— Chapter 12 —
The trip back to Lake Scorpion was filled with a horrifying, silent dread, nobody said a single word or made any sound besides the beating of their wings, and Luna couldn't blame them, she felt just as bad as the rest, maybe even more so, because her hopes had been shattered the most.
Pointless, useless, worthless! You finally manage to be the one to put an end forever to your evil monarch, and what happens next? Oh you just lose anyway and someone else steps in! How is that fair!? Luna roared within her mind, wanting so hard to scream.
But literally nothing could be done, the world clearly wanted to mess with her, and she couldn't really retaliate against the world and destiny itself or whatever that is, only sigh in annoyance and keep on flying.
Danaid, Pierid, Clearwing… All of them were dead and their families would never see them again. And Sundew is still alive, but she might as well be a living husk with how her "life" is going to be, because as far as they know, there's still nothing to counteract the Breath of Evil.
And worst of all! Blue… Seeing her brother like this, a loving, peaceful and curious dragon turned into yet another enemy, having him being used as the ultimate trick to finally capture Sundew, it did not feel like a gut punch, but more like if a Hivewing stabbed her chest with a stinger, repeatedly.
At last, after several hours of an unnervingly silent flight, the blue surface of Lake Scorpion was in sight, which meant that they were very close to the caverns where they'll get to meet up with Bullfrog, Sky and Wren to give the… Less than good news.
They began to descend and flew straight to the vines and leaves concealing the entrance to the cave that Sundew had placed and then they got through, landing on the solid rock ground.
"Let's get further inside, make sure we're a few turns deep and then I'll turn us visible," Tsunami grunted, speaking the first words in a long while.
They walked slowly, based on the sounds and vibration that she caught, a few of the members appeared to be sticking very close to the walls.
"They're small and not too obvious, but there's some claw marks pointing in this direction, probably Bullfrog signaling us," Qibli's voice said. "Moon, do you sense anything this way?"
There was a moment of silence until Moon made a confused sound. "There's a lot of noise in that direction, easily over a hundred different minds, but I can hardly make out what they say yet."
"A hundred?" Lynx said in alarm. "Are they possessed dragons?"
"No, they have to be regular dragons," Moon said. "These mind controlled ones are weird to read, I can see some of their actual thoughts, but they're combined with what either Wasp or Cottonmouth is thinking from my perspective, that's not happening here."
Luna listened with some interest, hearing more about the absolutely wacky thing that is reading minds, even making her wonder for a short second just how good or annoying it might even be. Does she ever feel migraines from that? Luna could almost feel one just by imagining herself listening to most of her Hive.
"I felt them at first, Luna, but by now I've learned to control it quite well," Moon annoyingly responded to her thoughts.
"Creeeeeeepy," Luna replied, shaking her invisible head a bit.
"I-In case you're all forgetting, we're here too," Heliconian squeaked. "W-What are you even talking about? Minds? Thoughts? Huh?"
"Oh right, you don't know. She can read minds," Luna casually relieved, making Heliconian yelp in surprise.
"And we're only being told about this NOW!? Oh dirtworms, what have you seen?" Fritillary's voice said in a gruff tone.
Moon let out a sigh. "Not a lot because I've been very distracted with everything else, and sorry for not mentioning it earlier to you three, but we were either fighting against the queen of the Hivewings, or running away."
"Makes sense to me," Cacao replied, and Luna felt taken aback by his tone, which had turned into a melancholic, sad whisper. "I don't think any of us 3 got anything to hide, so I don't really care."
"Speak for yourself," Fritillary grunted but stopped for now.
"Aaaanyway, change of plans then," Tsunami's voice said after that conversation. "We'll remain invisible and follow these mental tracks to see what exactly is over there, and only if it's friends then we'll show ourselves."
"Makes sense, and if Bullfrog's signals align that way, then it's likely they're over there too," Qibli added.
Everyone else silently mumbled their agreement and they kept moving on, with Moon and Tsunami taking the lead and directing them through the caverns to follow the minds of the supposedly one hundred dragons.
They walked at a slow but consistent pace for a while across the tunnels, and Luna actually felt glad that Moon had the mind reading. She saw just how many turns and different tunnels there were on the way, so they absolutely would have gotten lost otherwise.
Moon suddenly spoke up after a while. "There's a dragon nearby, and I think he's placed as a guard?"
"What is he thinking of?" Qibli asked with a curious tone.
"About how hungry he is, and he's apparently mad that the "underground monkeys" can't be eaten anymore now?" Moon replied, her tone turning confused by the end.
"Monkeys in a cave? Wow, your Pantalan monkeys are different from ours," Pineapple questioned.
"It likely refers to humans living here," Cricket explained. "So wait, if he just can't, then it might mean that Wren and the others are over there and showing the news!"
"That would make sense," Qibli's voice replied. "I hope Bullfrog is fine so we can have some long chats again. Should we show ourselves to the guard here?"
"It might look slightly scary if we appeared in front of the entire group of 100 or more dragons out of thin air without warning, so to be safe and knowing our friends should be there, I say so," Luna agreed.
"Fine, if trouble happens then I'll just turn it back on," Tsunami replied, and now everyone turned visible a moment later.
"Hey! You missed a few dragons passing through!" Tsunami said to the darkness, her head turned to a specific direction.
"What the-?" Luna heard a voice coming from that direction, and her antennae sensed movement.
"Hey there, fellow survivor, have our friends passed by and mentioned us?" QIbli said in a casual tone.
Luna managed to see green scales approaching, and there was now a Leafwing hovering above them with eyes wide open.
"What… What am I even looking at?" He asked in a bewildered tone after seeing four Silkwings, a Rainwing, a Sandwing, a Nightwing, a Seawing, an Icewing and a Hivewing, with his eyes narrowing upon seeing the latter, but Lynx noticed and stepped closer to Cricket.
"Reinforcements," Tsunami stated. "We've arrived from the far away continent named Pyrrhia, and we're here to set things right."
"Yep, the lack of food and hearing talking monkeys has done it, I've gone crazy," the Leafwing said in a deadpan tone as he shook his head.
"Not any sort of hallucination, it's for real, we are here to help," Moon said gently.
The Leafwing gave Moon a better look, and now his face turned puzzled and surprised.
"By the trees, I've seen drawings and read descriptions of you before, but how could this be? Are you Clearsight?" He questioned, and that made Luna laugh for a moment.
"Not exactly, I'm from her same tribe, and I have no idea about whether or not we might be related," Moon admitted.
"This is all so crazy, I thought these other ones would be the end of the wackiness, and yet here we are," the Leafwing said.
"So the others did come over here!" Qibli said. "Can you bring us over to the rest? We really have to talk to everyone else, and quite soon."
"But why is a Hivewing with you?" The green dragon asked with disdain, looking at Cricket warily.
"Wasp is not in me, she cannot control my body," Cricket quickly replied. "I've been helping as I could in the fight against the queen."
"And more than just help, she helped steal the Book of Clearsight, read it, and spread the truth," Luna jumped in, feeling that after literally aiding in the fight against Wasp in her own throne room, Cricket didn't need someone showing distrust right now.
Their words appeared to appease the Leafwing, whose expression relaxed ever so slightly, but he still looked unsure.
"We're Sundew's friends, by the way," Qibli suddenly chimed in.
"Oh," the Leafwing said. "Could've just started there and I would be feeling far less of a headache right now."
"Great! So since we passed the Sundew test, can we go along to meet up with the others?" Qibli said happily.
Since the Leafwing still didn't look 100% sure, Fritillary suddenly said with a huff. "What's with the hold up you dirty twig? Do you plan to keep us here until we dry out and rot? We just came back from an extremely tiring encounter and fought directly against that so-called queen while you were probably rooted in this place and eating soil while growing moss, but of course you won't learn any of that if you don't let us through, you piece of bark!"
That was enough to make the Leafwing jump as he looked at them with his eyes wide open, while at the same time looking thoroughly offended by that barrage of insults "You fought Wasp? As in, in person? Not just her controlling others?"
"Yes, a very interesting story, with a lot of twists, I'm sure everyone will want to hear the news," Tsunami said impatiently.
This appeared to be enough to finally convince him as he gave a nod. "Fine, I'm sure Hemlock will want to hear what Sundew's friends have to say."
"Sundew's dad? He's here?" Cricket asked surprised.
"Yes," the Leafwing replied but didn't seem like he'd say much more."Let's go. And by the way, name's Pokeweed."
After he introduced himself, he turned around and began to guide the large group deeper into the caverns, going inside several different tunnels and passing by many others, and eventually after what must've been close to an hour, Luna's antennae felt a significant amount of movement some distance away.
They went through one more entrance, and suddenly found themselves overlooking an underground lake, and several dragons were scattered around it. Mostly Silkwings, but there were also a few Leafwings in sight.. Either sitting down or resting, talking or moving around the lake.
And she was able to see all that because glow silk was placed in jars around the room at different spots, giving off enough light to make this whole room visible at the very least.
With how focused she was on the whole "save Pantala from an evil tyrant and don't end up as a zombie", she never really had much time to appreciate the scenery and think the way she once did when things were more peaceful. But now, seeing this eerie yet pretty and peaceful view, her mind wandered for a few moments into an artistic interpretation of the scene.
If I were to make a tapestry out of this, I'd use greys and darker colors in the middle, that expand into a soft array of different colors from the many dragons present and illuminated by the light, which would be depicted as golden colors by the outer edges. And it should be able to emote a feeling of a melancholic peace on the viewer.
Luna was able to see familiar faces too. Sky was very easy to spot and he appeared to be laughing happily while a few Silkwing dragonets were crowding around and looking at something on the floor with great interest, most likely Wren.
Some distance away, Bullfrog's big and burly figure was very evident, with him standing close to a rather big Leafwing, as Bullfrog was nodding or shaking his head while the other dragon appeared to be asking something.
Among a group of nearby Silkwings, a purple one turned his head, and Luna recognized Clubtail, who looked excited.
"Oh you're back! I'm glad about that. This was quite the trip, we followed your directions and needed a while to find the cave, all the while Ad was complaining and then we got here and we got lost for an hour then we stumbled upon an odd brown dragon and some funny monkeys! And we moved on and on and then A LEAFWING appeared! A Leafwing! And he brought us to all these other dragons and MORE Leafwings! Isn't that crazy? And since everything was so dark we used some Flamesilk and now we're here and I cannot wrap my head around anything," Clubtail said very quickly.
His blabbering caught the attention of the surrounding dragons, who turned their heads to them as well, with a few getting on edge or standing up after spotting Cricket, but for the most part it was a lot of weird looks directed to the Pyrrhians.
But among the dragons who looked at Cricket, a pale yellow Silkwing looked shocked before letting out a big smile.
"Cricket? You're here too!" She said happily.
"Tau!" Cricket yelped, quickly running forward to the yellow dragon, startling her as she brought her wings around the Silkwing, although that action caused some nearby Silkwings to hiss, while a nearby Leafwing looked ready to fight.
But Tau turned around quickly and looked at these dragons. "Don't worry, this is Cricket, the dragon who found the truth about the Book of Clearsight. And also the one who uncovered how Wasp controls her Hivewings! She's an ally and a friend!"
That caused the nearby Silkwings to be more at ease as they whispered excitedly to each other, looking at Cricket with some newfound respect now. And meanwhile, someone else was approaching.
"... You're back… I am so glad about it…" Bullfrog said as he stood up and walked to them, and so did the Leafwing that he was talking to.
"You must be his friends," he simply stated, not even asking or anything.
"If Bullfrog already told you, that's right! We brought reinforcements from the Distant Kingdoms. Also we've met before," Cricket jumped straight to talking, looking at the Leafwing.
"I remember you," he said with a nod before looking again at the others. "I'm Hemlock."
Luna and her group presented themselves, and by the time they were done, several other dragons had approached them as well.
"You're alive," croaked an old, tired voice, and Luna saw Whitespeck coming closer alongside the other Flamesilks. "That's a surprise, but a good one at least."
"Did you ever have any doubts?" Xenica said from his side. "Because I didn't, I just thought to myself "There is no way that many important and unique dragons could lose", and lo and behold, I was right as usual."
"I was conflicted for sure," Clubtail added. "Because I saw that odd blue dragon just like you," Tsunami glared at him for a moment when he said that. "And I heard how there were going to be more like her from a distant kingdom, and it sounded awesome, but Wasp is also so powerful and she can do so much, that I didn't know if anything short of an army of new dragons could do anything, but if they're here it must mean that they won, right? Unless they decided to perform a tactical retreat, which could be too."
And lastly, Admiral had approached several steps behind from the others, and Luna saw him direct his gaze at her for a second before quickly looking anywhere else but her direction.
"Hey dad, I'm back," Luna said, trying to act casual about it, as if she were just telling her father that she's back home after coming back from school.
His gaze shifted from side to side, looking at the many dragons from Pyrrhia, then to the Flamesilks that had accompanied them, and he frowned slightly.
"Not all of you are back," he said, and Luna could feel Cacao shifting on his talons next to her.
"W-We… Realistically couldn't have done everything without suffering any… losses," Heliconian said awkwardly, looking down to the ground.
The other Flamesilks looked in shock, even Clubtail had remained silent while looking pained by the news. Whitespeck sighed sadly and shook his head, and Admiral just looked straight down to the ground.
"What do you think about that, Ad? Satisfied and fulfilled because a few "traitors" got taken care of? That's probably what you think, you slimy insect," Fritillary told him, and Admiral did not say anything, just backing away for now.
At the same time, Sky was approaching, with many dragonets following right behind in curiosity and amazement while the Skywing gave them all a wide smile.
"Yay! You came back! I had hoped everything would work out, and I also kind of couldn't wait to see you all to share all the news!" He said happily as he turned around a bit to show his back, and Luna saw more than just Wren on his back, there were two humans now.
"The moment you left, we put hands and talons into doing our part, and managed to find this very nice human who accepted to help us as a guide to that creepy abyss!" Sky said proudly.
"Great job, Sky, those are some great news to hear," Qibli said with a grin and a nod, making the gleeful dragon even happier.
"Oh Clearsight! Another human, and this one from Pantala! Oh I'd love to ask so many questions about how humans live in this place, how they got books, and all of human history," Cricket said excitedly.
"Maybe after we're done with this whole crazy quest and I teach them Dragon," Wren commented from Sky's back. "Anyway, this is Axolotl, we met them close to the entrance soon after you left, and like Sky said, they told us there's something about a human village near the abyss and they can get us there."
Wren chirped something to Axolotl in human, who squeaked back before looking at them all and giving a small wave.
"What you say is interesting," Hemlock suddenly said once more. "Could you give context?"
Luna sheepishly rubbed the back of her head with a talon, realizing that once more they've been saying a lot of things when next to very much uninformed dragons, whoops.
"All of you might want to sit down, there's both good and bad news," Moon told them.
All of the surrounding dragons did so, and Luna could feel their eyes looking straight at them as she took a deep breath. The good news are very good, but the bad news are really bad as well.
"Okay everybody!" Tsunami exclaimed after clearing her throat and putting on a regal voice. "We went over to Wasp Hive as part of our mission, and reached the queen's throne room… And then we kicked her tail and killed her!"
Okay, that is being very straight to the point, and everyone else was in a stunned silence for just a second, before the cave exploded into cheering and chatter, every single dragon standing up.
"Impossible!"
"The queen is dead? Oh we didn't even do anything!"
"It's… Over? It's all done?"
"Can we finally come back out?"
"The Leafwings will finally find peace!"
"The queen is dead? Oh Clearsight, that is such wonderful news, but I wonder who'll be the next ruler, since Wasp did not have any dragonets, right? Is one of her sisters going to take the throne? Are we going to lack a queen? Oh this is so crazy!"
"What about the creepy dragons? Is everyone back to normal?
"Is she TRULY dead?"
"Good, about time she kicked the bucket!"
The last voice caught Luna off guard, that sentence coming with a huff, and when she turned she spotted another Hivewing, and a rather old one at that.
"Wait, you…?" Luna said, blinking surprised. "Aren't you the dragon that my brother and I met at The Sugar Dream? Lady… Beetle?"
Luna could feel the gaze of a few dragons upon her after she said that, and the old Hivewing just let out a dry, short laugh.
"Scarab," she corrected. "And yes I remember that day, you had quite the arguing spirit in you, although I wouldn't have thought it'd get to the "face off against the queen" extent."
"How did you get here?" Cricket asked, surprised. "Is Lady Jewel alright?"
"Lady Scarab and Lady Jewel helped many of us escape from her Hive," Tau explained. "They're both here in the caves."
"Also, it wasn't just facing off against her," Luna added with a proud grin. "I delivered the killing blow to the queen."
That had the desired effect, making everyone whisper to each other in a bewildered tone and looking at her in awe and respect, many Silkwings having expressions showing that she might as well be their hero.
Luna knew that the whole situation wasn't sorted and that Wasp was only half of the issue, but she wanted something positive to come out of this, and at least her achievement would let her be happy with herself for a little time.
"It was a team effort," Tsunami suddenly chimed in. "But yes, Luna took off several body parts, and then her head too."
"Sounds to me like Wasp must have gone through a lot of pain," the old Hivewing said with a satisfied nod. "Assuming that I can ever go back home and still have my funds, then I'll be sure to reward you for giving her pain."
Luna smiled at this, now THAT is the positive reinforcement she needed. Of course she was doing all this because she hated Wasp and wanted her tribe to be free… But if someone also offers her a lot of scales for her good deeds so she can buy plenty of honey drops? Then she won't say no!
"So what else?" Scarab asked, suddenly turning her head at Tsunami. "So she's dead now, but what happened afterwards? Considering you're all here, I can assume you were forced to run anyway."
"Yeaaah, next up is some very bad news," Tsunami said with a huff.
"Oh by the trees, what could it possibly be now?" Pokeweed complained from behind.
"Oh, it's just that everyone else is still possessed," Qibli replied, gathering a look of baffled looks. "So apparently, there's a second presence, much older than Wasp, maybe even more totally evil, and they can also control others."
"What," Hemlock said, staring in disbelief, same as many others.
"That's right, and it's very annoying," Tsunami agreed with a grunt. "Now, I doubt it, but just in case, does the name "Cottonmouth" mean anything to any of you?"
All of the listening dragons looked to each other in confusion, then back to Tsunami, many apparently thinking about it for a few moments, before everyone shook their heads.
"It was worth a shot," Qibli assured Tsunami.
"This is a lot," Hemlock said. "Can you explain from the beginning?"
The next half hour was spent telling and explaining most of the situation, alongside a narration of the most significant events.
Needless to say, learning that his wife is dead and his daughter had just been taken over by an evil plant was quite a lot to Hemlock based on his expression.
"Oh no," he muttered to himself. "This is awful."
Not exactly the reaction that Luna would be expecting, but then again he didn't look like the most eloquent dragon.
After all was said and done, Cricket turned to Pineapple with a curious expression.
"We saw Sundew hit herself with two darts at once, so do you have any idea for how long she might be knocked out?"
"Hm… Well, we were all given the strongest darts made by my tribe, the dose of a single one should have someone asleep for many hours and nobody ever had to use two. Hard to guess but I'd say it could be close to a day?" Pineapple said in thought, actually focusing on the question.
"That was very smart," Cricket quickly said. "I mean, her powers are the most important thing for Cottonmouth, so at least now she gave us some leeway of about a day to stop them."
"Yay, an extremely small time limit that I doubt we're beating considering our only clue is just to find a big hole!" Luna said in her most sarcastic tone.
"And we'll have to lose a few more hours of that timer," Tsunami added with a grunt. "Because as much as I absolutely hate to say it, I think we need at least an hour or two to rest."
Luna winced at this, but seeing the state that her companions were in, with Tsunami, Lynx and Qibli having taken plenty of hits, and Pineapple looking especially tired, it was clear they needed it.
The group began to spread around the cave, everyone finding their own spots to sleep, with Tsunami literally just going into the lake, much to the surprise and amazement of the other dragons.
Meanwhile, she decided to walk for a few minutes around the place before finding a spot to rest, looking at the many dragons around, most of them looking like a mixture of hopeful and terrified.
But there was one dragon in particular who didn't appear to be feeling either of these ways, but just sadness.
Cacao was laying down on the ground, away from the rest of dragons and staring down with his wings folded against his sides.
Seeing this, Luna just immediately knew that she had to do something, even if it is just to give some support. Cacao had just lost his brother, and she could barely even bear the thought of permanently losing a sibling like that.
So she stopped a few steps away from the brown Silkwing, who slowly looked up to her.
"Hm, hey there," Luna said.
"Hey."
"Do you think I could sit down?" She asked, awkwardly shuffling on her talons.
He merely gave a short nod after a moment, so she slowly sat down and turned her head to look at him before she let out a sigh.
"I'm sorry."
Cacao looked at her for a second before looking away and just staring at the lake under the glow of the flamesilk.
"Everyone that accepted your idea to fight Wasp, we knew that anyone could easily die," he said in a dry tone. "They knew it, I knew it, he knew it. And yet I can't believe that it actually happened after everything…"
Luna nodded, not saying much for now and just letting him talk so he could vent his frustrations if he needed to.
"All these years together… Yes, we were stuck in a cave, but at least we could rely on each other. And he didn't get to show it to you, but he had a good sense of humor, he made it so imprisonment was at least… Bearable."
"It sounds like he was a good brother," Luna said softly.
"Yes… He was," Cacao said with another sigh. "Oh I truly don't know what I'll be telling his dragonets if all of this is ever sorted out."
After a few moments of silence, he turned his head back to her with a sympathetic expression.
"And back at the throne room… That was your brother, right? He's very easy to remember, even though we admittedly never interacted when he was at the factory…."
Luna felt a sting of pain when he mentioned it. Having Cottonmouth use Blue like that, talking to her in his voice and then proceed to set off the fire… Whatever type of creature that Cottonmouth was, this truly made her want to cut them in pieces.
"That was Blue, my young brother, and I believe that there's no soul in Pantala that's more kind and helpful," Luna nodded, looking up to the ceiling.
"I got that feeling when my brother and I just looked at him from a distance, a good kid, that one," Cacao said with a short nod as well. "And I'm sorry for bringing that up, I just… Wanted to tell you that I truly hope there's a way to free all of them. After everything that's happened, at the very least you and your brother deserve being able to live your lives… Together.
"Thank you, there's literally nothing that I'd want more right now," Luna said with absolute honesty. And after a minute of both of them remaining silent, she gave Cacao a nod and a small smile and stood up.
Having a talk about brothers, and about Blue… It made Luna "do a Blue" as she called it the very few times she began to act like him. As in… She tried to put herself on Blue's talons, imagining being a kind, happy, innocent Flamesilk taken over by a horrible plant and forced to go against his own friends and family.
When she talked to Swordtail in dreams, he told her how he was still aware of what was happening even without controlling his own body. Was it the same for Blue? Did he see and feel everything that happened? Just how much despair he must be feeling right now, knowing that his body is the reason Sundew got captured?
Last time when she tried it after meeting Swordtail, she wasn't able to visit his dreams, his consciousness still active at that time. But now after everything she thought it would be best to try again, her little brother needed Luna.
She approached the lake and brought a talon down to the water, doing some splashing on the surface. "Tsunami? Can you hear me?" She called down, and literally a moment later, she saw ripples on the water's surface and the Seawing's head popped out, looking grumpy.
"You're very lucky I didn't actually fully fall asleep yet," she said with a short grunt. "What do you want?"
"I'm sorry for the interruption," Luna apologized before lowering her voice for a whisper. "But I wanted to ask if you could lend me that Dreamvisitor again."