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FATHOM

It was calm in the palace. It had been calm for a while now, ever since Darkstalker and Clearsight left for their mission in the north. It had been calm ever since he and Indigo decided that they wanted to be together forever.

When Fathom was younger, he wondered why 'I love you' was such a scary thing to say to someone for the first time. It wasn't a fear of rejection, at least not for him. Ever since they had moved to the Night Kingdom, he'd gotten the feeling that Indigo reciprocated all of the feelings that he had towards her. And yet, he was still afraid to tell her.

For a long time, he simply didn't believe that Indigo should have loved him back. He was a monster with a curse, and Indigo didn't deserve to be dragged down with him. They were better off not being together, he'd thought, so why bother confessing?

But when his self-pity wore off and he started liking himself again, he still found himself holding his tongue. Every time he'd thought about telling Indigo that he loved her, he was struck with fear and hesitation.

It was only after he'd crossed the hurdle that he understood why those three words were so hard to say. Accepting love was such a commitment. Everything changed after he'd said 'I love you' and she said 'I love you too.' Everything changed immediately. And even though all of those changes were good, and even though he was ready for them, it was scary to realize that there was no turning back.

Now they had a whole bunch of questions that needed answering. How long would they stay in the Night Kingdom for? Did they even want to leave at this point? Would they have to? Would Pearl split them up if they came back?

What would he even do here if he decided to stay? His job on paper was 'Advisor to the Royal NightWing Animus,' which was supposed to be a temporary position. Once it expired, he'd have to make himself useful. Maybe he could become an official foreign ambassador for the Sea Kingdom. Or, if he decided that politics just wasn't for him, he could join the artisans in the palace town and sell his woodworkings.

Then there was the subject of hatchlings. They had never talked about the subject deliberately, but they'd managed to figure out a few things through the context of their other conversations. Firstly, neither of them wanted any now. Secondly, Indigo wanted some eventually. Thirdly, Fathom didn't want to talk about it.

Fathom never bothered taking the time to ask his heart if he wanted dragonets, because he didn't like either possible answer. If he didn't want to be a father, then he disagreed with Indigo on something extremely important. But if he did, then it didn't matter, because he'd sworn an oath to Queen Pearl. Regardless of how he felt towards parenthood, he was still an animus, which meant that it would still be unspeakably irresponsible for him to bring his own dragonets into this world.

But that wasn't where his head was at right now. Right now, he just wanted to savor the precious moments he had with her, because every moment truly was precious. Even this very moment, when he was doing nothing but laying in bed with her sleeping by his side.

But he'd been putting off telling Pearl for long enough now. Indigo agreed: it was time to be honest, and let the SeaWing queen know that they were a couple. His stomach churned at the thought of her reacting poorly, but he'd rather deal with that reaction than spend the rest of his life lying to his sister.

The evening sun was bright enough to light up the room without any candles or lamps. Indigo had her head nestled against his neck, looking beautiful as ever. He leaned in to give her a gentle kiss beneath her ear, then quietly shuffled off of the bed to let her keep sleeping.

After stretching and yawning, he made his way to the office room in their chambers, where there was a dark hardwood desk on which Fathom wrote all of his letters to the Sea Kingdom. He pulled out a fresh well of ink and a quill, and flattened a fresh roll of scroll paper from his supply in a nearby cabinet.

Before he got to writing, he reminded himself to make sure Darkstalker's scroll was still where he'd left it. He shifted over to the corner of the room, where he had a potted island pine growing in the partial shade. He lifted the pot, took the metal key, and returned to his desk to open the locked drawer.

It was still there. The leather case sat there in the otherwise empty compartment, and just to be completely sure that it was still Darkstalker's scroll, Fathom pulled it out of its case and checked the first few lines, which still contained Darkstalker's first enchantments with the scroll.

It's still safe in my talons, my friend, Fathom thought proudly as he closed the leather case and put the scroll away. He locked the drawer, hid the key once again, and sat back down at the desk to begin writing. He'd anguished over his choice of words for weeks now, so the words came naturally to him.

To Pearl, Queen of the Kingdom of the Sea,

I bring good news to you from the Night Kingdom. Queen Vigilance and her subjects have been treating me well, and Darkstalker and I have grown ever-fonder. Indeed, we have become the best of friends! He has lifted me up from a long misery that I had endured after months of loneliness in the Kingdom of the Sea, and if I were as cocksure as I was jovial, I would wager that I'm happier now than I have ever been in my life.

Fathom reread that last sentence and blenched. He'd been reading too much old NightWing literature, it seemed. Its overly-ornamental style was rubbing off on him. He reached for a new piece of scroll to start over, then thought better about it and simply returned to writing.

I have started growing suspicious that you sent me here in part to lift my spirits and breathe purpose back into my life. I don't know how well I hid my loneliness when I was in your palace, but as my sister, I'm certain you found out that I was unhappy, and I suspect you wanted to do something about it. Well, do something you have: I'm thankful beyond words for what you've done for me.

As I said in my previous letter, Darkstalker promised that he would avoid using magic so long as I stayed here and remained friends with him. Unfortunately, he has since broken that promise. It's clear that I'll need more time to get him to understand just how fragile his soul is, and how careful he must be with it.

While it disappoints me that Darkstalker was not true to his word, I have to admit that his spells have not yet been any cause for immediate concern. They are always cast with benevolent intentions, and his enchantments remain few and far between.

To illustrate my point, there's one enchanted item of his that I simply must tell you about. He calls it the 'soul reader,' and it measures the level of good and evil in one's soul.

I'm sure you could see how this device could be useful for us. Thanks to it, we are no longer in doubt about how much our animus magic has corrupted us. Darkstalker's soul has been consistently mostly good, in spite of the spells he has cast. As for my own soul, …

Fathom reached for the soul reader, which had been sitting idly on the desk as he was writing, and pointed it towards himself. He watched as the hourglass spun and spun, and smiled when the sands finally settled and reported his level of purity. He continued writing:

… it looks as though it has been healing! I had originally corrupted perhaps a third of the goodness harbored in my soul. But now I seem to have recovered perhaps a quarter of what I had lost.

You may be wondering whether or not this soul reader actually does as Darkstalker says it does. I had those concerns myself, but …

Fathom pondered the next sentence for a long while. He wanted to tell Pearl that Darkstalker proved his honesty by showing the spell that he'd cast in his scroll, but obviously Pearl didn't know about the scroll, and she wasn't supposed to.

Fathom was very serious about keeping that secret, as was Indigo. Darkstalker had even taught them how to block their minds from mind-readers, which turned out to be a grueling and stressful process that involved overhauling his entire way of thought. The lessons lasted for weeks, and left his mind exhausted and his soul slightly more corrupted.

He pushed the soul reader aside, and tried to bring his attention back to the letter. He needed to give Pearl a convincing reason to believe Darkstalker was honest. After a few moments of racking his brain, he came up with the perfect answer.

… he has since proven his good intentions. Shortly after making the soul reader, he gave it to me as a gift, so that I could use it on myself or on him whenever I suspected that he was turning bad. A few months later, he came to me and deliberately asked me to use it on him. Why he did this remains a mystery to me, as I was too bashful to inquire about it. But his reasons were sound, because according to the reader, he had grown a little bit more corrupted since my last reading of him. This seemed to cause him genuine distress. I watched as he anguished over his soul, and he asked for my advice on how he could heal it. Over the following days, he began to focus less on palace politics and more on spending time with his friends and family. That seemed to do the trick, as a few weeks later the corrupting effects on his soul had apparently been reversed, and that was outwardly realized with a more spirited NightWing.

To be clear, I do wish Darkstalker hadn't created the soul reader. But at least the soul reader has settled our deepest worries. We now know that neither I nor Darkstalker are on the verge of breaking in the same way Albatross did. We also know that Darkstalker truly is heeding our warning and taking his magic seriously — even if he isn't yet taking it seriously enough.

Fathom sighed. He realized that he was rambling now to avoid the actual purpose of this letter. He refilled his quill with ink, and started a new paragraph.

There's one last important update that I have to make. But first, I would like to assure you that I have not forgotten the oaths I made to you. I still have not cast any animus spells since I made my promise to you, and I will not utter a new enchantment for as long as I live. Moreover, my conviction that I will never have dragonets remains as alive as ever. My bloodline as an animus dragon ends with me.

With that being said, you were right about me and Indigo. I love her. I hoped that with time, my feelings for her would have changed. I hoped that I would eventually come to my senses and accept that we were never meant to be together.

But that didn't happen. Instead, those feelings grew, and they stayed trapped in my heart no matter how hard I tried to deny them. So I confessed my feelings to her a few weeks ago, and ever since then, we've been a couple.

Be honest, my sister: you knew this was going to happen. You realized that I was in love with her before I even did. And you probably realized that she was in love with me even sooner. It was only going to be a matter of time before we both came to our senses and made our feelings known.

Do not worry about what shall become of our relationship. Indigo understands what it means to be my mate. She understands that I am oath-bound not to give her any hatchlings. And she accepts that, as do I.

Besides, we really aren't the parenting type, don't you agree? We're practically still dragonets ourselves, and we probably always will be, even when we turn a hundred years old.

I hope things are going well in the Bay of A Thousand Scales. Even though I'm happier here in the Night Kingdom, I must admit that I miss the beaches and the coral reefs. And being diurnal. And you. I miss you a lot.

Your loving brother and subject,

-Fathom

He set the pen down, reading through everything in the letter one more time.

His heart reached out to his sister. She had all this responsibility now, responsibility that she was hardly ready to deal with. She was doing an amazing job, he couldn't deny that. But she had lost two good friends when she sent Fathom and Indigo to the Night Kingdom two years ago. He imagined that she got lonely from time to time.

He pulled out his pot of sealing wax from the desk and placed it over a burner. After lighting the candle, he placed it under the burner and waited for the wax to melt. He held a stamp with the royal NightWing insignia on it and traced the outline with his claws. He wondered for a moment if he really was going to spend the rest of his life here in the Talon Peninsula, and if that would really end up being such a bad thing.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud rapping on the door. Fathom dropped the stamp, and he rose to his feet, turning towards the hallway.

The knock came again. From the other side, Fathom heard someone say, "Prince Fathom, are you in there?" He didn't recognize the voice, but it was loud and urgent, and it put him on edge. Indigo was now walking out of the bedroom, looking like she was ready to bite someone.

"I am," he said, walking up beside Indigo to feel a little more at ease. "Who am I speaking to?"

"A member of the high guard," he answered. "Please open up. We have an urgent message for you."

The high guard was the personal bodyguard of the royal family. Fathom knew nothing about them, aside from the fact that they wore the thickest and shiniest armor out of all guards in the entire palace.

He stepped forward to unlock the door, but Indigo raised a talon in front of him.

"Something's wrong," she said quietly. "Queen Vigilance wouldn't send the high guard just to deliver a message. I think she knows about the scroll."

The realization that that was a very real possibility struck him hard. The color drained from his biolights, and a cold chill ran down his spine.

Another knock. "Prince Fathom, by order of the queen, open this door!"

"I'm going to get armed," said Indigo. "Be ready to run away with the scroll if it comes to that."

Indigo started back into the bedroom, where she kept her armor and weapons. Fathom's eyes darted back to the door.

He decided to stall, in order to ease their impatience. "What's happened?" he asked the guard, stammering fiercely now.

There was a pause. "The matter is confidential. We must talk to you alone."

"I am alone," he said. "The only other dragon with me is my bodyguard, and she hears everything I hear."

"Open the door," the guard said, though this time, his voice was softer. Fathom thought he might be able to act as though he didn't hear, but then came the sound of keys jangling.

Fathom's heart skipped a beat, and he froze, unsure if he should try barricading the door or just run for the office. But the door swung open, and on the other side stood four NightWings, all clad in silver armor so polished it was nearly blinding.

They were armed. Fathom saw a club and a set of steel claws before they charged inside, running straight towards him. He turned to run for the office, but a heavy blow struck him in the side. One of the guards had thrown his body at him, and he crashed into the far wall. Fathom gasped as a rib cracked against the marble.

The guard threw him chest-down onto the ground. Fathom squirmed against the guard's weight, but to no avail. In front of him, a guard with a brass-knobbed club was winding up, readying a blow to his head.

He closed his eyes and thrashed his head about, but the guard on top of him held him still. But when he was certain he'd be knocked unconscious, there instead came an anguished gasp, followed by the sound of the club dropping somewhere near his head.

When Fathom opened his eyes, Indigo was pulling a bloody knife from the guard's back.

"Stardancer!"

The guard to Fathom's right charged after Indigo, and the guard behind him rushed to the aid of the first guard, who was now crumpled on the floor. "I'll go get backup. Do not let them escape!" the fourth guard shouted as he steadied the first guard to his feet.

As they headed for the exit, Fathom took the moment of confusion to throw his subduer off of his back. But as Fathom rose to his feet, the NightWing struck Fathom's leg with his steel claws. He screamed in pain, razor-sharp claw-tips tearing through his scales. Red blood and blue biolight liquid poured from his thigh. The guard managed to pin him again to the ground, but by now Indigo was there, and she threw herself atop him, peeling him off of Fathom's body.

The other guard was now on Fathom, readying for another attack. Fathom, thinking quickly, reared around and swung his tail, clubbing the guard in the face with all his might.

The strike made contact, buying Fathom enough time to rush past him. He entered the office and threw the potted tree aside, grabbing the key. If he could get the scroll, he could escape through the balcony window with Indigo.

He scrambled to the desk, inserting the key into the lock. But that was all he could do before being tackled from behind. He and the guard collided into the desk, and the pot of wax fell over, as did the candle that was melting it. Fathom watched in horror as his letter caught fire.

Fathom grabbed the brass pot of wax and swung it around. It hit the helmet of the guard that had been grabbing him — hardly enough to do any damage, but enough to get him to loosen his grip. Fathom slid off of him and frantically started looking around for something to put the growing fire out.

There was a jug of water for the plants in the bedroom. But when he circled around and started running towards it, he saw that Indigo was already making her way there, and the guard she'd been fighting was now facing him.

Fathom didn't realize until the last second that this guard was now wielding a long hammer. He skidded to a halt and dodged a wild swing, watching wide-eyed as the head of the hammer whizzed past his snout and put a crack into the marble wall. An instant later, the second guard was on his back, pinning him once more to the ground.

Terrified for his life now, he squirmed and thrashed with all his might. But the guard was so strong that he might as well have been lying still. He grabbed at Fathom's right arm and twisted it back. His muscles screamed against the tension, and then buckled with a sickening pop from his shoulder socket. Fathom shrieked, the pain almost unbearable.

Tears blurred his vision, but he could make out the shape of Indigo returning from the bedroom. She charged at the closer guard, who could merely lift his hammer before her spear lodged into his neck. The guard on top of Fathom released him and started backing away.

Smoke was now filling the chambers, and Fathom rose to his feet in a panic. Unable to walk on his forearm, he hobbled over to the bedroom on three legs. The water bucket was on the floor beside the doorway, and he took the handle in his mouth before turning around and struggling through the smoke. He heard Indigo fighting with the high guard across the chamber, and was tempted to try interfering somehow. His heart lurched with the urge to try protecting her, but in his current state, he knew he'd just get in the way.

Before making it back to the office, six more guards came bursting into their chambers. They were palace guards clad in palace armor, wielding long steel spears, which were now all being pointed at him.

The instinct to save himself kicked in, and he dropped the bucket and ran. But he had nowhere to run to. The guards charged after him, and Indigo tried to get to them in time, but she was too far away. There was a blur in the corner of his eye, and a stabbing pain in his left forearm. He fell to the ground and was surrounded by three of the guards.

His vision was too hazy to make out anything more. He heard the crackling of paper burning, and a scream from Indigo. Then a thick leather band tightened around his mouth, and his face was covered with a cloth bag that smelled of rancid cheese. His arms and legs were bound in chains, and as the guards lifted him from the floor, he caught the sound of shackles tightening against Indigo as well.

He knew Indigo was following close behind him, because she struggled endlessly against her chains and uttered a stream of curses at the guards. But at least she was okay.

This was probably his fault. It was probably his noisy brain that slipped out the wrong thought with the wrong mind-reader present. It was because of him that they were being locked up for knowing too much.

It was a half-comfort to know that the scroll was probably burning now. On one talon, it meant that Vigilance would never be able to use it. But on the other talon, it meant that he was responsible for his best friend losing the source of his animus magic.

The pain in his arms, leg, and chest festered, egged on by the uncomfortable positioning of his bound talons. Before long, it became too much, and he slipped out of consciousness before touching the ground.

A/N: Urf, this chapter actually took longer to edit than it took to write. I decided to almost completely rewrite that fight scene at the end, which took a lot more effort than I was expecting. Hopefully it all came out well enough, though: fighting scenes are so difficult for me to pace correctly. To those of you who have been following, sorry for the delay! The next chapter should be more-or-less on schedule.