Glory felt better in the morning, but not by much. She still felt tired from a lack of any good sleep—despite the realization she'd slept well into the morning—and she still was grieving, but a new day brought a new determination in her. Whoever had killed Jambu was out there, and it was her duty as both his sister and his queen to bring whoever had done this to justice.

Deathbringer was gone from her hut, and after taking a few moments to compose herself and do her best to regain some semblance of a regal bearing that she'd lost the previous night, she went searching for him. Her eyes scanned over her subjects as she flew over the village. I will protect you, she vowed as she saw the Rainwings along with some scattered Nightwings below, I'll make sure this killer is caught.

She finally spotted Deathbringer near the village's center, and she landed close by without fanfare. Straightening herself up, she stepped intently towards him, trying to convey a confident leader for any dragons that might see her—and especially for any that may have seen her last night.

"Morning," Deathbringer greeted, perhaps intentionally leaving off the 'good' due to the situation, "Feeling better?"

"A little," she nodded, "But that's not important. Has there been any progress in finding who killed Jambu."

"I've dispatched three different teams of dragons to search the area where Tapir was supposed to be," he told her, "In the meantime, Caiman and I have been making inquiries about this tooth," he raised a claw, holding up the mysterious item, "So far we've had no luck. We're just about getting ready to go over to the Night Village and see if anyone there knows anything."

"Good, good," she nodded, then paused, "Deathbringer, do you think it might be a Nightwing that did it? Trying to 'finish the job' from the war, so to say?"

"I honestly don't know," came his reply, "Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to rule anything out at this point."
"That's true, I suppose," she tried not to frown, "The teams of dragons you sent looking, are they…?"

"Each team has three dragons, and I made sure that each are competent," Deathbringer answered before she could finish. "They should be able to take care of anything they might find."

"That should be enough to deal with any one dragon," Glory agreed, but couldn't help her mind going a step farther. What if there is more than one dragon responsible? What if this is some sort of big conspiracy. She stopped herself and shook her head; there was no real evidence of that, and she needed to stay rational until she had reason to think differently.

Some movement caught her eye, and she saw Caiman approaching. The other dragon's scale color of choice—a dark green that he hardly changed—made him quite recognizable, as did the blade he kept strapped to his left thigh. He gave a shake of his head as he walked up to them, and raised a muscular arm just to pound it into the soft ground.

"Nothing," he told them, "Not surprising, but no dragon knows anything about any weird-shaped teeth. I've tried all the regular places, and have some more dragons asking around, but funnily enough most Rainwings aren't terribly concerned with the teeth of other Rainwings."

"That's fine," Deathbringer told him, "We'll try the Nightwing village next. Then we can try getting a bit more forceful with it," he turned to Glory, "Sound good?"

"If you think so," she said. She wasn't too proud to admit that Deathbringer was better at these things than her. It came with being a trained assassin, after all, not to mention that she'd more or less put him in charge of all of these kinds of matters since she'd become queen. She'd go along with what he thought was best, at least for the time being.

The three of them took off and made the flight to the Nightwing Village. It wasn't too far—only a fifteen-minute flight, at most—and Glory could see before she even landed that the different building projects were in full swing. There were a lot of houses that she didn't recognize from the last time she'd been over, and in the middle of the host of Nightwing homes was a large half-finished structure that stood tall over everything else.

Glory walked over to that large building frame once she'd landed, looking it over. She could only guess by the size that it was to be the town hall. Many beams were sunken or half-sunken into the ground, and connecting them was a raised platform high enough that she could walk underneath it. Piles of wood and building materials were set on it or connected up higher, but they had an almost haphazard appearance to them. For such a large project, it actually looked like it was being put together by dragonets.

"I'd stay back from that, if I were you," a voice called out, and Glory found herself jump back. She turned to see the former Nightwing Princess, Greatness, walking towards her, "We've had to halt the progress because of the lack of quality wood. That beam you're closest to has cracked since we put it in, and I'm worried the whole thing may be unstable. I don't know if we'll even be able to salvage it; we may have to start over." The Nightwing sighed, shaking her head as she stopped a dragon-length away from Glory. "But at least we can figure that out now. I assume you're here to talk to those Rainwings and get our materials problem sorted out."

"I wish," Glory huffed, feeling a little sting of guilt as she looked over the Nightwing Village. It had been some time since she'd even made her way over here, and she saw now that the black dragons really had been struggling with the limited resources her tribe had been restricting them to. She'd really have to make sure that changed, once she figured out the bigger problem at claw.

"You're not here to help with that, then?" Greatness asked, her voice a little accusatory. Glory couldn't blame her. After all, Greatness was still one of the leaders of her tribe, responsible for most of their doings even though she bowed to Glory. "You said that you would."

"Something more important has come up," Glory told her, "I'm afraid that's not my priority at present."

"Oh, really?" the Nightwing said flatly, clearly doubting that.

"Jambu was found murdered yesterday," Deathbringer spoke, stepping forward, "And a member of the team searching for him has gone missing. We're more concerned with that than anything else at the moment.

"Oh," Greatness faltered, her face softening, "Oh, Queen Glory, I'm so sorry to hear that. I really am. That's…that's terrible," she shook her head, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Thank you, and there is, actually," Glory said, "We found a tooth on Jambu's body that probably belongs to the killer. It's very uniquely shaped. If you know the dragon it belongs to, we'd like to know."

"Of course," the ex-princess nodded, "I can't claim to know everything about all the Nightwings, but I'll see if I notice anything."

"Here," Deathbringer produced the tooth and dropped it into Greatness's outstretched claw. She gave a hum as she looked at it, then frowned.
"This isn't a dragon tooth," she observed, "I mean, it doesn't look like one. Are you sure it is?"

"We were informed that it had to be," Glory told her, "Only a dragon has teeth that large. It's certainly no jaguar fang."

"I see," Greatness rolled it in her claw, then her eyes suddenly went wide. "You found this with Jambu's body?"

"We did," Deathbringer answered, "Inside it, actually. It appears that whoever or whatever killed him also tried to eat him."

Greatness's eyes scanned over the tooth in her claw, and Glory saw her visibly shudder. "No," she muttered under her breath, "It…it can't be, surely."

"What is it?" Glory pressed, "Do you recognize it."

"I…I can't be sure," the Nightwing dragoness shook her head, but Glory saw in her eyes that it wasn't quite true. There was fear in them.

"Well, then what do you think?" Deathbringer asked, stepping closer towards her. Greatness stepped back, and shook her head again.

"I don't…it might be, but that should be impossible. If it is…" she shuddered, then thrust the tooth back to Deathbringer, "I'm sorry, but I need to go."

"What?" Glory snapped in confused indignation, "Go where?"

"Away from here," she spoke quickly, "And you should do the same." That fear in her eyes had turned to borderline terror.

"Greatness, what's going on?" she demanded, "What do you know."

"You…I…" she gasped, "You need to ask Mastermind. He knows more than I do."

"But what do you know?" Deathbringer insisted, but Greatness was already backing away and looking to the sky.

"The Rainwing Village is probably safe, for now," she was muttering to herself, "But I may need to leave altogether. Three moons, I hope I'm wrong, but…" Greatness trailed off as she ran away, then leapt into the air.

Glory moved to go after her, but Deathbringer stopped her. She shot him a glare, and he gave her a worried look.

"It's not worth it," he said, "It doesn't seem like she's rational right now."

"But she knows something," Glory insisted, "She might know who did it!"

"If she really did, I think she would have told you," Deathbringer observed, "But we do know someone who does, and can."

"Mastermind," Glory growled.

"Exactly."

"Let's get him, then," she hissed, but were interrupted by the appearance of three Rainwings flying overhead, coming from the southeast and heading towards the Rainwing Village.

"Those are some of the searchers," Deathbringer recognized them, then hailed them, "Let's see if they've found anything first."

Glory nodded, then tapped her tail impatiently as the three dragons landed. She recognized the faces of two of them, but none of their names although Deathbringer greeted them by name. She normally tried to keep track of who was who in her kingdom, but the tribe was large and these dragons didn't serve her directly.

"Any news?" Deathbringer inquired once greetings were made and the dragons had a moment to breath. The good news was that there was, but the bad news was also that there was.

"We found Tapir," one of the Rainwings told him, her wings sagging low, "What was left of him, at least. B group is bringing his remains back now. And we haven't seen any sign of A group since we left. We were supposed to rendezvous at the Red River's fork before flying back, and they never showed up."

"I see," Deathbringer gave a frustrated rumble from deep in his chest, "Even more dragons missing. Wonderful."

On Glory's part, she barely kept in a cry of her own frustration. It had happened again. Trying to find one dragon resulted in the loss of several more. How many more will it take? Her mind demanded an answer she knew she couldn't respond to.

"You said that they'd be able to handle themselves," she growled to Deathbringer, who just shook his head in disbelief.

"They should have," he told her, "They knew what they were doing. If something happened to them, then we really should be worried."

Even if nothing had happened to them, Glory was already worried. "We need to talk to Mastermind," she told him, "Now."

Deathbringer agreed, and after a few words instructing the dragons to go back and make sure the other group made it back too, they were off to the Rainwing prison.