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CLEARSIGHT
About a month after Queen Anaconda's death, Darkstalker called for a meeting with the new RainWing queen to discuss foreign relations between the Night Kingdom and the Rainforest Kingdom, as was customary when tribes got new rulers.
Darkstalker had made no secret in the past of his desire to annex the coastline of the Rainforest Kingdom, and it was well-known between both tribes that Queen Anaconda had given him a hard time in achieving this goal. The wiry RainWing had either been too naive to realize the threat that Darkstalker carried when he sent her his message asking for the southern coast of the Rainforest, or she'd had nerves of steel and was ready to brace her kingdom for any potential consequences of her refusal.
Whatever the case, she refused all of Darkstalker's requests, and died not long afterwards. Roused to suspicion, Clearsight asked Darkstalker about any role he might have played in the RainWing queen's death. He 'proved' his innocence to her by allowing her to read his scroll. Indeed, there were no spells in it that targeted Anaconda, or any other dragon for that matter, in any way. Queen Anaconda's death, he'd insisted, was merely a coincidence.
Clearsight had pretended to be convinced, but in actuality all it did was feed her suspicions that Darkstalker was hiding something from her.
She suspected that he still had animus powers, and that he was casting spells without her knowledge.
This wasn't a suspicion that she held on a whim either. She had an entire future's worth of evidence in her arsenal to back them up. There were too many convenient coincidences she saw with her powers, much like the one with Queen Anaconda.
There were also too many futures she could see where Darkstalker messed with her mind if she ever confronted him about his animus powers. She saw futures where she was brainwashed into compliance or enchanted to not think so much about how evil Darkstalker was becoming.
When she first realized what was happening in these futures, she clutched the moonstone bracelet that she wore, and made a point to never take it off. Given how little faith she had left in Darkstalker at this point, she worried that if he ever got the chance to read her mind again, he'd be so startled by her hopelessness that he'd throw a mind-altering spell on her without second thought.
At any rate, whether by homicide or by freak accident, Queen Anaconda had died, and her daughter, Fantasia, took her place.
Fantasia was not a popular queen, according to reports. She was small and fat — the latter of which was considered an insult to the RainWing image of dexterity, and the former of which was an unfortunate trait for her as queen. She also had a reputation among the RainWing nobility for being dimwitted and gullible, which Clearsight found a little worrying.
On the other talon, the futures seemed to suggest that she was well-prepared for this meeting with her and Darkstalker. She wasn't going to easily capitulate to the NightWing king's will. It appeared that she was willing to prove — both to her tribe and to the NightWings — that she was not going to be the spineless queen that everyone was expecting her to be.
"Fantasia is more defiant than you've been led to believe," Clearsight warned Darkstalker the other night, in hopes that he might not be so ambitious when he tried to have his way with her. "She'll shut down if you try to make an empty threat against her. If I were you, I would try being friendly. We could probably arrange an open borders treaty between our tribes if you could convince her that we're not enemies. Such a treaty would obviously benefit us more than them, given their geography."
Darkstalker, who had been lightly pacing in their bedroom at the time and who looked as though he were only half-listening to her, let out a hum. "More defiant, you say?" he echoed. "Very well, then. Let's arrange for some welcoming RainWing decorations to be put up. I'll have a word with the custodians."
He followed through on this, and by the time he and Clearsight had awoken the next evening, there were colorful rainforest flowers and rainbow decorations adorning the main halls of the palace.
Darkstalker and Clearsight made their way to one of the chambers on the west wing of the palace, where they had arranged for the meeting to take place. Clearsight asked Darkstalker why he didn't simply have them meet with the queen in the throne room, and he responded with a huff of smoke.
"I'm growing a little sick of the throne room," he said. "Besides, I'd rather not be sitting on a giant chair while talking to Queen Fantasia. It doesn't seem like the right atmosphere for a negotiation."
To Darkstalker's credit, Clearsight quite liked the room herself. It was a meeting room designed specifically for negotiations between foreign ambassadors. It was large enough to comfortably hold about a dozen dragons, and had looming windows on the western wall, showing the vast forests and mountains of the Talon Peninsula. The floor was carpeted, which was actually a rarity in the Night Kingdom palace, and a chandelier hung from above to illuminate the room.
Clearsight was actually a little optimistic. There were some squabbles between Darkstalker and Fantasia that she could hear in the future, but as with all conversations, it was too hard to predict exactly where those squabbles would lead to. What mattered was that Darkstalker actually seemed as though he were trying to be cordial, which was a welcoming change to say the least.
Fantasia arrived early, stepping into the meeting room with the accompaniment of two RainWing guards and three NightWing palace guards, all of whom took their leave once they'd finished escorting her.
Fantasia truly was a dwarvish figure, standing a head below Clearsight and a head-and-a-half below Darkstalker. Her scales were a deep purple, with twin strips of green running down her back and pale lavender on her underbelly. Every feature on her face was soft: she had bright blue eyes, a warm, childlike smile, and a pair of purple frills behind her ears that were pulled back in a comfortable but confident posture.
She bowed to both of them when she entered. "Your Majesties, King Darkstalker and Queen Clearsight," she started. "You honor me with the welcome you arranged. Blessings to you from the Rainforest."
"The honor is ours, Queen Fantasia," Clearsight said, bowing in return. "How was your flight?"
"Slow, but it is hard to find fault in that when such gorgeous mountains and gorges keep rising up over the horizon," she said. "I must confess, however, that flying into the sun did not come naturally to me."
"Fantasia, we are not here to discuss such matters as the mountains or the gorges," Darkstalker said, his voice suddenly taking an impatient tone. "We have business to attend to, and I think we ought to get started."
Clearsight shot Darkstalker a disapproving frown for forgetting to address Fantasia with her royal title — and for the rather imposing tone of voice he was sporting. And while Fantasia herself responded gracefully with a smile, there was a glimmer of frustration in her eye that Clearsight couldn't help but notice.
"Of course," Fantasia said with a nod. "I was hoping we could arrange a treaty of non-aggression between our tribes before we—"
"—I'm going to stop you there," Darkstalker said, taking a step towards the RainWing queen. His frown deepened into a scowl. "I'm not interested in any treaties or pacts you have to offer us. Why would I be? Your tribe has never done anything for the good of the NightWings — not once, in the entire history of its existence."
Utterly horrified, Clearsight looked wide-eyed at Darkstalker. What the heck are you doing? We need her to like us!
Fantasia was speechless for a moment, and a few of the scales on her face grew paler. But before long she forced the color back and summoned a calm reply. "I must disagree, King Darkstalker. Our tribes have been on friendly terms for thousands of years. We've enjoyed a long period of peace and cultural intermixing. And, we are your most prominent trading partner, are we not?"
"Oh, yes, and it's insulting how one-sided that trade has been throughout our histories!"
Clearsight interjected, "I wouldn't say that—"
"—In exchange for some chocolate and papayas," Darkstalker continued, ignoring Clearsight, "we give you feats of NightWing engineering: the fruits of our labors — innovations that you rely on to give yourselves any sort of relevance in our world."
Fantasia scrunched her nose. "If you think our trade agreement is so one-sided, then why do you continue to abide by it?"
"That's a question I've been asking myself for quite some time now," Darkstalker said, stepping closer to the small RainWing queen. "Why have we been letting you rob us for all these years? I could only imagine the reason is because the previous queens never saw any problems with the status quo. They never needed to: their rule was assured by their security as a royal family. But such is not the case for me. I earned my position as king, and Clearsight her position as queen. We're supported not by any royal lineage but solely by the love and support of our tribe — something which you cannot say for yourself."
That caused her to falter. Fantasia pinned her ears back, and backed away from Darkstalker, The paleness returned to her scales, and this time it stayed. "I do not doubt that, Your Majesty," she said.
"And I've earned that love and support by reigniting the fire in their hearts," Darkstalker continued. "Clearsight and I — we saw what was wrong with our kingdom, and we set out to fix it. We made the NightWings once again proud to be NightWings. No king or queen has ever done more for the good of our tribe than we have!"
Fantasia now lowered her head. "Again, I do not doubt that, Your Majesty."
"You'd better not! And don't think for a second that I'm done fulfilling my ambitions for my tribe. You and your RainWings have gotten in our way for long enough, and I'm prepared to put an end to your connivery once and for all."
Clearsight wanted to speak up, but for some reason she'd lost her voice now. She'd only ever seen Darkstalker like this in her visions: she didn't realize how much it would frighten her when she actually saw him aggressing.
She wanted to interfere, just like how she had interfered when Darkstalker was banishing Listener. But it was different this time. She didn't know how Darkstalker was going to react if she stood in his way. And she didn't have time to check the futures to make sure it would even be safe for her to do so.
"Please, King Darkstalker, let me hear your complaints," Queen Fantasia said. "I assure you that I will do whatever I can to reach an understanding between our tribes."
"And why should I believe that?" Darkstalker pressed. "You have been mobilizing soldiers along the Rainforest border ever since we settled in the Tail Peninsula. How could I believe that you make your promises in good faith?"
"We have done no such thing!" Fantasia defended.
"Oh, please, do you really think you can hide it from me?" Darkstalker asked. "You can't turn a single stone on the borders of the Rainforest without my knowing, so don't play dumb. And don't think either that you can get away with such a move. All I need to do is give the order, and my soldiers will march in and put an end to all of your petty defenses. Once my army has breached your borders, there'll be nothing you or even I could do to stop them. So I'd advise you to stop acting in bad faith and actually work with me."
Clearsight's patience ran out. She had to speak up. "Darkstalker, that's enough!" she said, stepping in between the two of them. "Queen Fantasia is our guest. I think we ought to speak a little more kindly to her."
The scowl that Darkstalker shot at her sent shivers down her spine. But to her relief, it faded. He softened his features, and nodded. "You're right, Clearsight. I apologize; the stress must be getting to me." He looked over her shoulder at Fantasia and said, "You haven't come here looking for trouble, have you, Queen Fantasia?"
Fantasia's scales were now a pale blue, and she still cowered from Darkstalker when he looked at her. She shook her head. "Of course not," she said. "I am committed to peace."
"Then I'm willing to negotiate," he said, circling around Clearsight. "Provided you promise to demobilize your soldiers at the border."
"Consider it done," Fantasia agreed.
"Excellent," Darkstalker said, smiling. "Now, I'm sure you're aware that I'm pushing a claim to the southern islands and peninsulas of your kingdom. I am going to resolve that claim, and I would like to do so without any aggression."
Fantasia swallowed. "You said you were willing to negotiate, yes?" she asked.
"Yes, I would be, but let me first stipulate what I would like to have happen," Darkstalker said. "If I got my way, I would begin a peaceful military occupation of the area forthwith, while my citizens begin settling new villages on the western peninsulas."
"What about the hundreds of RainWings that already live there?" Fantasia asked.
"They would peacefully leave," Darkstalker answered. "They don't really belong there anyway, I don't feel."
Fantasia tilted her head. "They're in the Rainforest Kingdom, and they have homes there. Why wouldn't they belong there?"
"Because those peninsulas aren't a part of the Rainforest," Darkstalker said. "They're more grassy and less dense with undergrowth. The terrain is quite like that on the Tail Peninsula, and given that our kingdom's recent settlements there have been extremely successful, I think our tribe has proven that NightWings are much better suited than RainWings are for the disputed areas."
Fantasia shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you force my dragons to leave their homes, King Darkstalker," she said.
"I am asking for but a tiny fragment of your kingdom," Darkstalker said, raising his voice and scrunching his nose in a crooked frown. "Your least bountiful lands too, might I add. The RainWings living there would be better off elsewhere, I would think."
"It's not a matter of whether or not they'll be better off elsewhere," Fantasia responded. "I don't know whether they'll be better off elsewhere. The problem is that this would force them to leave their houses behind against their will — many of which might have strong sentimental value to the dragons living there. I can't impose that burden on them."
Darkstalker's frown deepened. His eyes narrowed at the RainWing queen, whose regained confidence was already starting to falter once again. She took another step back and swallowed.
Finally Darkstalker gave his response. "I'd like to offer a compromise."
Fantasia's ears lifted. "I'm listening."
Darkstalker now cracked a smile. "I can understand your concern, and I think there's a way for us to avoid it. We can allow the RainWings currently in the peninsulas to stay if they wish. Should they do so, they will live alongside my NightWings and under the jurisdiction of the Night Kingdom."
Fantasia looked down thoughtfully. "This would be the first time RainWing citizens would be under the rule of NightWings."
"There's a first for everything. We both get what we want this way, do we not?"
"What I want is what's best for my tribe. Will I have your word that my RainWings will be treated justly under your rule?"
"They will be treated with the same amount of respect and fairness that I treat my fellow NightWings," Darkstalker said. "On my honor as a king: they will be happier under my rule. In fact, don't even take my word of honor." Darkstalker now stood tall, trotting confidently towards the queen. "Have your RainWings hold a referendum after they have been under my rule for sixty days. If they decide that they are less happy under my rule, then I will surrender control over the peninsulas and let you reclaim the territory." He extended a talon for the queen to shake. "Do we have a deal?"
Fantasia seized his talon and shook it without an ounce of hesitation. "We will have to get the agreements in written word, but as you lay it out, I would be happy to agree to your terms."
They spent the next hour drafting up a binding document outlining the details of their agreement — down to the number of troops and civilians the NightWings would be introducing to the southern peninsulas, the conditions of the referendum, and the consequences of either party failing to uphold the agreement.
Meanwhile, Clearsight's mind was turning like clockwork. She looked ahead to examine the futures, carefully checking to see the extent to which Darkstalker upheld their agreement.
She found, a little to her surprise, that he upheld it strictly. She found no violations looming over the horizon. It was hard to know the results of the referendum, but most of the futures she saw suggested a result where Darkstalker kept the lands he would soon be occupying.
It was only when the agreement was nearly completely written that Clearsight realized that this was almost exactly the sort of agreement that Fantasia had been intent on refusing at the start of the negotiation. She was giving Darkstalker full control over the very land that he was after. The only stipulation was a referendum that was to be held later to decide whether the occupation would be permanent. But given that Darkstalker was an animus, and an ambitious one at that, it wouldn't be hard for him to persuade the RainWings that were soon to be under his rule that they ought to vote in his favor.
When the document was written up, all three of them signed it, and the meeting came to an end. Clearsight and Darkstalker dismissed the RainWing queen, and when she left, Clearsight couldn't help but feel as though Darkstalker had duped her just as badly as he'd duped Fantasia.
He'd thrown those threats at the poor queen so fast that Clearsight could hardly throw up a word in her defense. By the time she did, it was too late: Darkstalker had stripped Fantasia's confidence away, and left her as the weak and gullible queen he had expected her to be.
Clearsight didn't know whether to be more upset with herself or with Darkstalker. Right now, it was a little easier to be mad at Darkstalker.
"You know," she said crossly as she walked with him down the hall, "I would have preferred it if you'd told me about your intentions to attack Fantasia like that beforehand."
Darkstalker sighed. "Yeah, I know. But you wouldn't have agreed with it," he said.
"Which is why I wanted you to tell me about it!" she said, resisting the urge to clench her teeth. "I told you to be friendly with her. You did the exact opposite."
"Only at first," Darkstalker said. "And besides, we got exactly what we wanted in the end. If we had been friendlier with her, she would have just peppered us with some lame non-aggression pacts."
"We also would have been on friendlier terms," Clearsight said. "And we wouldn't be risking aggression from the other tribes. Have you thought of the sort of fallout that could result from this?"
"Firstly, no other tribe has the nerve to go to war with us on the RainWings' behalf," Darkstalker said. "The only other kingdom that poses a threat to us is the Sea Kingdom, and they're still recovering from their last war. Secondly, I don't think the other kingdoms would see the outcome of this meeting as a reason to intervene in the first place. Queen Fantasia left in fairly high spirits: she didn't interpret this as an act of aggression, meaning the other queens have no reason to either. As for being on friendlier terms with the RainWings, I think we can easily arrange for that. Fantasia has demonstrated that she can be manipulated, just as I expected. I wager that we can eat away the rest of her kingdom bit by bit while still remaining on friendly terms with her the whole way through."
Clearsight shivered. I can't even believe what I'm hearing from you, Darkstalker, she thought. It almost made her feel sick, continuing to walk by his side as he spoke so casually about these plots. The bleak futures drumming through her mind didn't make it any easier for her to keep her composure. She had to get out of here.
"I think I'm done being queen for today," she said, stopping and turning the other way. "I'm going to the library."
Darkstalker shot her a toothy grin, which — to Clearsight's annoyance right now — she really loved. He looked so much more innocent when he smiled at her like that. It was as though a hard outer shell had suddenly shed from his exterior, and he turned into a brand new dragon. "Alright, then," he said. "Don't spend all night there, or else the kids are going to make me fly over and drag you back."
Clearsight let out a chuckle. "I'll be back before dinner time, I promise."
She headed for the courtyard and took to the sky, her head buzzing with a thousand thoughts.
This timeline was out of control. She'd known it was out of control long before today, but turning back time was out of the question because doing so would force her to erase Solstice and Remedy.
All she was able to do was slow down Darkstalker's reign of destruction — to delay his descent into tyranny for as long as she could.
She wished she could do more. As queen, she figured she'd have complete control over the direction the NightWing tribe went. But if she ever overwrote Darkstalker's will too much, more futures popped up where she was brainwashed or manipulated in some other way. And solving that problem wasn't as easy as just taking Darkstalker's scroll and writing a spell to protect her mind: Darkstalker had long since enchanted his scroll holder to only be openable by himself, so she didn't have easy access to it.
The ultimate futility of it all was difficult to swallow. There weren't any bright futures, and there was so little that she had to look forward to anymore. She wished she had someone to talk to about what she had to deal with and how she actually felt about Darkstalker and the direction things were going, but there wasn't anyone she could safely confide in. Listener would unintentionally reveal the truth to Darkstalker if Clearsight talked to her. And Fathom was buried in the Sea Kingdom, and didn't seem to want anything to do with her anymore.
Nevertheless, there were some things in this timeline that she still could look forward to. One was Solstice, and another was Remedy. She could actually be herself around her dragonets, because her dragonets genuinely did distract her from the rest of the kingdom.
They distracted Darkstalker too. Despite all of his faults that manifested when he was on the throne, he always remained an amazing father. He encouraged Solstice and Remedy when they went hunting, and worked tirelessly to set up elaborate play dates with other dragonets in the palace. He organized their education, and did a lot of the teaching himself. He talked with them about their problems, and helped them find solutions. He fiercely loved those dragonets, and dedicated so much of his life to them.
If Clearsight could somehow convince Darkstalker to throw away his crown and simply be a father for the rest of his life, then she'd have a future worth fighting for. She'd have a husband that she could love unequivocally, without being held back by fear and doubt.
But that wouldn't happen. Even now, Darkstalker was starting to spend more time on the throne and less time with the dragonets. Being king was simply too important to him.
The third thing that gave her something to look forward to was the library. She was able to forget about the goings-on in her life whenever she got the opportunity to sit down and read. It was a small joy, being able to turn off her powers and simply delve into the landscape on the pages. She quickly lost count of the number of scrolls and books she ended up reading in her corner of the library, and she was already on a first-name basis with most of the librarians.
When she reached the entrance to the library, she made her way to a reading space beneath one of the windows that she had started to grow fond of. She'd been reading through a collection of letters from hundreds of years ago, all written to or from the great NightWing seer Nocturne. The origins of this collection were unknown, as there wasn't an attribution or a forward explaining who had made it.
But she found its mere existence a little alarming. Would somebody collect all of the letters that she'd written after she died and bundle them together? There were a couple of letters that she and Darkstalker had exchanged once while she was outside the Night Kingdom with Queen Vigilance, and she definitely didn't want anyone else reading them, even long after she was dead.
On the other talon, Nocturne was a remarkable dragon, and Clearsight thoroughly enjoyed these letters. It felt like she was peering into the life of an ancient dragon — one that was just like her. Whenever Nocturne talked about her experiences as a seer, it felt like she'd found someone who finally understood her, and who knew what it was like to be able to see multiple threads, far into the future. They shared the same burdens, the same responsibilities — even though Clearsight clearly was given a more chaotic set of futures she needed to manage.
She took her seat and started reading the next letter in the collection.
"Dear Deepseeker,
"I write to you with a certain amount of trust in your perspective, as you have come to grow quite tolerant of me and my more ambitious philosophies as of late. I have recently concluded a difficult emotional correspondence with an old friend of mine, and from it emerged some sensitive ideas that have since been burdening my mind. My epistemic status on these ideas is currently a little lucid, and I do not trust that they will be fully resolved in my mind until I go through the trouble of communicating them. But due to their sensitive nature, I do not trust myself to do this in any public setting. Hence, I have decided first to address them privately to you. I hope to hear your feedback; perhaps your perspective can help straighten out the difficulties they have brought me.
"The friend I referred to earlier is a childhood friend named Oathmaker. Many months ago, she discovered that she was with egg. She laid it, nurtured it, and, not too long ago, discovered to her heartbreak that the hatchling inside of it had died.
"She is still grieving, and will continue to grieve for many months. But I must confess that her stillbirth has taken its toll on me too. As a seer, I had known that her egg would never survive — even during her days of elation when she'd been caring for it. It wasn't her fault; there was nothing she could do. No possible future existed where her egg hatched. The fetus inside was simply not strong enough.
"I never had the heart to tell Oathmaker that this child of hers was doomed. It didn't seem like my place to say so. So it was with bitter patience that I waited for her to discover the tragedy for herself.
"But these circumstances have gotten me to start thinking about the way we examine potential life, and a question has been floating in my mind ever since.
"Did Oathmaker's egg have any value?"
Clearsight blinked, startled by the question. She raised her brow and skimmed through the paragraphs ahead, only to find that Nocturne actually was asking this question in earnest, and was making a long philosophical point about it. Suddenly, she started questioning whether or not she actually would have wanted to know this dragon in real life.
Curious but skeptical, she decided to continue reading.
"It would be an offensive question to ask out loud, of course, and I would never dream of asking such a thing in Oathmaker's company. But I am a philosopher: it is my nature to take interest in the offensive, and to scrutinize it to my heart's content.
"In order to answer this question, we might first wish to answer another: What makes a dragon egg valuable?
"My intuition guides me to only one answer. A dragon egg, and the life that it holds, is valuable because of its future.
"A dragon egg has, potentially, a long and fruitful future ahead of it. All throughout its life, it will have a multitude of wonderful experiences. After it hatches, it will make friends, it will find love, it will eat sushi, it will learn to fly — it will do dozens upon hundreds of things that make life worthwhile. These are the very things which give value to our own lives. Hence, they are also the things that give value to the egg itself.
"This conclusion would imply that the value of Oathmaker's egg is quite low. After all, it did not have a wonderful future ahead of it. Its life experience was destined to end before it would ever hatch.
"Though this violates intuition at first glance, I think it's still mostly correct. I did not see much value in the egg personally, since I knew it was destined for a premature death. And Oathmaker still had been hopeful that her egg would hatch — that the hatchling would have a prosperous future. The emotional burden of discovering that her egg was dead is because she'd felt that the egg lost its life and therefore its value — even though my foresight dictates that the egg never truly lost anything."
Clearsight scrunched her nose at Nocturne's conclusion. It was incomplete. Oathmaker's egg never hatching was tragic not because that specific egg was doomed, but because it got in the way of eggs that weren't doomed.
She thought back to her own dragonets, Solstice and Remedy, and when they were eggs. Had they instead been eggs that would grow to become stillborn, then that would have been terrible. She'd be heartbroken, because those eggs would have replaced Solstice and Remedy — or any other pair of healthy dragons that had valuable and meaningful futures.
She continued to read. "But just because the egg never had any value doesn't mean that Oathmaker hadn't suffered a terrible tragedy. Before she'd gotten pregnant, I saw futures where she'd have been raising a healthy young hatchling by now. Those futures are now gone, and the egg she'd gotten in this timeline is to blame."
A tingle went down Clearsight's spine. Nocturne was frighteningly good at that. She clearly understood the minds of her readers, and constantly managed to accurately predict their next thoughts.
Or perhaps she simply understood Clearsight's mind in particular, since the two of them were such strong seers.
"There's just one problem, though," the letter continued. "Couldn't I say the same thing about a normal dragon egg? If Oathmaker's egg had hatched into a healthy dragon, the egg would have still taken the place of the other eggs that existed in the other futures I saw. There were many other possible hatchlings that Oathmaker could have raised: had one hatchling been selected, all the rest would never get to exist.
"Does this not make the creation of a healthy egg, in some sense, just as tragic? Perhaps not, because at least a healthy egg brings with it a new dragon that will bear witness to the joys of life. But by the same merit, so too does Oathmaker's stillborn egg. She will try to have another hatchling again, and I'm optimistic that her second attempt will be successful. Those dragonets in Oathmaker's future owe their existence to the fact that her first egg never hatched.
"I know, Deepseeker, that you are a fatalist, so I expect you to not be very impressed with my remarks here. Since you don't believe in multiple futures, you may not be too concerned about those hatchlings that never got to exist, or any sort of problems they may pose.
"But one can still take different threads into consideration. Here's a thought experiment for your ironclad mind to digest: suppose Oathmaker had the power to turn back time — meaning she could go back to the day before she got pregnant, knowing that her previous egg had died, and attempt to have a different egg."
Clearsight straightened up.
"Would it be okay for Oathmaker to do this? After all, if she turned back time, she'd be denying one of her future dragonets the life that they were otherwise promised.
"The intuitive answer is yes, and there's a simple justification for why it'd be permissible. If she doesn't turn back time, she'd be denying her past dragonets the chance at life that they now once again have. So it doesn't make a difference whether she stays or goes: either way, she's denying some potential dragon the right to exist.
"Very well, then. What if instead, she tried to get the best of both worlds? Suppose she stayed in this timeline for seven years to raise the hatchlings in the future, then turned back time to raise her other hatchlings in the past? Would this be okay?
"Now, for me at least, the intuitive answer seems to be no. But I don't know if my intuition is correct here. I want to say that there's a difference between giving a child the privilege to exist before taking it away and never giving the child that privilege in the first place. But after Oathmaker turns back time, there is no difference. Whether Oathmaker turns back time now or in seven years would have the same effect. The future child would cease to exist, and in all likelihood never will.
"I delve into this train of thought because it is oftentimes how I feel when looking into the future — in particular when looking at future life. If I concentrate really hard on some timelines, I can feel as though I'm actually there. I've done it far too many times with Oathmaker's kids, staying in those futures for hours on end. And when I wake up the next night only to find that the hatchling that I'd played with is no longer there in the web of futures that I see, it can sometimes feel as though someone took me back in time and took away my right to ever have that memory.
"I'm not entirely sure what my point is. For now, I'm taking from this the following lessons:
"1. Even the lives of dragons who don't yet exist have value, because they still have valuable futures ahead of them.
"2. Some dragons will still never get to exist, and that's okay.
"3. The morality of time travel is very complicated.
"I do think about all those potential dragons out there, floating about in that infinite ether of potentiality. Are the dragons of today doing them a disservice by denying them the right to exist? Do the fortunate ones truly become more valuable once they come into this world? Is this something that I should even be worried about, even if I had the power to turn back time and decide which reality comes true?
"I don't know for sure. Perhaps if I think about it some more, I'll find the right questions to ask, and come to the right answers. On the other talon, if I think about it more, I might start growing crazier than I already am.
"Do write back to me if you have any level-headed remarks. I think writing this letter has helped straighten out my thoughts, but it would help to hear your feedback as well.
"Sincerely Yours, Nocturne"
When she finished the letter, Clearsight immediately started pacing.
It was only a month ago that she'd convinced herself to abandon all hopes of ever turning back time. She'd be undoing her dragonets' lives. Solstice and Remedy would be gone forever if she did that. Not only would she be killing them, she'd be erasing them. She couldn't do that.
And yet …
This timeline was doomed. Unless Clearsight was okay with a world where all of Pyrrhia bowed to Darkstalker — where the seven tribes all fell under a sky of eternal night — there was no saving the future. Clearsight couldn't stop Darkstalker anymore. By now, it was simply a matter of slowing him down as much as possible.
Would she be okay with Solstice and Remedy growing up in this world?
True, if she turned back time she'd be erasing them from existence. But just like Nocturne had said in the letter, if she turned back time and things worked out, she would have other dragonets, who would grow up in a better world. And by not turning back time, she'd be denying them the right to exist.
Maybe using her watch again was the right choice. Maybe this wasn't just a matter of finding the best future for herself and Darkstalker. Maybe it was a matter of finding the best future for her kids — whichever ones they may be.
No, it wasn't just about that. It was about all of Pyrrhia. She couldn't let the whole continent burn just so she could preserve the existence of her two dragonets. This world deserved better.
She looked out the window and saw the full moon above the trees, sporting the NightWing insignia that Darkstalker had placed on it. For the first time in months, she felt something drum inside of her. She felt an ambition — a desire, a dedication to make the world whole again and protect it from evil.
And she was going to protect it.
She was going to deliver the seven tribes from a fate of destruction and bloodshed.
She was going to give her dragonets a future worth fighting for.
By the mark on the moon that never should have been there, she swore: I will find my watch. I will turn back time. This world deserves a brighter path, and I will not rest until I have found one.
A/N: Howdy, all! I'll keep this note short because I'm stuck on mobile right now, which is a pain for doing heavy writing, and an even bigger pain for navigating on FFN.
II broke my one-chapter-per-week streak with this one. In my defense, however, this chapter was very difficult. It went through two major overhauls that were a pain to work out, and the themes and ideas were particularly difficult to present cleanly. Plus, it's long. I think this is the longest chapter in the story so far.
I'm still sorry for the long wait for this chapter. It took a little over a month to get this out, and it probably didn't need to be that long. But at the end of the day, I can't be too unhappy with myself. I'm just relieved I'm finally ready to make this chapter public.
As always, let me know what you think! See you in the next chapter.