Searching in the Dark

==General Stuff==
===Author's Note===
This is something of a collaboration. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it is. One day we were on chat and I decided to write a fanfic about an epic quest where we all go as dragons to find our favourite believed-to-be-dead characters (plus Darkstalker, whom I love very much, but in a platonic way).
Please enjoy!
Also, each chapter and part is accompanied by quotes from television shows, movies, and the like that I find fitting.
Sorry it's taking such a long time to write. I'm paying special attention to editing because it freaks me out.
Also, my writing is suuuuper crappy right now. Please forgive me. Okay, thanks.
Also also, Matau is generously offering periodic editing services and fixing my tense issues (ooppppps) and offering me fabulous feedback which I quite like so thank you so very much, Matau! x3
===List of wiki people represented in the story===
IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE (more will appear as I continue writing)
*Waterdrops as Cascade (and le writer)
*Matau99 as Morrowseerworshipper (also as editor)
*Luster the rainwing as Thorelle
*Avillan as Dugong
*Shadespots as Lettuce
*Glory's Crowning as Crowning
*MacabreDragons as Macabre
*DragonSage1331 as Leopard
*.oOEclipseOo. as Polyp
*Seaviper the seawing as Spellcaster
*Hipsterdrops as Ione
*ForsakenFeather as Prick 
===Drive Links===
I type these in Google Drive and then copy and paste them in, so the formatting's a little screwy and stuff and there's probably a bunch of annoying stuff (namely the indents ughhhh), so if you would prefer to read them in a Drive file, the links will be here by chapter. If you see a typo, please tell me!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
==Part I: Darkstalker==
===Chapter One===
«Come on, then. Team Not Dead.»
“Will you please - Morrowseerworshipper!” Cascade stopped to yell at the innocent NightWing. “Do you really have to carry that?”
She looked about to continue, but Morrowseerworshipper fixed her with such a fierce glare that Cascade just rolled her eyes and poked him with her tail.
“Stop it,” Thorelle snapped, barely looking up from the snow.
“Who bit your tail?” Morrowseerworshipper muttered. Cascade snorted a bit in agreement.
They had been in the IceWing Kingdom for three whole days now. Thorelle and Leopard were the crabbiest of the bunch. Morrowseerworshipper had said, “It's probably because they aren’t accustomed to the weather,” but in all honestly, the rest weren't either.
“Are we there yet?”
Cascade glared at Dugong and growled, “Shut up,” before dissolving into helpless laughter.
The only dragon that seemed to be reacting well was Lettuce, but that was a given, considering her status as an IceWing. Even Crowning was in a crabby mood.
They were a pathetic group.
They'd met at the academy.
Cascade and Lettuce were in the same winglet and clawmates. Morrowseerworshipper was also in the winglet. Thorelle was Cascade’s and Lettuce’s clawmate too, but the winglet was not exactly the most social with each other - Morrowseerworshipper less so with anyone else in the winglet - until Thorelle found out that Morrowseerworshipper lived up to his name. As soon as dragons from other winglets heard about the empty hearse type group developing in the Jade Winglet, more than half the academy sneered and turned against them - but there was also a sizeable group that had the same thoughts.
So now they were trekking through the snow.
“Remind me again,” said Macabre, with a hint of detectable sarcasm, “why we’re looking for Darkstalker?”
“Because,” Morrowseerworshipper said matter-of-factly, “Darkstalker is one of the oldest dragons out there.”
“How do we even know if he’s still alive? Or maybe he’s never even existed in the first place,” Leopard interrupted skeptically.
Cascade whipped around, almost hitting Lettuce with her tail. “Listen. You did not come with us to question the existence of a central part of our quest. So you can either keep on or leave.”
That shut everydragon up.
“The snow is clearing up,” Lettuce said, narrowing her eyes at the ground ahead of them. “We might be able to fly out to the mountains.”
As if on cue with Lettuce's words, the temperature began to rise. Thorelle triumphantly spread her wings and took off as soon as the sky started to clear, shaking all the snow from her scales.
“It’s definitely warming up,” she said, brightening considerably.
“I say if we make it to the base of the mountains by the time it’s completely dark,” calculated Crowning patiently, “then we can lay in for the night.”
“There’s not really another option,” Lettuce pointed out, taking off and settling into flight alongside Thorelle.
“It’s not that far anyway,” Spellcaster said anxiously.
“It’s getting dark, though,” Macabre observed quietly, with a meaningful glance at Polyp beside it.
Polyp joined Cascade and Dugong up front and flashed her stripes, casting a dim, murky glow ahead of the motley group to light the way.
After a considerable amount of time, they finally reached the mountains.
“Ugh,” Macabre muttered darkly, “I can’t think why we thought that this would be a good idea.”
“Doing what?” Spellcaster snorted a flame into the air, brightening the area, if only for a few seconds.
“Coming into the IceWing Kingdom,” Macabre explained carelessly.
“The question you should be asking,” said Crowning, approaching them and sitting back, “is what made us think Glacier would know anything about Darkstalker, period.”
“No, not that.” Spellcaster shook her head. “She probably knows all about him; she’s just not telling us.”
“So basically we wandered around in the freezing cold for nothing,” Leopard said dully.
“Mmm?” Macabre made a face. “Morrowseerworshipper seemed bent on getting information out of Glacier. I’m surprised he would have been so easily satisfied with her answer.”
“He and Cascade and Lettuce and Thorelle had some discussion afterwards,” Dugong mentioned. “They seem to have really done their research and studied a lot.”
“They probably know more than we do,” Polyp said, glancing over. On cue, Lettuce strolled over, Morrowseerworshipper in tow.
“Morrowseerworshipper, please tell us you’ve got something.”
Morrowseerworshipper sat down, nodded standoffishly, and opened the centre of his Morrowseer plushie, reaching inside.
“Oh, don’t tell me,” Crowning said, staring at the stomach of Morrowseer dubiously. “Have you really - oh my moons. You really have sealed scrolls inside your Morrowseer.”
Lettuce rolled her eyes. “He’s still mourning the fact that Thorelle stole these scrolls from the library at the academy.”
“You stole these? You stole three scrolls?”
“Oh, we have more,” Lettuce said brightly. “Cascade! Get your tail over here!”
Cascade flashed her stripes as she approached, hoisting a package on her back. “I’ve been carrying these since we left,” she complained. “Four days.” She unpacked several scrolls before the circle of dragons.
“I didn’t know we had Thorelle take that many more,” Morrowseerworshipper said, eyes widening at the sight.
Cascade shook her head. “Oh, no. I distracted Starflight with talk of Morrowseer without telling him Lettuce was with me, so he just told us everything we needed to know while Lettuce snatched up the scrolls.”
Morrowseerworshipper shot them a withering look. Cascade and Lettuce ignored it.
“So you have stuff on Darkstalker?” Polyp prompted, her stripes glowing faintly in the dark.
Morrowseerworshipper unrolled a scroll carefully. “All we’ve been able to get is that if he is still alive - which he would be, assuming his last ambition to make himself immortal was completely successful - he’s in a dark place. Definitely trapped.”
“He could be in these mountains,” Spellcaster said thoughtfully. “It’s dark from most of the snow.”
“And he wouldn’t freeze,” Dugong added. “His body heat would keep him warm even without his immortality.”
“Not to mention, he has fire,” Crowning reminded everyone. “So he has light if he needs it. That’s assuming he’s conscious.”
The dragons all exchanged hopeful glances with each other.
“And,” Cascade pointed out, brightening as her eyes widened and she pointed a talon at Lettuce convictingly, “it would explain a lot about Glacier’s behaviour. She might think he’s trapped here.”
“Better yet,” Morrowseerworshipper corrected, “the IceWing queen then might have known. They had to have been told by the NightWings then, it’s a huge responsibility to host a powerful animus dragon, corrupt or not. It could be something that’s been passed down for generations between queens, and Glacier knows, but doesn’t tell us.”
A moment of sheer excitement, so tangible that even Thorelle sensed it, struck the group as she ambled over.
She fixed them with a glare. “Look, I’m stoked, rah rah, but courtesy of you lot, I woke up just now. Go to sleep, gosh. And no, no one’s cuddling up with me to get warm.” She trudged off, muttering. “Go keep yourselves warm on your own, for Pyrrhia’s sake.”
☾☾☾
“It’s going to take us days - maybe weeks!” Thorelle protested sharply.
Morrowseerworshipper fixed her with a look. “It’s our only shot here.”
Thorelle shook her head again, but she still stepped forward anyway to the snow and melted it with a small burst of flame, exposing the hard rock beneath.
Cascade, Polyp, and Dugong stood next to each other. “I would advise staying at a further distance,” Cascade said cautiously. “If this goes the way we want it to and the avalanche happens, it would be good to not die.”
The other dragons muttered a few iterations of "Good luck!" before taking off into the sky.
Polyp flicked her tail. “Are we ready?”
“Not really,” Dugong said, “but do we really have a choice?”
Cascade cracked a wry smile. “On three, then.”
They slammed their tails against the hard rock of the mountain base. Dugong was the first to stop, and relieved, Cascade followed suit.
“If it hasn’t worked yet,” Polyp said, “it’s not going to happen.”
“Hold on,” Crowning called from the vantage point she had, hovering up in the sky. “There’s a dragon up there.”
Spellcaster swept down and peered into the distance. “Macabre! Does that look like an IceWing to you?”
Lettuce muttered a few words that sound suspiciously obscene. “Stay back; it could be someone from Glacier. Crowning, come on.”
The other dragons stayed back per Lettuce’s sudden severity, watching quietly. The pale blue figure morphed unexpectedly into a thick magenta, throwing everyone off.
“What . . .?” Leopard narrowed his eyes. “They’re coming back with it.”
The dragons all gathered together curiously as Lettuce and Crowning returned.
“Who is that?” Cascade wondered, scratching behind her ears as she flashed her stripes in Aquatic unconsciously. Lettuce shook her head as they came into the range of sight.
“She’s a RainWing,” Crowning announced, a little unnecessarily.
“Hi!” The new dragon said brightly. “I’m Ione.” She extended a talon to the dragon nearest her. Leopard shook it tentatively. “Who are you?”
Lettuce cleared her throat and pointed at everydragon. “That’s Leopard you’re talking to right now. There’s Dugong, Polyp, Spellcaster . . . where’s Mac - Macabre, scoot your tail over here right now - there’s Macabre, Cascade, and Thorelle, and there’s Morrowseerworshipper.”
As the quest-goers were introduced one by one, Ione aggressively shook talons with all of them. However, when she came to Morrowseerworshipper, her jaw dropped open. Morrowseerworshipper instinctively stepped out of the way, but when no venom came spewing out, he returned to his original position.
“Your name is Morrowseerworshipper?”
Morrowseerworshipper nodded, puffing out his chest and unintentionally looking ridiculous. “I’m convinced that Morrowseer is still alive.”
Ione’s scales shifted into a golden yellow. “What’s your opinion on Burn and Blister?”
“Still out there and alive,” Morrowseerworshipper said excitedly.
Thorelle sighed dreamily. “Perfect in every single way.”
“We’re actually trying to find them,” Dugong offered happily. “Alive, I mean.”
“Oh my moons,” Ione giggled, slinging her bag off. She readjusted her scarf and reached down to rifle through the bag. “I’ve done a lot of research,” she explained, producing a stack of notes bound together. She showed it around briefly before shoving it at Morrowseerworshipper. “That’s all my research I’ve done on Morrowseer, because I’m going to prove that he’s alive. It’s mostly based off thing I’ve investigated and stuff I hear about him before I left the rainforest.”
Morrowseerworshipper glanced at Ione in astonishment. “This first page is amazing,” he murmured. Ione grinned.
“I have others,” Ione said, pulling various other notebooks from her bag. She accidentally exposed one and hurriedly jammed it back in.
Lettuce stepped forward inquisitively. “What’s that?”
Ione hid it in her bag guiltily.
“Come on,” Dugong coaxed.
Ione shook her head adamantly. “No,” she said firmly. “That’s a set of private notes.”
“Research?”
Ione shook her head aggressively.
Lettuce picked out the sheaf of notes from the bag. “Darkstalker,” she read.
Ione looks embarrassed and hangs her head. “I know it’s just a fairy tale to a lot of dragons, but I think he exists,” she explained, more to her talons than to the other dragons. “The NightWings in the rainforest said he was scary and were always telling me stories that were supposed to be scary, but I kind of thought they were cool. Besides, I don’t think he’s that scary.”
There was a long silence, of shame from Ione and anticipation from the dragons.
“Well, Ione,” Polyp said dryly, after a while, “you’re really lucky, because we were looking for Darkstalker when you showed up.”
a/n omg this is so bad i'm soooo sorry. the word count is around 2000, so you just read through 2000 words of poop COMEDY GOLD oops sorry. -waterdrops xx
Editor's note: No, this is not bad. It's funny, and you're portraying us well! Just remember to keep it in past tense. 8P
===Chapter Two===
«Outside - brrr! Inside - I don’t know, but I can’t feel my tail.»
It snowed overnight.
When they woke up, what had been a thin layer of snow and ice near the bottom of the mountains had turned into a thick blanket seeping under their scales and chilling them to the very bone, waking everydragon up with a nasty feeling of stiffness.
“I’m so cold,” Cascade groaned, wrapping her wings around herself. Lettuce patted her sympathetically and nodded with half closed eyes.
Spellcaster shot a small flame into the air, but it flickered out within seconds, leaving a few glowing sparks behind. She sighed. “We have to get out of here,” she said, shaking her head. She cast a glance at everyone else. “Lettuce and Crowning might be able to survive this, but I don’t think the rest of us can.”
Morrowseerworshipper nodded in agreement. “If this storm continues any longer,” he noted anxiously, looking up at the oppressively grey sky, “we could freeze to death. And Leopard and Thorelle don’t look too happy.”
“We have to cross the mountains today, then,” Crowning said immediately. “This isn’t the worst weather we’ve gotten here. Like it or not, we’ll have to fight against the snow to make it over. And, on the bright side, once we get over the mountains, it’ll start warming up.”
It took a good hour to wake all the other dragons up and get completely ready to cross the mountains. Morrowseerworshipper had a panicky moment when he couldn’t find his Morrowseer plush. Thorelle had to melt a wide circle of snow into slush before they found the plush, covered in a light drift of snow.
“Are we ready now?” Thorelle asked tiredly, shooting Morrowseerworshipper a withering look. He hugged his plush and smiled with a sheepish aura. Cascade counted all the scrolls in her package and hoisted it onto her back; Ione shouldered her bag of journals; Dugong flashed his stripes all at once, as though trying to make sure they were all functioning properly. “All of us? With everything?”
When no dragon objected, Thorelle sighed and spread her wings, shaking her head and rolling her eyes with just a hint of amusement. “Alright. Let’s get this over with.”
A headwind picked up almost immediately as the dragons took off into the air. It pressed against them persistently, pushing them back. Lettuce stopped flying suddenly, causing all the other dragons behind her to almost crash into her tail.
“We have to stop here,” she called, everydragon’s vision obscured by blurry snowflakes. “If we keep flying like this, we’re not going to get anywhere, no matter how long we fly.” She wrapped her wings around herself and dove down to the ground.
The dragons congregated in a huddle, trying to preserve heat. Even Lettuce looked mildly uncomfortable, her tail twitching back and forth like she was trying not to shiver. “We have to rework the way we’re flying,” she said. “Remember how the SkyWings flew during the war?”
“One,” Macabre pointed out, “I wasn’t there during the war; I was busy starving to death on a volcanic island. Two, we’re not SkyWings.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Polyp said slowly, “we can utilise the way they flew - their formations - maybe it’ll help us fly better.”
The dragons exchanged apprehensive glances. “We don’t have a SkyWing to take the lead,” Morrowseerworshipper murmured. “We need a dragon to fly quickly. Or at least be able to fight the wind.”
“I’ll do it,” Lettuce volunteered. “I grew up in this stupid, cold, forsaken place. I’ll be able to fly decently enough, I suppose.” She looked at the other dragons for a agreement. “Unless, of course, one of you would want to . . . ?”
“No, we’re fine,” Leopard said hurriedly.
"So we'll split up," Lettuce planned, “evenly. I’ll be in front. Spellcaster and Morrowseerworshipper, you two go next. Crowning and Dugong can be behind them, Cascade and Polyp will be another pair, Thorelle and Leopard, Macabre and Ione?” She trailed off questioningly, unsure of whether she’d overstepped her boundaries of power. When no dragon challenged her, though, they all took off in silent agreement again.
The plan was not much better than what had been originally happening, but instead of half the group falling hopelessly behind and probably getting lost in the storm had no other dragon been looking out for them, they stayed within hearing range of each other.
“We’re crossing the mountains,” Ione suddenly said, perking up. Her tail curled a bit and she unconsciously sped up. “I can feel it.”
Macabre glanced over. “You can feel it?”
“I’m a RainWing,” Ione pointed out. “I feed off the sun. Just ask Leopard.”
“It’s true,” Leopard agreed. “I can tell, too.” On his right, Thorelle waited, her head cocked, before she smiled and nodded. “I can feel it, too.”
The wind began turning into a warm draft of air, the sky began to brighten, and the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds, spreading a smile of anticipation and excitement from every dragon. When the air turned arid and hot, the clouds moved away on cue and left the sun beating down on all of them.
“Blessed sun,” Spellcaster panted.
Polyp remained unfazed by the change in climate. “I’m not freezing to death right now, and I’m not saying we should stop our progress or anything, but I think we should probably take a break and figure out what we’re going to do next.”
“Agreed,” Morrowseerworshipper said, nodding. He wrapped his wings around himself and spiralled into a dive. The other dragons followed, until they dug their talons into the dry, dusty sand.
“So should we try and get as much progress as we can?” Lettuce asked, using her tail to reel Cascade in as she poked at the cacti in curiosity, gesturing excitedly to it with Macabre and Spellcaster. “I mean, we can only survive here,” she made a circular motion with one of her claws, “for a limited time. Like, no offence to Leopard and Thorelle, but I don’t think we can survive on zero water sources for more than a few days. Just saying.”
The other dragons nodded in agreement. Crowning glanced up at the sun. “If it were up to me,” she said carefully, “I’d suggest going east and straight across, along Burn’s Stronghold. We can cross the mountains separating the SandWings from the SkyWings. It’ll take us another day at most.”
“Is that safe, though?” Thorelle challenged. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, that sounds like a really easy way out, but listening to Starflight babbling aimlessly to himself while I snuck out those scrolls, it sounded like the SkyWing prisons aren’t really the best of places to get imprisoned.”
Morrowseerworshipper shook his head. “Scarlet’s Palace - or I suppose, Ruby’s, now - is at the peninsula. We shouldn’t get caught.” Cascade, Lettuce, Thorelle, and Morrowseerworshipper exchanged a few murmurs together and were suddenly interrupted when Leopard yelled.
Lettuce whipped around, almost slashing Cascade’s face with her tail, jaw unhinging instinctively, whilst Thorelle raised her tail in synchrony with Cascade.
Macabre and Spellcaster were shadowing another dragon - an IceWing, a female, by the looks of her - fiercely. Leopard had his tail raised in the air, too. Ione narrowed her eyes as though she wasn’t sure what was happening, but something was happening. Dugong looked thoroughly uncomfortable by the sudden vibes of violence.
“Calm down,” Lettuce ordered, her muscles relaxing when she saw the IceWing. “She’s an IceWing.”
“Thanks,” the mystery IceWing said, quietly.
“But,” Lettuce continued, her tongue flicking out, “that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be here.”
The dragons resumed their previous positions, looking a bit stupid. “I think she’s been following us,” Spellcaster said accusingly. “I’ll bet she joined us when we started crossing the mountains.”
“Well?” Morrowseerworshipper demanded. “Is she right?”
The dragon snorted. “Yeah.” She examined her talons like it was no big deal and then looked back up before losing some of her defiance under the discriminating glares of eleven dragons. “Look, I don’t get out much, and I wasn’t planning on having to talk to them.” Her voice trailed off, unsure. “I just thought it looked interesting from afar, since I’ve never really seen a group like that, and when I got closer, I heard you talking about Darkstalker.”
“You were there last night?” Dugong repeated, eyes widening. A hint of his passive attitude seemed to dissolve. “And you eavesdropped on us?”
“You didn’t notice me,” the dragon said in a small voice. “Don’t be angry.”
Macabre landed in front of her, drawing itself up. “Why not?”
The dragon looked completely awkward and uncomfortable and out of place, her light blue scales paling further in contrast with the golden landscape behind them. “Because I believe in Darkstalker’s existence too,” she whispered quietly. “I’ve always wanted to find him.”
Leopard and Thorelle raised their eyebrows at each other, sharing some sort of SandWing-telepathy. “You believe in Darkstalker?” Thorelle asked.
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
Macabre dragged everydragon back a bit, leaving the IceWing alone, curled up on the gravel. “Do we believe her?”
“Why not?” Ione said. “Besides, I can kill a dragon just like that,” she added, clapping her talons together, “if she’s not who she says she is.”
“We can keep her, then,” Polyp suggested, “on a trial period. And until she proves herself, we have every right to leave without her one night.”
“Harsh, but reasonable,” Dugong agreed.
The circle of dragons glanced at each other, then broke apart, like a crystal shattering against a rock.
“So,” Lettuce said conversationally. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Prick,” the IceWing said, looking up with a hint of a smile.
“Wanna fly across the SkyWing kingdom with us?”
a/n so there was that. i'm a little worn out so i'll fix the formatting later, but it's been a while since i've updated, so there's a 1600 word update. ugh. writing. ew. spring break, though, so progress shall be made! love and cheers. -waterdrops xx
Editor's note: Fixed the formatting for you once again. Seriously, just copy and paste the source, and type out your italics and bolding.
Category:Collaborations
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
Category:Content (Waterdrops)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)