A/N: Welcome back, everyone, to Chapter 7.

I don't have much to say for this one; things are more or less business as usual. I've got a pretty busy schedule coming up for the next few weeks, so I'll try to write when I can but don't be too surprised if the next one takes a while. I hate saying that, but that's just how life goes.

Anyway, if you like the story so far then feel free to favorite/follow and leave a review. And, of course, enjoy...

Chapter 7: Contemplations

"Is everything okay, Indigo?"

Fathom's words pulled Indigo from a trance that she hadn't even realized that she'd been in, and she returned to reality with a small shake of her head. She blinked rapidly, clearing away her ruminations and focusing on her friend and her job.

"Of course it is," she answered, hopefully convincingly, but she herself wasn't too sure. It wasn't the first time he'd caught her sort of drifting out, her mind distracted on other things besides being a bodyguard.

It was all due to Darkstalker.

She hadn't told Fathom anything about her short conversation with the Nightwing animus a few nights ago, though part of her wanted to. The truth was, she wasn't sure quite what to make of it. It was the first real time that she'd talked, really talked, with the black dragon, and it had turned out to be more unsettling than she'd expected. No…"unsettling" wasn't quite the right word. Maybe "disconcerting" was better, or maybe just "odd". At the very least, it wasn't what she'd expected.

Of course, she didn't really know what to expect from Darkstalker. Honestly, she'd never really anticipated any conversation with him at all. And while she overheard him talking with Fathom on a regular basis, she'd never given much heed to any of his words; mainly she just listened for any potential threats to her friend (which never happened) or any advocation by Darkstalker for Fathom to use his magic (which happened fairly often). Mostly, she tried to avoid him altogether, but on the times that Fathom did draw the two into conversation they never said much worth saying, and hardly ever was it very civil.

Which was why she'd found their confrontation in Fathom's absence to be so unusual. He'd begun so hostile, like she was accustomed to, but then his demeanor had seemed to change. It went from one of pride and certainty to one of…well she wasn't quite sure how to put it, even to herself. He'd become defensive towards the end, as though he was trying to justify himself to her. She'd heard him do that to Fathom before, but he'd never made any effort to make her understand him before.

Then there was how he'd acted. He'd always been so quick to boast and bite at her before, but he hadn't. In fact, there seemed to be so much that he wanted to say but didn't, and Indigo wasn't sure if she wanted to know what those things were or not. It was like Darkstalker was torn about something, though what it was she had no idea.

But whatever it was, she couldn't get her mind off it.

"It's just…" Fathom said to her, "You seem a bit distracted. Not quite like yourself today."

She gave a small huff from her seat in his room in front of the balcony, her normal place for guard duty when Fathom wasn't demanding she relax. "I'm fine," she assured him.

It wasn't completely true, though. Well, she was fine, but she also was more than a bit distracted. She kept going over that short conversation in her mind, trying to recall all what was said, trying to figure what exactly Darkstalker was trying to tell her or get from her. Was it all some sort of trick? Was it genuine? Why did he suddenly decide to speak to her now?

And, most of all, why couldn't she just forget about it and move on?

Maybe she could have, if it wasn't for how he'd been reacting since. She'd only seen him once since they'd spoken, on a flight that he went on with Clearsight and Fathom (with her escorting Fathom, of course). They hadn't spoken at all during it, which wasn't that unusual, but what was unusual was how he didn't give her any glares, or frowns, or really any signs that he was displeased with her presence like he normally did. In fact, when she did catch him looking at her, he seemed to have a look of confliction, of frustration. Whether or not this behavior was somehow connected to their conversation from before was something she couldn't know for certain, but she couldn't rule it out.

Part of the reason that her mind was so focused on it, she knew, was because she needed to be aware of any and all plans or problems that Darkstalker might have. After all, if something happened to Darkstalker then something would inevitably impact Fathom, for good or ill. If this was some sort of a trick, perhaps to somehow get even closer to Fathom by befriending her, then she needed to know. If it wasn't, then she had no idea what she was supposed to make of it. And that was the other reason her mind seemed so focused on it: she was genuinely curious. Something about Darkstalker had suddenly struck her as odd, and she wanted to know what it was just to know what it was. Though, why she cared at all about the behavior of Darkstalker (other than as a threat to Fathom) was far beyond her.

"Okay, if you say so…" Fathom said, a bit dejectedly, as he went back to reading one of the scrolls he'd checked out from the Nightwings' library. Reading and writing were among the few things he really could do when not out with Darkstalker, though they surely must be more entertaining than Indigo's job of sitting there watching him do it.

She felt her heart tear a little bit at his words. As always, Fathom had just wanted to help her. He'd observed and noticed a change, and all he wanted to do was make sure she was alright. And instead of talking to him, she'd turned him away.

Part of her screamed for her to embrace him, to laugh and joke and treat him like the friend he used to be before the massacre, before they'd gone their own ways. She wanted to tell him her problems and have him reassure her, just as she'd always done the same for him. She longed to be able to drop her façade of being nothing but a guard and finally express just how happy she was to just be with again.

But she couldn't. Not anymore. As much as she wished it, Fathom didn't. He'd told her as much before, that he couldn't trust himself around her. He still tried to treat her as a friend, he still gave her smiles and kept her closer than the other Seawings, but he always kept her a wing's length away. So tantalizingly close, but so far. Yet at other times he looked at her like he did back then, showed care like he used to, and Indigo had to wonder if he was undergoing an emotional war as large as hers.

Indigo had decided long ago that no dragon, royal or not, would dictate who she gave her heart to. If Queen Pearl herself forbid Indigo's relationship to a dragon, she'd fight and die before yielding. Only the dragon who held her heart could dare turn her away. And Fathom, almost reluctantly, it seemed, had turned her away.

She sighed and dropped out of her normal guard stance, relaxing her wings and arms as she left her spot and approached him. He may not be what she wished he was, but Fathom was still her greatest friend.

"You're right," she told him, and he put the scroll down and turned towards her with a small smile, "I am a bit distracted today. Frustratingly so."

He blinked and motioned for her to sit. She did so and he sat in front of her, claws so perilously close to hers that she worried that he would reach out and take hers—or that she would take his. They were close, like before, like how she wished it could be.

"What's the matter?" he asked her, and she saw concern in his eyes. Such was Fathom: always more so about others than himself. In a way, she knew, that was exactly why things were the way they were now.

"I talked with Darkstalker the other day," she told him with a bit of a huff.

"Oh…" Fathom said, no doubt a bit worried over where she was going. She and Darkstalker had never made a secret about their mutual distain, and it had been a subject of no small amount of frustration for Fathom that two of his friends couldn't get along. With that in mind, it was clear that Fathom probably wouldn't expect an exchange between them to go well…and neither had Indigo. "What did you talk about?" he asked her.

She gave a small shrug of her wings and sighed. "Not too much, actually. Mainly about his powers." She didn't mention anything else, and though it made her feel a tiny bit guilty for some reason, she kept her mouth shut.

Fathom gave her a tired look. "I don't suppose you were too tactful about your thoughts on the matter?" he said, then muttered under his breath, "Nor was he."

Indigo blinked and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Give me some credit, Fathom, I don't go out of my way to antagonize Darkstalker. I'm not stupid."

"No, you aren't," Fathom responded, "But you are very vocal, when you choose to be."

It was true, she knew. She was unafraid to stand up to or challenge Darkstalker whenever the mention of Fathom using magic came up, which it did regularly. She had been ever since they'd arrived in the Night Kingdom. It was one of the reasons that Darkstalker seemed to dislike her—she was one of the few dragons that actively spoke against him to his face.

Still, she brought a claw to her chest in mock hurt. "Me? Vocal?" she asked, causing Fathom to give an amused snort. Even before meeting Darkstalker she'd always spoken her mind.

"Yes. You." Fathom said with a goofy grin, the tension that had been there evaporating somewhat. "But seriously, you didn't do anything to make him mad, right?"

She shook her head. "No. Not that I can think of, at least. It was Darkstalker himself that was acting a bit…odd." She tapped her tail on the ground and gave a small huff. "I don't know, it was just a weird exchange. I can't stop thinking about it."

Fathom cocked his head slightly at her, suddenly seeming more alert. "He was acting odd? In what way?"

"He was just…acting a bit different," Indigo tried to explain, "It's hard to put into words." She paused, then realized why Fathom would be so concerned over odd behavior. "It didn't seem to be anything actually wrong with him," she clarified quickly, "I mean, with his soul. He wasn't going crazy or evil or anything, as far as I could tell." Yet, her mind wanted to add, but she refrained.

Fathom visibly relaxed. "That's good," he sighed, relieved.

"Yeah," Indigo breathed, and a small silence fell. She looked at him and noticed again just how close they were, and how easy it would be to pull him into an embrace if she so chose. Part of her wanted to do just that, to act like nothing had ever happened and go back to how they were before. To tell him every little thing on her mind and see what he could make of it. But she held back; that wasn't how things were now.

"You know," Fathom said after a few moments had passed, "I think I'm glad that you talked with Darkstalker. I know that the two of you don't necessarily get along," Indigo scoffed at that understatement, "But you're both my friends. You might not agree with him on how to use animus magic—and I don't either—but that doesn't mean that you have to be mean to him. Maybe the best way to change his mind is to befriend him. To slowly change his mind with little words and actions rather than harsh debate." Fathom gave a small chuckle. "I mean, that's the whole point of why we're here, right?"

That's why you're here, Indigo thought, I'm here to protect you. She debated saying as much out loud, but instead gave a shrug of her wings. "I guess so."

"At any rate," Fathom continued, "I want my friends to get along. I don't want you accompanying us on flights and trips because you have to as my guard, but because you want to as our friend. You're a good dragon, Indigo, and I think Darkstalker is one too. If you can give him a chance, I think he may surprise you."

"Maybe," Indigo said, more to herself than to him. Already her mind was going over that conversation again in her head. He already had surprised her, at least somewhat. It remained to be seen whether or not that actually amounted to anything, though.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. "Prince Fathom, there's a visitor for you," she heard Lionfish say from the other side of the door. The voice wasn't surprising; Lionfish was the one who handled a lot of the guarding that tended to be a bit more disconnected from Fathom, such as being stationed outside rather than in the room. Wharf, on the other claw…well, she rarely knew what he was doing.

"Who is it?" Fathom asked as he stood up and approached the door, but it was hardly needed. A quick glance outside by Indigo told that it the sun was beginning to set, marking the beginning of the Nightwing's "day". Typically, only two dragons visited them at all, and one in particular tended to show up right about now on most days.

"It's me, of course," Indigo heard Darkstalker's voice as Fathom opened the door, and the Nightwing brushed past Lionfish effortlessly as he invited himself in, "Honestly, Fathom, I don't know why you still feel the need to have two guards on duty at all times. I mean, I'm pretty sure that if we Nightwings had some nefarious plan for you, we'd have pulled something already."

…And already Darkstalker was sounding like his normal self. He only glanced at her once, their eyes meeting for only a brief moment before he looked away and back at Fathom. The look wasn't obviously hostile, though, so that at least was an improvement.

"Speak of a sea-snake," she muttered under her breath, unsurprised at the arrival of the dragon they'd just been talking about.

"I know," Fathom told him, ignoring her bit of snark, "But my sist—" he cut himself off and corrected himself, "Queen Pearl was quite clear about my security. I'm an animus and in a foreign land, so I think you can understand why my tribe wants us to be a bit cautious."

Darkstalker rolled his eyes. "Yes, I suppose I can. Though an animus doesn't need others to protect him."

"He does if he doesn't use his magic," Fathom responded, "But we've been over that before." He motioned for Darkstalker to come father in and sit down to talk. "So, what brings you here right now?"

Darkstalker remained where he was and just twitched his tail. "Well, I just stopped by to let you know that I can't stay this evening, and I won't be able to do anything in the morning. Vigilance has meetings all throughout the day today on the state of the war and strategies moving forward, and she expects me to be at most of them. Clearsight, too, so you probably won't see much of her today. The first meeting is in a few minutes, so I'll have to go real quick."

Indigo couldn't help but observe with slight curiosity how he referred to Queen Vigilance as simply "Vigilance", leaving off the "Queen". That generally was frowned upon, even in private conversations. Maybe he was just in a rush?

"Oh," Fathom said, disappointment in his voice. Despite how Indigo disliked him spending time with the animus that encouraged him to use his powers, she knew that he really did enjoy the time Darkstalker spent with him, as well as the flights and the games they played. It was one of the things that made her job just that much more difficult. "Well, I'm sure Indigo and I can entertain ourselves for the day. Thanks for letting us know."

"No problem," Darkstalker said, already turning to leave. He took a step to go, then paused and looked back. "One more quick thing," he said, "My mother just got leave from her station up north and is home for several days. She wants to meet the Seawing that I've spent so much time with, and she instructed me to invite you to dinner—er…breakfast for you, I guess—tomorrow morning. Well, not tomorrow morning, but the morning after that; two of your mornings from now." He shook his head and let out an exasperated growl, "You really need to get on the Nightwing time schedule. It gets so confusing sometimes. Anyway, Clearsight will be there, and I told my mother you could make it too, since, you know, it's kind of your job to do stuff with me."

Fathom shrugged his wings and smiled. "Yeah, I guess Indigo and I can make it. I mean, like you said, it's what we're here for."

If Darkstalker was displeased about Fathom immediately inviting Indigo to come along, he didn't show it. Which was odd. At any rate, Indigo was a bit more concerned on another thing Darkstalker had said, though it was something she'd heard before.

"Wait, your mother is serving in the Army?" she asked Darkstalker. "Isn't it, like, a really bad idea to have one of the dragons responsible for triggering the war fighting in it?"

He answered her question with a shrug of his wings. "She's part of an air defense crew at the border. Personally, I'd prefer she didn't fight, but she says that she wants to. She says it's her responsibility to her tribe."

"But what if she gets captured or something?" Indigo asked, "Wouldn't that be absolutely horrible for Nightwing morale and great for the Icewings? Not to mention what they'd probably do to her…"

Darkstalker gave a low growl and brought a talon to his head. "Yeah, I try not to think about that. You're right, though; it would be bad. I've tried talking to Vigilance to get her honorably discharged, but it's ultimately up to my mother herself whether or not she fights." He put his claw back down and shook his head. "My meeting's going to start soon, so I should probably go," he said abruptly. "I'll see you soon, hopefully before that dinner."

He bade a quick farewell to Fathom, gave her one last short and undiscernible look, then left the room and disappeared down the hallway.

Both she and Fathom stood looking out the doorway for a moment after he left before Fathom turned and looked at her. "Well, hey," he said, a bit of laughter in his voice, "I guess you two do agree on something."

She gave him a confused glare. "What do you mean?"

"You both think it's a bad idea for his mom to fight in the war," Fathom explained, a silly grin on his face. "I mean, it's not much, but it's a start."

Indigo rolled her eyes and walked back over her normal "guard" location. Agreeing on the tactically stupidity of actions in a war was a far cry from being friends. And although Darkstalker wasn't quite being so hostile to her, she was still plenty wary of him. If Fathom wanted her to be friendly to the most dangerous dragon in Pyrrhia, then she'd try to be friendly to him, but that in no way meant that she wouldn't hesitate to eliminate him if he became any more of a threat than he was.

But what if he isn't really a threat, came a voice in her mind as she once again began to think over the conversation she'd had with him. And then there was how he'd just acted, not being quite as bitey or rude to her as usual. It made her think that there was something there that she just couldn't figure out. And soon, just like it was before Fathom had called her out on it several minutes ago, her mind was completely distracted by thoughts of Darkstalker.

A/N: I know there's not been a lot of action so far. That should start to change a little in the next few chapters.