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DARKSTALKER

"Fine," Clearsight said once they were alone in their tent. "Let's say I go along with your idea. How do you expect us to overthrow the queen?"

Instead of answering, Darkstalker gave a sideways glance at the exit to their tent, where there was an entire army of NightWings, ready and eager to overthrow the queen on Clearsight's behalf.

"We just got back from battle, Darkstalker," Clearsight said. "Do you really think now is the right time to stage a coup?" She sighed, and rubbed her face with her talons. "Not to mention it's not exactly a good idea to have a civil war when we're in the middle of an actual war."

"I admit, it's not the most ideal time," Darkstalker said. "But it's the only time we have. How else are we supposed to save Fathom? And Indigo? And ourselves?"

Clearsight's eyes danced as she grabbed a couple of futures to examine, but she was blocked by a wave of exhaustion. "I don't know."

Darkstalker leaned in and rested his head over her shoulder. She mirrored his actions, resting her head on his. Three moons, he was so tired too. "Don't act like you haven't been hoping for this," he said gently. "I wouldn't have done what I did back there if I wasn't certain that you wanted to be queen."

"Shut up," Clearsight said, but he felt her smile against his scales. The feel of her breath on his back made him feel like he was melting. "It's not that I don't want it. I just … always feel like it's too soon."

"Mmhmm," he said, starting to rock side-to-side. "Why don't we both get some sleep?"

"I'm not tired," she said, muttering.

"Liar."

"Let me pretend. There's too much I need to do."

"That Lieutenant Morningstar seems to have things figured out. Besides, you need to be thinking straight if you're going to have any chance at figuring things out. Now come on, let me be your blanket. I need to get some sleep too, and I want to be squeezing my favorite pillow."

Clearsight leaned harder on him, which hopefully was an indication that he was being persuasive. She detached from their embrace, and nodded. "Alright," she said. "Douse the lantern."

Darkstalker blew out the oil lamp on the desk in their tent, and the space went dark. Before his eyes adjusted, he heard Clearsight collapsing on her bed of straw. He carefully made his way across the room, but still tripped over some armor that he had left on the floor. He cushioned his fall by landing on Clearsight. She didn't complain or grumble, but instead just settled beneath his wing, in that space that was the perfect size for her.

"You never found my watch, did you?" she asked.

Darkstalker deflated. "No," he admitted. "I searched for hours, but I couldn't find it. We'll need to use the scroll to retrieve it, once we get it back."

Clearsight tensed up under his wing. "They might have the scroll," she said.

"I know," Darkstalker said. "I'm going to go to the palace first thing tomorrow. I'll take my mom's invisibility ring and scout around. Hopefully I can find Fathom and ask him where the scroll is. Hopefully nobody else has found it yet."

"You do that," Clearsight agreed. "I'll stay behind and keep looking for the watch in the meantime. I don't think I can rest easily until I know that nobody's going to find it and reset the timeline on me."

Darkstalker tried not to think too hard about that possibility. About the possibility that everything he'd known for the past few years would be completely undone, and that he'd never know it happened.

He wouldn't tell Clearsight that he was pretty sure the watch wasn't on the battlefield anymore. He'd searched that area as thoroughly as he could, and he knew exactly where Clearsight had been when she dropped it. He'd already had his own panic attacks, worrying over all the things that could've happened to it, and how most of those things left the very real possibility of the button getting pressed. Clearsight might have those same panic attacks later, but she didn't need them now. Now, she needed to sleep.

And besides, every passing hour offered him a little bit more comfort. If the button hadn't been pressed yet, maybe it wouldn't be pressed at all until they found it. If a crow had picked it up, maybe it dropped it in a dark, shadowy ravine. If a scavenger found it, maybe it got thrown on a treasure stash with a thousand other shiny trinkets and forgotten. If an IceWing found it, maybe it would be a long time before they made it back to the Ice Kingdom and they decided to look at it again.

He didn't have a lot of time. But paradoxically, the more time that passed, the more time it felt like they had left.

"I'm sure we'll find it soon," Darkstalker assured her. "Wherever it is, it doesn't seem like it's getting pressed, right?"

Clearsight didn't answer. Her breathing was heavy. Peaceful.

Darkstalker twined his tail around hers and closed his eyes, trying to follow suit.

His dreams were chaotic and disturbing. Nightmares lashed in his mind about everyone he cared about. Fathom getting beheaded for being an animus. Acuity being able to see Darkstalker while he was invisible with an extra pair of eyes in the back of her head. An IceWing noble playing around with Clearsight's watch, asking Darkstalker what the button did, and not listening when he warned him not to press it.

In his worst nightmare, someone did press the button. But time didn't reset for him. It only froze. Darkstalker was stuck, unable to move or breathe, in a perpetual existence in which he had full awareness.

He eventually woke up, sucking in a breath of air. He sat up, clutching his chest, and took deep breaths. His eyes darted around the room, and reality began to settle into his mind. Only a dream. It was only a dream.

Clearsight was gone. The spot on the bed where she'd slept wasn't warm anymore either. He got up and left the tent, only to find that it was sometime in the late afternoon. Most of the soldiers were gone, which probably meant that they were out with Clearsight cleaning up the mess on the battlefield and looking for the watch.

And that meant that he probably shouldn't be here anymore either. His mom was probably still sleeping in one of the tents, and Darkstalker set out to find her.

She ended up being at the fire pit that they'd made last night, tearing into a small hog that she had probably hunted only a few minutes ago. She turned her head as Darkstalker approached her.

"Good afternoon, my young son," she greeted, shifting to the side to make room for him. "Want some breakfast?"

"Sure!" he said, taking a seat beside her and tearing some meat off of the carcass. He felt his mother's smile on him as he took his first bites, and bashfully averted his eyes as the warmth crept into his chest.

It was strange seeing Foeslayer as anything but his mother, but it had been something that Darkstalker was forced to face repeatedly these past twenty-four hours. He knew logically that she was a war hero, and that she had been for quite some time now. But it was always 'out there' where she was the war hero, away from him. She would be busy doing her death-defying missions, and Darkstalker would be in the palace playing with Fathom or helping Clearsight with her strategy plans. Then Foeslayer would return to the palace and go right back to pointing out the spots where his scales were shedding, and reminding him to apply oil to those spots every evening.

But now they were together out in the field, and he had to be with her when she was a soldier first, and his mother second.

Actually, no, that wasn't right. She was still his mother first. That much had been clear when he saw the look on her face after he'd found her on the pile of rubble. But their interactions had taken on an air of professionalism that he wasn't used to. It was in the way they'd discussed how they could rouse the soldiers into overthrowing the monarchy and installing Clearsight as queen. It was in the way she drew out the outline of the palace walls in the dirt and explained the logistics of a siege with the army they had. It was even in the way that she eventually admitted that she was exhausted beyond belief, and asked Darkstalker if they could hurry things along and get back to Clearsight's camp so that she could get some shut-eye.

His mother put an arm over his shoulder, and he leaned into her. Then she leaned into him, and reached her other arm around and embraced him. Her wings blanketed his body in a tight cocoon. She stank, but so did everyone else, so it was easy to ignore. It was only when he felt the heat of her breath running down his back that he wondered where this unprovoked hug was coming from.

"I love you, Darkstalker," she said with a shaky voice. "I love you so, so much."

Darkstalker returned the embrace, feeling a little embarrassed despite nobody else being around them. "I love you too," he said. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," she said quickly. She let go of him and started wiping her eyes. "Yes, everything's fine. It's just … I was afraid I'd never see you again. Back when I was hiding in the fortress, and wondering if my plan would kill me or not. It got me thinking about all the things I never got to say."

"Well, I'm here now," Darkstalker said. "And I'm happy to listen."

Foeslayer let out a small, embarrassed chuckle as she thought about her next words. "You know … nobody has ever really figured out how to be a parent, I don't think. Everyone just figures things out as they go along. When you have hatchlings of your own, you'll be surprised by how much of your job is just hoping that you don't mess up too badly."

Darkstalker shook his head. "No, you were a perfect mother as far as I could tell."

"Oh no, I definitely was not," she said. She was smiling as she said it, but it didn't seem to sit on her face quite right. "You might have an easier time forgetting my mistakes, but I remember them."

"Name one," he challenged, earnest curiosity in his voice.

"Alright, here's one that I was thinking about this morning," she started. "Do you remember when you were about a year-and-a-half old and I tore up a picture you made for me?"

Darkstalker thought for a second, then shook his head. "No, I don't."

"Well, it was sometime in the summer. We were at the park, and you were just getting used to flying, and you were zipping all over the place. I kept on shouting, 'Darkstalker, get back here!' because you'd keep flying up in the sky and I couldn't keep an eye on you. And then whenever you came back down, you'd tease your dad by whacking him with your tail and pretending it was an accident."

That much Darkstalker remembered. He remembered it quite fondly, in fact.

"And then your dad got mad at you, and then I got mad at you and told you to stop. But you didn't listen, and eventually your dad bit you on the tail when you tried hitting him again."

Darkstalker laughed.

"Don't laugh, it's not funny!" Foeslayer said, laughing. "Because you started crying, and then I got mad at your dad, and your dad got mad at me, and all of us went home angry."

All of this Darkstalker remembered. "So where does the painting come in?"

"Well, after we went home, you went and started painting with your sister. I think you made a painting of yourself flying over the moons."

Darkstalker's eyes lit up. "Now I remember! When I finished it, I kept shoving it in your face because you didn't want to see it."

"Because I was still angry at you!" she said, half teasingly, half defensively.

"I totally forgot those two things happened on the same day," Darkstalker remarked.

"And that's why I tore it in half after you shoved it in my face for the third time," she said.

Darkstalker waved a talon. "That wasn't a big deal. You were in a bad mood and I was bothering you."

"Except it was a big deal. You know why I know?"

Darkstalker didn't say anything, assuming the question was rhetorical.

"Because that was the last time you ever painted something for me."

At first, he thought that that couldn't be true. He painted a lot when he was a kid. It was fun, and he never cared if his creations looked good or not. He only really stopped when … when ….

"I did that with your father a lot too," Foeslayer said.

Darkstalker tilted his head. "Did what?"

"Punished him for doing things that I wanted him to do," she said. "Have you ever wondered why he never admits to feeling anything other than angry? He only got like that after he kept trying to open up to me at the wrong time, and I wasn't ready to hear it."

"No," Darkstalker said with some force to his voice. "You can admit that you're not a perfect mother, but I'm not going to let you blame yourself for Arctic being rotten to the core."

"I know the things I said to him, Darkstalker."

"He destroyed his soul with his own magic. You had nothing to do with that."

"Actually, I did, but that's beside the point." Foeslayer placed a talon on Darkstalker's lips to keep him from interrupting her. "Darkstalker, I want to take responsibility here. The less responsibility I'm willing to take, the less control I'm willing to admit that I have. And you know how much of a control freak I am, so let me have this."

Darkstalker soured his face, but he nodded, and Foeslayer lowered her talon.

"The truth is, I really didn't want to hear about Arctic's problems most of the time. I didn't want to hear about how much he missed the Ice Kingdom, or how much he hated the weather here, or all the other things that bothered him about the Night Kingdom. I always took his feelings so personally, like he was telling me that he regretted falling in love with me and leaving everything behind to be with me."

"I mean, you weren't wrong," Darkstalker said cynically. "I'm pretty sure he regrets everything, including me." It was one of the deeper, more subconscious reasons for why he hated his father. Terrible parenting aside, he couldn't forgive Arctic, knowing that in his eyes, he and Whiteout were mistakes.

"Yes, that's true," Foeslayer admitted, a bit to Darkstalker's surprise. "But it wasn't always true. And I think that if I had actually tried listening to him, understanding him, being there when he needed me to assure him that everything was okay, he might not have regretted it."

Darkstalker flicked his ear. "He destroyed his soul with his own magic," he said again. "He was already gone, mom."

"Yeah, that's the convenient excuse, isn't it?" she said. "There was nothing I could have done to help him, so there was no point in trying."

"It's not an excuse. It—"

"—It is an excuse," she said. "I really did believe it for a long time, but that didn't make it any less of an excuse."

"So you don't believe it anymore?"

"No," she said. "The thing is, the way he changed … makes sense. He killed IceWings when he tried to run away with me. Did you know that that was an accident? He never meant to kill anyone."

"I know," Darkstalker said. Arctic always liked to make that clear whenever it was mentioned in his presence.

"That had to weigh on his conscience. He was the first IceWing in centuries to break his tribe's sacred rules against using animus magic, and his impulsiveness got IceWings killed. Pile that on top of everything else — leaving his life as a royal prince behind only to be treated like a trinket by our own queen, leaving the snow and northern food behind in place of warmer weather that he wasn't used to, causing this devastating war that's only led to more NightWing and IceWing suffering — and of course he'd get angry. Oh, and that's not even mentioning the fact that we were both manipulated into running away in the first place."

Darkstalker tilted his head. "You were?"

"Oh, yes. Arctic later found out that the IceWing he was betrothed to wanted him gone. There was this big conspiracy that involved one of Arctic's cousins — it was a whole ordeal. But it also turned out that the whole reason the NightWings brought me to the Ice Kingdom in the first place was because I was cute and likable and might end up wooing Arctic into giving me an animus child." She sighed. "Even today, it angers me that they were right. But obviously I'd do it all again if I had the chance." She emphasized her point by using her wing to pull him closer to her.

"Is there a point to this?" Darkstalker asked. "Because if you're expecting me to start liking Arctic, I'm afraid it's too little too late."

"No, I wouldn't expect you to," she said. "My point is that you would have liked Arctic. You would have liked the Arctic that I met, that I fell in love with." She was now looking right at him, and he at her. "That Arctic has a lot in common with you. And that is a good thing, but it also scares me a little. It's good that you're trying to protect your soul from your magic, but if magic wasn't the only thing that changed Arctic's soul, it won't be the only thing that can change yours either."

Darkstalker nodded, then shook his head. "I don't think you have anything to worry about," he said. "I'm always keeping an eye on my soul. Being a better dragon is hard sometimes, but I'm never going to stop trying."

There was a glimmer in Foeslayer's eye as she smiled back at him. "Of course you aren't," she said. "Now, I think you have a palace to sneak into, am I right? I shouldn't keep you any longer." She pulled a ring off of her talon and handed it to him. "Remember: put it on your left talon to make yourself invisible. It won't do anything if you put it on your right."

"Noted," Darkstalker said with a nod. He slipped it onto his right talon, tore off another large piece of the hog, and rose to his feet. "I'll make sure Arctic is okay as well."

"You stay safe, alright?"

Darkstalker chuckled. "I'll do my best. We'll see each other again soon."

He took to the sky and began flying south. As the encampment shrank beneath him and the wind passed over his scales, he realized that he never got the opportunity to say any sort of goodbye to Clearsight. It didn't particularly matter, since he'd be back soon enough. But this would be the second time that they parted ways unceremoniously, and it made Darkstalker realize how much it bothered him. He wanted to Clearsight with him. She made every situation better, both because he loved her to pieces and because her future sight was enormously helpful. But mostly because he loved her to pieces. Whenever they did have to part ways, he wanted to have a positive, fresh memory of her on his mind. He wanted to have the feel of her scales baked into his mind, and the words 'I love you, and 'I'll see you again soon' in her voice bouncing in his head.

He'd be sure to compensate with a surplus of affection when they reunited. He always did.


A/N: Hey guys! NaNoWriMo was a half-success. Didn't write 50,000 words, but I got more writing done than I usually do.

What basically happened was I wrote 80% of one big chapter. I finished the rest of it during the first half of December, then decided that it was worth splitting up into two chapters instead. If this chapter feels like it ends a little bit abruptly, that's why.

The second half is fully written, but you'll have to wait a little bit for it. I want to insert a short Clearsight chapter first, and that needs to be written up.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you all next time.