Empowered AU

== The Dragonet Prophecy ==
=== Prologue ===
“Are you sure the RainWing will do?”
“It better. After what happened to Hvitur, we can’t risk going to the Sky Kingdom again.”
“And it's the brightest night. It’s too late to get another SkyWing egg.”
“Oh look, the MudWing is hatching.”
All of a sudden the almost-hatched egg started to roll away from the others and into bright moonlight.
“He’s attacking them!”
“Quick, put him in the river!”
There was a splash, presumably the newborn dragonet being put in the river.
“Webs, go grab the NightWing egg.”
Talonsteps on stone, and a dragon started to inspect the egg.
“Kestrel, come look at this.”
“What is it now?”
“It’s turning a weird colour.”
“It’s probably a NightWing thing. Just bring it over to the nest with the others.”
“It’s too late. It’s hatching.”
The newborn dragonet crawled out of his egg and turned his head up to the moonlight shining through the hole in the cavern roof. 
“He’s cute,” The blue-green dragon who had inspected the egg was now admiring the little dragonet. “What should we name him?”
“NightWings have weird names,” One of the other adult dragons, a rust-coloured one, offered. “Name him something weird.” She disappeared out of the cavern.
“How about Starflight?” The blue-green dragon picked him up gently. “Starflight. That sounds like a good NightWing name. I think.”
Starflight wriggled out of the blue-green dragon’s talons. He needed to find his nestmates and help them! He stumbled to the nest where the rust-coloured dragon and a third dragon with scarred, pale yellow scales were watching.
He clambered into the nest and found a small, golden egg that seemed promising from all the futures he could see. He wrapped his talons around the egg and pushed it in the direction of the silvery moonlight.
He could sense the three adult dragons’ feelings about this. The blue-green dragon was confused. The red one was annoyed. The pale yellow one was concerned about the egg. Starflight gave him a meaningful look, trying to tell him the egg would be all right.
“Now we have two little monsters,” the red dragon grinned.
“Awrk!” Starflight was not a monster! And he could tell the little brown dragonet in the river wasn’t either. Why didn’t she understand that he was just trying to help?
The blue-green dragon scooped him up as the yellow one placed the golden egg back in the nest.
“AWRK!” Starflight tried to escape the older dragon’s grasp. The egg was going to hatch soon! He needed to get her to the moonlight. “AWRK! AWRK! AWRK!”
“I'll bring him to the study cave,” the blue-green dragon suggested. “He likes the moonlight from the sky hole.”
Before the older dragon could do that, Starflight jumped out of his talons, crawling towards the nest. There was still time to get her to the moonlight.
“It doesn’t seem like he’s attacking the egg,” the blue-green dragon said as Starflight again started to roll the golden egg along the stone cavern floor. “He’s… trying to bring it to the moonlight.”
“Awrk!” Finally! Someone understood. Starflight kept nudging the egg to the bright silver light.
“We should let him,” the blue-green dragon said. “He’s just trying to help.”
“What if it does something to the egg?” The pale yellow dragon reached for the golden egg.
“AWRK!” Starflight nudged the older dragons talons away. “AWRK AWRK AWRK!”
“What’ll the moon even do?” the red dragon rolled her eyes. “Make it nocturnal?”
“Fine then,” the yellow dragon stepped back and let Starflight roll the golden egg away.
Once both Staflight and the egg were bathed in the silver light of the three full moons, Starflight put his talons on the egg and tried to summon the dragonet inside. The few cracks on the shell got larger and the egg turned a lighter yellow colour.
A tiny head popped out of the egg, golden yellow like her eggshell, with paler scales like teardrops on the corner of her eyes. She crawled out of the egg, her scales like bright sunlight in contrast to Starflight’s shadowy purplish-black.
The two dragonets turned their heads up towards the three full moons, shining bright in the sky.
=== Part One: Under The Mountain ===
Six Years Later…
==== Chapter 1 ====
Starflight lay in the study cave, wings over his head, trying to block out the yelling inside and outside his head. It wasn’t really working.
Battle training was his least favourite part of the day. It always gave him terrible headaches. Kestrel’s thoughts were angry and loud, like her voice, and Starflight could hear them from across the mountain cavern.
Kestrel was while grumbling internally about how Clay was a ‘stupid MudWing’, while yelling at him about being deaf. Clay was thinking about how he really would go deaf from Kestrel’s yelling. Starflight felt like that was extremely likely, but it wasn’t in any possible futures that he could see.
Starflight eventually decided to distract himself by focusing on the other dragons’ thoughts around him.
Tsunami, the SeaWing, was wishing she was the one doing battle training. Starflight could only wonder why. Battle training with Kestrel was terrible. The yelling and angry thoughts were closer, which made Starflight’s headaches worse, which made him terrible at fighting, which made Kestrel louder and angrier.
Glory, the RainWing, was just waking up from one of her afternoon naps under the sky hole in the study cave. It always baffled Starflight how she could sleep through Kestrel’s yelling.
Dune, a SandWing and one of the dragonet’s guardians along with Kestrel and Webs, was thinking about a dragon named Thorn. He thought about her a lot, as well as a bunch of other dragons whose names Starflight didn’t recognize. Starflight wondered who they all were. Probably friends or relatives that Dune knew before he joined the Talons.
Sunny, also a SandWing, was wondering what Webs would bring for dinner, which made Starflight wonder too. He reached half an hour into the future, searching the most likely path.
Starflight saw cows running around the hall, not unusual, and a lizard disappearing into Sunny’s mouth. He also saw one of the strange white crabs the dragonets often found in the river that ran through the underground cavern, which Sunny and Clay would split in half to share.
By then Kestrel’s yelling had stopped, but the angry thoughts had not, so battle training must be done for the day. There was a splash, which meant that Tsunami had just shoved Clay into the river.
The river that flowed through the underground cavern was Tsunami’s answer to everything. Tired? Jump in the river! Bored? Jump in the river! Kestrel tried to set you on fire? You guessed it; jump in the river! Probably a SeaWing thing. Who else would willingly swim in freezing-cold water?
Soon, Webs returned and the dragonets headed to the hall for dinner.
As usual, the dragonet’s minders had let the prey run around freely in the hall to let the dragonets practise their hunting skills.
Starflight! Tsunami’s thoughts beckoned him. Starflight! I need to talk to you. Get over here!
Starflight stepped over to where the SeaWing dragonet was, making sure the guardians didn’t notice.
It was impossible to hide Starflight’s mind-reading abilities from the guardians, but it was still useful for having sort of secret conversations. The other dragonets couldn’t read minds, so their private conversations were half mind-read and half spoken.
The future sight was easier to hide. Starflight never delivered cryptic prophecies like the one Morrowseer had delivered all those years ago. Starflight instead had webs of futures, where a single choice could spiral out and change everything. But the guardians didn’t know about that. Starflight could see a million terrible things that could happen if they ever figured it out. There were good things too, but it was safer if the minders didn’t know.
“What is it?” Starflight whispered.
I feel like it’s about time we escaped. Tsunami was acting perfectly calm, as if she wasn’t thinking crazy-dangerous ideas. We need to see the world. We’ve been locked up here underground for too long.
Many terrible futures unfolded in Starflight’s head.
A regal orange dragon snapping Dune’s neck.
The aftermath of a terrible battle, brown and white bodies lying dead in the mud.
A mountain exploding, lava everywhere, hundreds of dragons fleeing their home.
But if the dragonets stayed… There were terrible consequences to that too.
Glory, neck snapped, in her sleeping cave.
An angry red dragonet, fighting with Tsunami.
NightWings burning in a fiery lake of red-hot lava.
Starflight hadn’t realised he’d gotten lost in his visions until Tsunami had snapped him back to reality.
What is it? Tsunami thought. Will something terrible happen if we escape? Or will something terrible happen if we don’t?
“Both,” Starflight whispered. “For once, there’s no right way. No matter what we do, terrible things will happen.”
Well that’s… comforting. Tsunami thought. Are there any that are less terrible than the others?
Starflight shook his head slowly.
Well then what do we do? Tsunami asked in her mind.
“I don’t know,” Starflight answered.
We can’t do nothing, Tsunami thought. We can’t just wait around for one of those terrible futures to happen. We need to do something, and soon. I already talked to Clay.
“And what does he think about all this?” Starflight asked.
He told me that he’d think about it, Tsunami answered.
Category:Alternate Universes
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)