Far Away Home:

Act IV: The Eye of the World:

Prologue:

"I can't remember who called it the Black Dawn... but I do remember why," continued Littlefoot to the group of silent, attentive children, "the clouds of smoke were so thick that we couldn't see the bright circle even though it was morning."

"But...where did all the smoke come from," inquired a wide-eyed Xavier, "I thought that when the smoking mountains got angry, they would let it out up into the sky instead?"

"Well this one was different," replied Littlefoot uneasily, "the entire Verdant Valley along with all the longnecks, threehorns, spiketails and everyone else disappeared... we were the only survivors."

"So you mean they all died?" asked Wayne.

"Yes little one," sighed Littlefoot, "which is why I would prefer that none of you speak of it outside this place... those were dark and scary times."

Littlefoot paused for a moment, before continuing.

"...but we must also remember too that what is in the past is in the past, and that the best we can do is move on and ensure it does not happen again."

"Now, you all better hurry of to bed before your mothers start ripping me to pieces," Littlefoot chuckled as the group of them reluctantly rose, stretched, and made their way to their respective nests.

"Hah, what a croc," jeered Landar as he swirled overhead, "like a smoking mountain can actually do that."

"I don't know," added Wayne, "Xavier's dad has been a lot of places and done a lot of things... I think he's telling the truth."

"That's right," pushed Xavier, "my dad knows almost as much about everything as Mr. Sky does."

"Oh yeah?" retorted Landar as he landed on the ground in front of them, "well if your dad is so smart, then what's to stop the Smoking Mountain from burning all of us up right now?"

The fourwing pointed far into the distance, where the Smoking Mountain was puffing the usual haze of ashen smoke into the air. Xavier gulped nervously... maybe the Smoking Mountain could do the same thing to them as the Black Mountain did to the Verdant Valley.

...

Xavier had a nightmare that night. He dreamt that he was playing with his friends, and then suddenly he was all alone. The sky turned a devilish red, and started to call out in fear trying to warn the Great Valley. The Smoking Mountain billowed and burned, and released massive cloud of fiery red ash. As he watched, the conflagration shaped itself into a face... an evil wingtail that he had imagined to be Eybron. In a booming voice, it laughed at him.

"Scream little longneck, Scream or you DIE!!"

The longneck didn't scream... instead he ran. Still laughing maniacally, the ash cloud thundered down the mountain after him. As he brushed the trees they seemed to collapse in on him and entangle his feet so he couldn't move. He shut his eyes and felt an extreme heat all over his back as the darkness closed around him.

Xavier woke with a gasp in cold sweat. His back was so hot, he immediately rolled over thinking he was on fire. It wasn't until he turned that he realized that it was just the heat from his mom, whom he had been sleeping next to.

Taking a nervous glance at the Smoking Mountain, the young longneck curled up once more and in a minute he was back to sleep again.

...

The following day was quite an eventful one in the Great Valley, as all the children got together to play one massive game of toss-the-seed. It was an idea that Sky had suggested many seasons ago which turned out to be a huge success. The game was a long one and was tied for almost the entire session, only finishing when Landar cheated and flew the seed from one end to the other (it was generally thought the seed was too heavy to carry that far, but the fourwing proved that wrong). Almost all the adults were there to see it, including Littlefoot, Ali, Cera, and Ducky. Spike wandered in at some point too, chomping away at the bushes while the game was going on. Glide was there too, though he just sat on a branch overlooking the game with a callous expression and his wings crossed. Strangely, Sky was absent.

"That was quite the game wasn't it?" commented Xavier with pride, as he had been on Landar's team.

"Yeah until the end," complained Wayne.

"I think Landar cheated," added Kala, who rarely spoke.

"Stuff it spiketail," shot Landar, "we won fair and square, thanks to my awesome skills."

Kala gave him a hard glance, but otherwise simply opted to ignore him.

"It is story-time, it is," stated Aura with excitement.

They all wanted to know how Sky's story would end... provided the blue wingtail was actually there to tell it. It seemed like he had been unusually distracted over the past week, and was adhering to his responsibilities less and less. The adults didn't seem to mind at all either, like whatever Sky was doing they sympathized with him on some level. Why did Sky have to be so mysterious all the time?

..

Surprisingly, Mr. Sky showed up at the exact time he was supposed to, right when the great circle touched the horizon. He flew in, and did a single loop in the air before landing on his feet. The children all gave sounds of approval, and the blue wingtail bowed.

"Hey Mr. Sky," proclaimed Nincea excitedly, "Daddy and I have been trying to do that, but I've learned it instead of him!"

Sky chuckled.

"Ah you are becoming quite the young flyer Nincea... but the loop will require a lot more practise to master."

"I'll keep doing it until I'm the best, just like you!"

Sky smiled proudly at the praise. Xavier however was a little bit impatient, and pushed into the conversation.

"Mr. Sky, can you tell us what happened after the Black Dawn... how did you survive? What happened to Tyron and Eybron? Did you meet Star again?"

The blue wingtail silenced him with a slight wave of his hand.

"I will get to that Xavier," replied Sky slyly, "but first I have somebody very special to me I would like you all to meet."

With a slight nod of his head, Sky signalled to the trees above. Another smaller wingtail soared down from the heights, and landed in front of Sky. He was a light blue colour, slightly less dark then the teacher. The wingtail looked around nervously at all the faces that were staring at him, and he stepped back into Sky's arms.

"I'd like you all to meet my son, Cloud."

The children were in awe... none of them had ever seen a young wingtail before. They all stared at Cloud like he was some sort of spectacle, which only made the wingtail child even shyer. Sky started massaging his shoulders to reassure him.

"Go ahead, introduce yourself," Sky insisted with a proud look on his face.

"Uh... hi," said Cloud half-heartedly.

"Hey Cloud, I'm Xavier," said the young longneck.

"And I'm Wayne," added the Threehorn.

"Landar," added the fourwing, his tone bored like his response was just an afterthought.

The young swimmer stepped forward.

"I am Aura, and this is Kala and Nincea. We are glad to meet you, we are, we are."

Cloud looked a bit puzzled about something.

"But, how come you're all friends even though you're so different?" he asked sincerely.

"Things aren't the same here compared to the Feral Forest Cloud," interjected Sky with a bit of embarrassment, "in the Great Valley, all types of land walker live in harmony."

"Oh," replied Cloud, who then shied away even more.

Coming from an environment where there were only wingtails, Cloud had been raised in a place where often other species were hated or cast out as inferior. For all its high intelligence wingtail society was still as supremacist as it had always been.

"So you never told us why Eybron was so mean," implied Wayne, changing the subject.

"I would tell you all," replied Sky, "but I'm afraid I don't really know that much about him... see I spent so little time in the Feral Forest that-"

"I know," interrupted Cloud.

Once more everybody was looking at him, and the light blue wingtail knew he was on shaky ground.

"How would you like to tell us then?" asked Sky warmly.

"Well... that story gets passed around hundreds of times. I think I hear his name spoken every other day. See, apparently he was stolen by a sharpbeak before he even hatched and he ended up hatching inside the flyer's nest..."

Even Landar was listening now.

"...They say he killed the sharpbeak hatchling who broke open his egg to eat him, and was rescued by another lesser flyer before the sharpbeak mother returned. A few months later, he showed up in the Feral Forest. The elders back then covered up his existance because one of them... Tennabaron I think… found out Eybron was his son. They ended up sending him away on some crazy quest, hoping he wouldn't come back. Eventually he did of course, but he had seen things that changed him forever. My friends think that the sharpteeth drove him insane or something like that."

Sky was impressed... Cloud was coming out to be a really good storyteller just like him.

"Cloud, how would you like to listen to the rest of my story with the rest of the children?" he asked.

"Alright," the light blue wingtail responded with a smile.

Xavier stood up.

"Here, you can sit next to me."

"Thanks," Cloud replied as he sat down.

"Now, I'm going to tell you all about what happened after the Black Dawn," Sky said loudly so everyone could hear, "about our journey to the Eye of the World..."