dragon that he saw years ago. A dragon with a long tail and soft spine covered neck and back. Its eyes were fathomless with age and filled with memory. However, this dragon was grey, seemed formed of mist, moved very slowly and weakly, and did not glow with pure light as it had before.

He and Mimir faced each other in a long silence with only a couple paces between them.

'It is finished.'

"Finished?"

He blinked as recognition or painful understanding took form in his thoughts. With that knowledge came the resigned emptiness.

He had fallen.

"I... am... dead?" he weakly sighed.

'Yes, and no.'

"What?" he groaned in confusion.

'You are less alive than you would like to be and less dead than you could be.'

He closed his eyes as the confusing truth circled him, as the terrible memories slowly took shape and sorted themselves into something comprehensible. A dangerous battle in the sky against a foe that was beyond them. None of his or his brother's fire could harm the enemy. Only Luna's fire could...

A terrible idea clenched its teeth around his heart.

"What about Luna? Is she... still...?"

'She is safe. You killed what might be the last of those Hunter dragons, perhaps the most ancient and deadly of them if it evaded even me all those years. The world became cleaner. And now the last of those relics of a great and terrible world is hopefully no more.'

He gave a great sigh at learning that detail. Hope and relief poured into his heart on her behalf.

"As long as she is safe and lives, I would give anything for her. I did... actually. What happened with the lightning before I died?"

Mimir gave a phantom sigh that echoed on the wind.

'You dark wings and light wings never stop amazing me. That was your life-will-power.'

"What! I... did not have one... and that is not what it... does," he exclaimed after a moment of shock.

'You thought it was something that would only make one be changed or hatched as a new dark wing?'

"Yes," he mumbled.

'No. You saw a threat to the life of one, of several you love. You were ready to die for them. You gave up your life-will-power in that moment and made the world one without that threat. It was not so different from how Toothless trying to save himself and Hiccup both made them both... new even though it was not intended. Think of it as the only way for the saving of both to be.'

"But why lightning?"

'You remembered how I hunted them long ago. You knew without knowing that lightning was the best way to kill the Hunters.'

"I... always had that power? I only needed a true reason to use it?"

Mimir winced slightly at that.

'Yes, you understand more of it now. I wonder what the limits of that power could have been under other circumstances.'

"What do you mean?"

Mimir almost answered but bowed his head and sighed without saying anything. There had been a wary, appraising, and haunted glimmer in his spectral eyes for an instant.

'No, it does not matter now. It was not my place to... test that... though I wish that I had.'

He wondered at apparently being back on this strange place so suddenly, if he even was here. The chaotic events of the recent past slowly began to weigh on his heart again despite the knowledge that she was alive.

"How... how did I get here if I am dead?"

'You should already know the answer to that.'

A glance at the ground and sniff at the air followed before he realized something peculiar. There was nothing there to experience. There was no chill of cold or smell of the nearby sea. He could not even truly feel the ground beneath his feet. It made sense also given what Mimir had said about him being dead, sort of.

"I am not truly here. This is all in my head. It is not real."

'Why does it being in your head mean that it is not real?'

Mimir for the first time seemed to almost smile.

'As I said before, you are dead and not dead at once.'

He blinked, begging for explanation.

"I do not understand..."

'It depends on what you want I suppose. You could truly die and pass on now to what awaits, be it something or nothing. I imagine that all you would have to do is follow me...'

"Follow you?"

'When I pass from... here. It will be my time to pass soon after the great deed you did.'

"But I can live again?" he gasped as hope came to life in his heart.

'Yes, you would merely stay... here until the sun rises. But it would be to a life of some pain from now until your last days. You were burned by the lightning. You were also shot by the hunter human. And there is another pain you would feel if you return.'

He did not need to think about it to know what he would prefer.

"I would rather live in some pain than be dead. To leave her, my son, my unhatched one, our children that would never be, my brother, and everyone else... never."

'You will live. It is your choice to make, and it is good to say yes to life.'

He hummed softly at the reassurance and wondered at something else he had never gotten a clear answer on.

"Can you tell me how long I will live? No one else seems to know."

Mimir blinked and softly growled.

'No dark wing I know of has been allowed to die well of old age. I do not know how many years you will have in life. Longer than humans but not nearly as long as me, I would think.'

"That is very strange to think about. I guess I will find out. What did you mean about another pain though?" he sighed.

Mimir's shape rolled and swayed, seeming to lose form for a moment before it recovered. The thought voice was frail and slow when the specter continued.

'I kept the other life-will-powers alive. Part of my life-fire was in all the dragons. It is almost my time to pass and fade now. I... wanted you to know...'

"Know what?"

'There will be no more great 'magic'. No more making the world and life as you want it with will only. No more saving life from the teeth of death. No more thought-whispers and distant thought-sharing. And for all dragons still to be in the future, all their fire breath or ice breath might not be.'

He stepped back and gasped at that terrible notion. Dragons that could not breathe fire?

"What! No! How can that be?"

'Part of that breath was 'magic' as you call it. I do not know if those still to be will have enough spark on their own. Maybe they will, maybe they will not. Your kind and the light wings of course will have your own spark, but you will not have any more life-will-power.'

He lay down on the false sand and stared blankly as the enormity of what this meant crashed upon him.

"But how... how will we hunt? How will we defend ourselves? How will we live?" he bemoaned.

The specter sighed, and it felt like the wind itself answered.

'I once thought that the dragons could be free in the world as long as they had help from me. My gifts to them would be enough to help them protect themselves. I hoped that they and humans could share ranges or at least not clash. Do you know how many deaths I have felt so recently? The ice nest with the great-tusks... The battle that just happened... The fighting all across the world that you never knew of...'

Countless daggers pierced his heart as he saw and felt the deaths himself in Mimir's eyes.

A rain of arrows piercing through his eyes.

Massive jaws closing around his head as the audience cheered.

A hurled spear buried in his chest.

Diving to catch his rider and having his wings tangled in a fall.

A hurled rock flying at him with no time to dodge.

A poisoned arrow pouring death deep into the strike.

Wings torn off in a fall onto a ship.

Drowning in the water after a crash.

Finding his mate dead and eggs crushed.

That eternal moment passed in an instant. All the voices, all the pain, all the loss cried out...

'Never again.'

"Never again?" he weakly gasped as he recovered himself from the terrible vision.

'I called to all the other good dragons before; water dragons to the deeps and both sky and land dragons to their nearest refuges. They all heard me, except those that look to you and your brother as their Alphas. They could not hear me, nor could you. The rest are hidden now, never to see the Monsters again. I spent almost all my power before the end, and I broke all the other paths to the hidden world except the one you see now. Only it will stay open.'

He stepped back from Mimir's darkened shape, thoroughly shaken by what he just heard the shadow of the ancient dragon say. He almost protested when he remembered why there were so many dead. Why there were so many dead which he had felt himself in the eternal instant.

So much hate, fear, and pride. And in part, it was the dream of peace and coexistence that led to this terrible outcome being possible, at least for those dragons that recently fell. His own dream that lasting peace was possible despite all evidence to the contrary.

'I finally understood that this would not have happened if they were all some place safer.'

The terrible familiarity of Mimir's last thought was as another spike driven through his own heart.

"No, you are wrong... It was... We... lived in... peace..." he moaned.

'That peace was weak. Those good old days had their time and will not return. How much was needed to build it, and how easily was it shattered? Why build something that will be broken again and again and again? That blindness only leads to death.'

"You, you have given up hope?" he exclaimed.

Mimir weakly sighed.

'Hope? Dragons have none in the upper world. That world belongs to the humans again. Let them take it and burn it as they will. But they will not touch or foul the hidden world now or ever.'

"You would have us give up and not even try to make the world better?" he growled back.

Mimir looked into his eyes, almost with pity in his ancient and tired gaze.

'You know what will happen if you stay above. You will meet with death. Maybe not you yourself, maybe it will be your young who are killed for their hides or the pleasure of the hunt or the fault of being dragons. Maybe you will watch your life-mate die before you. Will you bring that on them? What will you be willing to lose to try to make that impossible dream of forbidden friendship live?'

His heart was completely pierced again by the familiar warning and his own pained realization, far too long coming.

It was too dangerous and violent for dragons in the world. All dragons had to disappear entirely from the world. They had always been seen as the enemy of humans in general, and that was not going to change any time soon. People change too slowly, if they ever do. And the risk involved in making the dream real, the price that would certainly have to be paid in blood, was one that he was not willing to pay. He had no right to condemn his own family, Luna, his son, future children and grandchildren, and all in his brother's family to deaths because of an old dream of his. And that was not even considering all the dragons he was responsible for alongside his brother.

Unless there was another possibility.

"We... can bring our humans with us into hiding with us..." he desperately offered.

Mimir gave a wary growl tinged with a hint of anger and shock.

'You would bring the humans into the hidden world? Who do you think you are to so change the world? You know that is not possible or good. The other dragons from the corners of the world remember and know humans as the threats they are, unlike the dragons that always lived in hiding. The light wings especially would not accept them.'

"There are other Light Furies there?" he weakly gasped in a moment of surprise.

'Yes, several packs of them.'

"Why did you not tell me about them before?"

'You did not need to know about them. The light wings want to be free from humans and live always in hiding.'

"But our humans are good to us, and they do not hurt us. We can..."

Mimir interrupted him.

'The hidden world is wild and free, and that is not what humans want. They would foul the hidden world with time. They want to control and subdue dragons, even if it starts slowly and in what seems to be peace and friendship. They are the enemy of life and freedom! That is what I have learned after over a thousand years! I remember it all! They cannot be trusted with the knowledge of where we are in hiding. You know that as well as I do even if you do not want to accept it.'

He hung his head and weakly whimpered as he remembered the great foes; the Berserker tribe's thirst for blood, Drago Bludvist's apparent mission of control, the Grimborns and all the dragon hunters, Grimmel the Grisly's terrible purpose born of fear, and the monstrosity of a dragon that he himself had killed, giving his own life in the process. The other dragon riding tribes had, for the most part, forsaken their surviving dragons after the cataclysm on the Bewilderbeast's island. Even within Haven there were still those who occasionally seemed to see dragons as merely useful beasts of burden or pets, even if those ones were the vast minority.

'What you dark wings choose and where you will live is your choice though. You may be the last ones of your kind, I am too weak to see if there are others now. It is your flight to fly even if you want to end your own kind. But remember that your dragons will follow you and your brother as their Alphas. Their lives are in your claws. Will you will fly them to their deaths?'

Mimir's otherwise stern appearance seemed to soften.

'I told you before that there were winds you could only fly on your own. That there was a truth about yourself that you never knew. Who will you live for and who are you, dark wing? Dragon or human? It is a choice you must make. Now.'

Mimir slowly retreated into the giant cave, paused in the entrance, and gave a heavy sigh heard on the wind itself. Mimir turned to warily glance at him one more time. The spectral shape melded with the darkness in the cave, leaving him completely alone. He slowly turned away from the entrance, what Mimir claimed was now the only one, to the hidden world and looked out to the cold ocean and the skies where the hidden sun was nearing the horizon as dawn neared.

A whispering zephyr.

"You promised me."

He walked long without knowing why or to where until he approached the ocean itself. Out onto the sandy beach he strode until he came to the water. The water was impossibly still, as though it was an isolated pond somewhere instead of the great and wild ocean.

He looked down at his familiar reflection. The same one that he had looked into for nearly nine years.

It was the reflection of a Night Fury.

"Come back."

He closed his eyes and saw terrible visions burned into his thoughts. They drove him to his belly in the sand as he wept without any tears and keened softly in consuming grief.

A mournful howl echoed on the wind from off the sea.

Moon-Dancer's head mounted on a pole.

Luna on the ground in a pool of blood, a cruel hunter carving off her precious hide.

His brother's heart cut out and skull adorning a Great Hall.

Any of his nieces and nephews hunted because of what they were.

Dozens of dragons dead in the waves after flying at his command and trusting in him.

They all tore at his heart with vicious claws and laid bare the terrible choice. The reality of being between two worlds that were torn apart at every attempt to join them. The inability of others to let go the past and let something new and good live. The pain of having a dream that was not meant to be. Grief from seeing his dream, the very purpose that he had built nearly nine years of his life on and wished for the future, crumble before him.

As fate decreed.

"My love."

He opened his eyes and beheld the blue sunrise and the bright, shining moon up above. And he felt the burning and weakness everywhere. The soreness in his tail and wings, places where it felt like spikes had been driven into his back and side, and what seemed like burns in his mouth. A particularly deep and biting pain in his chest. He drew a weak breath as his lungs burned with a spike of pain.

He looked up at a swirling mass of shapes that was initially indistinct. There was movement and touch. Something was warm around his neck.

His eyes opened slightly wider and saw more of the world again.

The indistinct shapes melded together into very different heads and wings. The bright white moon and warmth against him was arms and a head. The cries filling the sky were of mourning or relief, he could not tell which.

And he clearly saw them both as the sun first cracked the horizon at dawn.

His brother, glowing with blue light, had his head lifted to the sky and was howling a mournful cry. Luna was the white moon holding his own fallen head in her arms as she keened weakly for him with her head bowed.

"Lllunnaa... brrrotherrrr..."

The shadow Monster kin hurled a ball of death-fire at her, a strike met by her own. The two strikes met with a flash that tore the Monster from hiding.

But spots of light and head pain fouled her thinking for several wingbeats. The Monster kin recovered in that time and dove after her, as if it could see her.

It was close enough that she could see its eyes. Dark voids that hungered for her flesh, that would tear her apart, that would eat the egg she carried now, that would destroy and kill everything that was warming in life.

The scream of horror burst unbidden from her as she tried to flee, but it was too fast and would catch her.

The sky-light crashed through all the clouds in the sky and struck the Monster in the next wingbeat. Its entire terrifying body sparkled with the sky-light, burned from within, and fell dead from the sky before her.

She saw the bright blue life-fire-power-light burning around her Shadowwing as the sky-light danced around him and faded.

What just-

Another kin, one of the death-grabbers, appeared in the sky above her, having flown out from a cloud in the confusion. The kin was carrying the two-leg flight-Alpha who had attacked her den and shot her with a sleep-making shot.

Pure horror and cold spilled into her liver as she saw the two-leg raise a thin-tooth-stick throwing weapon. And it felt as though the world ended and all warmth departed from it when Shadowwing rolled onto his back a few wingbeats later.

As he too fell limp from the sky.

The glowing ball of white fire flew from her and struck the death-grabber and the two-leg Alpha from the side. Was-Grounded's wrathful fire struck from the other side.

The death-grabber and the two-leg Monster were blown apart from each other, the kin's wings broken and the two-leg knocked off its back, as both fell from the sky to their deaths far below.

She roared in fear and pain and dove to save Shadowwing. His being bigger and heavier than her did not matter. Could not matter.

They collided, and she grabbed his limp body. So terribly different from the last time they had held each other in a fall from the sky. But she was weak and weary from the fighting, and he was so heavy.

Suddenly the weight was not so great because Was-Grounded had flown up under him and was carefully bracing him against his back. It was not an easy flight to fly together, but they avoided fouling each other's flights. It also helped that they were starting from quite high up and could almost glide to land.

Shadowwing made not a sound, nor moved anything in all their time in the sky.

"Shadowwing!"

He did not answer her fearful scream.

They glided toward the nearby island with nothing on it but grass and sand. Was-Grounded slid out from under her and let her take Shadowwing's full weight for those last few lengths. She landed as smoothly as she could, setting her life-mate down as gently as possible on his side on the sand. She hopped off him and froze in total liver-chilling and life-breaking horror.

The sky-light had struck him everywhere and left burn-hurt-marks all over his body. The thin-tooth-stick was buried deep in his chest and he was not breathing.

"NO!"

She nosed his head and forcefully nudged him, pushing over his limp head.

"You cannot die!"

He did not react.

"Live!"

Nothing.

Impossible.

"No!"

She bent down and put an ear to his chest.

His life-organ was stilled.

Dead.

Gone.

She remained frozen as her liver broke and all warmth was swallowed by the emptiness.

Cold.

Alone.

Empty.

'I will not hurt you.'

'Almost everything.'

'You did... I see it...'

'Luna, you are the wind in my sky.'

'My life-mate and my sky-light.'

'I... gave you my liver... I would choose you...'

'I promise you this, Luna...'

Her cries of mourning echoed in the dim light as she held his head in her arms. He had somehow thrown sky-light at the Monster that would have killed her. And he had fallen in doing so. He gave his own life for her.

Was it her roar of wrathful sorrow that filled the sky?

His warmth taken from her always.

His first promise... His promise that he would not hurt her.

He was hurting her now by being dead.

"You... promised me... come back..." she weakly gasped.

The sun finally cracked the far distant horizon as she held his limp head, not believing and not accepting the terrible truth of an empty life in the skies of the future. After all the pain and loss in her life-flight, how was any kin supposed to fly on and let go of this? Nothing could fill this life-emptiness.

She finally understood the true meaning of that strange word through the loss of that it referred to. Understood the power of sacrifice and other-thinking. Understood too late.

"My love..."

She hung her head and closed her eyes as she refused to let go his great head. Keening the loss and emptiness inside, as if doing so could fill the void within. He could not be... he promised that he would...

"Lllunnaa... brrrotherrrr..."

Was-Grounded collapsed limp to the ground with his eyes closed, too stricken to even moan aloud. He had seen many dead kin before, but this was far too close and liver tearing.

Seeing the two-leg standing near him as he lay fallen and grounded in a trap...

An emptiness and always-cold where warmth had been.

The fledgling two-leg who freely entered a place of hiding in the wild to meet him, a kin...

A loss that nothing could ever fill.

The fledgling two-leg holding out a paw toward him in trust and letting him decide whether this two-leg deserved a chance to fly the winds of life with him...

His own egg-mate, nestmate, and brother was dead on the ground before him, Shadowwing's body burned by sky-light, a two-leg weapon in his chest, and his great breaths stilled.

His bond two-leg falling toward a hungry fire, the two-leg's small chest broken, and only one hope at life for both of them...

Terribly unlike his own seeing Shadowwing enthralled by a great-tusk-Monster from which it was possible to free him.

His former bond two-leg, now his hatchling nest-mate, staring warily at him, uncertain who he was after they both just hatched...

No life-will-power of his own remained, and such power could not save that which was already dead anyway. It could only save life that still remained but was threatened.

Hiccup being twisted in his thinking and freely running close to an angered two-head-gas-breather...

Luna gave a terribly pained and empty cry as she held her dead life-mate's head.

Hiccup trapped by the bad two-leg nest and held by the bad Alpha...

It was too much.

Hiccup mourning all the death on home-nest-island after the bad nests attacked...

His own hatchling promise, now broken, to keep his brother safe echoed in his torn thoughts.

Finding Hiccup, now Shadowwing, again after two full turns of the seasons and being able to introduce him to Green-Wings and Dawn-Singer. Joy and warmth...

The same defiance that he had burned with when fighting Monsters in the past came forth easily now, but strong-mourning-light could change nothing.

Freeing Shadowwing from the rotted great-tusk's thought control and fighting it together as one flight...

He turned away, not wanting to see his dead brother's body, lifted his head to the skies, and howled his cry of mourning, loss, and emptiness at the empty dawn, both now and all to be.

Finding Shadowwing trapped down by the water after the trappers entered the Haven-range in secret...

Why were the winds of life so cold and cruel and biting? Pain and loss had followed his tail ever since fleeing his hatching cave in another life.

Promising him that they would prevail and would not die to the Monster of a kin...

Why was there never any chance to live long in peace? Why could he not...

"Lllunnaa... brrrotherrrr..."

He froze, spun around, and opened his eyes.

The world and life itself paused at those weak words.

Shadowwing's eyes were cracked open and looking back and forth between them both in recognition. His chest was weakly rising and falling with breaths in and out.

With life in and death out.

Those two tortured words were the most wonderful sounds he had ever heard.

The gaping void in his liver, in his life, collapsed on itself.

Was it a roar, a whimper, or a sob that escaped from him?

From her?

From them both?

It was not possible.

It was not natural.

And it had happened.

Luna cried aloud something between disbelief, shock, and wonder as she lay down and held her life-mate's head in her arms. Her eyes locked on Shadowwing's green ones.

"Luna," Shadowwing weakly gasped.

She held Shadowwing's head to her neck. She shook softly with feeling and soft keening in the way that only a kin could.

Words failed Was-Grounded and were completely insufficient anyway. He could only stare as the winds of life took one of the most dear parts of his life from him, showed him future skies empty of that warmth, and gave it all back to him.

"Brother... take... it... out... and flame... the hurt..." Shadowwing softly moaned.

The other two spared a glance at the thin metal weapon buried in his chest, having pierced his scales. It was not in any life-important inside-parts, but it did need to come out.

"It will hurt much," Was-Grounded warily answered.

"Do it... now... please..."

Was-Grounded bent down, closed his jaws around the extending part of the weapon, and pulled it straight out with a liver-chilling tearing sound. Shadowwing gritted his teeth, trembled, and moaned worse than anything Was-Grounded had ever heard from his brother before.

The open hurt was dripping life-water, at least until Luna bent down and stuck her tongue to the hurt. She tended to it for a moment and breathed a very fine stream of white flame onto the hurt. Shadowwing howled from the momentary pain, and he lay weakly on the sands, crying his pain while slowly trembling. Luna kept licking the hurt as his whimpering slowly faded.

Silence fell over them all save for the constant, reassuring purring.

It was finished.

"Luna, brother..." Shadowwing whispered.

Luna held her mate's head again to her neck, ever so gently cradling his fallen head in her arms.

Was-Grounded eventually lost patience and bounded forward with a wordless roar of joy and love as Luna stepped partly aside to make some room for him. He nuzzled his brother's muzzle on the other side as Luna was doing and gave him a lick on the face while whining weakly. Many wet licks on the face followed as Shadowwing slowly and painfully rose to his feet.

A moment passed in which neither of them moved. Was-Grounded rested his head on Shadowwing's and completely broke.

They both did and were reduced to whining, nuzzling, and gasping for neither of them knew how long.

"Brother..." Shadowwing eventually sighed.

"You life-twisting... stupid... amazing... liver-breaking..." Was-Grounded fumbled.

"Useless kin?" Shadowwing whispered.

Was-Grounded only nuzzled his brother's head tighter at that. And he also sobbed uncontrollably in his own way.

"Brother, why are you sad?" Shadowwing softly purred.

"I am not sad... I am warm again... and so... very happy..."

Shadowwing gave a very soft warble of relief.

"What happened to you?" Was-Grounded gasped as he released him and stepped back with a glance to the many sky-light-burns and the new hurt-mark on his chest.

Shadowwing looked at Luna and whispered.

"The Hunter-Monster was flying at you Luna. I... threw sky-light at the Monster. It was my life-will-power. I always had one, but my seeing you in life-danger helped me use it."

"But how is that possible?" Luna whispered.

Was-Grounded grumbled for a moment in his own confusion.

"Maybe I did not understand how the life-will-power worked. I do not know."

"I was willing to die for you Luna, and I... made the world one where the danger was not. But it almost killed me to throw sky-light. And the two-leg Alpha... shot me," Shadowwing tried to explain.

"How do you know that about the sky-light?" Was-Grounded wondered.

Shadowwing almost spoke but paused after giving a great sigh.

"I will tell you later. How is your back-hurt?"

They glanced at the narrow gash in Was-Grounded's back.

"It hurts little..."

"You... false... let me..." Shadowwing grumbled.

He got to his paws as his brother lay down, and licked the wound clean.

"Thank you," Was-Grounded hummed and nuzzled his nose once it was done.

"Luna, your hurts?" Shadowwing asked.

She did not protest and bent down before him. He licked the whip-marks and welts on her forehead. She responded by licking his nose when he was finished. He could not find it within him to complain. He turned away and glanced to the dawn.

"We should... fly to our range now," Shadowwing groaned.

"Can you fly? You were... not with us until now," Luna softly cried.

"I was... dead for a time yes, but I was... hatched..." Shadowwing's voice died off.

He did something very strange and slightly worrying to the other two. He started laughing wildly, though he stopped when the laughter seemed to pain him.

"What? Why are you laughing?" Was-Grounded worriedly glanced at him.

"I was dead, but now I have life again! I am a twisted one hatched from the sky-light and death itself!" Shadowwing exclaimed.

Was-Grounded and Luna shared a worried look and grumble.

"Did the sky-light twist his head and burn-rot his thinking?" Luna moaned.

Shadowwing rubbed his head against her neck.

"No, my love. That is a two-leg saying about Night Furies. They say that we are twisted ones hatched from the sky-light and death itself."

Shadowwing stepped away from them and stretched his wings while looking around the island, apparently for the first time. They could all see the distant ships and smoke from the far battle, though none of the ships had any interest in this small island.

"How did I get here?" he weakly asked.

"We caught you and carried you here. Do you truly think that you can fly?" Was-Grounded answered.

"I feel weak, but I think that I can fly on my own."

The three of them jumped for the sky and turned for home. Shadowwing's flight was indeed labored, but he managed to get and remain aloft. Was-Grounded flew above him while keeping a lookout for any sign that his brother's flight was going to fail. Luna flew at Shadowwing's side, a wing slightly overlapping his when they glided.

They passed alone, three shapes below the clouds, without seeing any other dragons anywhere on the wing or any ships sailing on the waters before them. Their flight carried them onward toward the rising sun on the horizon.

And all the while, Shadowwing refrained from thinking about any of the revelations. None of the terrible realizations during the vision or the apparent calling of fate. Those were skies to fly later. The pains in his side, his chest, and the weakness in his wings were distraction enough.

Getting home and abandoning himself to sleep in safety with his family was all that mattered for now.

"... these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death." - Carl Sagan