Part I:

"Wake up Chomper, wake up," came a soft voice from the ether.

It was so quiet that Chomper barely heard it, but it didn't matter. In his dream, he was back with his parents on the island. Food had never been more plentiful, and he was happy because not only was he not hungry anymore, but he was there with his friends too! Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Spike and Petrie weren't leaf-eaters anymore though, they were sharpteeth like him. For once he was accepted and understood. Ruby was there too, but for some reason she was still a fastrunner. He didn't think too much about it however, as she seemed to be having just as much fun as everyone else.

Today they were seeking prey in the bushes, and Cera was his partner for the hunt. She pushed on very quickly through the ferns and he was having trouble keeping up.

"Move out of the way Ruby… I'll get him up," came another voice, so faint he almost didn't hear it.

…

"GET UP YOU LAZY SHARPTOOTH!!!" the real Cera shouted right into Chomper's ear, causing him to suddenly wake from his slumber.

"Ahhh!" cried out Chomper in shock, and he flailed desperately as if under attack.

The entire world shifted about like it was a log a drift in the sea, and it didn't stop until his focus into reality was restored. The sharptooth's heart was pounding and he was breathing hard, still convinced that the dream was real and he was in it. What happened, what was he doing here, and who shouted at him? With these questions still in his mind, Chomper rubbed his eyes to clear them up.

"See, sometimes you need to get angry to get things done," Cera gloated smugly to Ruby, who didn't look too impressed, "I'm not going to have to teach you to be mad too am I?"

Cera was referring too the time when she instructed Ducky on how to use her anger. It was kind of silly, but the swimmer seemed honestly unaware of what the feeling actually was. Ruby, on the other hand, was deep and very well contained. Admittedly, she had tried to bait the fastrunner into expressing her emotions at times to test her character, but ultimately it was pretty fruitless. Ruby didn't have the same weak spots as Littlefoot did.

The white egg-stealer behind them didn't really like it either.

"That was right mean it was, and… wait a minute what's this about a sharptooth I hear about?" he said with a bit of an unusual accent.

"Hmm, I don't remember asking you Gentry," Cera mumbled.

A spiketail bounded forward, and landed in the rock pile right next to Chomper.

"A sharptooth… a real sharptooth? Oh this is so exciting I can't believe I actually get to meet a real sharptooth here right now!" she said, and it was so fast that Chomper didn't catch any of it.

"Umm… who are you?" asked Chomper in confusion.

"Hehe," giggled the female spiketail, "I'm Thylo but if that's too much you can just call me Thye cause that's what my friends call me but my mom doesn't like it and she always tells them to call me by my real name but I don't mind so you can call me what you like!"

"Huh?" Chomper raised an eyebrow.

He turned his gaze to the mysterious white egg-stealer who was standing right between Ruby and Cera. Gentry was like no creature the sharptooth had ever seen before in that he was completely and entirely white except for the pupils of his eyes.

"Don't look at me mate, I can't understand a bloody thing she says either," the egg-stealer said with renouncement.

"Oh yeah," blurted Thylo, "well you talk funny!"

Cera rolled her eyes and groaned… fights weren't fun unless she was involved in them. Beside that point, since she was the only one who knew everyone in the cave it looked like she would have to be the host and introduce her friends.

"Alright… Thylo, Gentry these are my friends from the Great Valley Ruby and Chomper," proclaimed Cera.

"Charmed," uttered Gentry politely as he extended a hand to Ruby. She looked at his hand in bewilderment, not recognizing the gesture, "go on shake it… it's not like it bites."

After a moment's hesitation Ruby took his hand and shook it.

"Nice to meet you," Ruby said pleasantly, hiding her real thoughts.

From the moment she had laid eyes on the egg-stealer it had brought back memories both good and bad to her. When she had nearly fallen to her death during the storm tide, an egg stealer named Rozzy had saved her life on two separate occasions. He evoked an emotion in her that she didn't understand… and in turn she had grown to fear it as a mystery force within herself that was best kept in check. Now that another egg-stealer was here with her, she was constantly and distractingly reminded of her past love lost. It would probably go away though as she got to know him better.

"And your Chomper!" exclaimed Thylo excitedly, "can I see your teeth… show me your teeth!"

"I don't know… I don't think you would want to see them," said Chomper with a tooth-concealing smile.

"Show me show me show me!" begged Thylo as she began jumping up in the air with glee.

"Well if you insist…" remitted Chomper slyly.

The sharptooth jumped forward and roared in her face at the top of his lungs. It wasn't as good a roar as he would have when he got older, but hopefully it would be enough to stop her from bugging him.

Thylo didn't even flinch.

"Wow that's so cool! Can you do it again?"

"Uh… maybe later," commented Chomper, stunned by her supposed fearlessness.

Maybe he was actually still in the dream after all.

…

Cera sighed as the two equally dull conversations went on around her… dull because she wasn't in either of them.

"Oh well," moaned Cera, "at least if I have to be stuck in this cave I'm not here all alone…"

Soon enough, they would be joined by another.

(For those of you who read Rise of Storm Tide, Gentry is in fact Thor's nephew)

The pain of flight was quite overwhelming, but on the bright side at least he wasn't coughing up blood anymore.

It had been a tough night for Glide, who had no choice but to simply lay there and wait to die. His ribs were aching every time he took in a breath, but after a few hours of sleep propped up next to a tree the wingtail decided he was feeling better and made his first attempt to get back into the air. It took a few painful tries to succeed, but once he did he found he was perfectly capable of flight as long as he didn't go too fast. His first destination was of course, home.

He thought about what Sky had said about giving the Occular to his sister but he hardly believed it. There was no way that thief would just give it to her unless… no he decided not to think about it. The elders had forbid them to mate, specifically because of how opposed to it he was. Part of wingtail 'law' is that a child's parents have the right to forbid their offspring from committing to another they do not approve of. Being that he and his sister's parents perished a long time ago when they drowned in the Whirlpool, they termed him as her "clutch parent" because he was old enough to take care of her when she was just a hatchling. It had been quite a responsibility, but thankfully he had a lot of help from Sturgeon and Fliela.

Glide remembered when, just after his mother and father died, his uncle Sturgeon took him aside and put both wings on his shoulders.

"Glide," he said, "you are all your sister has left. Without your parents here you must protect Star like you would protect yourself."

"I will," Glide remembered saying, and he fully meant it.

…

The night was warm and windy as Glide finally made his way back to the Feral Forest. It was so late he wasn't surprised there were no other flyers in the air. Orienting himself by both sight and smell, he passed through the thick trees like he had so many times before.

The family tree was there by the lake as always, though the black wingtail had no idea what would be waiting for him here. He planned to confront Star about her supposed 'meeting' with Sky and if she had been given the Occular as the blue wingtail had said. Part of him knew this was probably a ruse to lead him off the trail, but the other part also knew that his nemesis couldn't possibly have known about what had been going on between him and his sister without speaking to her in person. All that business aside, Eybron wasn't going to be happy about Star missing their date, but he would leave that business until later.

Glide immediately knew that something was wrong as he entered into the canopy. It was too quiet, with not a sound coming from inside his family tree or from any of the neighbouring ones. Feeling the firm grasp of his feet on the rough bark, he poked his head in and took a look around.

"Star," called out the black wingtail, "are you here?"

There was a moment of silence.

"Glide!" rang Star's voice desperately, "get out, it's a trap!"

The warning came a few seconds too late… before he could even move he was driven face first into the ground and his beak was clapped shut by multiple hands before he could manage to screech in rage. Glide tried to struggle, but with his body so broken it hurt more to do so then to simply lay still. There was a sudden flash of pain as he was tossed onto his back, and his wings were pinned down on both sides. There was a moment of shock as he opened his eyes and glanced about frantically to spy is captors, but it was too dark.

A harsh ripping sound filled the air, and a hole opened in the canopy casting bright moonlight into the inside of the tree. There was a ringing sound reverberating in Glide's eyes, and raised his head ever so slowly to see what it was. Bathed in the beam was the silvery-white form of Eybron flanked by two of his guards – one of which he recognized as Barrau the senior who went with him to the Forgotten Forest. In Eybron's fingers, he was flipping the Occular between the gaps using sleight of hand, which was what was causing the ringing.

"Well well," stated Eybron with malice, "the son of Allisan returns yet again in disgrace… I'm disappointed in you,"

The silver wingtail bent over until he was eye level with Glide.

"Do you know what it was like for me…the day after you left?" he asked.

Glide rolled his eyes, showing clearly that he didn't care. Eybron brought his face really close to the black wingtail's, and spoke nearly in a whisper.

"I sat on that branch, overlooking the lake as the beautiful sunrise rose over the Abyss Mountains, and I waited… and waited… and waited… and you know what happened next?"

Eybron smiled, and stood himself up to full height.

"Your sister never came," he finished with loaded spite. He cracked his knuckles.

"Do you know what I hate more then a sharptooth?" asked Eybron rhetorically, "A liar."

The silvery wingtail wound up and slugged Glide right in the face. Snarling viciously he pounded him again and again and again until blood covered Glide's greyish visage. The black wingtail started to shake, and his eyes took on a misty appearance as if he wasn't all there.

"No! Stop it!" Star shrieked as she struggled against the wingtails holding her, "you're killing him!"

Eybron eyed his wet hands with disgust, and then spitefully wiped the blood off on Glide's white fur coat. His appetite for revenge satisfied, he turned towards Star. Slowly and purposefully he advanced on her, and she stepped back until she was backed up against a branch with nowhere else to go. She was afraid of what he was going to do next. The wingtails holding her appeared to be too and they got out of the way fast.

"You know I have rules Star… and one of those rules is not hitting females, but you're trying my patience," stated Eybron with a hint of disgust as he rubbed his knuckles to ease the irritation.

Star found her resolve.

"How dare you think you can just come in here and tear apart our family like this," Star shouted, "when the elders find out about this you're going to be in deep trouble Eybron."

In response, Eybron laughed.

"Allow me to let you in on a little secret… you see, I've had my eyes on you for a long, long time. Naturally I had a bit of a problem… on one wing, your brother was so zealous about your protection there was no way I could get close without risking a confrontation, and on the other I had this problem dealing with Sky and his little escapade with my favourite historical artefact."

Eybron briefly flipped the Occular between his fingers, and put it away inside his wing.

"The elders were willing to let him go, insisting that he needed time to complete his quest, to find Benzon's fabled "Eye of the World". I on the other hand, was not about to watch as the sole reward for my lost childhood was taken away by some nobody and delivered right to the hands of the sharpteeth. It was simple to arrange for my father and the others to send your brother away to do my dirty work for me while I sought your hand without his interference."

Star was furious.

"What, you mean you arranged this whole thing… just so you could mate with me?" she summarized as she snapped her beak in anger.

"Oh it wasn't just that, I wanted to… for want of a better term… kill two flyers with one stone. Unfortunately it would turn out that your brother was a bigger failure then I had expected, so I had to form a different plan upon his first return."

"Your despicable," Star spat, "I wouldn't mate with you if you were the last wingtail in the forest… and Sky is not with the sharpteeth, he's doing what he thinks is right!"

"And how would you know," returned Eybron with spite, "Have you seen him? Spoken with him? Or perhaps something a bit… deeper, hmm?"

It was not a subtle play on words, and for a moment Star looked away in shame. Eybron caught the glance, and built on it.

"Sky and Star, sitting in a tree," sang Eybron, "…need I go on?"

Star wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. She looked away and ended up looking into Glide's eyes as he stared at her. Her brother didn't say a word, but she could tell by the way the colour had drained from his face (not that there was much to begin with) that he had heard everything. She had betrayed his trust, and she could tell that hurt him more then all the injuries he had suffered up to this point combined. She wanted to cry.

"Whether you like it or not, you will be mine Star. You can refuse of course, but then I would be afraid for your brother's safety," taunted Eybron.

Tears began to well up in Stars eyes. After a moment of consideration, she spoke.

"Just don't hurt Glide anymore, please. I'll go with you."

Eybron donned a look of pride… this had been exactly what he wanted to hear.

"My lord," interrupted Barrau, "what should we do about her brother… he can still refuse to acknowledge your courtship and as her closest living relative once we let him go he can get the elders to separate you."

Eybron paced for a moment, thinking about what to do. He had his own personal rules, but there were also rules set aside by the wingtail elders often referred to as 'laws of the forest'. They encompassed things such as how to settle food and territorial disputes, who gets possession of the family tree when parents die etc., but most importantly in this case they set the boundaries in regards to courtship. According to the elders a wingtail's mother or father has the right to deny a courtship if they find the suitor to be… well… unsuitable. In the absence of parents, the right goes to the aspiring mate's closest living relative of age. Glide had already used that right once to forbid Sky from courting with his sister, so odds are once he got away he would do it again. He would have to find a way to 'remove' the black wingtail from the picture until they were fully acknowledged as mates. In a moments thought, an idea came to Eybron's mind. It was a wonderful yet awful idea.

"Inform the twins that they will have a new 'guest'," proclaimed Eybron with a smirk of delight.

"But what about the children down there… Glide's like a loose sharptooth and I fear what he might do to them in his anger," replied Barrau.

"That is not a concern of mine Barrau, I have… bigger things… to attend to."

At that moment Eybron shot Star a look of pure lust and licked his lips. Now finally after all this time she was his.

Sky sighed as the wind began to pick up. Being this close to the Black Mountain, it was not uncommon to see burned out greens and the smell of sulphur hung in the air perpetually. The blue wingtail knew from experience that the winds here could get pretty strong, mainly because of the heat being produced by the volcano influencing the weather in the area – well that was his best guess anyway.

Below him the gang was of notably poor spirits. They were tired and hungry, and Sky could also sense a bit of homesickness in them as well. Now the group of them had gone farther north then any of them had ever been before, and travelled more distance then any of their previous adventures combined (save their journey from the Shattered Lands to reach the Great Valley as children). Sky wanted to comfort them, make them feel better, but he didn't know how. He had never really told a story before.

"Are you alright Littlefoot?" asked Sky as he hovered above the longneck.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Littlefoot lied.

"Come now I know the loss of your father hurt," Sky replied, "I remember when I lost my father how much it hurt me… I didn't get over it for many seasons."

Littlefoot raised head and stopped.

"When is this going to stop Sky… we just keep going and going. We know you're our friend and would never lead us astray, but we miss our home, and our families, and our friends… we miss not being chased and threatened and… living our lives normally."

Sky landed in front of him with a thud, and the others turned around to see what was going on.

"I cannot say why we have endured so many hardships Littlefoot, but I promise our journey is nearing its end. One day, we will return to your Great Valley and you will see your grandparents again."

"But… where are you taking us?" demanded Littlefoot sadly, remembering what Cera said some weeks ago when they split up. This time it was not in rage, but a representation of all the stresses that were pent up inside. Not all aspects of growing up were so nice.

"I'm taking you away. Away from the malice of my own kind and Tyron to a place where we can rest until all this business is over and I can return you to your home," Sky answered.

Littlefoot wasn't satisfied. He knew that Sky was hiding something from them, but he wasn't sure what it could be. The wingtail had been one of their most trusted friends so far and had never failed to protect them… but he seemed reluctant to say where they were really going. Sky had said at first they were going to his homeland, but that idea soon passed far out of reach. Hopefully, their friend would tell them in time where he was taking them.

…

That night the gang made their resting place on a pot of soft volcanic sand. As night settled over the tropical landscape Sky sat alone on a rock, looking up at the stars. He did some rough measurements with his finger, before stopping his eyes on one particular star. It was sad, but looking up at the stars now… they all paled in comparison to his Star. One day he wanted to see her again and maybe even start a family. They would be happy together.

"Are you okay?" asked a small voice from behind him.

Sky was expecting it to be Ali or Littlefoot, but it turned out to be none other then Ducky.

"Sometimes I look up at the night sky too… it makes me feel better-er," the swimmer commented.

"No Ducky, I'm fine," Sky replied, and thought of something interesting to say since he didn't know her too well, "Did you know that many many seasons ago today, I hatched?"

Ducky gasped.

"Hooray! It's your star day, it is!"

Sky had hoped to not bring this much attention to it, since nobody usually cared. Since his parents died, nobody ever bothered to care about his birth. In fact, he was sure there were more dinosaurs in the world that wished he was never born.

"Star… day?" asked the blue wingtail in bewilderment.

"It's celebrating the day you hatched," answered Ducky, "we all have to get you something for your special day!"

"Thank you Ducky, but that won't be necessary," insisted Sky.

"Hey everyone come quick… it's Sky's star day!"

In less than a minute, the entire gang was right there with him.

"Now, now children it's nothing to get worked up about," Sky said with a bit of a chuckle.

"A star day is very important, it is it is!" said Ducky excitedly.

"Ducky's right," added Littlefoot, "we have to get you something for your star day."

"Really, you don't have to…" Sky stuttered with embarrassment.

"But we're going to," insisted Ali, "You're the best!"

Sky shied away a bit. It was nice to think that he had such good friends.