On the other end of the continent, Clearsight sat in her workspace in the NightWing palace, surrounded by parchments. She poured herself into her work more than ever now, trying to busy herself out of feeling her heartache. It didn't work very well. The timelines before her were all so dark. The happy ones she had been clinging to – starting a family with Darkstalker, relaxing peacefully together in their old age – were now like wisps of smoke blowing away in a breeze. There was no longer any future with him that she could see that wasn't marred by rotten patches of darkness.

But the darkest timelines of all were the ones where she wasn't there to steer Darkstalker into more rational action. For now, at least, she had to stay by Darkstalker's side. The fate of Pyrrhia depended on it.

Immediately, though, she needed to find the most rational action for Darkstalker to take regarding Whiteout. She had reminded him – again – that magically killing Queen Diamond now would usher in a queen who unleashed genocide against the NightWings. Prince Arctic, himself magically protected, would be untouchable, and would leave Whiteout even more vulnerable than she already was. She couldn't see a future where Whiteout's life was immediately threatened. They had a little bit of time to explore the timelines to find the best action to take.

And there, in her mind, Prince Arctic's white scales loomed out of darkness. Arctic slashing the throat of a NightWing she didn't know, with two IceWings lurking in the shadows behind him.

She had seen that vision before, when she first met Arctic. That one was not far at all in the future. Clearsight paused before writing, checking the timelines to see if Darkstalker had seen it, too. No; in most of the timelines, he was too busy imagining his future conquest of Pyrrhia to bother consulting the real possible futures that lay directly before him..

If Clearsight told him what Arctic was about to do to that NightWing – only darkness spun from that. She would have to keep that secret. Perhaps always. She did not write it down.

Dozens, then hundreds, of IceWings rising out of the sea. An abandoned stretch of coastline, but one in the NightWing climate. One moon half-full, a second only a sliver in the sky – one of the darkest nights in the near future.

Darkstalker would notice this one, but possibly too late to plan for. If she just took a bit of time to sort out the possible futures, she could guide him to the path that would bring the best outcomes for both tribes.

Such small threads of hope were the only things keeping her going.

She began to write.

—-

[A/N: Vision from Wings of Fire Legends: Darkstalker, page 149]