(The LostWing Chronicles, Book 1) The Awoken

Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
THE AWOKEN
~ Prologue ~
	As Ocotillo left for his patrol, the cause of Queen Blaze and the IceWing alliance was far from foremost on his mind. This wasn’t due to treason or carelessness on his part. He was a good and loyal soldier and he believed with every fiber of his being that he was on the right side of the war. At the moment, he was simply dwelling over something more pressing than any attack upon the stronghold, especially in this awful weather and with the other scouts not reporting any enemy sightings for several days. None of their foes would mobilize in such a downpour. It seemed reasonable to allow himself a bit of distraction.
Shivering in the bitter cold, Ocotillo worried over the security of the golden wristband he had just won from a fellow guard and deftly hidden in his quarters. Thievery was common within Queen Blaze’s stronghold, with most acts of robbery perpetrated by the royal SandWing herself. Her desire for shiny objects was overwhelming and she was often caught exiting the quarters of her soldiers with their prized possessions. Protests always achieved the same result: the soldier in question being sent off to the front lines and certain death. However, if Ocotillo could just keep his winnings hidden from her clutches for a few days, he could sell them to his contact on the IceWing border and send the profits to his siblings. The war had torn his family apart. His parents had allied with Burn’s forces and left all of his siblings to be wounded or killed in the earliest battles. The survivors were encamped in the desolate northern regions of the Kingdom of Sand, where prey was scarce and had to be purchased from local markets. They were unable to hunt for themselves due to their injuries, and without Ocotillo’s economic assistance, they would have starved long ago. 
The conditions outside of the stronghold were as bleak as Ocotillo had ever seen them. The skies were obstructed with wrathful clouds ranging from dark grey to blacker than NightWing scales. Heavy rain was being blown near-horizontally by the fierce winds. This patrol seemed pointless; Ocotillo could barely stay aloft, let alone search the territory below for invaders. There was no way that anyone would make an attempt on Blaze’s stronghold in these conditions. Yet despite this, Ocotillo’s IceWing commander had insisted on their departure, and rather overenthusiastically informed him of the punishments he would face if he refused to participate.
The IceWing could barely be seen through the torrent despite her glaring white scales. Ocotillo banked towards her as best he could and shouted, “Beluga? I do not mean to be disrespectful, but there won’t be any invaders gathering under these conditions! Can we turn back before we drown in this weather?” 
Beluga frowned down her snout at him, and he backed down under her glare. “Keep searching, you pathetic sun-baked lizard!” she snarled, turning away sharply. Dodging her whipping tail, Ocotillo spiraled towards the ground and swept along the surface of the rocky terrain. The landscape was a wasteland, barren of all life and beauty, a great span of shattered rocks dismal in their monotony. Nothing was out of the ordinary within his line of sight, which was cut quite short by the downpour and heavy fog.
They had been flying for around an hour when the squall suddenly intensified. The wind rose dramatically, matched in peril by a surge of lightning spearing through the sky. Frigid water droplets pelted Ocotillo’s snout, and he hissed out at the storm, blinking furiously. As a result, he nearly didn’t spot the dark mass of another dragon, huddled below a sheer outcropping in the side of a nearby hill. 
He inhaled sharply and called to Beluga, then drove towards the shape, which was barely distinguishable from the coal-black rocks surrounding it. As he drew nearer, he noticed the bizarre orientation of the dragon’s limbs, and, after a moment, the pool of crimson blood growing around him. Landing near the outcropping, he found himself gazing at a badly injured SeaWing, slightly smaller than him and quivering uncontrollably. The dragon’s scales were an array of deep blues with lighter patches around his eyes and talons. His fluorescent lights were flickering sporadically across his body, his wings were twisted into a grotesque form, as was his back leg, and he was barely able to turn his head to gaze at Ocotillo. The moment their eyes met, an expression of utter dismay and horror tore across the SeaWing’s bloodied features. Ocotillo’s heart lurched in his chest, his career as a resolved soldier combatting his instinct to help this sorry figure.
Beluga landed beside Ocotillo and examined the crumpled form before her. “What have we here?” she hissed, her words reeking with menace. “A SeaWing spy, gathering information for the traitor Blister?” She stepped closer to the dragon, who tried his best to back away. Beluga grinned, her eyes shining as pale as bone, and turned to Ocotillo. “Kill it.”
“What?” Ocotillo cried. It felt impossibly wrong to harm a dragon so helpless, no matter which side he was fighting for. By the looks of it, the spy had been caught in a sudden updrift and slammed into a jagged protrusion of the outcropping, then had fallen painfully to the ground. “Beluga, hold on a minute! I mean, can’t we - er - take him prisoner instead?” At the look on her face, he quickly added, “Queen Blaze doesn’t have any SeaWing prisoners currently; he could provide information on Queen Coral’s movements.” He would never admit it to her, or really to himself, but this dragon reminded him of one of his siblings. Beloperone had been in nearly the exact same state as this SeaWing when he found her, looking at him with the same heart-wrenching dismay.
Beluga shook her horned head, glaring at Ocotillo. “Do something useful for once in this war, coward! You know we’ve never broken a spy before, and we never will.” Seeing the dismay on Ocotillo’s face, she sighed and turned back to the SeaWing. “Well, maybe another session in the dungeons will teach you loyalty to the cause. I’ll just kill it myself.” She reared up and opened her jaw to strike the SeaWing with frostbreath. The dragon lay petrified with fear before her.
Not entirely knowing what he was doing, Ocotillo launched himself at his commander, knocking her off her balance. A spew of ice crystals shuddered to the ground as Beluga roared with a truly alarming ferocity, then turned on Ocotillo to lash him with her spiked tail. He snarled, spinning under her powerful flank and launching her into the cliff wall. A blast of ice flew past his wing and grazed his head, cleaving off his left ear. In his burning anger and pain, Ocotillo lunged at the IceWing and planted the poisonous barb on his tail directly into her heart. The smirk on her face froze, and she toppled over soundlessly, gazing with clouded eyes at Ocotillo’s talons. 
“Oh, no,” he breathed, staring at his dead commander. “Ohhh, no, no, no, no, no.” What had he done? He could never return to Blaze’s fortress now; there was nowhere to bury Beluga in this rocky terrain, and her death had clearly been due to SandWing poison. Of course, he was an obvious suspect as a member of her patrol, and investigations under Blaze tended to be short and incriminating. He would be executed unceremoniously and his siblings would starve without his treasure-money. Cursing himself, shame and anger rising to even outpace the throb of his missing ear, he turned towards the SeaWing. It was now unconscious, with limbs splayed out and a dropping head. No, don’t die! Not now - please, don’t die.
Ocotillo stared at the dragon, the complete stranger for whom he had forfeited the lives of his commander, his siblings, and himself. He clearly needed medical attention, and Ocotillo was determined that he would survive, if only so his betrayal was worth something. He examined the dragon for a moment longer before lifting him onto his back and, staggering under his weight, flew off in what he believed was the direction of his siblings’ village. He could not possibly stay in Queen Blaze’s territory for very long after this crime, but the only healer he knew was within the Kingdom of Sand. The medic in the hidden village was an expert in the craft - which was why he had sent his sibling there - and better yet, he was a RainWing who would not discriminate based on the variety of dragon brought before him. 
Luckily, Ocotillo had chosen the right direction, and after a dozen hours of struggling through the storm he caught sight of the oasis town. A few shafts of sunlight peeked through the clouds and fell over the region, sending scattered shimmers around the thatch-roofed community. Ocotillo landed heavily outside of the healer’s residence, a palm-leaf covered structure with elegantly carved wooden arches. A perturbed snout peaked out at the noise, then turned lime green at the sight of the SeaWing. The door was cast open, and a smaller RainWing stood in the shadow of the clouds, flaring his ruff and gazing up and down the dirty lane. He quickly ushered Ocotillo and the SeaWing inside, and began rushing about to treat them without waiting for any sort of explanation. He gazed at carvings upon the wooden walls, which bore recipes for healing salvants and ointments, and bustled about from shelf to shelf, gathering jar after jar of medicinal herbs. 
The SeaWing was bandaged almost from talons to wings, layered in a cast of tan-colored fiber and cloth, and was laid to rest on a cool bed of reeds in an adjacent room. Ocotillo received a salvant over the side of his head to treat the frostbite, and some sort of puncture in his ear cavity that stopped the infuriating ringing he had been experiencing for the last hours. Against his somewhat delusional hopes, he did not escape to the resting part of his treatment without an interview. 
“Who is he?” the RainWing asked, settling his scales into a dull blue similar to that of the SeaWing. “I’ve had very few SeaWing patients in my career, and certainly not one brought in by a SandWing. You must be Ocotillo, I presume? Pardon my assumption, but your siblings have described you to me a countless number of times. Lichen, pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“How are they doing?” Ocotillo asked breathlessly, his voice cracked and distorted in his own hearing. Everything sounded slightly off now, with sound launching at an angle he had to tilt his head just right to catch. The overwhelming roar of the storm had stopped him from noticing earlier, but now in the quiet of the healer’s residence, he clearly felt the consequences of Beluga’s final attack.
Lichen smiled peacefully. “Exceptional, of course, under my care. They are so active that they can hardly find time to rest, even Beloperone, despite the loss of her wings. Better yet, Hydnora has recovered her memory nicely, and her wounds are but old scars now. You had been providing for them quite well. Yet I assume all of this indicates a very abrupt change to come?”
Ocotillo hesitantly told Lichen of his betrayal, and felt guilt sink further into his soul than he had previously thought possible as he read the shock on the healer’s face and scales. Lichen shook his head and sat quietly for a moment, contemplating. “I could foresee any soldier taking such an action,” he mused, then turned with a dismal expression towards Ocotillo. “Regretfully, you will have to flee the kingdom, of course, ending your ability to support your family.” Ocotillo’s ear rang with the echoing of his worst fears. “You’ll have to move them,” Lichen continued gently. “Without the support of your winnings, your siblings won’t last a month here. And the SeaWing must leave as quickly as possible. If anyone finds him here, it will mean the end of this community.” He gazed at Ocotillo. “I’m sorry, but the shipments of prey are overwhelmingly expensive. The black market traders are merciless. I would gladly pay for your family’s continued stay but I can barely support myself.” 
With that, Ocotillo was sent to the resting chambers, where his weariness overcame his dread and he fell into broken slumber. He awoke at midnight from unpleasant dreams as the sound of scales sliding over wood scratched through his remaining ear. Tensing, he tried to tilt his head to listen more intently, and felt the sudden pressure of claws on his neck. With a gasp he beat his wings frantically and tore away, spinning to face his opponent. To his shock it was the injured SeaWing. He had not expected the dragon to walk for days, let alone threaten his life in the matter of a few mere hours.
“Where am I?” the SeaWing demanded, flanking around Ocotillo in a lurching motion. “I will not be held prisoner in the talons of SandWings for the delight of the traitor Blaze! Foul guard, end me mercifully or allow my egress!” He charged at Ocotillo, who jumped back with his talons raised. Despite his substantial injuries, the SeaWing was quick and determined, but this movement seemed to surprise him.
“No, calm down!” Ocotillo yelped, backing away slowly. Panic flared in his chest, and he wondered if he should call for Lichen. “Please, just a moment. I saved you from Blaze’s forces. This is the residence of a healer in a remote hamlet, not the prisons, I swear.” 
At this, the SeaWing paused and glanced around more closely at his surroundings. The room was comfortable and could not be mistaken as a cell with any detailed inspection. Bottles of medicine hung in racks along the walls, soft beds with white sheets were laid decently far apart, and softly glowing plants cast a calming light about the two dragons. The SeaWing relaxed somewhat and lowered his wings, wincing. His expression was difficult to read, especially due to the bandages covering most of his face, but Ocotillo thought he saw suspicion and confusion.
“Why?” the SeaWing asked, then quivered uncontrollably and staggered sideways. The efforts he had made to attack Ocotillo seemed to be having a harsh effect on him. Honestly, Ocotillo had no idea how the SeaWing had been able to move at all, since several of his bones were still clearly broken. He had never seen such willpower in a dragon before. The SeaWing coughed gruesomely, then steadied himself with a wince. “Our tribes are at war, and I was caught in your territory. Your service to your queen was to kill me. Why would you do this?”
Ocotillo was speechless. Of all the dragons he thought would be in favor of his decision, the SeaWing had been top of the list. “I - it - I couldn’t kill you, as injured as you were,” he tried. “It felt cruel and unnecessary. You couldn’t defend yourself - er - at the time.” 
The SeaWing considered this for a moment. “And yet I’m not a prisoner?” he asked with a tilt of his head. Ocotillo swallowed.
“I - er - may have - ah - had to kill my commander to save you,” he said, the last in a rush, once again so flooded with guilt that he could almost feel his heart shriveling. “And then it was too late to turn back. You needed help, and I knew this healer.”
The SeaWing gazed at Ocotillo with a light flaring in his eyes that was impossible to read. He continued scrutiny for a solid few minutes, then relaxed fully and sat back onto his bed. His expression was more confused than ever, and he was looking at Ocotillo as if his horns had suddenly sprouted leaves with a crop of glowing berries. “You killed your superior, a dragon allied to yourself, rather than eliminate an enemy spy?” he asked, the tone of his voice unreadable. “Do you understand how war works?”
Ocotillo stared silently at the SeaWing, unsure of how to reply. The dragon eventually began to laugh, and nodded gratefully at Ocotillo. “Well, Pyrrhia’s worst soldier, I am in your debt. I’m Eelgrass, by the way. The most competent spy in Blister’s forces.”
“Well, then, I’m - er - I’m Ocotillo,” Ocotillo replied, “And as you guessed, I’m Pyrrhia’s worst soldier, although I fear you are not quite as good a spy as you think if you are unable to handle a hurricane.”
Eelgrass nodded thoughtfully, and flashed a smile at Ocotillo. “Well, here we are, somehow. I assume you have a plan on how to escape the masses of dragons you just betrayed?”
Ocotillo shook his head, feeling quite foolish. He had no solution to escaping the Kingdom of Sand with his injured siblings while avoiding the forces of all three warring sisters, and even if he was able to do so, he had nowhere to hide where he and his family could survive. Eelgrass turned down his snout at Ocotillo in apparent disdain, muttering, “Irrational SandWing,” and then learned forward, wincing. “Seeing as how I can literally trust you with my life, how you have no other options, and how I owe you a favor, I have a solution.” His voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible, especially due to the blurring of sound caused by Ocotillo’s newly lost ear. “I work for the Talons of Peace; I’m a double-agent within the inner circle of Queen Coral. They have a hideaway available in the farthest reaches of the Sea Kingdom. Only a few Talons know of its location, and I suppose I could stash you there for a while to repay my debt.”
	Ocotillo reflected on this for a moment. The Talons of Peace were the target of immeasurable disdain from all sides of the war, but they were the only place he might now fit in and be able to work to support his family. He had always thought their cause remotely acceptable himself, unlike his fellow guards. Having seen the devastation that the war brought to his family, he could understand those who sought an immediate solution, and they did seem to be the only solution to his crisis. With that, he nodded, and nervously mentioned his siblings to Eelgrass, who assured him that they would not be a problem. Of Ocotillo’s three siblings, only Beloperone was unable to fly, a problem which they solved with the aid of a spare stretcher in the corner of Lichen’s residence.
As soon as Eelgrass was healed enough to fly without damaging himself further, they set off from the village, leaving on a nearly moonless night. They met little resistance on their journey, heading through a network of Talon hideouts and tunnels, and arrived at a small grey island in the Kingdom of the Sea around a week later. 
The island was remarkably easy to overlook. It was hardly larger than five wingspans and boasted a forest of seven thin palms. A small cave opening underneath the shade of this tiny biome led to a spiraling tunnel, which ran down into a far larger cave system with a lush growth of mushrooms and vines. The place was perfectly comfortable, and the seas nearby were so full of fish that even Ocotillo could catch them while skimming the surface of the ocean. Here he and his siblings were stashed away, while Eelgrass returned to the court of Queen Coral for the time being. 
Ocotillo was surprised to see the SeaWing again a few months later when he came to visit, and found himself even more surprisingly pleased at Eelgrass’s promise to return often. The SeaWing double-agent proved to be quite a charming dragon when not gravely damaged and fearing for his life. Ocotillo grew very close to him, and years later when the war finally ended, they settled down together on the island. With the cave now somewhat cramped, they set to escorting Ocotillo’s siblings back to the now-stable Kingdom of Sand with a generous share of the treasure Eelgrass had earned or stolen on various missions. 
Yet the adventures of the two dragons had only begun, and the consequences of their presence upon that particular island would forever alter the history of Pyrrhia. But for the next twenty years, at least, they would find only peace and quiet there, welcome after the demands of the war.
Chapter 1
	Anadrom was feeling entirely disappointed in herself as she once again failed to enjoy swimming in the bright waters of the Kingdom of the Sea. It was certainly beautiful in the underwater realm, especially now at noontime with sunlight trickling down from the surface and coating everything below with a soft silver gleam. Bands of fish dotted with every color imaginable spiraled around the strands of coral that grew tower-like towards the upper waters. Sea turtles glided gracefully by, various crustaceans poked their armored heads out of their sand-entrenched burrows, and a sole dolphin leapt through the air, while the water itself held a brilliant aquamarine hue. The array of colors was dazzling but earthly, a brilliant balance between appearance and functionality. 
And she was built exactly for this environment; her webbed talons and flattened tail allowed her to speed through the water as quickly as she desired, while her SeaWing gills allowed her to receive oxygen somehow more clearly than breathing above water allowed. Yet most everything else about the experience felt wrong. Her scales crawled every moment she spent below the surface, feeling as if they were coated in a parade of steel-booted centipedes. Her eyes felt heavy and developed a dull ache, while her ears always became filled with murk and rang in unrelenting tones. Worst of all, she felt the pressure of the water pounding down on her and crushing her slowly, as clearly as if she was buried underneath the mass of Jade Mountain. She had mentioned this before to Eelgrass, her SeaWing father, and was dismayed to learn that he experienced no such thing. Swimming was a constant reminder to Anadrom that she was a sham of SeaWing. It made a mockery of her place within her tribe and her existence upon Pyrrhia.
She had no idea why she was flawed in this regard. Having read the scrolls of the Dragonets of Destiny, as most everyone had in all Pyrrhia, she had been intrigued to learn that Sunny the SandWing had been an oddity herself, with striking gold scales and a harmless tail free of poisonous barb. Yet Sunny had been a hybrid, while Anadrom was almost certain she was just a SeaWing. While her parents were from different tribes - Ocotillo being a SandWing and Eelgrass a SeaWing - she knew they hadn’t had eggs together, and certainly wouldn’t have had any with other dragons. She didn’t have any traits of the other tribes: every single one of her scales was a deep navy blue, her general shape matched that of a SeaWing, and she certainly didn’t have any additional biological weaponry or psychic powers. Finally, there was the fact that her parents told her whenever she inquired on the matter that she was a SeaWing, and she believed them. Ocotillo was quite incapable of lying. Whenever he attempted to do so, his wings would visibly drop and his talons would tap nervously along the stone floor of the cave. 
She also knew her egg hadn’t been stolen, for her parents could never do anything so monstrous. Yet they were reluctant to tell her exactly where she had been found, and all the information she had was that her egg had been found somewhere underwater. Anadrom assumed they had found her abandoned in some ocean-floor murk somewhere and just didn’t want her to know that her parents hadn’t wanted her. Once in a while, she wondered if Ocotillo and Eelgrass had accidently done something to her egg that had caused her to be like this, but she always dismissed this as impossible. They would be nothing but extremely careful with an unhatched dragonet.
This always brought about its own chain of thinking, along the lines of Was I already broken when my egg was laid?, which made Anadrom want to burrow into the ocean floor and lie staring at the crabs for a while. She did this now, but the crustacean showing was dismally poor, so she just closed her eyes and sighed. In her gloom, she didn’t hear the swimming-strokes of an approaching dragon until they were only a few feet from her. Her head shot up, her ears pricked, and her mind ran in the rapid cycle of please don’t be Estuary, please don’t be Estuary…
“Anadrom?” flashed the SeaWing dragonet in Aquatic, diving down and landing in front of her. Sand flew into Anadrom’s eyes and snout, and she sneezed, deploring her terrible luck. This was perhaps the worst possible thing to happen right now. The neon green scales and bioluminescent markings of the dragonet, as repulsive as the glow of poisonous bacteria lurking in the depths, was impossible to misidentify. Her tongue flickered in and out slowly as she stared haughtily at Anadrom’s crumpled form.
“What do you want now, Estuary?” Anadrom signaled back with her own bioluminescent marks, trying to hide her gloom. The older dragonet appraised her smugly, causing Anadrom to shiver involuntarily. Estuary was unequivocally the cruelest dragon in the SeaWing village near the old Talon hideout. She was small and wiry, but her command over every other dragonet in the village was undisputable. Estuary bullied her way into getting exactly what she wanted all the time. She was a heartless blackmailer, worming her way into collecting everyone’s worst secrets and leveraging them against one another so she always came out on top. She had been the one to tell everyone that Anadrom was adopted after she failed to bring Estuary her typical weekly tribute of twenty salmon.
After that, Anadrom had hoped that the worst was over, but through some cruel occurrence Estuary had learned that Ocotillo was in hiding from the IceWings, and Anadrom hadn’t dared to miss a single demand since. How Estuary even knew about it was frightening to consider. Anadrom had never spoken of Ocotillo to anyone in the village, and she never really even spoke to anyone beside him or Eelgrass, so Estuary must have found a way to spy on them inside their sheltered cave. Because of this, Anadrom fully believed that the blackmailer was capable of alerting the IceWings and having Ocotillo carried away to freeze in their prisons. While all the battle deaths of the war had been forgiven by the peace treaty signed in the SandWing stronghold, the betrayal of any individual soldiers had not, and many had been hunted down and punished over the last decades. She couldn’t let that happen to Ocotillo, her brave and compassionate father, no matter how difficult her assignments became.
“Hello, mudfish,” the blackmailer signaled with a sneer, prodding Anadrom with her talons. “I hear the ocean floor is especially filthy this time of year; you’ll fit right in.” She darted around Anadrom, kicking up more muck, then gleefully hissed. “I could use a few more pearls, you know.”
Estuary loved asking for precious materials, due to both her everlasting greed and her knowledge that looking for such valuables was Anadrom’s least favorite mission. She had nearly failed to deliver rare gemstones to Estuary several times now, and each time had hated herself for nearly allowing Ocotillo to be discovered and taken away. The problem lay not in handing over the valuables, for Anadrom felt no attachment to them herself, but in finding them in the first place. Gems were quite rare in the Kingdom of the Sea. They were found mostly in winding volcanic caves that Anadrom feared would collapse over her head as they dropped burning embers onto her scales. The oysters that held any pearls bright enough for Estuary were always quite deep and secluded, and any good spots she found were somehow claimed and excavated by Estuary within the next few days. 
Still, she had no choice. Signaling an affirmative, Anadrom lifted herself up, only to be knocked over by the sweeping tail of the other SeaWing. Luckily Estuary considered herself too important to accompany her victims as they carried out her quests, and she swam off to crush the spirits of another dragonet. Anadrom watched her vanish behind a coral pillar, then turned and rose upwards, seeking the current that would carry her away from the island shelf. She wished that she could reason with the blackmailer and make her see the error of her ways, but Estuary knew nothing besides malice and a thirst for power. The dragonet was entirely evil, and Anadrom sometimes thought she was the combination of the three warring SandWing sisters from the Great War: as cruel as Burn, as cunning as Blister, and as greedy as Blaze.
Anadrom found herself sweeping past the last edge of the coral reef in a few moments, and soon only the dark waters of the empty ocean lay before her. Oysters naturally did not grow in the depths, but strong oceanic currents over the centuries in this region had deposited thousands in little alcoves right at the ocean floor. Anadrom waited for a few minutes longer in the current, heading farther out than she ever had before, then tucked her wings to her chest and plummeted downwards. The SeaWing village she lived in was on the very outskirts of the Kingdom of Sea, and tales of deep-dwelling monsters capable of swallowing dragons whole haunted her whenever she stared into the pure darkness of the deep. A dragon had returned shaken to the village a year ago carrying a tooth larger than his wingspan, and now nobody except her really dared to leave the village borders.
Despite her night vision, the visibility of the water decreased dramatically the farther down Anadrom went, and soon she could barely see past her shaking outstretched talons. Her senses were on high-alert as she tried to detect any usual scents or ripples of movement in the water, but to her relief everything seemed completely normal. After a frightfully long descent, she felt the rocky ocean floor below her, and gazed in something close to happiness upon its hazy brown-grey surface. The crushing sensation of depth here was nearly overwhelming, and she struggled to hold her head up and keep her eyes open. 
Nothing here. She swam forward, casting her head over both her shoulders as she went, and muttered halfheartedly to herself. Anger was difficult for her, often lasting for only a moment before turning into gloom, and her heart now felt heavy and clouded. There was no one to talk with about her troubles with Estuary besides her parents, and she hated the looks of worry that appeared on Ocotillo and Eelgrass’s faces when she told them about her. It wasn’t that she didn’t need their support: she did, but she hated making them carry her burden. Her life wasn’t all that bad, after all, she supposed. Her parents were both fantastic dragons, and she lived in a time of peace. She shuddered to think of the Great War that had been fought almost three decades ago - and of how she could have been born in that world, where she would have been made a soldier at her current age and sent off to kill or be killed. Yet she still thought there was probably a better place to live in her current time, some distant realm without the meddling of Estuary. A place where she could have friends - for here Estuary forbade any other dragonets from meeting together lest they form against her - and where Ocotillo and Eelgrass could be safe. 
She spotted a bed of oysters at last, dove down, and began carefully opening a few. To her surprise, they bore some of the largest pearls she had yet found, so she quickly collected as many as she could carry and buried the rest under the murky ocean floor. Maybe Estuary wouldn’t learn about this spot right away, and Anadrom could just come here for future missions. She set aside the largest pearl to give to Eelgrass, for his hatching-day was arriving the next week, and hid it within a curled back talon. This trick had worked several times before and this day should hopefully prove no different. The rest of the pearls she balanced against her chest with her front talons, and beating her wings, she rose upwards. 
A jolt of fear rose through her body as something slimy wrapped around her tail, and she spun around to find a peculiar creature standing on the ocean floor and blinking up at her. It had no eyes to speak of, only a large and toothy mouth set on an insectoid head with several furiously waving and glowing antennae. Its body was composed of a mass of thin legs and bulbous joints stemming from a snake-shaped frame, while its tail split into a cloud of glowing red stingers. The entire creature was several times larger than a full-grown dragon, and yet it did not seem interested in attacking Anadrom. It only inspected her tail for a movement longer before releasing her and trodding on. As she quickly rose away, her heart racing a mile a minute, she turned back to stare at the peculiar creature.
The creature snuffled over to where she had buried the stash of pearls, its many legs shifting in an almost hypnotic motion as it began digging them up. Anadrom watched in wonder as it began placing the shining orbs back in the oysters, burbling angrily to find some of them broken in half. She felt a pang of guilt as she watched the creature feel around the ground as if confused, looking for the missing pearls that she was clutching. Looking closer, Anadrom noticed that the shellfish were set in misshapen rows, forming a small grid between which the creature stepped as delicately as a spider on its web. She very much wanted to return her stolen goods to the farmer-being, but Ocotillo’s safety was on the line, and that was set on a higher priority than her morals. As she swam away, she told herself that she would never take pearls from this side of the village again, and wondered if she should tell someone about the farmer-being. Probably not, she decided solemnly. Either Estuary would find and kill the thing to prove her ferocity, or the SeaWings would force it and all the ones like it they could find to farm pearls for them. It does seem to do an excellent job at that, curious as it is. I hope I didn’t mess up its crop too badly. Then she thought about the humans, and how they had begun to be incorporated into dragon society after they were discovered to be intelligent. If the farmer-being was also a sentient race, maybe there could be some sort of peaceful trade agreement reached with its kind if she told the SeaWings about it at the right time. Not the SeaWings - my tribe, she reminded herself. If I told my tribe about it at the right time.
There was no current heading back, so she swam arduously up-sea for the next half hour. The sunlight was barely dribbling through the waves above. No other deep-dwelling creatures bothered her, but a distant roar shook the water around her at one point, sending shivers down her spine. Eventually the reef came back into view, a magnificent and golden rise of color amid the water. 
Estuary was waiting with an almost comical expression of greed upon her features, and snatched the pearls from Anadrom before she could even begin to hand them over. As always, she was so preoccupied with her new treasure that she didn’t give a second glance to Anadrom. Eelgrass’s hidden pearl remained as safe as could be. Estuary didn’t bother to thank her, and only turned tail with a disgruntled sneer. She’s impressed with them, Anadrom worried. I hope she doesn’t ask for them more often now. What was I thinking? I should have just dropped those and looked for some mediocre ones, but that was a risk. I might not have found more and Ocotillo would be in danger. 
As the blackmailer finally swam away, she seemed to remember something and turned her head back over her shoulder. Anadrom’s heart raced, but Estuary only signaled, “Starfish wasn’t attacked by a shark, but by a group of lobsters. Lobsters!” She smirked and swam off.
Anadrom wished her secrets were as innocent as Starfish’s, a fellow SeaWing dragonet who had clearly failed to pay Estuary off. She headed back to the Talon’s island, admiring as always the foreboding grey crags stemming from the surface to the depths of the reef, then surfaced with a halfhearted shake of her wings. Out of the ocean, her scales ceased their maddening itching, and her sight seemed clearer and brighter. The pressure was lifted from her and she moved ever more freely. She gazed in admiration at the beauty of the flowering plants upon the beach and within the tiny forest, patches of yellow, blue and teal against the deep greens and beiges of the palms. Slipping into the cave, lit by the glow of particularly large mushrooms, she hid the large pearl beneath her pillow and quickly smoothed out her seaweed blankets. 
Contemplating what to do next, she returned to the beach and wondered where Ocotillo was. She had expected him to be in the cave. He rarely left it as a side effect to his being on the run and all. On his brief visits outside, he often stayed within sight to reassure Eelgrass, flying only in tight arcs above the island. Sometimes when Eelgrass was in a more worrisome mood he would cover Ocotillo in blue dye before he allowed him to take flight, disguising his SandWings scales (at least when seen from a distance). She looked towards the sky now, but the glaring sunlight wasn’t reflecting off of scales of any hue.
For a horrible moment Anadrom convinced herself that Estuary had given him away to the IceWings, but she shook it off. She had done everything right. There was no reason for the older dragonet to pull her best card yet. There weren’t any signs of struggle on the island either, but Anadrom still felt a deep foreboding. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Eelgrass on her rounds of the village earlier. Where were her parents? 
A stark feeling of unease spread through her as she launched herself into the air. Something inside of her had suddenly twisted; while her thoughts remained rational (Come on, Anadrom, they’re gone for hours on end all the time - this is no different from any other day), all of her instincts told her that something was wrong. Something deeper than instincts, even, a pulling of her thoughts and soul into a single emotion, an ever-felt and gnawing certainly. Beating her wings as hard as she could and fighting exhaustion after her long swim back from the depths, she soared in arks outward from the island.
	There! A spot of gold gleamed in the distance, and Anadrom recognized the glare of sunlight off of Ocotillo’s bright yellow scales. She flapped towards him as he spun around frantically in the air. He seemed quite distressed and was trying to dive into the ocean despite his notable lack of ability to breathe underwater.
	“Anadrom, thank goodness you’re here!” her father gasped as soon as he spotted her approaching. The look on his face immediately confirmed her fear. The single emotion surrounding Anadrom deepened further and she nearly collapsed out of the sky as the despair spread to the tips of her wings. Ocotillo’s eyes were wild, and he was dripping with water and coughing. “Anadrom, please - he - I -”. It was frightening to see her father this way; he was usually light-hearted and relaxed, a calm and stable presence that was anything but his current self.
	Ocotillo breathed sharply and tried to compose himself. In a voice hoarse from shouting, he stammered, “I was out stretching my wings and I saw your father swimming his usual route. He rose so we could - could talk for a moment, and then mid-sentence he just dropped with - er - a - a - scream.” He gestured towards the water imploringly, and Anadrom read more in his eyes than the conventions of language could convey. 
	Without hesitation she dropped into the water, the speed of the dive jarring her entire body. Below the surface, another sense foreign to her grabbed her attention and directed her downwards towards a deep ravine. With a jolt of shock, she noticed the sharp scent of blood in the water. Pushing herself forward as fast as she could, she saw what she and her father had feared; the shape of Eelgrass sprawled unconscious underwater, while a monstrous creature tore at his leg. The creature appeared to be an overgrown shark, a powerful entity three times as large as a dragon, with rows of shining teeth and dead, glassy eyes. Blood rose from its maw, mixed with the blue shards of Eelgrass’s scales, making Anadrom sick. 
Something snapped within her, an awakening of ancient instructions, and without thinking she charged at the leviathan predator. With the fraction of her mind that was still functioning clearly, she noted a ghostly light emitting from her scales and intensifying into a strong glow. She slammed into the flank of the shark at a speed she didn’t know she was capable of reaching. Her breath was torn away. The light radiating around her seemed to dive into the creature, spreading from the impact zone in lightning streaks, and as she delivered a strong blow with her tail, she felt the bones of the shark shatter. She was not a particularly large or strong dragonet, so this was quite surprising to her, but even more shocking was the way that the shark’s flank suddenly dissolved. Before her, the monster shattered like a fragile log lifted from the site of a fire, releasing a fine white dust into the water. It gave out a final cry, a hoarse shout almost as intense as the eruption of an undersea volcano, and then the remaining particles of its former mass dispersed into the ocean.
	But Eelgrass still lay limp in the water, his chest barely rising, and Anadrom saw just how badly he was injured. One of his legs was almost missing entirely, and jagged cuts were torn across his entire body, as if the shark had caught him in its maw and shaken him. With a cry, Anadrom dove towards him, gently grabbing his undamaged wing and pulling him towards the surface.
	Memories of her time with Eelgrass bubbled into her brain, a rapid succession of events and images that made salty tears spring from her eyes. He was teaching her Aquatic; showing her around the village on her fifth birthday; joking with her and Ocotillo in the cave; bringing home new scrolls and fresh plants for Anadrom to study; pushing her aside as a swordfish rushed past her. He couldn’t die! Desperately, she repeated in her mind, Let him be okay, let his wounds heal! 
To her absolute astonishment Eelgrass’s scales began to warp across his body. They knit themselves together before her eyes, regrowing over the brutally bitten sections of his leg, while the holes in his wings and webs shrank into nothingness. His breathing leveled out, a glow returned to his eyes, and his wings began to beat feebly. In a minute, her father was completely undamaged, and began to quietly stir. Anadrom stared down at her talons, shock running through every vein in her body. 
She couldn’t be an animus.
Through some unknown means, all animus magic had been rendered inert after the defeat of the Darkstalker. Some scholars claimed that the ancient tyrant had released a death-curse to prevent any other dragon from using the powers that he had believed should belong only to him; others argued that Qibli, Turtle, or some other animus had decided to destroy animus magic to make Pyrrhia a safer place. Even putting all of that aside, the only animus dragons within the SeaWings had been royals, and Anadarom was definitely not related to Queen Coral in any way. The patterns upon her wings didn’t match the royal stripes in the least, her scales were of an entirely different color, and there was no way a royal egg would have been deserted as hers had been. 
This was entirely impossible, a chasm against the very presence of reason, and her mind raced as she attempted to understand. But despite whatever she might think, she had just used magic, which meant that she now had so much more to worry about.
Chapter 2
	Anadrom’s mind spiraled in wild confusion as she continued to drag Eelgrass towards the surface. She wondered in a daze if she was hallucinating. Perhaps she had inhaled some fumes in the deep that were messing with her senses, and she was still in the Talon cave, staring blankly at a wall as her brain invented a world of its own. She reached out and noted that everything around her felt entirely normal. The dull ache and pressure of being submerged had returned and her muscles were still sore from earlier. The world was too real around her for her to have imagined it.
	Eelgrass spluttered next to her, and Anadrom came back to her senses. She could panic later, but right now she needed to confirm that her father had recovered. That he was okay. I had no idea I was enchanting him! What if I said something wrong? Are his internal organs repaired or did it only work on his scales? Her father was staring around himself as if confused as to how he had gotten there, and his eyes still held a speck of fear from the shark attack. “Anadrom?” he signaled, gazing curiously at her. He reached out a talon and rested it on her wing, a cold weight that was very reassuring in its stability. 
“Yes,” she replied nervously. “Are you alright? There was - er - a shark that attacked you! But I - er - scared it off? Before it was able to do much damage.” The partial truth seemed the best way to go here, as it would match with the shattered memories Eelgrass held of the attack. And she definitely didn’t want to reveal her condition to her parents yet. I have to figure out what it is first. If she was an animus, then she would lose a bit of her soul whenever she performed an enchantment. But I’m not an animus. That’s not possible, she reminded herself. She had to be some sort of near variation, which raised the question of whether the same rules would apply. Oh, I don’t like the thought of that at all. This is a nightmare. This can’t be happening, right? Why would - it’s impossible - I can’t lose my soul! I can’t have access to magic… 
Ocotillo was still circling nervously when they reappeared, looking as if he had been considering heading back to the village for more SeaWing assistance. He let out a cry of relief as he spotted them and dove down, embracing them both and accidentally pushing them back down into the water. They resurfaced, sputtering, and Ocotillo beamed at Anadrom. “Fantastic! You amazing little sunfish! I was so worried -”. He seemed unable to vocalize his happiness, and Anadrom was blasted with a wave of her own, driving away her fear. She noticed her scales return entirely to their usual dark color. I wonder what that light was about. Had she enchanted herself to do that at one point and not realized it?
“Ocotillo, calm down,” Eelgrass laughed beside her, his voice muffled by the SeaWing’s soaked wing. “I’m fine. It was just a large shark that took me by surprise; nothing Anadrom couldn’t handle.” He winked at her. “I was in much worse shape in that storm when you first found me, and you weren’t nearly as upset then.”
“There’s a difference,” Ocotillo sighed. “By the moons, you must have been an entirely useless spy. You can’t even handle a shark? Why did Queen Coral keep you on for all those years?” This earned the SandWing a swat from Eelgrass’s tail, sending him splashing back down into the water. “I’m taking you out of the ocean for now,” the SandWing spluttered, resurfacing while grabbing Eelgrass’s wing, and trying to pull him into the sky. Eelgrass shot an amused glance at Anadrom and followed him away back towards the cave. 
Anadrom hesitated. She should probably follow them back, since Ocotillo would have a lot of questions, but the taunt of analyzing her powers was pulling her away. Her SandWing father turned to give her another glowing grin and her conscience won over. She made it back to the Talon cave right behind her parents. There was a dull pain forming in her tail where she had hit the shark.
Ocotillo did ask a great many questions, most of which Anadrom answered truthfully. She minimalized the extent to which Eelgrass had been damaged, and skimmed over the size of his attacker so her rescue would seem plausible. Her parents were very trusting of her, so any possible discrepancies in her recollections were overlooked. The sun was sinking below the horizon when she finished. Shafts of ruby-red light bounced into the cave and spun off of the polished mushroom heads, sending about a glow that lit the room as clear as day. 
Anadrom hated withholding anything from her parents, but this was the only safe way forward. If Estuary was listening in right now and learned of her abilities - well, things would get indescribably worse. She couldn’t bring herself to imagine what the SeaWing blackmailer might do if she discovered an animus that she could extort. As she felt a bolt of worry stab through her, Anadrom realized just how drained she was, physically and emotionally. She settled upon her seaweed bed early in the night, which her parents respectfully did not comment on. 
She slept soundly for a few hours, but then found herself trapped in a nightmare. The most notorious animus dragons in Pyrrhia were surrounding her, including the SeaWing Albatross, who had massacred the entire royal family, and the monstrous NightWing Darkstalker, who had so recently attempted to become the tyrannical king of all of Pyrrhia. They were beckoning for her to join them, and she watched helplessly as her dream-self stepped forward and reached for their talons. Then came flashes of her casting enchantments as horrible as theirs over formless dragons, causing them to morph into dreadful shapes or bow before her with hauntingly empty eyes. She found herself upon a throne of dragon bones in a dark hall, laughing and raining destruction upon palaces and villages as dragons frantically fled before her.
Anadrom woke with a start, utterly crushed. She could not allow herself to become such a monster; it was her new worst fear, and she trembled in agitation. Never once had she contemplated what she would do if she was an animus. The concept of such power had always frightened her, and she had stayed away from such thoughts. But now I have no choice about it. She stared down at her talons, noticing a faint light rising from them as her distraught deepened. The pressure she felt sinking into her chest now was worse than even that she felt upon Estuary’s missions, and her head ached sharply with worry.
Yet there was a faint glimmer of hope buried deep within her, a barely perceptible flutter of wonder and anticipation. If she could just manage this correctly, if she could just find a way to refrain from corruption, she could maybe make the world a better place. The War of SandWing Succession was over, and the Breath of Evil had been destroyed, but there were sharp wounds left across the continents - wounds which she could now set right! While the success of the Jade Mountain Academy had united the tribes, it had not solved the evil within individual dragons (Estuary being a case-in-point), and fractions of Pyrrhia and Pantala were now unsafe due to the armed bands of outlaws that roamed about. What if her magic could solve some of these seemingly insurmountable problems and improve the lives of thousands of dragons?
There was something she could do right now, to prove to herself she would use this power only for good. Ocotillo and Eelgrass were sleeping silently beside her, tails intertwined, so she moved carefully so as not to wake them. After a moment of hesitation, she tapped a nearby mushroom with a trembling talon and asked it to become a simple metal bracelet. Once again to her astonishment, the surface below her talons warped, flattening out while curling and altering in weight. A silver metal band was now clasped in her shaking talons. She placed the metal band around her wrist, considered her idea for a while, and then thought in a rush, Make this bracelet invulnerable to all forms of damage from myself, any other dragon, or the elements, through physical, magical, or any other means, and prevent it from ever being removed from my arm by the same forces. The band tightened to fit snugly around her arm, which made her add, and allow it to grow proportionally to my arm as I age. 
The next bit was really important, so she reflected on the correct wording for a while. For as long as I wear this bracelet, have it prevent me from casting any enchantments that I would consider, from the mindset I have at this very moment, to be evil, deadly, manipulative, or cruel in any way. In addition, make it prevent me from being able to modify it in any way that would reverse the effect of any spells I have cast upon it. A thought struck her, and she continued, and make the arm upon which this bracelet is worn impossible to sever from the remainder of my body. As gruesome as the thought was, she could imagine an evil version of herself attempting to work around these preventative measures and deciding the best way to go would be dismemberment. 
The enchantment seemed to be tight, but she still pondered over until sunrise as she tried to spot any loopholes. From what she had read, the Darkstalker had performed similar enchantments to assure dragons from his time that he wouldn’t become evil, but those clearly had not been successful. Nothing came to her. She decided to continue down to her next concern, which was Estuary discovering her abilities. She could only imagine what the blackmailer might do to her if she found out she was an animus - or very animus-like, at least. Anadrom tapped another mushroom in the early morning light and transformed it into a clear crystal multifaceted-half-dome, which she magically embedded into her bracelet and enchanted to turn yellow when Estuary was within a ten-mile radius, and to glow bright red if the dragonet could see her. She then made the entire bracelet invisible to all dragons but herself, as the sight of a magically lighting crystal would certainly alert Estuary anyways.
Then, just as a test, Anadrom told the bracelet to carve a living design of a coral reef around the base of the jewel. She watched with astonishment as this actually worked! Little black beads appeared a tad below the surface of the bracelet, and moved about in clean arcs to cut elegant forms into the silver band. When a certain cut was unwanted due to the progress of the movement, the silver around it regrew just as Eelgrass’s scales had, and a level surface of polished silver was left in its place. In this manner, an elaborate swaying design formed in a circle around the alarm-jewel, mimicking the swaying of plants in the ocean perfectly as the beads raced around and the silver reformed softly. It was beautiful, and gazing upon her work Anadrom felt the flicker of hope strengthen inside of her. If she was careful and clever with this, she could prevent any harm to anyone and still use her magic to better Pyrrhia. Can I be clever enough? I’m just a broken SeaWing who can barely keep her father safe; can I really be the help Pyrrhia needs?
As a final thought, she placed another gem next to the first and told it to display the status of her soul in a level-system, as if it was a glass tank marked at intervals. If she lost any of her soul, the blue color of the gem would sink lower and a crystal-clear white be left in its place, as if the tank had been punctured and water was draining out. She told the gem to display where the point of insanity was, and watched a dark line scrape across the gem about a quarter upwards from the bottom. The coral reef carvings circled this gem as well, which at the moment was entirely blue. She again made it impossible for her to modify this enchantment, just to be safe, then found herself curling back up on her bed. Exhaustion and worry pressed over her, and before she could resist it she was once again asleep.
Anadrom awoke to find bright yellow sunlight falling about her and an empty cave. It was clearly approaching noon; Eelgrass and Ocotillo must have let her keep sleeping as they went off. As if in response to this thought, Ocotillo poked his nose into the cave and smiled at her. “I see you’ve finally awoken,” he said, and for some reason the last word sent a shiver down her spine. She quenched the feeling of unease and smiled at her father. 
“I’ve just - er - been stretching my wings again,” he informed her, despite her not having mentioned his temporary absence from the cave. She narrowed her eyes at him; it was pretty clear what he had actually been doing.
“Hmm,” she murmured, sending a sympathetic look at her father. “You were following Eelgrass, weren’t you? But he spotted you and sent you back here?” 
Ocotillo raised his talons in protest, then sighed and nodded. “Yep,” he admitted. “Am I really that unconvincing? Wait, don’t answer that. Anyway, while I was - er - flying in a direction totally unrelated to the movements of your father, I caught this great swordfish, and that’s breakfast today.” He threw the fish down into the cave, and they ate together, both silently wondering if Eelgrass was still okay. Anadrom wondered if she should add a gem to her bracelet to show her the status of dragons she cared about, then wondered what she should call the bracelet. She settled on the Informaband, because the lighthearted name somewhat deflected the bracelet’s dire purposes.
She and Ocotillo spent the next hour playing chess, using a set that Eelgrass had carved out of coral, and then Ocotillo went to bask in the sunlight and Anadrom hurried over to the scroll-section of the cave to research animus dragons. They only had a few scrolls on the subject, none of which mentioned even the possibility of other forms of magic existing, and all of which were rather disheartening. Anadrom didn’t even read the last scroll, A History of Animus Tragedies, and thinking that the village library might have better options, she left the cave and dove into the ocean. Once again, she forced herself to try to enjoy being underwater, then realized with a jolt that she actually had the option now to enchant herself to like it. 
She was reluctant to alter herself in such a way, to change who she knew she was, so she resisted the temptation. Her thoughts turned to wondering if her powers were actually responsible for her difference from other SeaWings. This seemed to have some sense to it, and it kept her mind turning until she had arrived at the spiraling coral-brick tower of the library and entered through the uppermost arched gateway. Despite the size of the structure and hundreds of scrolls it contained, the library turned out to have no new scrolls on animus magic. Even more disheartening was the fact that the Estuary-gem on the Informaband lit up a bright yellow after a few minutes, causing her to leave in a rush to avoid any encounter with the blackmailer. 
After riding the nearest current out to sea, Anadrom noted with relief that the light blinked out. She considered the prospect of enchanting Estuary to forget about Ocotillo, but altering another dragon certainly seemed like evil activity, no matter if it was for a good purpose. She would just complete the blackmail missions as usual - and she felt that they would be less overwhelming now that she could use her powers to summon the requisite materials if she really had to. Keeping one eye on the Estuary-gem, Anadrom dove into a shallow cave in the side of the reef wall and plucked several pieces of kelp to use for a new feature on the Inforamaband.
The enchantment worked smoothly, and soon the bracelet held two more tiny gems that rested at a shimmering green, one marked with Eelgrass’s face on its surface and the other with Ocotillo’s. The gems would shift into orange if the dragon they represented was in danger, then red if their life was threatened, as much as the very idea terrified her. There was no difference in the soul-monitor as a result of the enchantment, which provided her a wave of relief. How large does an enchantment have to be to remove a noticeable section of my soul? she wondered. Albatross’s mistake was creating the Pavilion in the Summer Palace; such a massive project must have been the reason he went over the edge. I’ll never do anything like that, I swear.
She supposed she should try a larger enchantment to see if the same rules applied to her odd, unblocked version of magic as did to normal animus magic. Yet the goal was to damage her soul as little as necessary, so if she eventually did so, it would have to be extremely worthwhile. Gazing down at the gems representing the status of her parents, the guilt she felt from hiding this phenomenon from them strengthened, as did the curiosity she now felt about where exactly and in what conditions they had found her egg. She resolved that she would tell them tonight.
For the rest of the day, Anadrom didn’t cast a single enchantment, though nearly everything she saw made her itch to do so. She wanted to repair the damage to the village by a storm a few years back, which was still apparent in the sagging doorways of the houses and the littered debris that were too heavy to clear away. She wanted to heal the scars and wounds of various residents that had served in Queen Coral’s army during the war, to give the struggling merchants enough fish to allow them to spend the rest of their days in calm prosperity. Yet she couldn’t go on impulse and possibly destroy her soul within a week by enchanting everything to be perfect, right? There must be certain things that, if fixed, would send out ripple effects of peace that would solve many related issues without them all needing individual enchantments. But what? What cornerstones of trouble brewed in Pyrrhia at the moment? 
Estuary was one, of course, but Anadrom couldn’t figure out how to fix her without enchanting her directly, which she was quite uncomfortable with. As she thought of the blackmailer, she noticed her corresponding gem light up on the Informaband and quickly shift to red. There was nowhere for her to hide, so Anadrom groaned inwardly and waited for her personal tormentor to swim up to her. 
“Dragonet,” the blackmailer signaled, her usual malice glaring from her eyes. “Show me wherever you found those pearls yesterday. At once.”
Anadrom had not been expecting this, and found that as always Estuary had managed to assign a task that she would find extremely unpleasant to perform. She thought of the farmer-being, and how carefully it had rearranged the damaged oysters, then thought of the many dangerous barbed tails that sprouted from the back of its body. The creature seemed intelligent, she didn’t want to steal more of its crop, and she certainly didn’t want Estuary to get too close to it. The blackmailer would either kill the creature or enslave it, neither of which remotely be okay with Anadrom. Maybe she could get lucky and find another pearl deposit with orbs close enough to what she had given Estuary yesterday?
Either way, Estuary was glaring to be off, so Anadrom took her along the route she had traveled, down from the reef into the depths. A ferocious roar tore through the water as they neared the deposit, not from the farmer-being but rather from the unseen leviathan that Anadrom had heard last time as well. It was now or never, so Anadrom turned away from the farmer-being’s land and began scanning frantically for oysters. Estuary was flashing at her to hurry up, which was not helpful in the least. 
There was a glint of something below, and Anadrom dove down, with her visibility once again sinking to only a few wingspans. She landed, glancing down at a bed of unorganized oysters with no apparent other life around. Estuary landed beside her, and for a moment Anadrom worried that the blackmailer would notice that the bed was undisturbed; all of the oysters were intact. This was clearly not a spot discovered by a dragon before. Yet the greed of the blackmailer overrode her apparent sense, and she began opening oysters expertly, finding pearls that, very luckily, were close enough in size to the previous harvest as to be entirely comparable. Anadrom turned to leave, hoping this was the end of this interaction, and then something rose up before her out of a fissure in the ground. She started back with a burbled cry, gazing in horror at the thing rising up before her.
The creature was more bizarre than the farmer-being, with a slimy, broad head that unhinged entirely into a tooth-filled maw. The fearful mouth rested upon a mass of barbed tentacles that clumped at the end into a single venomous stinger. Fins larger than dragon wings spread out from the head and stinger, flapping bat-like towards Anadrom. From behind her, Anadrom heard Estuary yelp and flee, leaving her to fend for herself. Slithering sunfish - I don’t stand a chance. I’ll have to enchant it - but what if she notices - but there’s no time - what should I do -
The stinger was dashing towards Anadrom, and she felt she really had no choice. As she leapt aside, she clawed at one of the creature’s fins, and at the same time enchanted it to return to its nest and never threaten dragons again. The mass of limbs shuddered beneath her, then turned on the spot and murked slowly away without a backwards glance. Anadrom gazed quickly at her Estuary-gem, and to her dismay found it red. Looking up, she saw the blackmailer staring at her with mild suspicion. She shouldn’t have been able to scare off the monstrosity on her own; the creature had been several times larger than herself, and far more weaponized to boot. She racked her brain for excuses, but nothing came to her. Come on, Anadrom, be clever for once. You can’t let her know. Who knows what she’ll do if she finds out - I can’t let her suspect me! Yet she still came up blank, and Estuary’s glare tore through her, pinning her to the ocean floor.
“It -er - it didn’t bargain for a fight?” Anadrom finally venturned, trying to sound entirely surprised at the creature’s response. Estuary shrugged and turned to slowly swim away, but the glint of suspicion in her eyes that Anadrom had seen worried her greatly.
Chapter 3
That evening came far too quickly for Anadrom, and she landed on the island after a twilight flight without a complete plan on how to confront her parents. Against her usual nature, she had decided that a direct and sudden approach would be best. She wanted to prevent Ocotillo and Eelgrass from having time to prepare any lies, even if she didn’t think they would try to. She didn’t even know what she would do with the information they gave her. Visiting the site from where her egg had been taken seemed obvious, but from there what could she really do? Will there be something that will provide a clue to my origins? How much do they really know about my biological family? I’m certain they had a good reason to hide this from me, so do I really want to know?
Anadrom shook off her doubts, glanced down at the blessedly clear Estuary-gem, and then entered the cave. Eelgrass was reading a scroll in the corner, a thoughtful expression upon his scarred features, while Ocotillo was roasting a fresh salmon for dinner. He looked up at her with a smile, but detected something in her expression that caused some strange emotion to flood through his eyes. Anadrom noted concern, apprehension, and to her surprise a hint of fear, which made her think guiltily of her nightmare. There was no world where she wanted her parents to be afraid of her. She was harmless, just a nervous and good-intentioned dragonet, but what if they saw her as a monster as a result of this? Anadrom stood frozen in place. Eelgrass seemed to detect something unusual as well, for he lowered his scroll and frowned at Anadrom with an unreadable gaze.
“I - er - have something to ask you,” Anadrom stammered, her voice fluttering as Ocotillo’s always did when he was nervous. She felt blood rushing behind her ears, and briefly reconsidered her idea. I hope it won’t startle them too badly, but they do seem to have been expecting something like this. Why, though? Anadrom reached a quaking talon towards Ocotillo’s tan head, and felt the cold weight of the scales right below the gaping scar his IceWing commander had given him. She performed the enchantment she had planned in the last few hours, and stepped back as Ocotillo’s scales began to morph and crawl around his injury. Sinew rose from the surface to form the ear that he had lost over a decade ago, and before long it was impossible to tell that his head had ever been damaged. Anadrom swallowed nervously. “Why - er - why am I able to do this?”
Ocotillo was feeling the side of his head in amazement, and Anadrom considered how strange it would be for him to be able to hear with both ears again. It’s an improvement, right? I hope? Please don’t let him be mad. Eelgrass was staring at Anadrom, his head tilted and a flare of panic rising in his expression. “Ah, Anadrom,” Ocotillo murmured, then wrapped his wings around her. She leaned into them, allowing the warmth of his scales to penetrate through her. It was the most calming thing in the world, like nestling in the warm sands of a sunlit beach, and she wanted to stay there forever.
Eelgrass coughed, then hesitated before saying, “Anadrom, I haven’t any idea why you can do that, but there is something you should know.” 
“What?” Anadrom cried, turning towards Eelgrass. “Do you know why I’m different from every other SeaWing? Where did you find me?” Her father shifted uncomfortably, then stared at her talons, clearly thinking deeply. She hated to pressure him, but she needed answers. She felt her panic rising; what did he know? Who was she? What am I?
“This is not possible,” Ocotillo offered, feeling his ear with one talon. “I - er - isn’t animus magic impossible since - er - since the Darkstalker was defeated?”
“That’s what I had thought as well,” Anadrom said. They both turned to face Eelgrass.
“Oh, come now,” he admonished. “It’s not my fault, Ocotillo. I’ve told you this before.” He shifted, and then finally looked into Anadrom’s eyes. “I always somewhat expected you to be - hmm - unusual, but I had no real way of knowing how.”
“Why would I be unusual?” Anadrom asked, at once stung and relieved. At least her father had phrased it politely; unusual rather than odd or weird. Yet his response confirmed what she had always somewhat feared: that she wasn’t a true SeaWing, that she was really a stranger to her tribe. 
Eelgrass reached for the map of the surrounding waters that was hung on one wall of the cave, and gestured to a volcanic region to the north of the village. “I was working on an excavation project for Queen Coral - she was inquiring into the benefits of heat on SeaWing illnesses - on a bright night seven years ago. She had chosen this site because it was close to this cave. I hadn’t told her that it was a Talon hideout, but just that I had friends there, and being the fair queen that she is, she arranged my assignment near it. I had to work, but needed to keep an eye on Ocotillo, and it was the only way to do both. I made certain no one ever saw him.”
“My fellow workers had left for the evening, but I was eager to please the Queen, so I was working overtime. There was a shaft of moonlight angled directly into one of the tunnels, and there I was digging when the moonbeams suddenly reflected back off of a polished surface in the murk. It was, as far as I could tell, a gemstone of some sort. Entirely round, gleaming silver in the light, with streaks of copper running through in geometric patterns. I reached for it and, at the same time, I felt a tremor in the rock below.”
He tapped his talons upon the stone quickly, hesitated, then continued. “The volcano had been investigated and was not expected to erupt for another few centuries, but maybe our diggings had made it less stable. I don’t know. Yet there was some danger approaching, and fast, so I grabbed the stone and fled towards the surface. To my surprise, there was a fluttering within the object, weak at first but strengthening quickly. It began to quake and splinter, and only then did it occur to me that I was holding an egg. The volcano collapsed - not erupted, but collapsed - a few minutes after I swam out, and you had almost hatched by the time I neared our cave, Anadrom.”
Anadrom gazed at her father in astonishment and tried to read the emotions raging through his eyes as he continued. “Your egg split open while still underwater, and I panicked somewhat, wondering if you were about to drown. The dragonet that emerged was nothing like you are now - it was like nothing I had ever seen before. There was a glow, a slowly expanding light that reached outwards, and when it faded into the water around me, a literally radiant dragonet with the oddest eyes was floating before me. It sputtered at first, but then a tendril of light reached out towards me, and the dragonet morphed into a SeaWing. It was as if it had read some instructions from scanning me and copied those onto itself. I was at a loss. I started to rush toward the surface, but you began to breathe just fine underwater, so I just stopped for a moment and then brought you up to Ocotillo.”
Anadrom gazed at the spot on the map where his talon was resting. She had actually been to that region before, and she had never detected a trace of any strange power while there. The entire place was a slew of ash and crumbled stone, somewhat bare and useless, and not the best place to learn was your birthplace. Her birthplace - but not as a deserted SeaWing egg, but as something else entirely. Had her egg been animus-touched, or was she of some other entire species of dragon? Or worse, some sort of deep-sea monster that was only taking the form of a dragon? She shivered, remembered the light that had emanated from her when she fought off the shark, and drew even closer to Ocotillo. She could think of nothing to say, no way to convey her distress and worry, so they all just sat there silently for a while.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she eventually blurted out, drawing away from Ocotillo and looking at both of her parents. “You said I was just a SeaWing, and I’ve been wondering what was wrong with me for years.” Ocotillo moved to say something, but she interrupted. “And don’t say that there’s nothing wrong with me! I shouldn’t be able to do magic - no dragon can, not anymore. I dislike swimming, of all things - I…” If she had known that being unusual wasn’t exactly her fault, that she had been born something else entirely from a SeaWing, would it have helped? Furthermore, did it help now?
“Different doesn’t mean wrong,” Ocotillo offered, then coughed. “And - er - back to the magic. How long have you - er - how much have you enchanted so far?” She knew this was a tactful way of asking if she had considered the fact that her soul was likely in danger of exhaustion.
“I’ve made some precautions,” Anadrom said, wondering if she should make the Informaband visible to her parents. “I’ve enchanted a few small things, but certainly worthwhile ones, I hope. I only discovered this yesterday, when I was saving Eelgrass.” There was another bout of silence, and then Anadrom asked the question that had been weighing her down for the last day. “Do you - er - do you think I’ll - er - go insane?” 
Their hesitation was painful enough, but the renewed spark of fear in Ocotillo’s eyes cut through Anadrom as sharply as a dagger. There was a bit of herself that had been in denial, hoping that maybe she was special and would escape the painful curse of magic, but the fact that her trusted parents held no hope for her tore all of that away. They even thought she was dangerous - it was clear on their expressions, no matter how they tried to hide it, and Ocotillo had unconsciously angled his barbed tail in her direction. She nodded slowly, then turned and sprinted out of the cave. She heard them calling after her frantically, and felt the footsteps of Eelgrass rushing in pursuit, but she dove into the ocean and swam towards the depths, heading for a cave she had discovered that was safe from all of the great predators in the deep.
The water was especially dark in the cloudy nighttime, and Anadrom had only the bioluminescent glows of certain coral and fish to guide her way. She bolted through the shadows, oblivious to the ripples and currents of the water around her, and dove ever deeper, leaving Eelgrass behind her. Eventually she reached the cave and dove inside, feeling her away along the jagged walls and huddling down in a crevasse. The water down here was frigid and cast about between her scales like tiny fish, but she barely noticed. Maybe she would stay down here forever, just to keep Pyrrhia safe from herself. Just another monster in the depths, a danger kept lurking conveniently out of the way and far from civilization. She curled up and stared at the wall dismally. 
Anadrom wished that she could talk to someone that had experienced something similar to her discovery. Thinking of the scrolls she had read, she realized her situation was similar to that of Turtle, the SeaWing prince that had nearly been killed by the Darkstalker. Like her, Turtle had been able to perform animus magic, but had no idea of what to do with it. He had decided to create another SeaWing animus to cast attention away from himself, which Anadrom felt was rather unfair. She would never ruin another dragon’s life and soul just to be safe herself.
Anyways, she had no idea where Turtle was, and she wasn’t about to summon him to her and possibly place him in danger as well. She shifted deeper into the murk of the cave, then gasped and coughed on the water around her for a moment. Of course! Turtle was able to create a new animus; shouldn’t I be able to destroy one? If I can remove my powers, then everyone will be safe again, and everything will be back to - well, not normal, but closer to normal. It was just too dangerous for her to keep her abilities; not only could she become corrupted, but maybe some dragon like Estuary would find a way to use her for their own personal gain. As long as she was an animus, the continents were not entirely safe. This was what she had to do to better the world; to secure it from ever being damaged by magic again.
Yet there was still a tad of doubt within her, a voice telling her that she could solve all of the problems of dragonkind if she could just be strong enough. If she did all of the right things, would her parents and everyone else trust her again? Maybe she should have told them more clearly about the Informaband; that there was no way she could ever be dangerous now. Would they understand, though? Anadrom curled into a tighter ball, debating what to do. Her body raced to warm her against the frigid water, and before she knew it her eyes had fallen shut.
Dreams came quickly to her, this time of her being locked in a cage by her parents and a mob of other dragons. She cried out through the bars, begging them to save her, to see that she was a good dragon, but they just laughed. Never trust an animus, they sneered, and dropped her cage into an infinite abyss. She sank lower and lower, struggling to escape, and with a shudder noticed the distorted eyes investigating her from all angles. A forked tongue snaked through the bars… 
Suddenly everything shifted in a mass of swirling color, and the dream-world became more clear and realistic. Anadrom blinked down at her talons, then looked about at what appeared to be a landscape divided half between her underwater cave and half a moonlight tropical island. Vague silhouettes of palms swayed gently against a silver background, and a light breeze stirred Anadrom’s wings. A voice called out to her, and she turned her head to find a mesmerizingly beautiful dragonet a few years older than herself standing in the middle of the dream-landscape. She appeared to be in most respects a NightWing, with midnight-dark scales covering her sleek body and snout, as well as the upper side of her wings. On the undersides of her angular wings, however, she bore not only the few silver scales of most NightWings, but additional patterns of shifting colors that formed nebulas and galaxies as she moved about. Her eyes were yellow with black slits, and from the rear of each a teardrop-shaped scale tilted downwards. 
“By the light of the moons, are you a mess,” the dragonet commented, more concerned than harsh. As Anadrom looked at her more closely, she noticed that the other dragon held a star-shaped sapphire in its talons, and had a slight blur, as if she wasn’t entirely there.
“Erm” Anadrom stammered. “I - Who are you? Is that - is that a dreamvisitor?”
“Yep,” the dragonet said cheerfully. “I’m Nocturne, the princess to the RainWing and NightWing throne. Daughter of Queen Glory and King Deathbringer.” As she spoke, the patterns on her underwings solidified into regal purples, and she held her snout royally upwards.
At a loss, Anadrom bowed to the princess, which made her laugh. It was a pleasant laugh, with a ringing reminiscent of the calls of starry songbirds. “No, that won’t be necessary,” she smiled. “This may surprise you, but you’re one of the first to actually bow in my presence. Most of the NightWings are still somewhat upset that a RainWing is their queen, and most of the RainWings are still somewhat afraid of NightWings, which I obviously look like, so not a whole ton of respect is thrown my way. You see, as Mother says, I display the permanent union of the two tribes, and the irreversibility of my existence shows that NightWings and RainWings must always reside together. Yay for me, but not so much for everyone else.”
Anadrom had no idea what to say to this dragonet. Why was the daughter of Queen Glory, the renowned RainWing dragonet of destiny, using the royal dreamvisitor to enter her dreams? 
“You must be wondering why I’m here,” Nocturne continued, which made Anadrom gasp and immediately try to stop thinking about Ocotillo’s secret or her magic. “Ah, nope, I know that look. I am not a mind-reader; don’t worry. Wish I was, though - maybe I would understand the Queen more that way. I have the gift of prophecy instead...” - here she gestured to her teardrop-scales - “...although I do have a strong connection to it, despite being born under only one moon. Perhaps it’s the being a RainWing-NightWing hybrid, or maybe it’s because I’m the daughter of the Queen. It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh?” Anadrom asked, tilting her head at Nocturne. “Did - erm - did you have a vision involving me?”
Nocturne snapped two of her front talons together and smiled at Anadrom. “Quick on the uptake, you are! Glad to see it. Yes, I did. Well, not a single vision, per say. Like I said, I have a strong connection to the future. I can see hundreds of different futures for the continents right now, all of which are changing constantly. But yes, you are in almost all of them, and certainly in the ones where dragonkind survives the next year.”
Shock drove through Anadrom, and she almost fell over. Curling her wings and tail closer to herself, she repeated, “Survives the next year?”
Nocturne looked a bit concerned. “Sorry! I’ve got to be more careful about telling other dragons about this. I’ve grown up with it on repeat in my mind, so it seems normal to me, but I can see how learning that all ten tribes may be wiped from existence could be a shock. Ah, nope, that made it worse. You were all nervous in your nightmares as well. What exactly is wrong?”
The princess stepped forward and gently wrapped a wing around Anadrom. She was so breathtakingly beautiful, and it was comforting, although Anadrom wondered if the dragonet was only being so nice to her because she needed her to fulfill whatever visions she had had. Still, she had been wishing she had someone to talk to who would understand, and who better than someone who must know everything she ever had and ever would do?
“Erm,” she stammered. “I don’t think I’m the right one to have whatever it is that I have. I’m not clever, or brave, or particularly heroic, and I can’t have everyone be afraid of me. I am a good dragon, and I want to do the right things, but what if I fail? Are - are there futures where I do? Where I become evil and a monster and hurt everyone?”
	Nocturne’s expression was one of genuine caring and concern. Anadrom felt that she inherently liked the dragonet. “Not anymore,” she said. “Whatever you enchanted last night removed all possible futures where you become the ruling nightmare queen of Pyrrhia. There are a few where you do go insane, but you don’t really hurt anyone in those. Nope, once again, I can see that that was not as comforting as I intended it to be. Listen to me, Anadrom - oh, sorry. I should probably ask your name instead. Most dragons are weirded out that I already know it from hearing others talk to them in their futures. Anyway - what’s your name, which I definitely do not already know, SeaWing?”
	“Anadrom,” Anadrom stated, and Nocturne nodded contentedly.
	“Cool, like Andromeda, that distant galaxy,” the NightWing-RainWing said, then looked into Anadrom’s eyes. “I’ve been saving that one for a while now. Listen to me, Anadrom. You can do right; you’ve done so much already that sets us into brighter futures. And I think you’re more clever than you’ll admit to yourself. Not brave though, I agree with that. Joking, I’m joking. Kind of.”
	“What if I get rid of my powers tomorrow?” Anadrom asked, realizing she had access to the best possible decision-maker she could ever have wished for. “If I stop now, will everyone be safe? Will they stop being - erm - afraid of me?”
	Nocturne leaped back with an expression of horror on her face that made her look as though she had just seen a leviathan predator appear behind Anadrom’s head. “Nonononono- -nononono,” she gasped, clutching her head as if smitten by some wrathful headache. “No, I beg you, please, please don’t even consider that. There’s not a single future in which anyone survives if you give up your powers. Yikes, there’s a lot of new futures forming...please don’t consider that!”
	“Okay, okay, I won’t remove them,” Anadrom said quickly, startled. “Not if it means the end of the world! But what am I supposed to save us all from? And how? What can you tell me about all of this? Please, I need a few answers. What’s happening?”
	Nocturne’s headache seemed to dissipate somewhat, but her figure was fading from the dream. “I can’t tell you here, it’s not entirely safe. Meet me at the third island from the Talon’s hideout tomorrow - yes, I know about it - okay, I’m going away now.”
	With that she disappeared, and Anadrom’s dreams slipped back into chaotic nightmares.
Chapter 4
	When she awoke in the underwater cave, Anadrom felt normal again for just a moment, but all too quickly the reactions of her parents flooded back into her mind, and she again became racked with guilt and sadness. Eelgrass and Ocotillo were probably worried sick about her, especially after Eelgrass’s near-death experience. Or they’re worried about what I might do, she admitted, which made everything so much worse. Yet she felt that she had to trust Nocturne about her powers. Or should I?
Why had the princess waited this long to contact Anadrom, for one? A warning about her having powers before she discovered them herself would have been nice. And how exactly did Nocturne have the royal RainWing dreamvisitor? Queen Glory kept it in her personal vault, as it was one of the most treasured artifacts in Pyrrhia, now that animus dragons were (supposedly) extinct. Why had Queen Glory allowed her daughter to travel to the Kingdom of Sea without an apparent guard (for there had been no sleeping dragons in the island forests Anadrom had glimpsed behind Nocturne), and most of all, why couldn’t the future-seer have told her what was threatening Pyrrhia in her dream? What could possibly make any island more secure than a conversation entirely in their own minds? What was the unspeakable threat creeping up upon their world?
	She could go to the rainforest and ask Queen Glory about her daughter, but that would take far too long and lead to far too many questions. She didn’t know how imminent the vague threat to the continent was - the mere thought of it sent a crawling shiver down her spine - and so meeting in person with Nocturne seemed like the best course of action. I suppose she’s the only dragon I’ve ever really met besides for my parents and Estuary, Anadrom reflected. What do I actually know about her? I’ve seen firsthand how controlling some dragons can be; what if she’s no different?
	The third island from the Talon’s hideout was somewhat of a distance from her current location, and Anadrom wondered how to get there without being noticed (especially by her parents). She considered her talons for a moment, then grabbed a loose stone nearby and added yet another function to the Informaband; this one a switch that when pressed forward would render her invisible and when pulled downwards would restore her to the sight of all dragons. 
Of course, she would only use this ability to hide - and never to spy on other dragons - but she found herself feeling uncomfortable about it regardless. It seemed to fall slightly in the category of manipulative, and as it came to fruition, she wondered if her countermeasure spells had actually worked. 
She flicked the switch upwards with a spike of curiosity, and felt a most eerie sensation spread throughout her. Glancing about herself and finding nothing there was very alarming, but her talons pressed onto the opposite arms automatically and the solid feeling steadied her. She’d have to be careful not to collide with anyone while in this form. That would be quite the unpleasant shock for both herself and the other dragon, as well as a dead giveaway of her abilities.
Her mind should have been racing with all of the overwhelming new information of the last two days, but she found that her worry had reached some maximum quantity and leveled out into a steadfast determination. She was wandering through the world as if in a dream, faced with bizarre and shocking events at every turn, and she could no longer formulate what exactly she knew to be real. Everything she understood and knew to be true was being flipped on end, from her birthplace, to her current predicament, and now to the fate of the very continents! She couldn’t handle the influx of information at such an astonishing rate, and so she had to block it out. Her salvation would lie in being able to receive some answers from Nocturne. Her only course of action until that moment of clarity would be to remain as calm and focused as she could. It was entirely unusual for her to be feeling this way, but then again, what hadn’t been unusual in the last few days?
	Anadrom beat her wings as soundlessly as she could and exited the cave, spiraling up towards the surface. She stopped just below the cresting waves, noting how bizarre a dragon-sized gap in the water would appear from above, and paused for a moment before heading eastwards. There were few other islands around, and the one Nocturne was hiding on was a good day’s swim away. About to head off, Anadrom glanced down at the Informaband and noticed with a shock that the Estuary-gem was a blazing red. As she wondered how the blackmailer could possibly see her, it faded to a dire yellow, and she realized that Estuary was sweeping the ocean with her gaze. What for, I wonder? I should check on her and make certain that it’s nothing too nefarious, right?
	Anadrom dove back into the depths, and before long spotted a glowing mass heading out from the island shelf. She recognized Estuary’s patterns, but to her surprise noted those of Starfish beside her. Moving forward for a closer look, she felt a rush of horror. Estuary had her sharp talons wrapped around the smaller dragonet’s neck, and he was bleeding from a series of scratches along his body and wings. What’s she doing? The blood will alert every predator in the ocean to their location! Does she...does she want it to? Is she going to have Starfish killed?
	She had known that Estuary was evil, but this was a new level for her. Should she fly to the village and get help? No, that would take too long; Starfish didn’t look in the best of shape and a massive predator could come along at any moment. As Anadrom paddled cautiously closer, she noticed that Estuary was sending out a repeated message in Aquatic.
	“Anadrom, come save this pathetic creature, if you dare,” her scales flashed over and over, while her eyes scoured the ocean floor. Anadrom gasped, a rush of bubbles rising from her mouth. “I’m going to wring this weakling’s neck soon,” the blackmailer flashed out. “Come and stop me, mudfish.” 
Come on, Anadrom, you can figure out a way to save him without giving away your powers. Right? Why didn’t Nocturne warn me about this? Oh, what do I do, what do I do? She was shaking with fear and anger at Estuary and noticed the feeling of a deeper sensation once again spreading over her scales. They would be glowing that odd bright white again if she lowered the invisibility spell, which she supposed she would have to do to try reasoning with the blackmailer.
	She flicked the switch and waited in cold terror for Estuary to spot her. Her scales had returned to normal, which meant the imminent discovery of her true nature would be delayed. The blackmailer saw her after a half moment and rose to face her with a grin of complete heartlessness. “Aha, there you are, coward,” her patterns flashed, and the imprints of the words were burnt unpleasantly into Anadrom’s mind. 
	“Estuary, what are you doing?” Anadrom flashed, waving her talons frantically about as she tried to figure out what to do. “If you kill Starfish, you’ll be thrown out of the village. And you can’t kill him; Estuary, he’s another dragon! How could you?”
	“I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” Estuary said quietly, in a steady voice like water retreating before a tsunami. “It was a very impressive stunt you pulled the other day, very impressive, particularly for a spineless weakling like yourself. It started me wondering what else you might have been up to recently. It happens that this little leech saw you drive back a shark the other day. Would you believe it - you, you deep-dwelling filth, suddenly able to shatter creatures with your tail? Remarkable.”
	She tightened her grip around Starfish. “So I’ll only be killing him, animus, if you don’t listen very closely to what I said. Ah ah ah,” she hissed condescendingly as Anadrom started to open her mouth. “Don’t say a thing, don’t think a thing. If I feel the slightest change, the slightest bit of magic latching onto me, I’ll wring this pathetic creature’s neck immediately. How fast do your spells activate, mudworm? Faster than me, do you think?”
Anadrom was frozen in place at the shocking cruelty of the blackmailer. Starfish looked at her with horrified eyes, reaching out to her in a heartbreaking plea for help. Her mind went blank as she tried frantically to think of a way to get them both safely out of this. 
	“I’ll do whatever you want,” she flashed at Estuary, stalling until her mind could restart. “Any gems you need, any catches of fish, anything! Just let him go, please.”
	“Oh, I couldn’t possibly need any of that anymore,” the blackmailer retorted with a hiss, and sliced one of her back talons across Starfish’s wing, tearing a great gash in the membrane. Anadrom leaped towards him with her talons outstretched, but Estuary turned and smashed her away with her tail. Another gash was torn deep in the membrane of Starfish’s wing by the cruel claws of the blackmailer, and then another, as Anadrom circled frantically. This is where I’ll fail, and the death of an innocent dragon will be on my hands. Why did I have to be the one to receive this power? What am I supposed to do? Think, please, think!
	Estuary raised a talon towards Starfish’s head, and Anadrom could no longer hesitate. She leaped forward, trying with all of her might to reach past the movements of the blackmailer, but Estuary blocked her every attempt with quick thrusts of her arms and tail. The blackmailer caught her tail with her own, and while the two of them struggled, a predatory roar sounded frightfully close by.
	“I don’t know what you want from me!” Anadrom pleaded. “I don’t know what Starfish saw, what you think you saw, but it wasn’t magic. That’s not possible - it all ended after the Darkstalker, you know that!”
	“Well, then it shouldn’t hurt you at all,” Estuary breezed, “To take this talon…” - at which point she wretched one of Anadrom’s talons up and onto her arm - “...and recite, I enchant this dragon to be immune to any spells I cast on her without her explicit permission.” Her other front talon reached for Starfish’s shoulder and began to dig in, scattering crimson droplets into the water as the dragonet cried out in pain. “Now. I’m faster than you, and if you start flashing anything else, I’ll kill him.”
	What choice did she have? Starfish didn’t deserve to die just because he had seen her fighting the shark! If she didn’t do as Estuary asked, his death would be on her talons, the first fatally lost to her magic - but if she gave herself into Estuary’s power, who knew what dreadful things the blackmailer might make her do? How well would her countermeasure-spells hold up against the whims of such a dark mind? What will Estuary make me do? What if she makes me cast spells on other dragons as well? Would letting Starfish die now spare dozens in the future?
	Despite the desperate workings of her mind, she couldn’t find a solution. She performed the enchantment in Aquatic, shivering to her core, and Estuary tightened her grip on her hostage. “Perfect,” she signaled. “Next is an earring that allows me to talk with any dragon I desire at any time, even without having met or seen them before. Give me the royal SeaWing markings as well, and make me stronger than every other dragon on Pyrrhia.”
	“What?!” Anadrom flashed, as panic flowed through her. That combination sounded entirely like Estuary wanted to become Queen of the SeaWings, which would mean Pyrrhia returning to war under her cruelty. Was this what I was supposed to save us from? 
As she panicked, Estuary chucked a stone in her direction to make into the piece of jewelry. Anadrom considered the possibility of using it to free Starfish, but Estuary was so fast that she really would be able to kill him the moment she stepped out of line. Time really was running out now. Another predatory roar struck clear through her bones, and as Estuary tightened her claws around Starfish’s neck so tightly that she drew blood, the spiked head of a leviathan predator came into view. Anadrom quickly complied with the blackmailer’s instructions, dread sinking down from her wings to her talons. 
The transformation of Estuary before her was terrifying as her enchantments set in. With a howl of triumph, Estuary withered as her scales swarmed about like schools of fleeing minnows, rising and falling in cascades of power and agony. The patterns on her wings soon reformed into the royal SeaWing spirals and curves, while her entire body grew far more muscular and so large that she now towered over Anadrom. Estuary flexed her massive talons aggressively, releasing Starfish as she did so. The pale little dragonet swam furiously away, his eyes trained on the approaching deep-sea titan.
	Estuary barely seemed to notice as her prisoner fled. Anadrom switched on her invisibility and backed away slowly, wondering what to do next, but Estuary flashed her blinding royal patterns in a command to stop. “No, no, no, Anadrom, this is not the end. With this earring I can now tell the IceWings about your foolish father instantly, if I choose, and I will choose to if you disappoint me. There’s a patrol stationed only an hour from here, actually, a reserve guard of Queen Glacier’s army being hosted by the SeaWings for a month. That SandWing would hardly have the time to run, and he’d never get away.” She grinned maniacally. “You’ll have to take me to the Summer Palace ruins at once.”
	Anadrom panicked entirely. Oh, by the moons, no. I have to warn the Queen. No, no, no. As she froze for a moment, Estuary’s talons found her wings despite the invisibility spell and pushed them down to her sides. “Fleeing would be a mistake, Anadrom. This very moment, enchant the earing so that as long as I am alive, you can only cast spells that I give you permission for.” She forced Anadrom’s talons toward the jewelry, and she numbly completed the enchantment, feeling a strange draining sensation spread throughout her body. Will this count as giving up my powers? Did I just doom dragonkind to extinction? But - Ocotillo - I can’t let him be taken! Nocturne, I’m so sorry, but why didn’t you warn me about this?
	“The Summer Palace, now” flashed Estuary, and Anadrom complied, wondering exactly how teleportation would feel. She pictured the ruined site of the ancient palace, and placing shaking talons upon Estuary and herself, commanded them to be taken there. Her surroundings blurred and began to spiral in a dizzying array of splotched colors while her insides lurched as if she was being tossed from wave to wave. From beside her, the jaw of the deep-sea creature opened and she shied away in terror. She pressed her front talons to her forehead and drew her wings in as she spun about, and was relieved as the blur of color surrounding her eventually rearranged into a large sunlight opening. They were definitely safely in the right place; the open lake before them was surrounded on all sides by sheer cliff walls and sparkling waterfalls. The surface of the rock was still ashy from the attack decades ago, and while the canopy overhead had regrown, the massive ruins of the Pavilion lay collapsed in the sparkling green lake, a chaotic mass of collapsed discs and spirals. 
	There were no other dragons about, nor any signs of the sea monster, which was a relief to Anadrom. She wondered briefly about how Estuary had worded her power-limiting enchantment. Could she use this teleportation spell again, from anywhere back to the Summer Palace, now that Estuary had allowed her to do so once? Could she even try without upsetting Estuary and getting Ocotillo imprisoned and killed? She’d fallen right into a trap, just as she had feared she would.
	The newly massive form of Estuary leaned down towards Anadrom, and she quaked under the dreadful, intent gaze of the blackmailer’s black eyes. The larger SeaWing smiled in delight, and Anadrom realized that Estuary would find no problem with being the murderous queen of her own nightmares. I hope she doesn’t make me enchant her to become immortal or all-powerful. I really, really, really hope so. Would the Informaband even allow that?
	“Listen closely, cursed filth,” Estuary spat, her cruel face now only a few claw-lengths from Anadrom’s. “From now on, I am the one with animus powers, and you are only my lowly servant, who obeys my every command. Tell anyone otherwise, and your father will be imprisoned before you can even find your way out of this lake. Do you understand?” Anadrom nodded nervously, hating herself for allowing Estuary to take control of her so easily. 
“Good, good,” the SeaWing murmured. “I’m going to need to attract the attention of the Queen and her pathetic subjects as a first matter of business. And look where we are. Of all places, at the site of an ancient animus ruin.”
	She knew what was coming before Estuary finished her command. No, I can’t! If it made Albatross go entirely insane - I’m only a dragonet - how - 
	“I want you to repair the Summer Pavilion,” the blackmailer stated harshly. “Make it breathtaking. If you can survive this, I’ll know you’re useful. If not, your loss. I can become the Queen just the way I am if I need to.”
	She cut Anadrom off before she could say anything, and pushed her roughly aside. Anadrom staggered backwards and fell into the enclosed lake to the laughter of her new master. She didn’t have any choice on the matter. This could be the end right here, of her and the continents, if she really was as important as Nocturne thought she was. What happened if she snapped right now and was killed by Estuary or a SeaWing guard as a result? Her powers would certainly disappear if she died, and Nocturne had very clearly explained at least that there was no way anyone would survive without them. 
	Looking back, she saw Estuary raise a talon to her earring with a meaningful glare. It was happening; she had only known about her powers for a few days, and she was already going to have to try enchanting a massive project; the very thing she had sworn not to do. If this was going to be the end, she might as well make an impressive impact on the world, she decided half-heartedly. Her talons found the rough surface of one of the collapsed floors of the pavilion, scraping along a mass of torn tiles from which all of the precious stones had been looted. For Ocotillo, she thought, and concentrated on her enchantment. 
	Nothing felt different about her when she finished, and there seemed to be no side effects, which was something. She had somewhat expected a dramatic flaring pain to form in her chest, or to find herself suddenly wanting to destroy the world, but she felt the same as always. The soul-gauge on the Informaband was as blue as ever, and she considered it hesitantly, wondering if it even worked. Surely she must have lost a noticeable amount of her soul on such a large enchantment?
	Speaking of which, she certainly wanted to watch her work unfold, so she surfaced and rested upon a bit of rocky beach far away from Estuary. While Albatross had enchanted the platform to grow over the decades, Anadrom had gauged that Estuary wanted more imminent results and had told her version to fully develop within a few minutes. As she watched, fragments of the old ruins began to dissolve into dust that rose in graceful multi-colored spirals to meet over the center of the lake. Tendrils of the particles began to spread down to the surface and were met halfway by others appearing from the lake itself, forming a great swirling column. Risking a glance at Estuary, Anadrom noted that the blackmailer was certainly impressed by what she saw.
	A vague shape began to form out of the haze, a form similar to the old pavilion in most respects. Her key alteration to the old structure became quickly apparent, as upon each side of the layered platforms in the four cardinal directions rose smaller versions of the pavilion, connected to the main structure by twisting stone branches and light wooden bridges. Each form was composed of a main column with ten disc-shaped platforms stemming outward at regular intervals, but the vertical distance between platforms was decreased on each side-pavilion. Upon the peak of the main tower rose a grand throne and council hall composed of swirls of coral that overlapped into a high ceiling and grand windows. Gems studded the entire structure, sapphires, emeralds and topaz stones all larger than a dragon’s head forming patterns of foaming waves or of ancient SeaWing nobles within the limestone walls. Pathway carpets of finely woven seaweed rolled down the corridors, which were lit by glowing green orbs held magically in mid-air. She had even added stained glass to half of the windows, a feature no other palaces in Pyrrhia bore. The entire structure was massive, nearly reaching to the canopy above, and was a good deal larger than the old structure. Anadrom hadn’t entirely intended to make it so grand, but she was functioning in a state of perpetual nervousness and had apparently forgotten to clarify some aspects of her enchantment.
	Estuary was staring at the palace with a look of awe upon her features, which Anadrom found entirely unusual. It was like seeing a human suddenly sprout wings and soar into the air, the complete contrast between this starstruck dragonet and the blackmailer who had attempted murder moments ago. Estuary turned to stare at her, scrutinizing her in an apparent investigation of her remaining sanity. Anadrom shrank into herself, and the SeaWing snorted. “Well, I must say, I’m impressed,” she admitted grudgingly. “Who would have known such filth as yourself was capable of this? Well, now we send out a message to all the SeaWings so they can come to gaze upon my work. Quickly, mudfish. Wait - no - I have to clarify. That’s a message to come here and see me, not any kind of warning or secret signal to the Queen.”
	Anadrom’s hopes sank even lower than she had thought possible. How would she ever work around Estuary’s control if the other dragon was so careful? Yet even in her worry she felt a stir of pride in herself, a feeling she was most unused to, as she gazed at the magnificent palace she had created. Maybe she could still better Pyrrhia under Estuary’s command; but having all of the SeaWing tribe be tricked into believing Estuary was an animus did not seem like a great start.
	She dug her talons into the rocky sand about her and commanded each grain to travel to a random SeaWing and verbally announce that the Summer Palace was rebuilt. As a great flurry of particles rose before her and dispersed in every direction, she hoped that no one would listen to them. Since the messengers were clearly animus-touched themselves, maybe the SeaWings would all flee from the palace instead of convening at it; for the return of the Darkstalker had instilled a strong fear of magic within most every dragon in Pyrrhia. Still a distance away from her, Estuary watched the sand cloud disperse with eager anticipation rising in her expression. 
	The first SeaWings, those at nearby fishing sites, arrived within a few minutes, gazing in wonder at the structure before them and murmuring to each other. Estuary made Anadrom return to her side and look as insignificant as possible, which she had no trouble doing. As more and more dragons trickled in, they all gathered before the larger dragonet instinctively, watching in awe as she spread her powerful wings and lit her royal patterns before them. The first dissenter arrived within five minutes, a scarred old SeaWing who took one look at Estuary and called out, “What do you think you're doing here? Take that dye off your wings at once! You aren’t a SeaWing princess. Has anyone contacted the queen and told her of these lies against her?”
	Estuary frowned haughtily down at the old dragon. “Preposerious - I clearly bear the animus powers found within the royal family. If I were you, I’d treat a newly revealed princess more carefully.”
	The old SeaWing looked at the palace behind the crowd, turned again to study Estuary, then cast his gaze down and murmured an apology. Anadrom felt surprised and a bit disappointed in the dragon. If he really believed Estuary was an imposter, which she was, then he should have tried harder to deny her claims. 
	More SeaWings continued to arrive, driven by their curiosity right into Estuary’s power, and Anadrom wondered nervously about what would happen when the royal family arrived. Surely Estuary would wait for a while longer before challenging the queen? There seemed to be some unrest in the growing crowd now, and Anadrom overheard some muffled conversations debating whether or not they should just kill the animus now before she could cast any more spells. By the moons, they are all truly afraid of magic. If they knew it was me they’d really be fighting instead of the imposing Estuary, would they have already attacked? Even if Estuary had never gotten me into her control, would I have been able to improve Pyrrhia, or would any enchantments I cast be met with such distrust and hostility?
A group of dragonets had broken away from the main group and were flying towards the newly built palace, but the crowd rose and pulled them back. Ice-cold shards stabbed Anadrom in the heart as she noted how afraid they all were of the beautiful thing she had made. She felt like a monster, and the growing fear of the crowd below echoed that of the dragons in her nightmares.
There was a grand commotion at the entrance to the palace, and dozens of guards suddenly rose in the air with spears angled at the palace and Estuary. A few armed SeaWings began circling overhead, and several more could be spotted flying down through gaps in the canopy. A glint of pearl chains caught Anadrom’s eye. With a sprout of wonder in her chest, she saw Queen Coral rise majestically from the lake, followed by her three royal daughters, who she recognized from their pictures in the scrolls. Anemone - she was an animus - maybe I could tell her about this. Beside the queen, holding her head majestically and looking far more intimidating than even Estuary, flew Tsunami, the SeaWing dragonet of destiny, Commander-in-Chief under Queen Glory, and the Head of the Jade Mountain Academy.
Chapter 5
	The SeaWing princess’s expression was caught somewhere between the realms of concern, frustration, and wonder as she gazed upon the revitalized Summer Palace and the dramatic form of Estuary. Anemone bore a far more simple expression: one of complete shock, as if she couldn’t believe a dragon with the same powers she had bore had created this towering structure and not drained their soul twice over. The eyes of Auklet and Queen Coral were suspicious and fearful, and Anadrom wondered if they were recalling the evil caused by the animus Orca, the queen’s first daughter, who had cast a spell upon a statue to kill all unborn heirs to the throne.
 “How is this POSSIBLE?” roared Tsunami, seeming to settle on outrage. “It’s the cursed NightWing powers all over again! How many times will we be CERTAIN some magic threat has disappeared only for it to resurface a few years later? By all the stars, why is life so DIFFICULT?”
“Calm down, dear,” Queen Coral said to her in a voice that almost seemed level, and shifted her majestic gaze upon the gathered crowd of dragons. Most turned and bowed before the queen, but a few shifted closer to Estuary as if she already was their ruler. “I assume this is your work?” the queen commented, boring Estuary with her eyes as she gestured towards the palace. The blackmailer barely shifted before her and boldly flashed her royal patterns in affirmative.
This had the intended effect, for Queen Coral suddenly inhaled a sharp breath. “Impossible,” she cried. “We’ve monitored each new hatching closely and there were not any animus powers in any of them. You simply cannot be a royal!”
Estuary bowed down to the queen, although her eyes lacked any hint of respect. “Your majesty, I am your lost granddaughter,” she lied. “My egg was taken by the roaming agents of the Loyalist Force, and I have only now returned.”
The Loyalist Force was one of the criminal groups terrorizing the continents, a gang of dragons devoted to keeping the tribes separate from one another through any means necessary. Queen Coral considered this for a moment. “We have had several reports of stolen eggs,” she mused, looking at Estuary intently. “You would not know which prince is actually your father, though?”
Estuary prodded Anadrom with her tail in a way that nobody else would notice, and she guessed the blackmailer’s command, enchanting her to have a full knowledge of the SeaWing royal family and to know which members had indeed lost some eggs. Apparently unspoken desires for enchantments also fell within her jurisdiction. “My powers revealed to me that I am the daughter of - Prince Halibut,” Estuary announced, with a barely noticeable pause. “And that he perished two years ago along with several of his siblings when the Scaleating Virus reached the deep palace.”
“Ah,” Queen Coral said. “I am sorry that you never got to meet him; I am sure he was a decent dragon. I never really spoke to him.” The queen gazed upon Estuary for a moment longer, absorbing the fact that she could be a potential challenger, and a powerful one at that. “And who is the small dragonet hiding by your side?”
Anadrom blinked, startled to be noticed by her queen (for she certainly was still loyal to Queen Coral, even if she wasn’t technically a SeaWing) and wondered exactly what Estuary wanted her to say. The false animus apparently decided to speak for her. As she thrust Anadrom forward into the glare of most of the SeaWing tribe, Estuary announced, “This dragonet was in league with the Loyalist Forces, a traitor who sold them information on the layout of the Deep Palace. I captured her during my escape and decided that such filth could serve an actual purpose.” Estuary paused, sneering down at the crowd, and continued, “So I transferred the soul-draining aspect of my powers over to her - for every enchantment that I cast, a bit of her soul is lost rather than my own.”
There were collected gasps from the audience, and Tsunami cast a disgusted look down upon the both of them. Of course - she would hate anyone that assisted in the thieving of royal eggs after her own was taken, Anadrom thought. Once again, the sheer force of Estuary’s cunning cut through her. The SeaWing had instantly established a reputation of cruelty for herself, gaining a significant influence over the gathered dragons. If Anadrom was to ever go insane from the enchantments she was casting, it would look as though Estuary’s powers had caused it rather than her own, effectively allowing the other SeaWing to remain an animus in the public eye. And if all of the SeaWings thought she was allied with the dreadful Loyalist Forces, nobody would wish to talk to her and discover the truth anyways. Anadrom shied away from the hateful glares being thrown in her direction, and stumbled back to Estuary’s side as quickly as possible.
	She didn’t know which evil she despised more; being feared as an animus despite having done nothing wrong or being hated for crimes she didn’t actually commit. No one would ever know the truth about her now; if any scrolls were written on this occasion, she would be recorded as a traitor and a villian, and that would be all any dragons would ever learn about her for all time to come. And possibly as an animus-puppet that went insane and killed several dragons, if Estuary continues to make me complete massive enchantments. She shivered from head to tail, and to her surprise caught a pitying glance from Anemone. 
	“Speaking of which,” Estuary announced, “I will have you know that the Summer Palace is entirely safe to inhabit. It is my first gift to my tribe, one of many to come.” She launched off of the platform, leaving Anadrom alone on the beach, and landed upon one of the wide platform surfaces. A few other SeaWings followed suit, led by the earlier adventurous dragonets, and murmurs of appraisal began to cut through the whisperings as the crowd absorbed the beauty of their new palace. Queen Coral hesitated for a moment, then landed upon the platform that housed the throne and council chambers, demonstrating her courage before her tribe. When nothing changed in her behavior or appearance, a great swarm of dragons rushed into the new tunnels, as if they would only believe the structure existed if they could feel it below their own talons. 
	“This is wonderful,” Queen Coral beamed, gazing about at the elaborate towers before her. “What is your name, granddaughter?” It sounded as if the queen had entirely accepted Estuary’s story, which sent a cacophony of butterflies roaring through Anadrom’s chest. 
	“Estuary,” the false animus answered, pride swelling in her voice. “I am glad to be reunited, grandmother.” There was scattered applause from the crowd below. “I would like to inform your majesty that upon the noontime of every day I shall award a citizen of your kingdom, freely chosen by you, whatever artifact they desire. Of course, only as long as it doesn’t pose a danger to the royal family or any other SeaWings. I would like to begin by granting you whatever you desire, your majesty.”
	This was unexpected; Anadrom had thought Estuary would claim the throne as quickly as she could, not attempt to please the existing queen. She tapped her claws nervously on the stone below her. Maybe Estuary had realized that rising into power as an unknown animus would result in her kingdom distrusting her, even to the point of assassination. This way, she would earn the loyalty of the most powerful officials closest to the royal family, and would be seen as generally benevolent by her tribe; and yet still have a reputation of being slightly dangerous and not one to be taken advantage of.
	Estuary’s plan clearly worked on the queen, for she gazed at the dragonet in open admiration. Beside her, Anemone huffed, likely because her new niece was doing what she had never dared to: giving her mother exactly what she asked for out of her magic. “Well,” Queen Coral said gleefully, “I have always wanted some device that copies scrolls automatically. The manual method takes ages, and there are so many of my subjects who still don’t have access to some of my stories.” 
A brief look of disgust rode over Estuary’s features, but it vanished in a moment, and she nodded and closed her eyes. This was Anadrom’s que, and she felt somewhat relieved. This was not only a small enchantment, but a decent one as well; even one that she would have considered casting on her own. She pictured a table cast of whalebone with elegant carvings of quills and scrolls, with a slot labeled Input in emeralds on a raised platform and another labeled Exit below it. In her mind, she placed a tray below that point, and covered the remainder of the desk in labeled levers of various functions, such as determining whether the scrolls should be waterproof or not and exactly how many copies should be made. She released the idea with a final image of it being beside Queen Coral, and opened her eyes to watch the desk materialize beside her, gleaming like a moon in the reflected green sunlight shining through the canopy. 
	Queen Coral examined the apparatus thoughtfully, then snapped her talons at a guard, who undid a pouch at their side and handed a large scroll from it to the monarch. The queen slid the scroll into the labeled slot, and examining the levers, set the desk to create three copies. No sound emitted from the object besides for the swishing of parchment, and then three neat scrolls fell pre-rolled into the tray below the exit slot. Queen Coral snatched them up and examined them closely, and finding all to be well, she beamed at her supposed granddaughter. “Wonderful, just wonderful,” she announced. “Everyone, Estuary is hereby declared a member of the royal family, and all attacks or disparaging comments made upon her will be punishable by execution. Granddaughter, come fly with me for a moment.”
	Without a glance at Anadrom, the two launched off of the platforms and spiraled upwards, moving to exit through a gap in the canopy overhead. Several guards followed, but when the royal princesses began to take off, the queen waved them back down. Anemone looked entirely as furious and frightening as Tsunami now, and a bit of Anadrom was glad that they both didn’t know she was the actual magic-wielder. A few guards were casting hostile looks at her, so she backed into a shadowy area between two boulders on the beach and covered herself with her wings. She supposed she should be furious that the wonders she had created had been stolen by Estuary, but mostly she just felt so very afraid. This all showed how useless she really was. She had never deserved her powers, and now she was paying the price of being a slow and nervous dragonet. Forfeiting her magic wasn’t even an option anymore, and Ocotillo was in terrible danger. She wished he was here with her, with his warm scales and affectionate smile. 
As she sat in silence no one came to bother her, which was a relief. While she wasn’t exactly tired, she did feel otherwise drained after the massive enchantment of the Summer Pavilion and she felt she should try to contact Nocturne, so she attempted to fall asleep in her little alcove. Soon she found herself once again in the hybrid princess’s presence, with the setting now split between the Summer Palace and the tropical forest of Nocturne’s surroundings. The expression of the other dragonet was difficult to read at first, but when she looked past Anadrom to the cavern behind her, her eyes widened in gratifying amazement. “Sunfish and moonbeams!” she cried, casting sparkling eyes upon Anadrom. “It’s incredible! Nice touch with the windows, that’ll impress any visitors, and the queen must love those gemstones. Well, nothing has changed dramatically in my visions, so I assume you’re still sane. No offense, but you still don’t look great. Perhaps worse than last time, and - that’s new - slightly angry. At me. It doesn’t quite suit you, in my opinion.”
	“Did you see this coming?” Anadrom sputtered. “Why - why didn’t you warn me? Is Pyrrhia doomed? I - I effectively removed my powers - I can’t do anything unless Estuary lets me - does this mean am I going to go insane?”
	Nocturne shook her head pityingly. “Anadrom, calm down. If this was a problem, I would have warned you about it, and I would be collapsing with dark visions right now. If you must know, you would have acted the same when Estuary confronted you with the hostage in every branch of the future, no matter what I told you. You saved your father, Anadrom, and in case you’re wondering, you will moving forward. There are very few futures where Ocotillo dies in the next decade. Due to IceWings, at least. There are still a ton of futures where everyone dies in the next year. Never mind; I should have stopped at Ocotillo not dying. You aren’t looking any better.”
	“Does she make me kill someone?” Anadrom blurted, clutching her talons together nervously. 
“I can’t tell you that,” Nocturne said. “It’s not safe to discuss such things in the dream world. There could be others with Dreamvisitors listening in on every word, or dragons using ancient animus artifacts like the Obsidian Mirror. We need to meet in person so you can cast enchantments to prevent such infiltration. And it is possible, most likely even, that you will be able to come. Remember; the third island by the Talon’s hideout.”
The dragonet started to disappear, and Anadrom cried out, “Wait! How can I cast enchantments if Estuary controls me? Do I break free? Is there anything you can warn me about?”
Returning back into focus, the princess looked at her carefully, and then said, “Trust the SeaWing named Abyss entirely. Most of the futures where dragonkind survives stems from him. And try not to worry as much, for crying out loud. You’ll be fine, I promise.” With that she was gone, and Anadrom returned to the waking world. 
Some companion Nocturne made; the princess barely bothered to try understanding her. Just don’t worry about possible murder and unspeakably evil deeds down the line. She clearly had a very different definition of fine then Anadrom did. And who would even be listening to us? Nobody knows that we would be talking together, and what dragon would just be entering random dreams to eavesdrop? She made it sound as if Estuary might force me to kill someone. I won’t - I can’t - but I have to save Ocotillo - arrgh!
Their conversation had been so short as well. Even if Nocturne couldn’t tell Anadrom anything practical, couldn’t she just have talked to her? She could really use a friend right now. Abyss. I suppose if Nocturne says I can trust him, he must be decent. When will he come to talk to me? Or do I have to find him first? 
Her curled wings were suddenly prodded with a spear, and she jolted away as she looked upwards. A guard was standing over her, looking rather annoyed at this task, and also slightly afraid. He was bristling as if he expected Anadrom to rush up on him at any moment and claw off his ears. “Up, traitor!” he snarled, prodding her again and drawing specks of blood. “The royal animus has forbidden us from locking you away, for reasons she wouldn’t give. You are to have free mobility around the palace, but remember that myself and several other guards will always be watching you. Make any false move, and we will not hesitate to kill you.” He leaned closer, so much so that Anadorm could smell the salmon upon his breath. “Your kind deserves far worse. If it were up to me, you’d be sleeping with the fishes right now, Loyalist scum.”
That was right - not only was she a dragon bordering on insanity in their minds, but also an agent of the Loyalist Force. Estuary could not have created a better cover story to assure that Anadrom left entirely unapproached and unquestioned. There was a real danger posed by these guards; they all thought Estuary viewed her as worthless, which meant they wouldn’t have to fear the wrath of an animus if they decided to kill her. Only cooperation could ensure that she remained safe, so she nodded at the guard and stood in stiff attention, unmoving in the sand.
Anadrom was left a prisoner by the palace she had just created, a falsely accused traitor, and filth in the eyes of her entire tribe. Her parents no longer trusted her, her father was in dire peril, as was the world in general, and she knew nothing about how to solve any of it. Her life had crumbled into this awful mess in the matter of hours, and she longed to return back to when failing to collect pearls had been her greatest concern. There were now so many things to worry about that it was impossible to begin. Anadrom sighed bleakley, all hope draining from her soul as she looked down at the shimmering waters below, which reflected the now-lit glowing orbs of the palace. At least things can’t become much worse, right?
 Chapter 6
	In fact, they could. Anadrom had always been lonely, but back at the Talon’s Hideout she’d had her parents to talk to and the limitless ocean to explore. Now there was only the interior of the island for her to examine, as she lay on the beach surrounded by a silent, hostile, and ever-present guard. As if to taunt her prisoner, Estuary set up her enchanting platform within view and sight of Anadrom’s beach, often sending her hostile glares throughout the day. Every day at noontime, the false animus approved the request of the chosen noble and glared at Anadrom threateningly until their desired magical object materialized before them. Luckily, almost all of these requests were mellow in nature. The council treasurer desired a bowl that would turn the water inside of it into gold coins and precious stones; the guard leader a set of helmets that would allow the dragons wearing them to not require sleep; and the head of dragonet care a violin that would, when titled at a certain angle, play a song that would put a spell of restful sleep over all nearby dragons except the holder of the instrument for a few hours. 
There were some spells that made Anadrom rather nervous, however. The leader of espionage asked for a more refined version of the Obsidian Mirror, one that allowed the observer to see the exact location of the speaking dragons and have the ability to teleport to them. Anadrom had no idea why such a thing would be needed in peacetime, and tried to hope that the spy would use it to take down the Loyalist Force instead of destabilizing the other kingdoms. 
The fact that her Informaband allowed her to cast such spells was even more troubling, and she wondered if she could have phrased the protection enchantment more carefully. If she had good intentions behind casting an enchantment, no matter how evil it was, would the Informaband always settle on a net balance of good and allow it to go through? How did I phrase the spell upon it? But Nocturne had said the Informaband prevented me from going insane in most of her possible visions of the future. Why did she have to be so vague on everything?
Days passed one by one, with no contact from Abyss or Nocturne, and Anadrom fell into a gloom she hadn’t known she was capable of. Every day was the same; a night of broken sleep followed by heavily-supervised trips into the hidden lake and a great deal of time sitting on the beach, watching Estuary in case the false animus had cause for her powers to be displayed. Anadrom began dreading every noontime, where she would once again have to make Pyrrhia a more dangerous place. The only comforting thought she had was that her soul-meter was still entirely full, but her doubt on whether the thing actually worked rendered that hope into almost nothing. She barely touched her food, and her sleep was crowded with nightmares.
On the twelfth day of enchantment, Tsunami was chosen to receive a gift, and Anadrom was lifted from her gloom for a moment in curiosity as to what the SeaWing hero would desire. The renown princess stared hostilely at Estuary as she landed upon the pavilion. Without a pause, she hissed, “If this must happen, I would GREATLY appreciate a necklace able to prevent any magic from being used on me, including NightWing powers. One that only I could remove, of course.” She stared at the false animus and her challenge flooded Anadrom with hope.
She completed the enchantment, relishing the look of intense anger upon Estuary’s snout, supposing that the blackmailer couldn’t really blame her for this. Once the necklace materialized before her, Tsunami carefully placed it upon her shoulders with a sharp glance at the guards hovering behind her. Anadrom was slightly surprised that the princess trusted the mock-animus, and she wondered if Tsunami had somewhat hoped for an ill effect that would allow her to have the grounds to kick Estuary out of the kingdom. When nothing seemingly happened, Tsunami frowned somewhat, then turned to the false animus again. “Prove that this works,” she snapped, and actually moved one of Estuary’s talons onto her arm.
“I enchant this dragon to become a brightly colored starfish,” Estuary snarled, while Anadrom thought the same. When the spell didn’t come to fruition, Anadrom felt a strong sense of relief, and Tsunami seemed pleasantly surprised. This was definitely a positive thing; one of the dragonets of destiny was now entirely safe from her magic, no matter what else happened. 
The SeaWing princess bowed mockingly to the false animus and leapt off of the platform, then paused and cast a concerned look at Anadrom’s curled form. Her expression was clear; she felt that no matter how Anadrom had betrayed the tribe, this punishment of soul-removal seemed a bit extreme. Would she do anything about the matter, though? Opposing her mother and (as far as she knew, a cruel animus) could be very dangerous. The necklace would help, however, and that spark of hope cast off a bit of Anadrom’s sadness. That night she curled up into the soundest sleep she’d had since her arrival in the Summer Palace. 
A few more days passed by without anything out of the ordinary occuring, besides for Estuary refusing Anemone’s request to have a dial placed beside the throne that would allow Queen Coral to switch her magic power on and off. Anadrom was beginning to fear that the challenge for the throne would be initiated soon now that Estuary had pleased more than a dozen powerful dragons. She supposed she should be concerned about what the blackmailer would do to her then, but she was more afraid of what might happen to the royal princesses and the SeaWing tribe at large. Her own punishment would be nothing compared to the dangers Estuary would lead then into as queen, and she felt a constant guilt for allowing herself to become the pawn of the blackmailer.
Upon the seventeenth day of her house arrest, she was awoken in the middle of the night by a talon prodding her in the side. Sitting up quickly, she saw a dragonet around a year older than herself in front of her, his deep green scales illuminated by the rosy lighting of the Summer Palace. His patterns were not those of the royal family, but he was clearly of some importance, for golden rings encircled his talons and angular bits of topaz had been embedded in overlapping spirals up his front arms. Glancing about, Anadrom discovered that all of her guards were asleep, and several of them were clutching carved flagons. The loyal guards of Queen Coral would rarely limit their ability to secure their post, so she wondered what this dragonet had done to get to her. 
He bent down until his snout was directly next to her ear, and she restrained herself from moving, not wishing to startle off this curious visitor. In a voice as low and quiet as a shell dropping to the ocean floor, he whispered, “We can’t talk here, not even in Aquatic. There are too many dragons in the palace that could see us. Follow me, as quietly as you can.” 
With that, he lowered himself to the surface of the beach and stalked away silently, and Anadrom treaded close behind. It was slow going, and every now and again they had to stop behind larger boulders as the regular palace guards spiraled about overhead. One time she was certain they had been seen, but after a tense few minutes, they looked out from their hiding place to find that the guard in question had flown off to deal with a fight upon one of the palace pavilions. An eternity passed, and then they had reached the mouth of a tiny cave, barely large enough for Anadrom to squeeze through even with her wings pressed as close to her chest as they could be. The tunnel went on in this claustrophobic manner for a dozen tail-lengths, then opened into a larger, craggy cavern. A single patch of mushrooms in the center of the chamber provided faint light, but the main feature of the place was the unbroken shadows lurching up against every wall.
	The dragonet turned and faced Anadrom, nodding to inform her that they could safely speak now. “Hello,” he said softly. “My name is Abyss. What’s yours, if you don’t mind?” Anadrom studied him closely as she tried not to let any sign of recognition appear in her eyes. There was no way she would have known about this visitor without Nocturne, and she doubted that he knew the NightWing/RainWing princess, so she did her best to look as if she was entirely surprised to be approached by him. His snout was curled as if he knew the danger he was putting himself in, but his wings were held confidently aloft and he had a commanding air around himself. The son of a general or significant noble, perhaps? Or already a hero of some sort himself?
“Anadrom,” she replied, feeling a little flutter of happiness at finally having someone to communicate with. “Are we - are we safe here? What if the guards find out that I’m missing?” She certainly didn’t want Ocotillo to be harmed by this escapade, no matter how badly she wanted to talk with Abyss.
“I’ve worked around them,” he responded with a sly smile. “There’s nothing like a wager between bored guards over who can drink the most kelp ale, especially when a noble dragonet offers a considerable prize in gold.” Then he narrowed his eyes, and the calm expression on his face shifted into one harder to read. “Am I safe from you?” He noted the pain and dismay that ran across her face at his words and held his talons up before him. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t entirely mean it like that. But the Royal Animus had been casting a lot of enchantments and draining a lot of your soul, after all. Do you feel entirely sane?”
“Yes,” Anadrom admitted. “Although that may not sound - I mean - may not sound very convincing. I feel the same way as I did when Estuary first captured me.” This was entirely true, although the other SeaWing would surely think she meant it in the context of the false animus’s lies. A sudden thought struck her, and she asked, “Did Tsunami send you?”
Surprise flashed across Abyss’s expression, mixed with alarm and suspicion. “Why does it matter to you?” He shifted in the fungal light, the topaz stones embedded in his arms sparkling like twisting galaxies silhouetted against a navy blue night sky.
Oh, no. I shouldn’t have said that. Deciding to tell the truth, Anadrom said, “I - I’m sorry. She’s the only dragon who has looked my way this whole time. It was just a guess, I promise.”
Abyss’s glare softened, and he looked at her with that now-familiar pitying expression. It made Anadrom feel worse when Nocturne and everyone else looked at her as if she was the most wretched thing they had ever seen. Even if she was, she felt like she deserved their hatred more than their empathy after what she had allowed herself to become. 
“Yes, I’m here for her,” Abyss admitted. “She would be here herself, but being a princess and all, she’s rather noticeable. And I’m the most covert dragonet she knows.” Anadrom was reminded of Eelgrass and felt certain that she would have started crying if she wasn’t so determined to look as sane as possible. “She wants some more information on you, to be blunt. As soon as Tsunami learned that her sister was an animus, she feared that she would one day lose her soul, and I believe some of that fear is now being reflected upon you. You might have a family somewhere, and maybe you had reasons to work for the Loyalist Force; maybe you don’t deserve the royal animus’s punishment. Do you? Or did you betray the entire SeaWing tribe for some morally horrific outlaws for your own personal gain?”
	She desperately wanted to tell Abyss the truth, and Nocturne had told her to trust him, but what if Estuary found out? She’d turn Ocotillo in without hesitation if Anadrom betrayed her now. Yet surely there was a middle line to walk here, one in which she could tell Abyss a fragment of the truth and not earn any consequences from Estuary. 
“I have a good reason, for certain,” she tried, hoping with every fiber of her being that that would be enough. She had tried to say it as imploringly as possible, to convey additional meaning that could not itself be said, but her voice was out of practice and it came out shakey more than anything else. She didn’t exactly have practice talking to other dragonets in this way.
Abyss looked closely at her expression and she shivered involuntarily. Had she ruined her only chance at a friend in all of this? Why hadn’t she listened to Nocturne and told him the absolute truth? Do I really trust her, if I can’t follow her advice? Yet the dragonet stayed in place before her, and although his expression sharpened, he still didn’t look overly hostile. “Who was your commander?” he asked now, with a tilt of his head. “In the Loyalist Force?”
Anadrom blinked at him, confused. Why did he want any specifics about her time as a supposed traitor? She didn’t actually have any. If Abyss was trying to uncover some hidden truth about her, he was quite clever at it; not answering his question now would be as dead of a giveaway as giving the wrong name. I can’t let Estuary hear that I messed up her plans, not now. Think, Anadrom, think! You read the scrolls on the Loyalist Force. Once. She had never really expected to have to deal with the outlaws.
“SeaWing division head, Commander Rapids,” she guessed. That sounded mostly correct.
Abyss seemed to ponder over this for a moment. “You must have worked with Hurricane and Kelpweed? They were arrested a while back by some of the top operatives of Queen Coral. Which exclude me, unfortunately, but not for much longer.”
Was this a trick? It would be easy for Abyss to have chosen the name of two loyal SeaWings in hopes of seeing if she really knew what she was talking about. But then - trust him - 
“Yes,” she said slowly, and examined his expression carefully. It had been a trick. His glare towards her softened slightly for a moment, but then intensified into a strong hostility, and he nodded slowly. His tail lashed the ground behind him, and his topaz stones caught the red light.
“Hurricane and Kelpweed were always loyal to Queen Coral,” Abyss hissed. “They have worked against the Loyalist Force since its creation, but never as double agents.” He narrowed his eyes and advanced, as she backed as far away as she could, pressing herself against the cave wall. Is he going to kill me? Does he think I’m more dangerous if I’m a liar?
He stopped a foot away from her, running his claws between each other thoughtfully. “That means that she was lying,” he said, directing a talon outwards in the direction of Estuary’s platform. “And while she clearly hates you, you are trying to corroborate her lies. Why?”
Abyss was alarming up close, with his topaz spirals gleaming like IceWing frostbreath and his eyes as dark and cool as ancient emeralds. “Please don’t tell anyone you know,” Anadrom cried, panicking. “She’ll find out, and then - a - a good dragon will die.” She looked into the SeaWing’s eyes imploringly, and with as much sanity as she could muster, and he stepped back.
“Very well,” he sighed. “Come back here tomorrow, when I have more instructions from Tsunami.” With that, he curled his wings inwards and quickly exited the cave, leaving Anadrom to panic over whether or not he would really keep the information he had learned to himself. If he really only told Tsunami, that might be okay, but then what if she told Queen Coral in turn, or worse, confronted Estuary herself? There was no world in which Ocotillo survived if that happened. Estuary would surely take him down with her out of spite.
Anadrom allowed herself to use the invisibility feature of her Informaband on the way back, not wanting to be caught alone by a guard. She eventually waded into the lake near the slumbering forms of her guards, checked that no eyes were focused upon her, then flicked the lever and watched her scales re-materialize around her. Clambering out of the water, she made her way to the center of the ring of sleeping guards, and lay down as if she had just woken up for a midnight drink and was returning to slumber. 
She was unable to sleep, however, turning over the secret meeting with Abyss in her mind. All he knew of her was that she wasn’t actually a member of the Loyalist Force, and she knew even less about him. His references to being a noble and a future agent of Queen Coral made her suspect that he was the son of some high-ranking spy, which might explain why Tsunami had chosen him of all dragons to visit her. Perhaps the two had a close connection of some sort, or had worked together in the past.
Anadrom remained awake through all of the next day and the beginning of the night, keeping a constant eye on Estuary and avoiding the nightmares which sleep brought. She had to know if the false animus had learned of her conversation with Abyss and if Ocotillo was really no longer safe. The powerful dragonet acted mostly normal for the majority of the day, gloating over her new position in the royal family and casting charming glances at the SeaWings below her. Every now and again, however, she cast an unreadable glare in Anadrom’s direction, and each time she felt as if her talons had turned to ice.
After hours upon hours of this cycle of worry, darkness began to fall around the Summer Palace, with shadows reaching upwards to swallow as much of the massive structure as they could. The shapes of dragons below became muddled and blurry, the effect worsened by Anadrom’s tiredness. Little sparks would pop into her vision every now and again, and her exhausted mind was racing about in circles. When she noticed the dark form of Estuary landing in front of her, she hoped she was hallucinating, but the prod to her chest from the imposter’s tail felt real enough. 
“How’s your soul?” Estuary asked snidely, making no effort to keep her voice down. “You look the worse for wear, mudfish. Try to survive my next request. It’s rather - ah - important to me.”
With that ominous message, the larger dragonet removed Anadrom from her guard and directed her towards the underwater exit from the Summer Palace grounds. Anadrom struggled along after her despite the weakness in every muscle of her body. She had to think of something to get herself out of agreeing to whatever Estuary asked for next. This must be the last step before she challenged Queen Coral, and any final display of power would have to be unthinkably dreadful.
They rode the eastern current from the palace in silence. Anadrom could no longer differentiate between the bright dots her mind was showing her and the bioluminescent glows of wildlife, and collided with jellyfish on several occasions, to the amusement of her captor. After a few minutes, Estuary suddenly dived towards an underwater cave, and Anadrom bleakly followed. The interior was entirely bare, with craggy walls lit by glowing algae, except for a statue of a dragon in the center. It was a larger-than-life SeaWing soldier in a fierce battle position, with talons brandishing a double-tipped spear and an expression of unquenchable rage. The entire sculpture was made of unadorned marble, and the sheer weight of it left the cave floor sunken around it. 
“This,” Estuary signaled, “is the beginning of the future. One of the SeaWing commoners carved this at my command, a model representation of an ideal, loyal soldier.” Anadrom saw where this was going, and she shook her head imploringly at the blackmailer.
“We will have power unmatched by the rest of the tribes combined,” Estuary flashed, her expression truly terrifying. “Weakling, enchant this statue to become capable of motion, and to obey the every command of the SeaWing queen.”
It was the deadly enchantment of Orca taken to an extreme. With an unkillable agent of stone, Estuary could have any dragon she wanted assassinated with no real resistance, could have the threat of death imposed over all of her subjects to earn their obedience, could bring Pyrrhia into a state of fear never before seen! I can’t allow this to happen - but I can’t let Ocotillo be taken!
“And,” the false animus continued, pushing Anadrom towards the sculpture, “You will create copies of the statue with the same enchantment applied, until I have a force of one thousand to command.”
“Estuary, no!” Anadrom stammered. “This - what are you planning to do with them?”
“Easy,” she signaled with a hiss. “Make the SkyWings, MudWings, and IceWings pay for what they did to us during the war. Conquer Pyrrhia. The obvious. And don’t bother trying to trick me, little fool. I will be testing the statues, very thoroughly, as soon as you finish.”
If I allow Estuary access to this power, I’ll be worse than the Darkstalker, Anadrom thought frantically. I do need to trick her somehow. Just once, I need to be clever enough to save the world! Come on, think of something. By the moons, Anadrom, please think!
	But she could only enchant what Estuary allowed her to, and even then only how she had been commanded, and this time Estuary had been entirely clear. Anadrom could only leave certain things out, rather than add any sub-enchantments of her own, but anything missing would certainly be noticed by the false animus when she performed the testing of her new army. Logically, the death of Ocotillo was far less harmful than the possible extinction of three of the tribes, but Anadrom knew she would never be able to make the decision against him. He and Eelgrass were all she had, even if they feared and hated her at the moment, and she couldn’t lose him. 
	Before she entirely knew what she was doing, Anadrom found herself launching off of the cave floor towards Estuary. The dragonet looked entirely amused, and with a flick of her tail knocked Anadrom entirely across the cave, slamming her into the back wall. “Not. One. Step. Closer,” she hissed, tapping the earring that would allow her to contact the IceWings instantly.
	If Anadrom pretended to go insane after creating a single soldier and was just killed by the blackmailer, surely Estuary wouldn’t still give Ocotillo away? But her anger at never receiving her invincible army would carry over, for sure, and having Ocotillo killed would be a coping mechanism for her. The same would be the case if Anadrom tried to use the invisibility feature of the Informaband to escape right now.
	Estuary began to say the name of an IceWing into her earring, so Anadrom frantically reached over to the statue and cast the spell the blackmailer had commanded her to. The marble began to quiver and slowly pulsate as breaths of life stirred into it, and then the being stepped forward with earth-shaking force off of its platform. A thrilled look came over Estuary’s face, and she lowered her talon from her ear. Anadrom shook in place, and then a glimmer of an idea finally came into her mind. Yes, that would work, surely she would wait another day if she had to. And I could sneak off and warn Abyss tonight. With that, she pretended to collapse in exhaustion on the ground, letting her limbs go entirely limp. 
Chapter 7
	Anadrom continued to fake unconsciousness as Estuary prodded her painfully with her tail. She felt a lunge of relief as the blackmailer eventually gave up this violence, muttered to herself for a while, and then began dragging her prisoner back towards the Summer Palace. Not daring to open her eyes, Anadrom felt the water temperature rise as they entered the waters of the hidden lake, and then felt herself dropped unceremoniously upon a sandy beach.
“Bring a doctor at once,” Estuary snarled to one of the guards. “No, she’s not insane, only ill for some reason. By the moons, maybe I just don’t want to bother finding another prisoner with a drainable soul yet, although I’m beginning to consider using you. Good, that’s right. Hurry back!”
Before long, the ground next to her shook with the impact of several dragons landing, and then she felt talons gently working along her snout. She forced herself to stay still, but made her breathing come in ragged gasps, and added a quick and repeated twitch to her right wing. She heard murmuring above her, and then the sound of an unfamiliar voice, which she assumed was the SeaWing doctor.
“I believe it’s just exhaustion, princess. I’ve been studying her from afar to gauge the medical aspects of slowly losing one’s soul, and she certainly hasn’t been sleeping often, or well for that matter.” Studying from afar - did they notice me sneaking off with Abyss? They would have said something, right? Or maybe they didn’t notice, although I’ve never been that lucky.
“You can’t make her wake up right now?” Estuary hissed dangerously.
“No, I’m afraid not,” the doctor responded nervously. “Although I’m certain you could with your - erm - impressive powers.” Estuary snorted, as if the concept of wasting magic on Anadrom was absurd, then sent the doctor off and seemed to stand next to Anadrom for a while before flying off herself. 
I need to somehow contact Abyss. If I can tell him what Estuary is planning, then he can stop her from stealing the throne and take away her earring before she can tell the IceWings anything. And then I won’t have to use my magic for her awful army, and everyone will be safe. She needed to contact Abyss - the thought kept running through her mind. Quickly, too, before Estuary convinced Queen Coral to do something nefarious with her new stone soldier.
She slid her eyes just barely open and saw that her guards were still alert and moving around her in threatening arks, like sharks circling their prey. Maybe Abyss would come up with another clever plan to distract them? She waited, shifting herself slightly in little increments until she had a better view of her surroundings.
There was nothing for a long time but the swishing of wings and the dull lap of waves upon the rocky beach. Anadrom thought she heard an occasional whooshing noise, as if single raindrops were falling down from between the canopy leaves, and then she noticed the movement of the guards beginning to gradually slow. Their wingbeats became steadily slower and slower, and they lowered slowly towards the ground, until all at once they all fell out of the sky and into rumbling slumber. Hardly daring to breathe, she lifted her head slightly, and saw the small shape of Abyss beckoning from the bottom of the cliff wall.
They made their way stealthily back to the cave, and once inside, Abyss grinned proudly at her. “That was one of my best operations yet,” he beamed, happier than Anadrom could ever imagine being. “Modified RainWing sleeping darts, each set with a different delay, so I could target one guard at a time and have them all collapse at once. Quite brilliant, if I do say so.” He was smiling at Anadrom, and she felt that she should congratulate him, so she quickly did.
Before he could say anything else, she quickly blurted out, “I have to tell you - er - right away - everyone’s in massive danger! I need you to warn Queen Coral! Er, please.”
Abyss tilted his head unblinkingly. “Go on?”
“I - er -” It’s now or never. Nocturne said to trust him, remember. “Estuary’s not really an animus - or even a royal.” Shock flashed across his, and he opened his mouth to interrupt her, but she pressed on. “Er - I - I have some variation of animus power, that somehow still works, and she found out. She knew that my father committed - a - a crime that could have him executed, and she held a hostage against me until I enchanted her a way to instantly tell the IceWings about him.”
“Wait,” Abyss said, questions raging through his eyes. “Why not just enchant her to forget? What spells did she make you cast? Am I under one right now?”
“No!” she cried. “I - I couldn’t enchant her first - it felt like an evil thing to do, and then she forced me to make it so I can’t enchant her at all. But I’ve only cast the spells she pretended to for the chosen royals, and none on you - I promise! Er - so currently - Estuary wants me to raise an army for her tomorrow, one that could destroy entire other tribes and she’s going to challenge Queen Coral and I can’t stop her.” She heard her voice rising in panic, but she could do nothing about it. “I need you to remove her earring, as soon as you can, and then have her arrested. Please - it’s the only way to keep the kingdom safe.”
Abyss was staring at her as if he expected her to attack at any moment. “You’re the animus?” he eventually stammered, seemingly stuck on that point. “And you’re using your soul up with every spell you cast? Which you have cast a lot of?”
“As long as Estuary lives, I can’t enchant anything unless she wants me to,” Anadrom quickly said. “So if you don’t feel safe, just make certain she stays alive, and then I’ll be harmless, I promise.” She couldn’t be certain that Abyss knew she was telling the truth, but he was staring straight into her eyes as if he was trying to read her mind.
“I have to tell the queen,” he said, snapping his gaze away, then turned and bolted out of the cave. Anadrom felt her heart sink as she chased after him. She had to be certain he wouldn’t place Ocotillo in danger, but he seemed in no mood to be rationalized with.
“Wait!” she called desperately. “Remember - her earring!” It was no use. Abyss gave no signal of acknowledgement whatsoever. She followed him out of the cave, switching on her invisibility, and realized in an instant that she would have to remove it herself. She dove into the water, pushing herself frantically forward and spinning around several other dragons, who gazed curiously at the rippling water around them. Abyss had entirely vanished from sight as she emerged into the open ocean, but Estuary was easy enough to find.
The false animus was not very far outside the palace, maybe a hundred wingspans or so.	There was a mass of SeaWings gathered around her, including the forms of the royal family, forming an oval shape as if they were sitting in the stands of Queen Scarlet’s former arena. Anadrom gazed down to the center of the formed arena as she paddled silently towards Estuary, and was horrified to see the statue she had enchanted standing before a hissing SeaWing prisoner. The world seemed to stop in that moment, as everything she knew about herself collapsed in a roaring waterfall of guilt. Was her magic about to result in the death of another dragon? I will never forgive myself. This - is this who I am? A monster, just like everyone thought, with powers that can’t be trusted in her useless talons?
	But Abyss was rushing toward the queen below and Estuary was still wearing the earring. It’s about to happen - I can’t fail Ocotillo, not now! Horror filled her, tumbling over and between her staggering guilt, and her scales surged in light brighter than the moons combined, overcoming her invisibility spell. She was beside the blackmailer in moments, her body propelled through the water at an incredible rate by this odd form. Her talons reached out, latched onto the cursed object, and tore it entirely off of Estuary’s ear, leaving a trail of dark blood spiraling in the water beyond. There were cries from the gathered crowd, and then utter chaos broke loose as dragons fled from the strange glowing monster attacking their animus.
	Queen Coral stood, alight with shock and outrage, with Abyss right beside her. With a firm command from the queen, the enchanted statue pivoted from the prisoner and turned towards Estuary, who was staring up at Anadrom with utmost hatred. The stone dragon bowled over the fleeing spectators as it rushed toward the false animus, and then with a great stirring of the water it collided with Estuary, claws digging deep into her chest. The muscular dragonet slipped backward, bubbles rising from her open mouth, and Anadrom half expected to see regret or fear shine in her eyes. But there was nothing there besides pure hatred and malice, and as the dragonet lurched in the water, her talons reached up toward Anadrom. The last flow of bubbles left her maw, and she began floating listlessly in the water, her eyes glazing over. 
	Dead. This is what death looks like. Estuary’s vacant expression was instantly imprinted into Anadrom’s mind, and no matter how awful the blackmailer had been, she still found tears flowing into the water about her.
	“Anadrom!” signaled Abyss, appearing directly in front of her and looking wildly about. I have to trust him, she thought simply, her mind slowing down in her confusion and grief. She lifted the invisibility again, and he startled back, then reached for her talons and pulled her upwards. Something flickered in the back of her mind, a reason she shouldn’t be okay with this, but she was too broken to care. She didn’t know where the other dragonet was leading her, as they dove past guards back into the grounds of the Summer Palace. He rose into a cave beside a roaring waterfall, and as she collapsed inside behind him, she noticed odd divets in the massive cavern before her, and with a ping of horror saw the skeleton of a large MudWing lying beside the opening.
	“Stay here,” Abyss commanded, turning his steely emerald gaze upon her. “You’ll be safe, I promise.” Something seemed to break in his voice, and the nagging feeling pushed towards the front of her mind again, but was unable to surface. “I need to find help, but I’ll be back.”
	All Anadrom could see was the body of the SeaWing she had murdered - no, Queen Coral - or she brought it upon herself - no, I did - the shattered form of the blackmailer reaching for her with eyes as dull as those of the salmon she had so often demanded. This is the end of everything.
	There was a sudden pounding of talons on the floor before her, far louder than just Abyss alone, and she looked up to see countless guards stepping towards her with brandished weaponry. Time seemed to slow, and as she watched a spear fly towards her chest, she instinctively enchanted herself; allow me to be immune to all forms of attack. As soon as she had completed the spell, she wondered why on earth she had done it. Darkstalker cast that very spell himself. What are you doing? Why do you care what happens from now on? 
	The impact was still tremendously painful, and followed by a great deal more before the guards realized their spears were simply bouncing off of her scales. There was a blur overhead, and Abyss lunged forward, launching a final projectile at Anadrom. It was a sleeping dart, she realized, the same kind he had used to knock out her guards before. The dart nimbly sliced between her scales and she felt a wave of dizziness rush over her.
	In a moment, everything fell into darkness. Her mind continued to race about in horror and the nagging thought finally burst free. Abyss was willing to sacrifice Ocotillo in order to keep his queen safe. He didn’t care if Estuary saw him tell the queen about her lies. He betrayed me then, and now again to the royal guards. He’s afraid of me, just like everyone else. 
	So why did Nocturne lie to me?
	Anadrom had no idea how long she spent in this frantic, painful state of mind, but eventually her reality relapsed into her old nightmares once again. Dragons fled from her as she sent soldiers of stone sweeping after them and all of Pyrrhia burned below her talons. Gazing into the ashen ocean, she saw her reflection warp between all of the evil animus dragons in history, and then Ocotillo and Eelgrass and Abyss were all striking her with pronged spears, or throwing her off of cliffs to monstrous predators below, or simply repeating, “I will never trust you, animus filth.” She pleaded with them, but they just sneered and laughed.
	Nocturne popped in and out of these dreams, but Anadrom couldn’t tell if she was actually dreamvisiting her or not. Every instance of the princess vanished from her memory soon after its completion, drowned out by the waves of fear and guilt. As the cycle wore on, Anadrom eventually found herself more and more aware of her surroundings, and her fears began to clarify into complete thoughts. The nightmares gradually calmed and slowed in frequency, and while her sleep couldn’t be considered peaceful, it was now mostly interrupted only by flashes of Estuary’s body..
	The next time Nocturne arrived, Anadrom was able to pull her mind together enough to face the RainWing/NightWing princess. She noted their surroundings for the first time, now a combination between a small cave with the forms of two other slumbering dragons and a far more voluminous cavern covered with small, oddly geometric rivers. Nocturne was trying to calm her down, swapping her expression between pity and concern as quickly as raindrops falling in the rainforest, but Anadrom was having none of it.
	“Why?” she hissed, feeling a surge of hostility rise through her, which was an entirely unfamiliar sensation. She dug her talons into the stone below her, scraping long marks into the dream-cave as she glowered at the prophet. 
	“I know you must be confused - and, somewhat surprisingly, angry,” the dragonet said quickly, “But listen to me, Anadrom. This is all fine; nothing is wrong. Your powers are restored since that horrid blackmailer is dead, and you can save -”
	“THIS IS NOT FINE!” Anadrom roared, and even in the dream world her strong emotion caused a surge of light to emanate from her. This was the strongest burst she had experienced yet, in fact, and Nocturne flinched away from the blinding onset. “A DRAGON IS DEAD AND YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME. You could have stopped it,” she hissed, tears running down her snout. 
“I’m sorry for what she made you do,” Nocturne cried, glancing down at her talons. “I never really closely looked at what happened to you in all of the visions I had - as long as you didn’t go insane, I marked you off as fine. Clearly that was unfair of me. But warning you wasn’t an option I really had; if I told you about Estuary’s plans, you would have moved to stop her, and she would end up altering them for the worse. This way I was certain that your father would survive, Anadrom. Isn’t that all you wanted?”
	Nocturne’s words were hypnotic, and Anadrom momentarily felt a bit absurd for directing so much anger towards her. She narrowed her eyes. “Were there any futures where he lived and no other dragons had to die? Where Estuary was arrested and tried in court peacefully?” 
	Nocturne cleared her throat and shifted on her talons. “Perhaps there were a few, but they were unreliable. I couldn’t be certain you could be directed through them without error. If the smallest detail was off - say another guard was assigned to you for some insignificant reason - then everything might have failed and you could have been killed along with your father.”
	“The - er - path you chose was the least dangerous?” Anadrom asked, somewhat incredulously. “Did you not see me almost get impaled by the guards? Or Abyss nearly alert Estuary and have her send for the IceWings? On that matter, why should I have trusted him?”	
	“There were - I knew you would always cast that spell that saved you,” Nocturne blurted, and Anadrom suddenly wondered if she was as capable a prophet as she projected herself to be. She wasn’t really much older than Anadorm, to be fair; what experience with future-seeing did she really have? Maybe she’s just guessing at straws and hoping everything turns out all right. 
	“Or did you just see that Abyss would tell everyone and have Estuary killed?” Anadrom asked, the truth suddenly occurring to her. “You chose the path where I most likely survived and gained control back over my powers, not the one where Ocotillo was safest or where true justice was followed. Did - did you ever really think he would survive?” Nocturne’s eyes gave it all away, and Anadrom turned away from her, shaken. 
“I’m just trying to make sure that Pyrrhia will be safe,” the princess blurted out. “You can’t blame me for that. There are thousands of dragons who would lose others as close to them as you are to Ocotillo if we don’t stop the coming problem from happening.” 
Anadrom was racked with guilt anew. Had she been doing everything entirely for Ocotillo’s own safety, or had she been completely selfish, willing to throw away the lives of dragons for her own purposes? And I thought I could be different from all the other animus dragons in history.	
	“Does that statue kill anyone else?” she asked quietly, collapsing as the fight drained out of her. “Please, Nocturne, tell me the truth.”
	“I can’t,” the prophet responded, sounding somewhat exasperated. “It will change the course of everything if I tell you now, and then all sorts of more unpleasant things can happen. Always keep Phyrria in mind, not just one dragon. Focus on the greater good.” She left the dream with that, leaving Anadrom in a rushing whirlpool of emotions and thoughts. 
What I’ve done has made Pyrrhia worse. I enriched and empowered the SeaWing tribe without second thought; what if other tribes become jealous and attack us? I - Estuary - I was doing exactly what Darkstalker did to the NightWings, and I never realized it. I can’t be trusted with this power. Perhaps there wasn’t an upcoming threat to Pyrrhia after all, and Nocturne had just tricked Anadrom into taking the actions that she had foreseen would lead to her being incapacitated like this. Maybe that was the best way to keep the world safe - by making certain she wasn’t in it.
Chapter 8
	Her sleep worsened again, falling back into unrelenting nightmares. The overwhelming guilt had coalesced to form cycling dreams showing the consequences of her actions upon Pyrrhia; the SeaWing tribe being attacked in the Summer Palace again by SkyWings wild with resentment and greed; the stone statue and magic mirror harming royals around the entire continent; her magic leading to the collapse of the tribes into anarchy. As her mind worked on and on, she convinced herself that the true danger to Pyrrhia was her, no matter what Nocturne foresaw otherwise. I can’t be trusted with power - I can’t be the reason everyone dies - I’ve failed, I’ve failed. They’re right to fear me.
	I hope they never release me from whatever they’ve trapped me in.
	When she found herself stirring in her sleep, she therefore had reason to panic wildly. The light filtering through her eyelids was a harbinger of destruction; the cold surface she felt pressing on her sides was a surefire messenger of doom. As soon as she found her voice, she cried out. “No, send me back! I’ll hurt someone else - please - I can’t be trusted - don’t let me be dangerous! I can’t be here!”
	Should I enchant myself back to sleep? - no, no more enchantments, no - never again. Why wasn’t someone knocking her out again yet? Don’t cast a spell, whatever you do. Don’t think of one. Anadrom had to distract herself somehow, so she slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry and dazed by the light of the chamber, which she slowly recognized as the electric-eel prison where the dragonets of destiny had been imprisoned on their own visit to the Kingdom of the Sea. The area was entirely empty of all cascading-water cages and glowing eels now, but the geometric divots in the stone floor and the odd metallic contraptions that had worked the cages remained. She turned her head slightly to look at her wing, and realized she was encased entirely in a metallic shell hanging suspended from the cave ceiling.
	Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, she tried to lift her tail or back talons, and found them entirely cased in by cold iron. There were additional beams running from key points on the shell to the floor and walls of the caverns, she now realized. Each of them were wired in turn to dangerous-looking machinery standing at regular intervals in a circle around her. If she escaped somehow and shook the casing, they would spring into action, and by the looks of them would collapse the cave.
	There was a shimmer of movement below, and she saw that another SeaWing was in the cavern with her. He appeared to be around thirty years of age, with dark emerald scales and lighter-colored wings marked with the royal SeaWing patterns. Around his upper arm was a single golden bracelet, adorned with three glittering black rocks and empty slots where three more could have been placed. His claws were stained with ink halfway up, and he wore a pouch full of scrolls around his neck. Turtle, Anadrom thought with surprise, having read of the heroic prince and author in the scrolls at the village library. The SeaWing prince was staring up at her as if he was regretting this visit, but also as if she had in some way redeemed his trust. He has to leave - I can’t endanger him.
	“No, no!” she said frantically down at him. “You have to send me back and leave! Please, it’s not safe. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Turtle didn’t move in any way, except for a parade of emotions swirling around his face. “Please?”
	“I know how you feel,” he said quietly, which completely surprised her. While Turtle had been an animus, he had been a hero, helping to defeat Darkstalker - not becoming like the monstrous NightWing, as she had. How could he possibly think he was like her? He continued and she listened despite herself. “As if you could do anything wrong at any moment. End up using your powers for evil, despite the fact that you know inwardly that you’re a good dragon.”
	This was exactly how she felt, and he seemed to read that upon her face, for he nodded slowly. “It was just a guess, but I thought it was a good one. Good job, me. Hooray and such.”
	“Why are you here?” Anadrom blurted out. “I don’t want to hurt you. Can’t you send me back away?”
	“You’re not going to hurt me,” Turtle said, which actually calmed the beating of her heart considerably. He had an aura of total calm that was somehow contagious. “I brought you some fish, by the way. It doesn’t look as though they’ve been feeding you. Starvation is not a personal favorite of mine. Let’s see - here, I’ll throw it up to you.”
While a small contraption was dripping water into the proximity of Anadrom’s snout, she hadn’t eaten for what must have been weeks. Several tries later, she managed to catch the ruby-red fish in her mouth, and swallowed gratefully. “Thank you, Turtle.” He looked a bit surprised to learn she knew who he was, but then glanced down at his armband and inky talons. Yes, he is quite easily identifiable, especially if you’ve read all of Queen Coral’s scrolls on him. Like I have.
“I want to know the whole story,” he said, staring directly into her eyes now. “But quickly, if that’s possible. No one is supposed to be in here, and they’ll probably imprison me if they find I woke you up. No - it’s fine - it wouldn’t be your fault if they did. It’s just - I feel that what Abyss has told everyone is incomplete. Trying to steal the throne through another dragon isn’t exactly the most common behavior for an animus, after all.”
“By the moons, is that what everyone thinks I was trying to do?” Anadrom gasped. “That’s - but - I would never!” Had Abyss entirely misunderstood what she told him? 
“Then tell me what really happened,” Turtle commanded calmly, and she did, from the very beginning. She ran through the accidental discovery of her powers, showed him her Informaband, and told him all about Estuary’s holding Starfish hostage as the creature approached. The story of Ocotillo and Eelgrass spilled out before she could stop herself (what if Turtle blackmails him as well - no, he’s a hero, he wouldn’t...), as did the function of Estuary’s earing and her operations to make herself seem like an animus. Anadrom went through the power-hungry dragonet’s final plan - the dreaded stone army - and even Nocturne and Abyss’s betrayal. More than that, she told Turtle of her constant fear of herself, and the never-ending guilt boiling inside of her. Everything she knew or felt spilled out of her, and her voice was hoarse by the time she finished. She had never talked for this long before, and was surprised that she even could.
“Wow,” Turtle frowned, looking down at his talons in consideration. There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. “There was - I hurt another dragon once as well.” Anadrom’s heart fluttered in surprise, and her mouth would have fallen open if her shell allowed such mobility. “He was named Chameleon, and I was saving my friends from him, so I enchanted a metal case to ram him in the face. The image never really got out of my mind until I lost my powers after Darkstalker fell. But Anadrom - Estuary’s death isn’t your fault. The statue was obeying Queen Coral’s command, not yours. It’s even likely she would have been executed regardless.”
	“Has that statue killed anyone else?” she asked quickly, and Turtle shook his head.
	“Queen Coral had it destroyed right after. She thought it would turn on her or her subjects.” The SeaWing prince looked up at her again, kindness in his eyes. “The other spells you cast are great though - more than I ever did, even if I didn’t have the motivation of a deadly blackmailer behind me. The SeaWings love the new palace, and Queen Coral couldn’t bring herself to destroy the scroll-copier.” He paused for a moment, then reached out and lay one inky talon against her metal case.
	“That Nocturne was wrong about you,” he said. “It’s not selfish to want to protect dragons you love. I risked the future of Pyrrhia to make sure Anemone was safe from Darkstalker, giving up my only ability to hide and quietly save the world. Sure, risking everyone for one dragon isn’t logically sound, but love overrides logic. Oh, I should write that down.” 
	“Thank you for this,” Anadrom said to the prince with a sad smile. “I can’t tell you how much it means, but you probably know. Did - er - you really come in here only to talk to me?”
	“Well, yes,” he replied. “I was almost positive there was more to your story that we had all been told, and it turns out that I was right. A daring reporter, I am, uncovering the false imprisonment of an innocent dragonet!” He smiled at her in return, and she saw that he meant it, and believed what she had told him. Then a flicker of sadness wove across his features, and he began pacing about below her. “I just can’t figure out how to tell everyone else. If I mention that I woke you up to talk with you, they’ll think you enchanted me to trust you.”
	“Just like Darkstalker did,” she murmured, and he nodded. “I swear that I didn’t, though, Turtle.” An idea struck her, and she reflected, “Wait - I did give Tsunami that necklace to protect her from all animus magic. Does she still have it?”
	Turtle paused thoughtfully. “She still wears it, especially after Moon said she couldn’t foresee her futures while she was wearing it. That was when Tsunami visited the academy for a few days last week for the Dragonets of Destiny history lesson. If I wore it, they’d have to believe me. But still - Queen Coral might imprison me before I could even put it on. People are very uptight about magic since the whole Darkstalker invasion went down. Speaking of which, you have no idea why you can still use it?”
	She tried to shake her head, forgetting that it was locked in place. “My parents said that my egg was unlike any they’d seen before,” she told him instead. “And I do that odd glowing thing seemingly whenever I become too emotional.”
	He nodded at her and moved to say something, but froze in place instead. A sudden clicking sound arose in the cavern, the alarming noise of talons clambering upon the stone floor. Turtle sank to the ground, terrified, and flashed Help! with his markings at Anadrom. She quickly thought, allow Turtle the SeaWing to become invisible whenever he truly desires to hide, and then watched his form below vanish into shadow as if he were a camouflaged RainWing. 
She jammed her eyes shut and heard a group of guards come trodding around the corner. 
They seemed to congregate below her for a while, and then she felt a dull thack as something sharp slit between the scales of her back right leg. Then the light beyond her eyelids seemed to dim, and she fell into slumber undisturbed by nightmares for the first time in weeks. There were no visits from Nocturne or any other dreamvisitor, so it felt as if no time had passed when she found herself awake again.
	This time Turtle had been tapping the metal frame to wake her, and had injected some strange subsistence right into her snout. She winced at the odd cold sensation as the liquid traveled through her - probably a stimulant to counter the effects of the sleeping darts the guards were using on her. As the royal SeaWing came into her blurry sight, she noticed that Tsunami was standing directly behind him, glaring intently and unsettlingly at her. She was clutching her enchanted necklace with one talon and resting another on Turtle’s shoulder, as if she had been trying to ward him off of taking this action.
	“Hello,” Anadrom murmured sleepily, gazing about her. The effects of whatever Turtle had given her were only just starting to kick in. Had his plan worked? Did the SeaWings all know the truth about her? Based on the looks of Tsunami and Turtle’s face, she had to think otherwise. Her hopes fell a little, and she tried to focus. “Is everything alright, Turtle?”
	“Oh, don’t mind me,” Tsunami snorted, but Turtle hit her with one of his wings and she fell somewhat resentfully silent.
	“Erm - in a word, no,” Turtle admitted, and Anadrom went limp in her metal shell. She hoped she hadn’t gotten the heroic SeaWing prince into trouble. “The tribe was not as open- minded as I had hoped, unfortunately.”
	“I’ll say,” Tsunami snorted. “They would have arrested you right then and there, Turtle, if you hadn’t melted into thin air. Which means this dragonet enchanted you, and we don’t know for sure that this necklace even works. What if she was controlling your mind?”
	“I swear that I wasn’t,” Anadrom protested, “Although - er - that’s what I would say if I was, isn’t it? Tsunami, I promise that the necklace works. I enchanted it to only protect the wearer from all magic. I can show you, if you want.” Tsunami gazed at her questioningly and nodded, prodding Turtle. “I enchant the scales of Tsunami the SeaWing to turn bright orange, even if I am currently thinking anything to the contrary,” Anadrom said firmly, and when nothing happened, Tsunami seemed to relax slightly.
	“But are you both safe?” Anadrom asked quickly. “Are they looking for Turtle right now?”
	Tsunami and Turtle exchanged a glance, and the famous warrior sighed. “Yes, they are, although he insisted on walking INTO the prison rather than flying off. A bit addled, I believe he is. Ever heard of ink poisoning, Turtle?”
	“I do have to leave right now,” the prince agreed, “But I thought we should take you with us. After what I said, they’d probably want to drop the cave on you right now just to be safe. Not that my speech wasn’t great. I told them everything, but they just didn’t want to hear it.”
	“It convinced me, at least,” Tsunami said, nudging him with her tail. “Somewhat. Save the stories for later, Mr. Fancyscales Writer. There are a lot of guards searching for us. How exactly are we going to get her out?”
	Turtle opened his mouth, then paused, and shrugged with a rueful expression. “I don’t really know. If she melts the armor with her magic or teleports out, it will set off the trap and the cave will collapse. They had expected that to trap her forever.”
	“I could teleport us all at once,” Anadrom offered. “I did it before with - er - Estuary, all the way from the outskirts of the kingdom to this palace. It works pretty quickly. I’m sure we could escape in time.”
	Tsunami looked concerned, but Turtle nodded agreeably. “Alright, that sounds like a plan. Tsunami, get underneath me - I have diamond-hard scales, remember? They’ll protect you from damage if anything goes wrong. Anadrom, take us back to the Talon hideout. We have to rescue your parents as well. Queen Coral’s probably already sent some agent their way.”
	Anadrom concentrated and quickly thought, Bring Anadrom the unknown and Tsunami and Turtle the SeaWings safely to the Talons of Peace’s hideout cave on the borders of the Kingdom of the Sea, as quickly as possible. As the world began to melt into a single color again, Anadrom heard the bark of guards as they were discovered, but the sound soon faded into the background of roaring noise as they spiraled through the strange in-between realm. It was a great sense of dejà vu, as if she was escaping from the leviathan predator all over again, and she wondered how much time had really passed between the two events.
	Everything returned more quickly than last time, and she soon found herself and the royal SeaWings standing in the center of the Talon’s hideaway. Turtle looked incredibly dizzy, but Tsunami wore an expression of elation and victory. Ocotillo was staring right at them from the scroll-corner, and Anadrom barely had time to register his face before she rushed into his wings. He moved to lunge back in surprise, then seemed to realize who she was and wrapped himself around her instead.
	“Praise the stars of the depths!” he cried, hugging her tightly. “Anadrom, your father and I have been so worried - we thought you had been killed - and the stories from the Summer Palace about a captured evil animus...”
	“She’s not evil,” Turtle spoke up, seeming recovered enough from the teleporting. “Kind of the opposite, to be fair.”
	Ocotillo seemed to notice the royal markings of the SeaWings, for he released Anadrom and bowed to them. “I - er - it is an honor to have my - er - home graced by the presence of the famed Prince Turtle and Princess Tsunami.” Tsunami looked a little flustered at this, as if she could do without the constant fame, but Turtle radiated a mellow pride.
	He turned back to Anadrom, his eyes lit with the glowing spark of a sunrise as he gazed upon her. “I’m so very glad you’re alright. We missed you terribly - I can’t begin to describe…” He drew her close again, and she felt the glorious warmth of his scales. “I’m so sorry that we couldn’t - that we did what we did - I’ve regretted - I know you would never - you know we’d always love you.” Ocotillo paused for a moment, overwhelmed by emotion, and murmured, “You’re safe now. We’ll never let anything happen like that again.”
	“It was less a matter of her personal safety than you might expect,” Turtle offered. “You should know that Anadrom was driven for the entire length of her imprisonment by the single goal of keeping you out of harm’s way. She was fighting to keep you safe from the IceWings and made great sacrifices to do so. You couldn’t ask for a more loyal daughter.”
	“I know,” Ocotillo smiled, and Anadrom felt a great warmth blossom inside of her for the first time in what must have been months. “But - what happened? We’ve been without anything but the darkest rumors for so long. Is the Summer Palace really repaired? Was there a challenger to the throne - and Anadrom, how entangled were you in all of this? Are you alright?”
	Anadrom nodded, unable to speak, and so Turtle began for her. The royal writer told the SandWing about the great attempt to prove Anadrom’s innocence, but Eelgrass arrived before he could finish. The same pattern of hugging and questioning occurred as before, and light was crawling up the walls of the hidden cave before everything was sorted out. Anadrom showed everyone the Informaband by the end, along with the still-full soul monitor, and there was a good deal of puzzling over what exactly her powers were. The story of Eelgrass finding her egg buried in the volcano was told again, and Tsunami frowned thoughtfully.
	“It started to hatch as soon as you touched it?” she asked Eelgrass, who nodded. She began pacing around the somewhat cramped cavern. “Say I was a dragon with some sort of animus power who wanted to hide an egg from some evil until it was safe to retrieve it. Wouldn’t casting a spell that would only let it hatch once it was retrieved by a friendly dragon be sensible? That way the dragonet could avoid coming into a dangerous world, and they could easily awaken it after the threat cleared off.”
	This made sense to Anadrom, and she continued the princess's train of thought. “And say you - er - didn’t entirely expect to win against the threat. Knowing that your egg might hatch into an unfamiliar world, you would set up a way for it to become like the first dragon that would eventually find it, so it could survive its first few minutes of life. That strange thing I did to Eelgrass right after hatching - it was like I made myself into a copy of him.” 
	There was silence for a moment, and then Turtle ventured, “Then your egg could have been laid at any point in Pyrrhia’s past.”
	They all said the phrase at the exact same time. “The Ancestors.” The dragons of Pyrrhia had always known that the seven tribes must have descended from a single common ancestor - studies on the striking similarities between all of the tribes had all but proved the matter centuries ago. There had been thoughts on these dragons being the oldest wielders of animus magic, for if the ability was genetic, it would have to have originated from that source. The shape of Pyrrhia was always considered in the matter as well; the fact that the continent they lived upon was dragon-shaped had always seemed odd and significant to the scholars of each tribe, and worked as evidence in favor of the magical ancestor theory. 
	Could I be one of them, a LostWing? The only survivor of an ancient empire? And if so - was the threat that she had been hidden from as an egg the very same as the once that threatened Pyrrhia now? But my entire tribe couldn’t stop it then. How can I hope to now?
~ Part Two ~
Chapter 9
	The sky opened before them in an endless array of late twilight, dotted with the twinkling lights of early-rising stars and shaded softly with the gleam of two near-full moons. Below the traveling dragons, the ocean burbled smoothly amidst the rising fog as the crashing of the waves harmonized with the chirps of nocturnal insects. Starlight gleamed in the last light of the sun, a phoenix born among the clouds. Everything was peaceful, without sight of a single pursuing SeaWing soldier or any approaching storms. So far, the journey was going entirely as planned. 
	Anadrom spiraled happily in the air, thinking of the enchantments she had cast with the permission of the royal SeaWings and her parents. She had given each of them a bracelet just like the Informaband, which only they could remove and which could not be damaged in any conceivable way. All of them bore invisibility-switches identical to hers, as well as gemstones showing the status of their friends and family (Anadrom had added gems for Turtle and Tsunami to her own Informaband right before they left), and the shifting coral markings that wound around the bracelet. Furthermore and most importantly, for as long as they wore these new Informabands, her parents and new friends would be entirely immune to all forms of harm, including any and all animus magic. She had wanted to leave it at that, but her parents had convinced her to add a small clause that would allow her to perform harmless spells on them with their permission, such as teleportation and camouflage if need be. Finally, she had cast spells to destroy some of her more dangerous gifts to the SeaWing nobles, including the spy-mirror and the sleeping-darts.
	Now Ocotillo was safe entirely and forever from the IceWings and SeaWings hunting him. The thought of it made her do a complete flip in the air, and even though they were both currently invisible, she beamed in elation at her father. A lone seabird called out in song below, as cheerful in sound as Anadrom’s heart felt, if just in that very moment. She was still feeling considerable guilt over Estuary’s death by her statue, and every positive emotion that worked its way into her being was eventually countered by a wave of disappointment in herself for being unable to prevent the tragedy that had occurred. It felt like fighting an upstream battle, with her momentary advances towards happiness being driven back by the dark current. The last few minutes had been particularly turbulent, as her hope and anticipation surrounding the academy fought a valiant effort against an especially strong bout of dread and guilt.
	“We’ll keep heading this way for an hour or so, then turn around to the south,” Turtle called out softly from in front of her. This sent another bolt of anticipation and something close to happiness through her. We’re really heading to the Jade Mountain Academy! I’m going to meet the rest of the Dragonets of Destiny, and all the heroes of the Jade Mountain Prophecy. If anyone can keep me safe and tell Pyrrhia my real story, it’ll be them! She had always wished that she could enroll in the renown academy, but she had been held back by Estuary. Growing up, the blackmailer had forced her to stay in the little village, on threat of giving away everything if her best worker left. But now she can’t hurt Ocotillo anymore, and I’m free to go to all the beautiful places in Pyrrhia.
	Very little could have dampened this excitement, but unfortunately, Eelgrass’s next words fell right into the category that definitely did. “I do believe we’re being followed,” he announced slowly, and Anadrom heard him stop and hover in the air. “Look - right on that island there, hiding in the shadows of the trees. And there - below in the ravine.” While Anadrom couldn’t follow the directions of his invisible talons, she turned to scan the ocean below her, and noticed a quick movement in a mostly hidden gully.
	“I’ll head down for a closer look,” Tsunami ventured, but Turtle immediately shot her down. 
	“We’re entirely invisible right now,” he remarked, gazing at the distant forms of blurry movement. “They can’t be following us, unless they have some sort of magic, which they very well might. And in that case, you could be flying right into danger, Tsunami.”
	Anadrom could picture the scowl forming across the SeaWing warrior’s snout, but Tsunami only murmured in agreement and led them on away from their possible hunters. As they flew into the night, the ocean retreated into inky blackness and any hope of keeping an eye on the mysterious figures was lost. Despite what Turtle thought, Anadrom had a hard time believing that they were really being tailed by spies who had somehow happened upon an animus-touched object with the purpose of revealing hidden dragons. It was more likely just a coincidence; the region of the kingdom they had been flying over was inhabited, after all, and maybe some villagers were just swimming in the general direction of Jade Mountain for their own innocent reasons. Or did I mess up the invisibility spells somehow? I can’t have - but that’s just the kind of thing I would do, isn’t it? 
	Yet as dawn approached and cast golden rays into the foaming ocean, she quickly scanned the surface for any signs of the mysterious dragons. She spotted a dark shape soaring just above the rippling waves, as if it was trying to blend into the dark waters, and saw another shape (or is it just a reflection?) in the waters below. Tsunami noticed them at the same time, and flapped one wing through the air until she prodded Turtle.
	“Ow, what? Oh, no, they’re back?” the prince guessed, then glanced down and saw their pursuers himself. “How is that possible?”
	“I have a thought on that,” Eelgrass offered. “What if it’s that daughter of Queen Glory, Nocturne? She couldn’t possibly see us right now, but maybe her visions showed us arriving at Jade Mountain Academy sometime later today and she just decided to head there and cut us off? We are taking the most usual and direct route, after all.”
	“That’s the first time I’ve seen any bit of spy in you,” Ocotillo laughed, bumping into Eelgrass in the air. “Where was this clever dragon during that hurricane?”
	“I was really a very capable spy,” Eelgrass muttered. “Just not great with storms. How many times are you going to bring that up? Dragons can’t control the weather - well, most dragons can’t. Qibli and Anemone being the exception with that pair of storm-bracelets.”
	“You’re not great with sharks, either,” Ocotillo offered. Eelgrass made outraged noises for a minute, then sighed in resignation. The pearl that Anadrom had saved for him had been placed within his Informaband, with a spell to instantly heal any wounds that he ever received, seeing how prone to damage he was.
	“Can I go see if that’s the case?” Tsunami asked Turtle hopefully, referring back to Nocturne being their pursuer. “Glory would totally owe me one if I caught her missing daughter.” 
	“What?” Anadrom asked, her flip into the sky cut short by surprise. “Nocturne ran off? I thought the Queen had sent her into the Kingdom of Sea for some diplomatic reason or another and she happened to have free time to dreamvisit me.” 
	“Yep,” Tsunami’s voice affirmed from somewhere below her. “Glory and most of her children are quite close, but Nocturne is reputedly rather difficult. Which is a shame, seeing as how she’s next in line for the throne. She vanished a few months ago, and up until you told us, no one had any idea where she was or what she was doing. I’m going to go see if it’s actually her now, if that’s okay with the COUNCIL OF WORRY. I’m talking about you, Turtle.” The wingbeats of the princesses sounded as she looped quickly below them, then there was silence as she unfurled her wings and gilded over the water below. It was an impressive maneuver, and the head of the mysterious dragon below didn’t even turn as Tsunami gilded silently over them.
	Eventually she returned to her fellow travelers and announced, “I think that’s Glory’s daughter. It’s a female dragonet, looks mostly like a NightWing, at least, and I thought I saw some of her rainbow underscales. But she’s not alone. There’s a SeaWing traveling with her. I couldn’t get close to him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s Abyss. I suppose I never apologized for him, Anadrom. He seemed like the best choice of dragon to learn more about you, and I had no idea he’d act as he did.].”
	“It’s okay,” Anadrom said. “He was just more loyal to Queen Coral than to you, I suppose.” After all, Abyss hadn’t acted in any particularly evil way, but rather just had done what he thought would be best for his tribe.
	“Still,” Tsunami muttered, “I wonder what he’s doing now. If Nocturne knows we’re all heading to Jade Mountain, maybe she’s leading him there as well so he can try to capture you or something equally sinister. On that note, I wonder if she told Queen Coral about her visions as well. The entire SeaWing army could be waiting for us on the doorstep of my school. Cursed NightWing powers, complicating EVERYTHING.”
	“Oh no,” Anadrom gasped. “Last time an army gathered at Jade Mountain, the school was nearly destroyed. What if the SeaWings decide the best way to get rid of me is by collapsing the school over my head, even with the other dragonets inside?”
	“There’s no way that would happen,” Tsunami protested, right as Turtle and Eelgrass said, “There’s a chance that could happen.” The SeaWing princess snorted. “Come on, Turtle. Queen Coral’s not evil, and she knows how much good the school has done for Pyrrhia. She would never lift a talon against it.”
	“She wouldn’t need to,” Eelgrass countered. “In case you haven’t noticed, everyone is rather concerned about magic after the Darkstalker returned. Even if the Queen brings her soldiers to Jade Mountain just to capture Anadrom, some might go rogue and do what they think is best for the tribe.”
	Anadrom couldn’t be the one to put Jade Mountain in danger, and she moved to say so, but Turtle spoke before she could. “We really need to see everyone there, though. Moon reacted very strangely when I told her about Anadrom via dreamvisitor, and Sunny and Starflight will be able to convince everyone that she is actually not an evil maniac. Also, I would really like to give Kinkajou a magic protection bracelet. Anadrom, would you mind if I used my duplication bowl to create a copy of mine to give to her? I figured you wouldn’t want to use your magic more than necessary.” Anadrom had forgotten about Turtle’s magic bowl, one of the few objects he had been able to enchant before Darkstalker removed his powers, and wondered if that’s how he had access to a dreamvisitor - maybe he had duplicated one of the sapphires.
	What if she could enchant Nocturne to have a different vision, where they all suddenly changed course and flew to Possibility instead? It felt like too manipulating of a spell, though, and what if it threw off Nocturne’s future-seeing entirely? Whatever else the dragonet had said or done, she clearly wanted to save Pyrrhia, and her abilities would probably be crucial in the future. It was best not to tamper with the RainWing/NightWing princess’s mind in any way, which left the other side of the coin - Jade Mountain. Could I do something to make it safe from any future attack? That would truly be a lasting imprint on Pyrrhian history! The cornerstones of peace I was thinking about - the Academy is one of them, for sure. With their students united and protected from all harm, the tribes might never have to go to war again.
	“I have an idea,” Anadrom piped up, but her voice was lost in the heated argument Tsunami and Eelgrass were having over the intentions of the SeaWing Queen. “Er - and also please stop fighting?”
	Ocotillo’s voice rose into the fray. “Eelgrass, calm down. Don’t say anything more you’ll regret, especially to the princess, of all dragons. If Nocturne didn’t know we were here before, she certainly will now, with all the shouting you’ve been doing.” Anadrom glanced down and noted that the dark shape below had indeed stopped flying and was gliding in circles below them, peering upwards every now and again. Her father and Tsunami seemed to realize, for they both fell quiet with a few trailing grumbles.
	“What if we enchant the mountain instead?” Anadrom said into the stifling silence. “I could make it - er - invulnerable to any damage, or so that it could never collapse. Wait - better yet - I could make it so all dragons within a radius of it become invulnerable to any harm themselves, intentional or not. There would be no more accidental SandWing tail stabbings, or - er - even deadly cactus bombs like Sora planted, or even dragonets being accidently burned by Peril.”
	“YES!” Tsunami cried. “THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! No more worrying about the school being attacked by the Loyalist Force again, or more caves collapsing due to the damage Darkstalker caused! Sunny would be elated. HA! She thinks she brings us all back the best gifts from Queen Thorn, but this’ll show her! Not to objectize you or anything, Anadrom, but still! Everyone, FLY FASTER.”
	They did, partially due to the princess’s excited demands, but mostly because Nocturne was flying fairly close to them now. Her dark form vanished into the shimmering blue horizon before long as they sped off. The sky felt wonderfully free and inviting after Anadrom’s weeks of imprisonment, and she felt as happy as a year-old dragonet as she rose up thermal vents and soared along with the breeze. Then came the moment when she spotted a haze of land on the horizon - real land, not another small island with a forest of a few palms. Pyrrhia itself was before her for the first time, and the sight of it filled her with awe.
	There was so much more of everything than she had expected. They could only really see the outskirts of the Mud Kingdom at the moment, but the dense marshland was dotted with patches of straggling trees as numerous as the stars in the sky. Flocks of birds spiraled below, and everywhere she looked alligators and serpents twisted in the mud, sending up colorful bursts of insects and toads. As they passed over the Diamond Spray Delta, the countless small rivers sparkled as brightly and brilliantly as their namesake. Everything was far more alive and active here than on the cold ocean floor. The thought of it brought back the buried memories of the farmer-being, and she wondered if she should have told someone about it by now. If there was other intelligent life than dragons or humans near Pyrrhia, that would certainly interest Starflight or Sunny.
	Here they slowed their pace a bit for Turtle’s sake, so that it was falling dark by the time the vague forms of mountains loomed up before them. These, too, were astonishing; there was nothing of this height in the Kingdom of the Sea. Even the impressive island holding the Summer Palace would be dwarfed next to these monstrosities, and there were so many of them, stretching away in a massive ridge to the left and right. In the dark they resembled teeth more than ever, with their jagged crags reaching upwards to swallow the flying dragons into their deepest caves. The moons rose and cast their silver light upon the rough landscape, and off in the distance shone the twin peaks of Jade Mountain. It towered above the surrounding ridges, twisting and rising through the air rather like a snake bent on drinking from the clouds.
	“Can you do the thing from here?” Tsunami asked eagerly, spiraling down to fly next to Anadrom. “Not to be pushy or anything, but BY THE MOONS THIS WILL BE GREAT.” She sighed wistfully, and Anadrom thought of just how much this would really mean to the SeaWing princess. See, I can bring happiness to the dragons of Pyrrhia. This is what I am meant to do with whatever powers I have.
	“I’ll - er - try my best,” she replied, and then swooped down and landed upon a summit within view of the academy mountain. She had added a few features to her idea over the long flight, and now she reflected on the wording for a moment before casting it. Classifying Jade Mountain as the twin-peaked mountain at which I am now looking, allow every dragon within a ten-mile radius of it to be entirely safe from all forms of harm, including immunity to any magic unless they specifically desire otherwise, and from firescales and cave-ins. Secondly, repair Jade Mountain of all structural damage caused by the IceWing battle with the Darkstalker, and render the entire mountain immune to all damage, including that of geological processes and planned sabotage. Allow the stones of the walls to be harder and stronger than diamonds, and once again only susceptible to animus alteration if the blessing of the Head of School is given. This way she would carve out new tunnels and expand the school grounds if Tsunami wanted, as that would now otherwise be impossible. 
	“It’s done,” she announced, trembling with excitement. “I think it worked, but I don’t really know how we’ll test it to find out.”
	“We could have Peril try poking someone,” Tsunami offered. “Especially that SkyWing, Quartz. He’s an absolute nightmare. Should I not be saying any of this as the head of the school? Nevermind, let’s just get there already. I’ll just attack the walls or something.”
	“That’s a brilliant plan,” Turtle said. “I believe we can make ourselves visible again fairly soon as well. Sunny might not appreciate five dragons appearing from nowhere inside the entrance hall, especially if one of them starts attempting to destroy the stalactites.”
	With that they glided down the final stretch to the legendary peak, flipping their invisibility switches off as soon as they crossed the ten-mile safety line of the enchantment. There were no aggressive arrays of SeaWing soldiers, nor any sign of the queen or Abyss for that matter, which was something. Anadrom felt a tingling of excitement running through her talons as she landed inside of the massive cavern, decorated with multicolored flower banners and glowing orbs of fire. A few cuttings from the IceWing tree of light were scattered about, probably gifts from the IceWing queen herself. It was just as she’d imagined it; a place of such legend and history, and she was standing there right at this very moment.
	A female NightWing was sleeping beside a large gong in the side of the hall, and Tsunami shot a disapproving glare at her. “What’s the point of having a lookout if they can’t even stay awake into the early hours of the night? And she’s a NightWing, for crying out loud! If only I could get Moonwatcher to agree to this - she has a normal nocturnal schedule - but she’s always busy running the night shift of the library. Fatespeaker, WAKE UP!”
	The NightWing bounced to her feet, startled. “Hey, I’m not sleeping, definitely. Halt, intruders to Jade Mountain - oh, it’s only you, Tsunami. No wait - I’m having a vision about this - there’s someone else behind you, isn’t there? Hmm.” She screwed up her eyes in thought. “Riptide maybe? Or Turtle?”
	“I’m here,” the prince agreed, and she beamed over Tsunami’s shoulder at him, clearly pleased to be right. “Are Kinkajou or Sunny anywhere around?”
	A sudden chill swept into the room, as if the arctic had decided to relocate itself directly outside of the cave entrance. Directly behind Ocotillo landed a large IceWing, his scales shining as white as frost in the moonlight. His serrated claws clicked upon the stone floor below, and his pale-blue spikes gleamed like sapphires. Anadrom froze, all her instincts telling her to push Ocotillo out of the way, but forced herself to remember the protective enchantments she’d cast on his Informaband. And if this IceWing was one of the teachers, Winter perhaps, he’d likely have nothing to do with wanting to imprison her father. Despite all of this logic, she still felt a bolt of panic run through her, and she glanced at the IceWing somewhat fearfully. 
	“Glad to see that at least one of our guards is on alert tonight,” Tsunami sighed. “Hello, Winter. No need to look quite as fierce.”
	“One of them?” Fatespeaker asked curiously. “Wait, you assigned more? Come on, I’m not that bad of a watch-keeper, am I? I can’t be.”
	“Who are they?” Winter asked, narrowing his glacier-blue eyes at Anadrom and her parents. She saw him make the connection as he noted their tribes, and he spun around to face Tsunami with an even fiercer snarl than her own. “Tsunami, I certainly hope I’m mistaken. There’s no way you would have brought the most dangerous dragon to Pyrrhia to the academy, despite whatever she may have told you. Am I correct?” His words were as sharp as icicles. 
	Tsunami bristled and barked, “Winter, keep in mind that I’m the head of school here, and I can decide anything without your input. Yes, I brought the new SeaWing animus here, and she’s not an evil psychopathic like the Darkstalker-”
	“How in the blazes would you know?!” Winter snapped back. “Remember how he cast spells on all of us to believe he had changed? She’s clearly done the same! Tsunami, I thought you were smarter than this, even when enchanted!” His tail lashed against the stone floor, sending small blue sparks flying in various directions. Eelgrass and Ocotillo edged closer to Anadrom and put their wings over her back, which she appreciated greatly.
	“Clearly?” Tsunami sputtered. “Did it occur to you that you’re clearly not enchanted, Winter, if you can be making such a mudfish of yourself? Wouldn’t she try to win over your favor right now if she was really bent on world domination?”
	“Oh, brilliant, just brilliant. Of course, there’s no way she could have put a spell on me without my noticing. Wait, that’s exactly what he did,” the IceWing bellowed. “Perhaps she hates IceWings and doesn’t need me. She’s clearly prejudiced against us - did you see how she looked at me when I first flew in? I’ll probably die of some horrible plague in a few hours, your highness.” 
Anadrom felt guilt sink through her talons at his words. She wasn’t a Loyalist, hating other tribes for being different from her; she had just always been afraid of the IceWings taking Ocotillo away. It wouldn’t have mattered what tribe had threatened her father - she would have learned to fear any particular one of them - but it had just happened to be the IceWings. But I don’t - I’m not prejudiced against them because of that, am I?
.
“Maybe she was staring at you because you SWOOPED IN FROM THE DARK!” Tsunami shouted. “Winter, you can’t just accuse people of these things with no evidence!”
“She’s an animus,” Winter retorted. “Who is rumored to have worked for the Loyalist Force and plotted to overthrow Queen Coral! That’s all the evidence I need.” 
“Those rumors aren’t true,” Ocotillo piped in energetically. “There was a blackmailer, Estuary, who was plotting to overthrow the queen, and Anadrom’s never been the least bit associated with the dreadful Loyalists!”
“Yes, I’m certain you’re an unbiased source as her father,” Winter snarled. “Darkstalker enchanted his, you know.”
“I would never!” Anadrom gasped, her heart shattering a little in her chest at the mere thought of it. Winter seemed to gauge this as entirely sincere, and dropped his head a little. He knows what it’s like to love someone completely - look at what he did for his brother Hailstorm. Well, he feels bad about accusing me of that one thing, at least.
A few other dragons were peering out of the tunnels branching from the entrance cave now, curious as to what all the shouting was about. From the right tunnel came rushing a group of several dragons; in the lead was the small golden form of Sunny the SandWing/NightWing, closely followed by a limping MudWing who was almost certainly Clay, and a NightWing with silver teardrop scales behind her eyes. Moonwatcher, Anadorm thought with a twist of hope. If she reads my mind, she’ll see for certain that I’m not what they think I am. Right?
“Hello, everyone, please calm down,” Sunny said, coming to stand beside Tsunami. “We don’t want to wake the students. What’s the problem?” The warmth from her scales pulsated faintly against the chill emanating from Winter, but the room still felt frigid.
“Tsunami brought the animus right to our doorstep,” Winter growled, right as Tsunami hissed, “Winter’s being an absolute mudfish and denying passage to an innocent visitor.”
“Oh, dear,” Sunny said, blinking at Anadrom, who was dismayed to see that the kind- hearted dragon was a bit alarmed by her being there as well. “Tsunami, a word? Winter - do they seem -”
“Enchanted? Yes. I entirely believe they are.”
Turtle spoke up for the first time. “Winter, she did the exact opposite, actually. These armbands...” - he lifted up the arm bearing his Informaband - “...they make it impossible for her to enchant us without our permission.”
Winter looked at Turtle with blatant concern flaring across his features. “Except for the enchantment directly on the jewelry. No one else sees the problems here? And we don’t know that anything she says is true! Take it off and see what happens.” Turtle nodded and slid off his Informaband, and when nothing visibly changed in his manner or expression, Winter huffed, dissatisfied. “Of course, your tribe won’t be at risk from her, after all.”
“Who’s the Loyalist here?” Eelgrass snapped at the IceWing, and a bout of shouting broke out between most of the dragons in the room. Anadrom shrank against the onslaught of anger and distrust, trying to make herself as small as possible. The heroes of Pyrrhia are turning on each other because of me - I’ve got to leave, to go hide in the ocean where no one will ever be bothered by me again. Or to one of the moons, even, just to be safe.
“Moon,” Sunny cried through the clamber. “What do you think?”
Any hope Anadrom had felt was crushed as the mind-reading NightWing shifted her wings nervously. She opened her snout, then seemed to listen for a moment longer, before blurting out, “I don’t entirely know. She keeps thinking about the body of a SeaWing, but guiltily, not as if-”
“SHE KILLED SOMEONE?” Winter bellowed, looking appalled and enraged.
“She didn’t, not really,” Turtle said nervously, but another bout of shouting had broken out and no one seemed to hear him. Sunny and Moon were looking helplessly at their fighting friends, while Clay was trying to stand between Winter and Tsunami and reason with them.
“Please, stop!” Anadrom cried when she couldn’t bear it any longer. Everyone turned to stare at her, with expressions ranging from intently hostile to curious. “I didn’t want to - to cause any of this. I’ll leave n-now.” Tears were streaming down her snout and she moved towards the exit to the outside, but her emotions overcame her, and she curled up, burying her head in her talons. Everyone hates me for what I didn’t do, and they always will. 
There was an awkward silence for a few moments, then her fathers came over and put their wings over her back again. Ocotillo’s warmth soaked into her, and she felt a rush of affection for him all over again. I kept him safe, and if everyone hates me for it, that’s just the way things will have to be. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but hopefully without enchanting that cursed statue. There was a more hushed debate behind her now, and then a rush of frigid air passed her scales as Winter stormed out back into the night. Another talon fell on her shoulder, and Anadrom looked up into the worried face of Sunny. The dragonet of destiny cast a small smile at her, and the sincerity of it spoke depths. Pulling herself together, Anadrom tried to listen to the SandWing’s words. 
“I’m sorry,” Sunny murmured. “Winter just had a bad experience with an animus once. Well, we all did. I’m sure you know. We’re going to debate about what to do with you, but you can certainly stay here for the next few days. I trust the judgment of Tsunami and Turtle.”
“Thank you,” Anadrom whispered. “I didn’t enchant them, I swear, and I never will.” Sunny made a strange face at the word never, then caught herself and beckoned Anadrom and her parents down the tunnel she had first emerged from. The world was still blurry around the edges from Anadrom’s tears, glinting in shades of dark grey walls and bright color from the lighting orbs. 
“You can stay in one of the empty caves by our offices,” the SandWing/NightWing said, and brought them to one a good distance down the darkened tunnel. Far enough from the rest of the students for them to be safe from me.
Chapter 10
Anadrom curled up on her bed and stared at the wall opposite her in deep melancholy, gently tracing it with one of her claws. The stone certainly seemed harder than usual, and she was unable to chip any away, so her protection spell on the mountain itself seemed to have worked. Did everyone fear her because she was an animus, or because they heard skewed rumors about what she had done in the Kingdom of the Sea? If I keep only doing good things, they’ll have to trust me eventually. But they won’t let me in the beginning - they’ll see it as the Darkstalker handing out gifts all over again. I don’t want to just amass a following like he did, though - I actually want to make Pyrrhia a better place. 
Ocotillo and Eelgrass were whispering to each other in the center of the cave, and then slowly made their way over to her. She turned as Ocotillo sat down beside her, blinking into his yellow eyes. He coughed nervously, then slowly said, “Anadrom, I’m so sorry. About all of this, to be sure, but - er - more about what I did to you.” 
This was not what she had expected at all - was he upset that she’d endangered Queen Coral to save him? How could he be, after everything he had done for Eelgrass?
“When you first - er - told us about your powers,” her father continued, and she was startled to see a single tear falling down his snout, pale against his tan scales, “you needed our support more than anything. The first things you did were so responsible - er - and kind. Your brilliant Informaband, healing my ear - it - it was all great. But I was frightened of what it all meant regardless, and I failed you. If you had felt more accepted by us, you wouldn’t - er - have gone off into the deeps, and that blackmailing Estuary would - er - never have caught you in her trap. Then you sacrificed everything for me in the Kingdom of the Sea, even your own soul with your enchantments, which was -”
He broke off for a moment, then continued, more tears running across his face now. “And I - I believed what they were saying about you while you were imprisoned. That you had tried to betray the tribe and take the throne for yourself. And you were doing it all to save me. Anadrom, I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible dragon, and I - I - I don’t deserve to be your father.”
Eelgrass chimed in somberly. “And you’re an amazing dragonet, Anadrom. You don’t deserve any of this distrust. We know that you only want to make things better, to bring Pyrrhia into a new age of peace and happiness. You still can, and you still will. I’ll always know that to be true.”
This was exactly what she had wanted to hear from them, to know that what she had done was right. She hugged them tightly, her love for them driving off her gloom. “Ocotillo, don’t say that about yourself, please. You and Eelgrass are the best parents I could ever wish for.” It was entirely true. Her scales were lighting up again, but this time in a softer light that somehow held an odd beauty about it, like the way newly-hatched MudWing siblings looked at each other.
They remained that way for a while, and then exhaustion from the long journey and their rampant emotions drove them to their sleeping platforms. Sunny had brought in a basket of camel-hair rugs and seashells, which they respectively spread across their beds before lying down and falling into mostly peaceful slumber.
When Anadrom awoke, Ocotillo and Eelgrass had left, probably to testify about her before the council Winter had demanded. The room about her appeared to be entirely empty, but there was an odd feeling to the corridor beyond, as if someone was watching her. “Who’s there?” she called out nervously, sitting up on her bed. There was silence for a moment, then the sound of talons against stone, and a SkyWing burst into the room. 
Her scales were coppery-gold, an unusual color, and wavered with heat similar to the way water did next to geothermal vents. Her wings were outstretched at the moment, with her wingspan nearly filling the small cave as she stared at Anadrom with sparkling blue eyes. This was unmistakably Peril, the former mass-murderer under the reign of Queen Scarlet who had eventually helped Queen Ruby take the throne instead.
“Hello, good morning and such, pleasantries exchanged,” the SkyWing said breathlessly, nodding at Anadrom. “I was just wondering about this thing I just discovered, and Sunny told me where to find you. Not to be threatening, although Winter says you’re probably as evil as the Darkstalker, so maybe to be a little threatening. Roar, firescales and such. Although that’s what I’m really here about. I was giving Clay a hug this morning, for obvious reasons. Him being Clay and all. And usually my scales burn him a little and then he heals really quickly, but this time nothing happened at all. So I poked Turtle in the arm - lightly, mind you. I didn’t want to burn him too badly if I was just imagining things. But nothing happened there, either. So what’s the deal, animus? Ha, it feels strange to say that again. It’s been decades since the last time someone could use magic. But really, what’s going on? Did you cast a spell to remove the powers of all dragons that could threaten you? Because that would be a little evil, just to be clear. Or so that all of my friends couldn’t be hurt by anything? I would be a fan of that. Especially Clay. Oooh, you could heal his leg, right? Although his heroic limp is rather sweet. Erm, I mean, heal him. He’d probably like that better.”
Anadron blinked under the onslaught of information, then nervously said, “I made it so no dragon within ten miles of Jade Mountain could be hurt in any way by anyone. Outside of the boundary, your firescales would still work. Although I could make them work on the mountain again, if you want?” Despite all of her words, it was still hard to read Peril, as if she was a shifting fire that could go out at any minute or burst outwards and set a forest ablaze.
“Oh, that’s great!” Peril cried. “Not evil at all, then. Clay will be so pleased to learn that his school is finally safe! Even from me. His friends will be happy too, I guess. Especially Sunny and Tsunami, but I don’t really care about how they feel, since they both still don’t entirely trust me. Wow, no, this is great! I haven’t been allowed to go down the student tunnels since that time I accidentally burned a student’s tail almost off - hey, no, don’t make a face. Almost. And it was an accident. But now I can go everywhere! I could hug Turtle, even. And I could teach the students about Queen Scarlet and Queen Ruby alongside Webs! And learn to write! Although last time I thought I was happy to not have firescales, it turned out that my father had betrayed me and was mind-controlling me to be loyal to the queen.” She narrowed her blue eyes at Anadrom. “You better not have cast a spell to make me like this, or to like you in general. Here, let me try not liking you.” Peril frowned at Anadrom for a moment, and she sat entirely still, not having any real idea how to respond to what was happening. 
“Whelp,” the SkyWing said finally, “I can insult you in my head plenty, but it’s hard to hate you. I mean, you’re just sitting there calmly and all, not enchanting all of the IceWings to dismember themselves or anything.” She tilted her head at Anadrom, who blinked back, now entirely confused. “Or planning to conquer Pyrrhia? Become queen of the continent, perhaps? Enchant other dragons to do your bidding?”
“Erm, definitely no to all of those,” Anadrom stammered, and then it came to her suddenly. “Moonwatcher’s outside reading my mind right now, isn’t she? You’re trying to see what I think about those ideas?”
“Darn,” Peril muttered. “I should have been more discreet. I mean, I have no idea what you’re talking about - no, she’s walking in. Moon, this was not the hasty plan you made as you found me running down this corridor!”
The NightWing was indeed entering, exchanging a complicated look with Peril. Her midnight-black scales glimmered in the light of the fire-orbs outside, and her teardrop scales shone like comets on her snout. Anadrom wondered what she was thinking of at that moment, and for how long Moonwatcher had been listening in. Did I dream about anything last night? What if she saw my nightmares where I go insane and attack everyone? Wait - no - she’s hearing that now - they’re nightmares, not what I want to happen! Oh no, I’m messing everything up already.
“Hello, Anadrom,” Moonwatcher said quietly, and Anadrom was a bit surprised that she knew her name. Perhaps Tsunami had told her, or she had just read it from her memories. “You guessed my plan - it was a guess, right? You haven’t cast any enchantments to let you know when someone’s reading your mind or anything?”
“No,” Anadrom said quickly, “Although - erm - Tsunami’s probably unreachable now, due to that necklace she asked for.” Aaah, she’s reading everything I’m thinking right now! She’ll know how useless and slow-witted I am, and how I nearly failed to save Ocotillo - wait, no, stop that. Mind, control yourself! “Should I - er - undo that? But - er - I don’t think Tsunami would want me to, maybe?” Will Moonwatcher hate me if I don’t reverse the spell and Tsunami will if I do? Is there a right choice? 
	“It’s okay if Tsunami keeps that,” Moonwatcher replied gently, both to Anadrom’s words and her thoughts. “You made it so she can’t be affected by any animus magic while wearing it, right? That’s an unusual thing for an animus to do. Darkstalker never did, for sure.” 
She trusted him, Anadrom remembered, until she learned the truth about him. What does she think of me? 
	Peril broke in now, half-hopping energetically from talon to talon. “Moon wasn’t sure what to think of you at first, so she hatched that not-so-clever plan to learn who you really are. I’m going to go now, to hug Clay some more and then Turtle. Goodbye! Thanks, Anadrom, I suppose!” With that the SkyWing left the room, allowing her wing to brush against Moonwatcher’s and smiling widely when nothing happened.
	Anadrom gazed at Moonwatcher curiously. “What do you think about me now?” she asked, somewhat worried. Her best hope in clearing her name was now right before her; but what if the NightWing thought she was as bad as everyone else did? But I’m not; I’m not the Darkstalker. Oh, what if she thinks that I’m thinking that on purpose to convince her? No, I’m not trying to deceive anyone - but that sounds like I am - and that only makes it worse. Oh, no, no, no, no, I have to stop thinking about anything. Well, I miss the Talons of Peace hideout cave, and of course she’ll hate me she saw what happened to Estuary - wait no stop thinking STOP THINKING. Ocotillo - IceWings - Estuary - Nocturne - Abyss - aargh!
	“I think,” Moonwatcher said softly, “That you are a hero, Anadrom.” This was entirely surprising. “You focused on keeping other dragons safe rather than worrying about yourself. You saved countless dragons from Estuary, in the end. And most of all, I can see how desperately you want to remove your own powers, but how you keep struggling with them in order to save Pyrrhia from the future threat foretold by Nocturne. Anadrom, you couldn’t be less like Darkstalker.”
	“Really?” Anadrom asked, somewhat disbelievingly. “I - er - are you sure? I - there wasn’t anything - er - heroic about what I did. I fell into the trap of an evil dragonet, and just did her bidding. Moonwatcher, I - I did some horrible things for her.” Her voice was wavering again, but she prevented herself from crying.
	“No,” Moonwatcher replied firmly. “You didn’t fall into a trap - you saved an innocent dragonet from a blackmailing murderer. And when it mattered most, you stood up against that same monster, and saved the Kingdom of the Sea and Pyrrhia itself from her schemes. We can clear your name; you’ll have a fresh start here at the Academy, and then you can go on to improve Pyrrhia with your magic. Everything will be okay.”
	“Thank you,” Anadrom said nervously. “I - if you -” She had no real way to express how much the NightWing’s words meant to her, and how glad she was to be trusted by another dragon. If she can say that after seeing everything about me, then maybe it’s true, after all. She moved to the NightWing and hugged her, which seemed to surprise Moonwatcher, but she stayed still and allowed it to happen. After a while she stepped back, and looking into the NightWing’s eyes noticed a strong emotion flowing through them. That’s right - supposedly mind reading is strengthened by physical contact. I wonder what she saw in me just now.
“It will all be okay,” Moonwatcher repeated, glancing down at Anadrom with a heartbroken expression. “The council is going to start in a few minutes, and with Tsunami, Turtle and I all behind you, we’ll be able to convince everyone that you’re not evil after all. And yes, I know that you didn’t enchant me into trusting you. When I looked into Darkstalker’s mind, there were areas where he had concealed something from me, but your mind is entirely open and clear. And I believe that you’re the kind of dragon who would never consider forcing someone to like them magically. Now I really better be going. If I’m not at the meeting on time, Winter will assume I’ve been influenced by you, and then there will be a great deal more shouting. See you soon!”
With that, the NightWing swept out of the door, leaving Anadrom alone in the cave again. Her soul was twisting about, struggling to reconcile the words of the mind-reader with her own understanding of herself. Did I do nothing wrong? Estuary’s death - Turtle said it was inevitable anyways, and Queen Coral gave the command to the statue. But what does Moonwatcher see in me that makes her think I’m a hero? Could I be a hero?
She had no idea what to do while the council of school leaders debated about her, so she sat and fiddled with the Informaband for a while. While she had cast a spell to prevent her from editing the self-protective enchantment on the bracelet, she could still add and remove the other features. With a curious sensation in her heart, she reworked the Estuary-detection gem so that it would thereafter light up in warning when any dragon that wished to cause her harm approached her. It was hard to believe that the dragonet that had ruined Anadrom’s childhood was truly gone forever and would never haunt her again. The gem pulsated a dull yellow after she had finished the updated enchantment, and she wondered if it was alerting her about Winter, or perhaps Abyss, if he had snuck into the academy and was trying to assassinate her. 
Working along the same lines, she updated the section of gems that showed her the status of other dragons, adding all of the dragonets of destiny and the heroes of the Jade Mountain Prophecy to her bracelet. These were all entirely green at the moment, and her soul-reader was still entirely blue, which was quite a relief. Anadrom gazed at Ocotillo and Estuary’s gems for a moment, then turned the Informaband around on her arm and wondered what she could possibly add to it otherwise. Well, perhaps I could improve the teleportation spell somewhat. If my magic is draining my soul, or will start to someday, then it could be helpful to have a single spell that controls all future teleportation rather than my having to cast something new each time. With that, she added a small rectangle to the back side of the Informaband,with a set of tiny levers placed beside it in an even array. Whenever she wanted to teleport across Pyrrhia from now on, she could write her planned destination upon the rectangle as if it were a scroll, and then adjust the levers to set certain parameters. If the topmost one was flipped, for example, all dragons within five wingspans of her would be teleported along with her, while if the bottom one was swapped, she would be sent off alone. There was another to allow her to only bring along the dragons she trusted, and one that allowed her to adjust the altitude she would arrive at. This would be best when teleporting to crowded cities; while appearing in the middle of a street suddenly might cause a panic, appearing in the sky and then flying down wouldn’t even be noticed as unusual. 
Once she had completed all of this, she thought for a while on how she could convince the rest of the school to trust her as well. Giving out gifts as the Darkstalker had was entirely out of the table, and she wondered instead if a better course of action would be to further protect the others from her magic. Perhaps the council was deciding something similar right now, and Winter would come back to growl at her until she gave up her powers. She knew she would, if it came to that, but then what would happen to Pyrrhia? There was no way to know if Nocturne had been telling the truth, but if she was, then Anadrom’s magic would be the only thing standing between them and total annihilation. 
On that matter, where was Nocturne? While they had outpaced her on their journey to the academy, she surely would have arrived by now, it being a half day later and all. She’s probably lurking about somewhere, waiting for the perfect moment to launch the next step of her plan. Being a NightWing and RainWing hybrid must allow her some pretty great clandestine abilities; if she had fully working camouflage scales, she could be in the same room as me right now. She glanced nervously about at that thought, fearing a sudden venom strike, then remembered the invulnerability spell she had cast on herself instinctively back when the SeaWing guards were attacking her. Perhaps she should take it off now, but then again, there were a considerable amount of dragons around who feared her and wanted her to be killed. Even Winter might try to get rid of her now, if he really thought she was controlling all of his friends with her magic. If she wanted to stay alive for Pyrrhia’s sake, she had no real option but to keep it on.
Time continued to trickle slowly by, and Anadrom sat alone, apprehension and suspense building. What was taking the council this long to decide? Or had they already decided to evict her, but were arguing over who had to face her and perhaps the wrath of her magic? If they did kick me out, I wouldn’t protest, though. It’s their school, and their first priority is to keep their students safe from all danger. I just wish everyone would see that I’m not a threat. She sighed, and then caught the sound of approaching talons ringing off of the stone floors. 
Her scales felt heavy, as if they were laden with wet sand. Around the corridor, the clinking of talons echoed at a greater and greater volume, until it stopped directly outside of the entrance to her cave. Whatever messenger the council had chosen seemed to pause for a moment, but only a moment, then walked into the cave with an aura of disappointment. Moonwatcher was standing before her, but in an entirely different state than she had been only a few hours ago. Anadrom wouldn’t have guessed that the NightWing was capable of such uneasiness; there was a gleam in her eyes that combined most of the negative emotions Anadrom had ever experienced, and while her tail was lashing about on the stone floor behind her, her wings were dropping at her sides. Anadrom let her wings drop limply to her sides. It’s just the depths for me, then, alone and out of the way. Estuary was right; I’ll only ever be a cave-dwelling mudfish.
Moonwatcher composed herself slightly, then muttered to herself, “I can’t believe them,” looking rather hurt and frustrated. “Well, Anadrom, we’ve elected that you can stay here at the academy, but under circumstances that - well, that aren’t the best. Winter and Glory were quite resistant to the idea of you being here at all, and even Qibli - I can’t believe him.” She hissed again. “I’m sorry - I just thought so much better of all of them. This isn’t going to be the best news for you, and I can imagine how you’re going to feel, but they say you have to tell your story first hand in front of the entire academy.” The NightWing lowered her head, seemingly picking up on the bolt of fear and shyness that had just ricocheted about Anadrom’s heart. 
“They never forced me to do it,” she said softly. “Even once I told most of the heads of school about my mindreading, they never made me do anything remotely like this. It’s just - just so cruel, I feel. It’s exactly what you’re most afraid of right now, having the attention and possible wrath of every dragon in the academy focused on you, and I can’t believe any of them are okay with it! I’m certainly not. Just so you know, Turtle and Tsunami both spoke up for you, and I did as well, but - well, this was the only way they’d agree to even consider letting you stay.”
Anadrom nodded, quaking somewhat as she pictured the entire student body trying to attack her at once. I’d teleport far, far, far away, to the other side of the world, even. Sink into the ocean where no one would ever find me except for maybe the farmer-beings. They might accept me, I suppose. More certainly than any dragons ever will, especially if I’m the one trying to convince them. What could I even say? This is - I’m not suited for this - I’ll do everything wrong again and they’ll all hate me forever.
“It’s okay,” she said, although the NightWing would clearly see in her mind that it wasn’t. “Did they - was there - er - anything else they wanted?”
Moonwatcher sighed and looked at the floor for a long while. “Qibli wants to be able to have control over your magic somehow, so that all of your spells have to be confirmed by him or even by the entire council again. It reminds me of how he became with Darkstalker’s scroll - the one side of him that I dislike. He’s not a power-hungry dragon, and he even turned down the chance to be an animus himself once, but he wants to have control over magic in a somewhat unhealthy way. I’ll convince him to give it up after a while, if you can wait -”
There was a rush of noise from the hall, and Winter barreled into the cave, snout raised as if he was planning to launch a shot of frostbreath at Anadrom. “What are you doing, Moon? We discussed this very thing, if I’m not much mistaken! Not being alone with her.” He turned to Anadrom now, with a glare as brittle as shards of ice. “I swear - if you did anything to her - I’ll have you locked in dungeons so far in the Ice Kingdom that you’ll never see another dragon for as long as you live. Which I’m certain will be forever, knowing what you are.”
“Winter!” Moonwatcher cried. “You’re being horrible; can’t you see that? She’s a dragonet, for crying out loud!”
“You’re only saying that because she’s enchanted you,” Winter barked back. “You’ll thank me once she’s taken care of, Moon. I can’t have everyone taken by another Darkstalker, no matter what you’ve been altered to think of her.” His gaze had softened when he looked at the NightWing, as if he genuinely cared about keeping her and everyone else safe. Winter’s not a villain; he’s just trying to keep those he loves safe, like I was. Only he’s imagining the threat to his friends, while Ocotillo’s life was really in constant danger. As much as she tried to understand the IceWing, it was still terrifying when he suddenly reached his serrated talons out and grabbed her arm, pulling her off of her sleeping platform and out of the cave. She struggled to keep up with him as he rushed her along the tunnel, spreading his wings out to keep Moonwatcher from cutting in front of him. They were heading directly back to the entrance hall, and a breeze of crisp mountain air wafted inwards from the great opening in the side of the cave. 
Sunlight filled the cavern, glancing off of the gong and spiraling back outwards in a dazzling array. It was apparently only mid-morning, after all, and the sky outside was clear. There were dragonets sitting in organized rows before a raised part of the cave - far too many dragonets. There must be over a hundred of them! Anadrom thought with another strike of fear. Quite an expansion from the original size of the academy. I can’t do this - what will happen if I mess this up? Oh, this is not good. 
Upon the raised platform were the five dragonets of destiny, the multicolored assortment of their scales glimmering in the lighting to make them appear even more majestic than usual. For the first time, Anadrom wondered what exactly the RainWing queen was doing at the academy. It was unusual, to be sure; had Nocturne told her to meet her there, or had the Queen been otherwise alerted that Anadrom was coming and had flown over from the rainforest in only a day, or had she been attending the school for entirely unrelated reasons? Moonwatcher said she argued against letting me stay - to be fair, the last animus did steal a considerable amount of her subjects from her for a while, and some of them never returned. 
Before the heroes of the war were the vanquishers of the Darkstalker, the members of the original Jade Winglet, with Peril alongside them. She and Turtle were looking rather downcast, while the lithe form of Kinkajou was a muted tone with hints of red, and Qibli looked mostly apprehensive. Winter pushed her up in front of them a bit roughly, then glowered off a short distance behind her. Moonwatcher caught up a moment later, giving Anadrom a reassuring pat on the wing and a heartfelt look before going to yell at Winter under her breath. 
Sunny was the first to speak, looking out over the crowd of her silent students and trying to appear calm and unworried. The eyes of countless dragonets bored into Anadrom as the SandWing announced, “Good morning, everyone. As you can tell, we’ve decided to hold an emergency assembly today due to the arrival of the SeaWing animus Anadrom at our academy.” There was a hiss of recognition through the crowd, and a few dragonets began to stir about nervously. A few shot entirely hostile looks at Anadrom, and she tried to look as small and harmless as possible (which was really how she felt at the moment anyways). 
“No, it’s okay,” Sunny said quickly, waving her talons about to quiet the students. “It appears that most of the accusations made against her are entirely false, and that she has proven herself to be - while, to be not evil. She’s done many things opposite to how the - how the Darkstalker did, including rendering all dragons within ten miles of this mountain immune to her magic, I believe.”
“She cast a spell on all of us?” hissed a SkyWing from the back of the crowd, and a murmur of hostility rode through the assembled dragons. Winter snorted from behind her, sending a cold spiral of air down her spine.
“She can’t be here!” another dragonet cried, this time a SeaWing. “I hear she’s already enchanted the entire Kingdom of Sea to do whatever she wants, and turned some of them into killer statues, like Orca’s!” This caused a small panic about the dragonet, as several students moved to back away.
“No, no, no!” Sunny cried, a hint of worry wandering into her voice. “No, Tsunami and Turtle saw everything, and Anadrom didn’t do any of that. Please, don’t believe all of the rumors you’ve heard. It’s not fair to her - we have to give her a chance -”
“Like we gave the Darkstalker a chance?” Winter said a bit too loudly. Anadrom shrank down to the floor, curling her wings in as tightly as she could. This was going even worse than she had imagined, and she hadn’t even said anything yet. There was general chaos at this, and a few of the larger dragonets inched forward through the mass of their fellow students, eying Anadrom with intent hostility. 
“Calm down, everyone, please!” Qibli cried, and most of the dragonets listened to him and settled back down. He must be a great teacher here, for them to respect him like that. Either way, he was clearly a highly trusted figure. “Yes, there might be reason for concern, but we as your brilliant teachers have devised a practical solution to the problem, of course. We are going to have Anadrom tell her entire story to all of us, so we can judge whether or not she’s the dangerous enchantress the rumors make her out to be, or really just an innocent dragonet. That’s only fair, right?”
There was a murmur of agreement, and Qibli turned in Anadrom, locking her eyes with his and seeming to convey a message along the lines of please cooperate, it’ll be best for everyone. She nodded at him nervously, and he held up a scroll, folded over so that she couldn’t read what was written upon it. “Anadrom, before we begin, please enchant this piece of paper so that the spell written upon it will come into fruition exactly as it is worded.”
“What?” she stammered nervously. “Er - what does it say? I mean, is it -”
“Just do it, please,” Qibli commanded, and she complied, dread running rampantly through her veins. She had to trust him, but what if the spell on that paper did something horrible to her, or worse, to her parents? The paper crackled lightly in the SandWing’s talons, and then a dull stone appeared on the floor before Anadrom’s talons, a multifaceted semi-circle shape with veins of black iron. Qibli nodded, looking pleased, then glanced down at the scroll and read through the enchantment again. “Okay,” he said at last. “Everyone, the spell Anadrom just cast is worded as follows: Create a half-dome of rock the size of a dragon’s palm with the ability to detect whether any dragon holding it is telling the complete truth or not, which will be displayed through the object lighting up green if only the truth is being told, and lighting up red if a falsehood is uttered or if a significant fact is left out. Once created by this spell, the rock can never again be altered by any form of magic, nor can it be destroyed through any physical or magical means. I may add that the paper was also worded so that the stone wouldn’t appear at all if she magically altered the text in any way.”
That wasn’t so bad. This way, everyone would have to trust her. She had planned to only tell the truth anyways, and with this non-biased piece of magic validating her words, everyone would see who she really was. Wow, though, I’ll have to tell them everything. Even about being a LostWing, although I really had planned to keep that hidden for a while. And that Nocturne thinks Pyrrhia is about to be destroyed…you know, maybe this isn’t so great after all. But I don’t have a choice either way. 
She nodded at Qibli, trying to convey her willingness to cooperate, and picked up the stone gently. It occurred to her at that moment that the SandWing might have lied about the enchantment and that anything could really happen to her. 
Nothing did, except for the semicircle shaking slightly as her talons contacted its surface. Her scales were glowing slightly with her intense worry now, and the knowledge that that was happening and probably freaking everyone else out wasn’t helping in the slightest. Qibli cleared his throat, then addressed her directly. “Anadrom, let’s test that it works. Let’s see...well, we’ll start with the obvious. Are you currently in the main chamber of the Jade Mountain Academy?”
“Yes,” Anadrom whispered, and the rock lit up into a gentle green in her talons.
“Are you - let’s say - a SkyWing? Respond yes, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes,” she said again, and a strong crimson washed over.
“Perfect,” Qibli said, sounding quite pleased that his spell had worked. “So that’s settled. Are you planning to take over Pyrrhia?”
“What?” Anadrom cried, taken aback. “No, no, of course not.” The dull green returned. 
“Have you cast spells to alter the behavior of any dragons in your favor, such as making them artificially loyal to you, or to like you no matter what, or to obey your every command?”
“No!” Green.
“Did you attempt to overthrow Queen Coral and seize the throne for yourself?”
“No.” Green.
“Have you ever worked or planned to work for the Loyalist Force or any other of the outlaw organizations plaguing Pyrrhia?”
“Never.” Green.
There were surprised murmurs spiraling around the room now, which increased in as Qibli asked her question after question and she responded truthfully to each one. After a while, it was established beyond a doubt that she had never acted in any nefarious way or ever planned to in the future, except for the time she had spent under the control of Estuary. The crowd of dragonets didn’t even seem to mind the discovery about the statue all that much, especially once they learned that Queen Coral had issued the actual command of execution to it. Anadrom couldn’t quite understand this - if she felt so terrible about the blackmailer’s death, and knew that it really was her fault for creating that statue, why wasn’t everyone else equally disgusted at her? She had been in a high-pressure and compromised situation when creating the dreadful spell, to be sure, but she had done it nonetheless; thus, she should be held entirely accountable for the murder that occurred as a result. The Queen wouldn’t have been able to tell the statue what to do if she hadn’t created it in the first place. It all came back to her.
“Well, okay,” Qibli said after a long pause, looking at her rather guiltily. “I - this - we may have had cause to falsely accuse you of - some horrible things. There’s no way you worked around my truth-detector spell? You couldn’t have. Well, then, would you want to tell us the whole story, from the beginning?” Anadrom swallowed nervously, then turned out to face the crowd. The eyes upon her were mostly pitying now, or surprised, and only in a few cases were they still hostile and untrusting. She glanced at her parents, wondering if they wanted their story told, and they read her question in her eyes and nodded in affirmative. 
“Well,” she said quietly, “Everything - everything started back during the war, when my father Ocotillo risked - er - everything he knew to save my father Eelgrass.” She went through the entire tale of Eelgrass’s rescue, from Ocotillo’s commander turning on him to the journey to the healer to their eventual exodus to the Talons of Peace’s hideout. Once in a while, the stone would shine red in her talons, and she’d quickly add the details it had noticed her leaving out (such as the location of the hideout, in case they had ever wanted to return there one day). The story about the discovery and hatching of her egg was met with apt wonder and attention, especially when she admitted that they had come to the conclusion that she was a LostWing - an Ancestor, an OriginWing, a Precursor - however the various tribes termed their shared ancestor. 
Then she moved through the discovery of her powers, both magic and in odd-scale-light- ing, in saving Eelgrass from the shark, and how Estuary had discovered her abilities and held Starfish hostage against her. Everyone seemed somewhat surprised when the stone remained green through all of this, as if they couldn’t believe such a nefarious and manipulative dragon as Estuary could be alive in this day and age. Her horrors in the Kingdom of the Sea, the visits into her dreams by Nocturne, the betrayal of Abyss and the near death of her father - all of this she told to the crowd of strangers. Queen Glory broke in once, to ask if Nocturne had really been coming to the academy the last time they saw her, to which Anadrom responded affirmatively. She finished her recap of the last month of her life with the list of spells she had cast to keep other dragons safe by limiting her own power, and revealed the Informaband to everyone, tracing the silver band with one talon. Qibli shuffled guiltily at that point, and Anadrom wondered if he was regretting his assumption that he needed to regulate her use of magic. The fact that her soul was entirely intact still seemed to puzzle everyone the most. A flurry of questions quickly followed her story, with dragonets shouting over each other in a garbled mass of words. Sunny called for silence and then began calling out dragonets to ask their queries one at a time. 
“Tell us more about whatever is going to destroy Pyrrhia!” a MudWing student called, and the rest of the crowd nodded in agreement. “What did Queen Glory’s daughter say, exactly? Are you going to stop it?”
“I’m afraid that I don’t know anything else about it,” Anadrom admitted, the stone remaining green in her talons. “All Nocturne told me was that I had to follow her instructions, and to never - er - to never remove my powers. She hasn’t dreamvisited me at all since - well, since the Kingdom of the Sea. I really don’t know anything more.”
There was a stir of unease in the crowd, and the next dragonet Sunny called on was one of those still glaring suspiciously at Anadrom. “So there’s absolutely no way you could enchant me right now, at all?” he hissed, flexing his talons below him.
“No, not unless you specifically told me to, and even then only the enchantment you specifically want can be cast.” Green.
The stream of questions went on for a while longer, with most of them asking her to clarify certain sections of her story, and a few more trying to confirm that she truly wasn’t a danger to all of them. Once everyone had finished, Sunny dismissed the assembly, telling her students that the next few hours would be free time to allow them to discuss what they had learned. The idea of so many dragons talking about her sent a shiver down Anadrom’s spine, although she reflected that most of Pyrrhia probably already was, and the students would surely have more positive things to say then the dragons that thought she was still a Loyalist. A few of the older dragonets lingered, clearly hoping to hear whatever exchange was about to happen between the new animus and the past heroes, but Tsunami sent them off with a commanding flick of her tail.
Silence filled the cavern for a little while, welcome after all the bustle and talking of the last two hours. Her throat felt parched, and she was still in a lingering perpetual state of nervousness from speaking in front of such a large crowd. Winter and Qibli were shooting each other unreadable glances, and every once in a while one of them turned to look at Moonwatcher, but she didn’t meet their gaze. Sunny eventually came over to Anadrom and touched her wing lightly against hers. “I’m sorry for everything, Anadrom,” the hybrid said compassionately, and it was clear that she entirely meant it. “You can stay here at the academy for as long as you wish, and we’ll certainly help clear your name to the rest of Pyrrhia.” She lowered herself to be level with Anadrom, then gave her a small smile, her eyes twinkling like the evening stars. “And thank you, so, so much, for the spell you cast on Jade Mountain. It means so much to all of us; I can’t believe that everyone here is finally going to be safe. You’ve secured peace for Pyrrhia’s future.”
“And it was my idea!” Tsunami shouted from beside them, bumping Sunny playfully. “Ha! You’ll owe me for the rest of our lives now!”
“Hmm,” Sunny said. “Well, Tsunami, thank you as well. I have to be off now, in case any of the students want to see me to talk about all of this. Hopefully no one will want to leave the academy. No, Anadrom, I’m sorry, I’m sure they won’t. Er - well, I’d better get going. Starflight and Fatespeaker, head back to the library, if you please. We do need someone there at all times.”
Clay and Peril left to accompany their friends, but as they went through the left tunnel they turned around and sent a friendly wave at Anadrom. Queen Glory left to be with Sunny in her office, and Moonwatcher stalked off to some unknown part of the mountain, casting Winter and Qibli a last angry glare.
“Yikes,” Qibli said. “I’ve never seen her this mad, especially at me. Perhaps she would have preferred if I had trusted her judgment rather than making my own clever plan. Well, drat and camel-spitting lizards. I should - well - hmm.” He looked closely at Anadrom, remorse etched on his features, and drummed his talons in a half-hearted rhythm upon the cavern floor. He’s still trying to understand me, and probably what he should say now to apologize for not trusting me at first. The best thing for him to say - I don’t even know what that is, if I’m being honest. He wasn’t that terrible - well, he wasn’t like Winter. Although I do wonder if he put anything else on that scroll that he’s not telling me about.
“It’s okay,” Anadrom intoned softly, and she watched surprise flicker across the SandWing’s features. “What you did worked, and - er - it was a good idea. It’s fine that you didn’t - erm - trust me at first, especially having faced Darkstalker firsthand like you did and - and all. No hard feelings?”
“Wow,” Qibli responded, looking entirely befuddled. “Well, the truth-teller is revealing that you do actually feel that way. I appreciate it, Anadrom, although I would still like to apologize for my initial hostility. It was prejudiced of me to fear you just because you were an animus. And while the Darkstalker wasn’t great, you have nothing to do with him, and no one should tie his awful deeds to you.” He blinked at her again, as if he had just lost all of the progress he thought he had made in classifying what kind of dragon she was.
Winter coughed audibly, and they all turned to face him. The IceWing was standing off by himself on an outcropping near the open exit, with a truly admirable look of self-loathing written upon his features. He struggled with something powerful inside, and then blurted out the thing Anadom had least expected him to ask. “Are you afraid of me?” He was looking right at her. 
“I - what?” she sputtered, wondering if she should drop the truth-teller. “I - no - well - erm - no?” Red light spilled out across the cave floor, glinting off of the IceWing’s scales like a sunset over a glacier, and he nodded slowly. 
“Because I’m an IceWing or because of what I did?” he asked emotionlessly, his tone entirely neutral. “Tell the truth, SeaWing - hmm - LostWing.”
“Because of what you did,” Anadrom mumbled, and the light shifted to a profound green tint. The IceWing nodded again, then turned and launched himself out of the cave into the blue midday skies. He spiraled quickly upwards, vanishing into the white of a newly-formed cloud, before anyone could move to follow him.
“We should let him be,” Kinkajou said, gazing out at where Winter had vanished. “He needs some time to think about how horrible he was. Crazy stuck-up IceWing that he is, to not just apologize like a normal dragon. Aarrgh, Winter!”
“Speaking of apologizing,” Qibli began, then stopped mid-sentence and just started down the tunnel Moonwatcher had entered. Kinkajou laughed quietly at him and launched herself after him, mouthing He’ll need my help! as she left. 
“Well,” Turtle said, “We could go hunting now, Anadrom, if you want. There are some pretty nice lakes around here, and we could both probably use some fish.” The normalcy of it sounded great, and she smiled up at Turtle. He was nearly perfect at making her feel at ease, between his nonchalant manner and his way of treating her as if she was an entirely normal, ordinary dragonet. “Eelgrass, you can join us, and Ocotillo, I can point out some good land-hunting spots on the way.”
They all launched off into the warm afternoon, their scales warmed by the calm glow of the sun, and for the next hour Anadrom forgot about everything except for the beauty of the world about her. Forests were penciled between the jagged peaks of the mountain range, dotted here and there with the newly-built outbuildings of the academy. There was expanded student lodging located in well-designed rectangular structures nestled upon some of the broader summits, where plenty of sunlight could reach the RainWings and SandWings. A few hammocks and platforms similar to those she had seen in illustrations of the RainWing village dotted the base of Jade Mountain, and an immense orchard had been planted to provide a fresh source of fruit. 
The waters of surrounding lakes were as clear as that of the sea, and the freshwater didn’t hurt nearly as much to swim in. It was perfect in every way, and she was overjoyed at last that this majestic new world would be her home for the next few weeks at least. Maybe I can help them in return - my magic can be used for so much good here. This is how I’ll make Pyrrhia a better place. Everything might eventually be okay, after all.
Chapter 11
There was a dragonet waiting for them when they eventually returned to the main chamber. He was of the same coloring as Sunny, with shining golden scales rather than the usual tan or yellow for SandWings, except for a splattering of midnight-black scales that dotted his snout and upper shoulders. His eyes were a bit larger than those of most dragons, and had a bright orange hue that sparkled with curiosity and wonder. Around his front and back legs were woven odd bands of metal and straps bearing a wide assortment of what appeared to be mechanical tools, which reflected the light behind them as he waved excitedly in their direction. Turtle sent a bright smile to the odd dragonet, then whispered to Anadrom right as they landed, “That’s Solstice, the son of Moon and Qibli. He’s incredible; some of the things he builds - well, we swore he had to be an animus for a while.” With this intriguing remark, they all made their way over to the dragonet.
“Hello!” he chirped enthusiastically. “My pleasure to meet you - wait, no, that’s not how it goes. My pleasure to make your acquaintance. Solstice the Sandy-NightWing at your service!” He bowed low, and Anadrom attempted to do so in return.
“Likewise to you, from Anadrom the LostWing,” she replied with a small smile. 
“Yes!” Solstice nodded. “Perfect, I’ve found you. You see, I’ve managed to convince Sunny to let me give you the tour of the academy. Which will be great! I’ve never been allowed to show anyone around before, although I have an amazing plan to do it.” The dragonet seemed to not mind in the least that Anadrom was not exactly an usual student, which she appreciated. Is that why he’s really doing this, though? Just because he wants to finally show someone around? Or is he trying to get me to like him, so that I’ll enchant things for him in the future? Or is he just the kind of dragon who wants to be friends with everyone he meets? 
“You didn’t really find us,” Turtle pointed out. “We just returned to this spot and you happened to be waiting for us here.”
“Maybe,” Solstice said, his eyes twinkling. “But nevertheless, here we all are! What do you say, Anadrom? Please?”
“Alright,” she agreed, and Solstice beamed at her. Everything about him was too spontaneous and somehow sincere to be an act, she decided. The way he looked at everyone was something she had never seen in another dragon before; a combination of curiosity, interest, and hope, as if he suspected that at any moment anyone around him would do something incredible. He was impossible to dislike. 
“Fantastic!” he said, turning to face the left tunnel leading deeper into the academy. “Follow me into the wonders of peace and knowledge. The dark times are behind us, the future is bright, and most everything worth mentioning is happening here, in the cornerstone of progress; Jade Mountain Academy!” He gestured his talons about grandly as they hurried through the immense entrance cavern, balancing effortlessly on his back legs and tail, which she now noticed bore no poisonous barb at all. “As you know, this is the entrance hall, with such fine features as the schedule-gong and the rock shelf where all assemblies are held. The tunnel to the left here leads down into the student and classroom wings, while the one up and over to the right leads to - let’s see here - the quarters of the Heads of School, the guest caves, and the offices. Sunny and Clay put a ton of work into creating these chambers that mimic the environments of each kingdom, so that visiting royalty or officials can feel entirely at home. They actually let me help set up the SeaWing cave, and used my design for the water filtration system! Wait, would you have stayed there last night? Did it work - was there any algae buildup or anything? I might have to replace the pipes running down from the rainwater tanks - oh, or maybe make sure that nothing is growing in them.”
He was looking hopefully at her now, and she could see how much he wanted to gather data on his invention. “I’m sorry, but they didn’t - er - assign me there,” she admitted. “I was put in one of the unfinished guest caves, I think. But I can check on it with you afterwards, if you’d like.”
Solstice beamed at her again, and a bit of his energy and happiness filled the depths of Anadrom’s soul. “That would be great!” he said. “I haven’t been able to really check on any of the components since we let the water in. Although, I did make this breathing device - wait, no, we’re on the tour right now. I’m sorry, I got - hmm - carried away. Let’s get back to the main event; this wonderful academy!” They had passed into the left tunnel by now, which was lit by hanging multi-colored globes with slowly smoldering fires twinkling inside, and had lush strands of ivy growing along the walls. The entire place was well-light and the air was fresher than Anadorm had expected - it felt almost as if she wasn’t underground at all, which she supposed was the idea. There were scattered cave openings branching off of this main tunnel, some of which appeared to be natural and some-dragon carved. I could create a whole new wing of caves for them in an instant, if the school leaders wanted me to. All with their own burbling waterfalls, with clear pools and lush plantlife, and with all of the scrolls any dragon could ever want. 
“These are the uppermost caves,” Solstice was telling her, “And they’re usually reserved for the oldest students, in winglets about to graduate. Brrr, I get chills saying that. One day I’m going to graduate, to have learned everything all of the tribes have ever known, and I can go off and do anything. I’ll work on projects for all of the tribes, solve everyone’s problems, and help raise entire cities for the dragons of the future to live in, all in harmony! Well, most of that, at least.” 
By the moons, that’s almost exactly what I had planned to do with my powers, Anadrom thought. Would he be disappointed if I fixed everything myself and he never had a chance to help anyone? And Solstice has never even considered being able to use magic - he’s just had his wits against the world, and he has the courage to try to improve it for the better with just that. I never did. Before I discovered my powers, I never thought I could do anything to help other dragons; I was just a useless, odd SeaWing who would never be able to change anything. It takes a certain bravery to think that you can change the world, and a tremendous amount of energy, but Solstice seems to have both. It’s incredible, really. “That sounds great,” was all she managed to summarize of this line of thought, and Solstice blinked at her.
“Really?” he said hopefully. “Usually whenever I say things like that, nobody takes me remotely seriously. Sometimes they laugh, even; ‘Solstice, the only help you’ll ever be to anyone is cleaning the murk out of their water!’ or ‘What are you going to do, Solstice? Flash your little tools about and suddenly become an animus?’ But I’ll prove myself to them one day, and I’ll make something great that everyone will love. It’s my destiny - or if it isn’t, I’m going to make it be. Hmm. That doesn’t really make sense, does it? Well, not to get carried away again, let’s talk about - yes, yes. These are the ordinary sleeping caves now, and they continue down that hall for a bit before there’s a dead end. Let’s go right here, down to the teaching caves.”
“Wait - no, back to what you were saying - that’s - er - well, awful,” Anadrom blinked, focusing on the beginning of his little speech. “Why would they say those things about you? Turtle said you’ve made all kinds of incredible machines - why wouldn’t they believe in you?” Is this what he wants to hear? Or would he rather not talk about it? I don’t know what to say, but then again, I never really do.
“Turtle said that?” Solstice smiled. “That’s nice of him. I don’t really understand why no one is willing to believe in me - but I have a theory that it’s a bunch of things all combined together. No one really seems to understand the purpose of the things I create, for one; they mostly think my ideas are silly and useless. You know, along the lines of ‘What do I care about a wrist-timepiece? I can just look at the sun whenever I want!’ or ‘Why should I care whether my water is full of lead or not? You should be working on creating new weapons for the queen, if you really want to be helpful.’ And that’s another thing - I am a hybrid, clearly, and while no one here is in the Loyalist Force, there are some dragonets who still think the tribes would be better off separated. To them I stand as a symbol of everything they want Pyrrhia not to be. Worse, I’m the son of the night librarian and the part-time music teacher, but I’m not particularly fond of scrolls or playing instruments, which dragons think is just weird.”
“I’d like to get to know you,” Anadrom offered, and this time she felt the wave of happiness bursting off of the other dragonet as if it were an actual ripple in the ocean. Is this what happens to dragons that are strange enough to change the world; they get pushed aside by everyone else, ignored as oddities rather than accepted? It wasn’t that way for the Dragonets of Destiny, to be sure, but they had a prophecy on their side. Or maybe Solstice is just bad at talking to other dragons, like I am, although he seems pretty adequate at it based on this experience.
“Wow, thanks,” Solstice replied cheerfully, with a more serious look of gratitude hidden behind his eyes. “Erm - here’s the music cave, to return to the tour. All of the instruments are placed in those hollows in the walls, except for the sets of drums and whatever that larger one is - I think it’s called an xylophone? All of those scrolls are records of songs, with these strange markings for notes that look like dancing humans. Most of the time, we just play around with the instruments, but once a week or so Qibli will teach us a new song. He’s incredible; I’ve seen him playing three instruments at once better than most dragons could ever play them one at a time. And over there is the pathway to the art cave, the one all lined with drawings.”
“What are those?” Anadrom asked, tilting her head at the fired-clay objects covering one side of the cave walls. They were talon-shaped, but with seven branching claws rather than five, and each was elaborately decorated with swirls and complex patterns. She was actually curious about them, but she was also trying to move the conversation forward away from Solstice’s troubles, which was clearly what he himself was trying to do. 
“Ah, majestic works of those who once passed through these very halls long ago,” Solstice exclaimed in a deep announcer’s voice, then laughed and resumed talking normally. “Those are the emblazons of the winglets that have graduated, going back almost a decade now. The ones for the class of the heroes of the Jade Mountain Prophecy is in the center there, and then the others surrounding them are for the next set of winglets, and so on. If you look close enough, you can see the talon-prints of each dragon in the clay. They were Sunny’s idea, and I think they’re wonderful.”
It was truly a sight to behold, gazing upon just how many dragonets had been educated in the academy, and sent out to ensure a peaceful future for Pyrrhia. Anadrom wondered how many of them had gone to work in other kingdoms as Solstice planned to. That can’t really work for the Kingdom of the Sea or the Ice Kingdom, she realized. I could fix that - I could enchant an object for every graduate so they could breathe underwater, or survive subarctic temperatures, or be comfortable in the heat of the desert and immune to the bugs of the rainforest. That would be another way to bring all dragons together - eliminating the need for dragons of a certain tribe to stay primarily within the habitat they evolved to thrive in.
Solstice led her down another branching tunnel to the history cave, then up and about to the prey center, which was more of a stockhouse of sorts nowadays. He really was a good tour guide, providing funny and insightful facts about everywhere they passed, and he seemed to know the bizarre layout of the school perfectly. Despite everything that he had told her, Anadrom still had a hard time believing that anyone could dislike the well-spoken, charming dragonet. Especially the students of the academy, who were supposed to be the most peaceful and understanding dragons within Pyrrhia. Is there another side to him that I’m not seeing right now? Maybe he’s like that awful NightWing scientist, Mastermind, and he experiments with all sorts of horrible things. Yikes, I hope not. 
She immediately felt awful about thinking that, especially once she realized that it fell along the same line of judgment that everyone was currently giving her. Why did dragons just assume that everyone was instinctively evil, and that any kind behavior was just a manipulative act to entrap others into their favor? The only evil dragon I’ve ever known was Estuary, and she was blatantly obvious about it. Her thoughts were broken by Solstice’s beckonings, and together they took off out of an opening in the side of the mountain.
“All of the structures on the outside grounds are quite new,” he shouted to her, his voice rising over the wind rushing against them. While the day wasn’t particularly gusty, the altitude of the mountain seemed to draw air towards it, and blew it through the pronged peaks with an eerie whistling. “With expansion of population comes expansion of demand, and as the student body has increased thricefold in the last decade, the founders of the school thought it would be a good idea to establish living quarters and farms outside. The area was running pretty low on prey, after all. The environmental effects of dozens of dragons hunting in the same few miles for years upon years - well, I’m impressed that there’s still so much plantlife around, to be honest. Those are the farms and orchards down there, at the foot of the mountain.”
“Are those the rainwater tanks?” Anadrom guessed, pointing at a collection of a dozen massive stone structures gathered on a ledge halfway-up the mountain. They were all wide, short tubs, with wooden lids fastened upon them at the moment, and with a network of pipes and valves running down to various locations. A few dipped and disappeared into the mass of Jade Mountain, winding through carved tunnels in the rock, while others wound their way down to the farms to serve as irrigation systems. It reminded Anadrom of a group of octopuses, all resting upon a coral shelf as their tentacles spiraled downwards in light flowing movements in time to the currents. She had never expected to miss the Kingdom of the Sea, but she felt a pang in her chest now, and wished for a moment that she could dive about amidst the colorful schools of fish once again.
“Yes,” Solstice said, and a look of pride came over his features. It wasn’t the haughty version that Anadrom had noted on the SeaWing royal family, or the self-important variety Estuary had shown from time to time, but rather an expression of pure admiration for the wonders of the academy. The way the SandWing/NightWing had of looking around him as if everything he saw was more incredible than the last was more prominent here than it had been anywhere else on the tour. “They’re so awesome, aren’t they? Whenever it looks as if it's about to rain, we just remove the lids, and then they collect enough water to last the academy for weeks! All of the crops are watered by them during droughts, and the SeaWing guest cave is entirely filled by them, not to mention the water fountains we’ve set up across the school. One push of a pedal, and then a stream of fresh water comes down from storage directly to the basins; there’s nowhere else in Pyrrhia that has them! It sure beats the old way the students got water, which was just a massive shared pool in the prey center.” He made a face at the last thought, sticking his forked tongue outwards, which made Anadrom laugh again.
“That’s almost everything,” Solstice continued. “What else? Er - over there are the flying practice platforms, and the obstacle course to practice navigating in the terrain of every kingdom. Then there’s the boarding chambers for any dragonets unwilling to live underground, and - oh, that’s right! How could I have forgotten? I’m sorry, Anadrom, you must excuse me for this lapse of memory. I have the mind of an addled half-shelled tortoise. Right in that cleft yonder lies one of the strangest and best features of the academy; the protected human den! Just don’t go too close, or Winter will yell at you, I’m afraid.”
“Winter?” Anadrom blanched. “I - he’s probably yelled at me enough already today for my liking. But - er - Queen Coral’s scrolls never mentioned there being any humans here.”
Her guide nodded. “That does seem possible, seeing as how most of the royalty just find the entire thing amusing. But Winter’s the Head of Human Relations, and he’ll take students down in small groups to watch them live their lives. He’s very protective of them, and he’s quite the terrifying dragon to begin with. They’re safe from even the most hostile students here.”
Anadrom peered down at the spot Solstice had pointed to and saw a cluster of small structures mostly hidden under the trees. There was a circular stone wall running around the entire village, with a corresponding quarry that had been dug out of the side of the mountain. A large stone structure with various windows and towers was placed in the center of the enclosed area, looking just as detailed as a miniature of the SkyWing palace. Various small homes with thatched roofs spread outwards from the central building, some of which bore large pastures and fields fenced in with tiny stone walls. 
“Wow,” she gasped. “I didn’t know they could build communities as detailed as that; I mean, it looks dragon-built, almost. How many are living there now?”
“They’ve constructed everything,” Solstice confirmed, “And they even tore down the few houses Winter had pre-built for them. I believe he said there are around a hundred of them there now, which makes it the second-largest known community of humans in all of Pyrrhia. They’re surprisingly skilled at design when dragons aren’t always burning down their homes. Oh, look, Winter’s watching them right now.”
Quickly glancing about, she spotted the fierce IceWing sitting alone on an outcropping, his tail curled around with front talons as he gazed down at the quant settlement. He looked forlorn and regally melancholy, and seeing Anadrom spying on him right now would probably not do anything to improve his mood. She dropped quickly down, gliding back into the entrance of the academy, and landed a few moments later with Solstice at her side back where they had first met. The other dragonet looked slightly embarrassed, as if he should have known she’d want to stay clear of the older IceWing.
“I - er - well - I would be forever obliged for your honest opinion on the quality and value of the tour you’ve just completed with the Solstice Guide Corporation,” the SandWing/NightWing said after a pause, attempting to clear any awkwardness with his strange humor. “Any individual recommendations will be acknowledged and filled with our customer support center, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”
Anadrom decided to join his over-formal manner, flexing her wings and turning up her snout, although it made her feel a little silly. “There can certainly be no complaint made of the information presented today or - er - of the integrity and - er - societal value of the location shown. The Solstice Guide Corporation has earned the respect and - er - met the requirements of this - this - customer -” She was laughing near the end of all this, and Solstice joined in, radiating a happiness more concentrated than that of a RainWing finding a new sloth. Wow, when was the last time I laughed this often? Maybe with Ocotillo and Eelgrass when I was really young and Estuary hadn’t begun bothering me yet? 
I hope everything can be this great at the academy from now on.
The entrance cave was entirely empty except for a few dragonets quietly studying their scrolls under a large outcropping, and for Turtle, who seemed to have been waiting for them. He nodded friendly at Solstice, who returned the gesture with a brilliant spark in his eyes, no doubt thinking of how Anadrom had told him of how the prince held his inventions in high regard. “Hey, Anadrom,” the SeaWing prince said, somewhat quietly, as if he didn’t particularly want to be overheard. “I’m not entirely certain how to put this, so I’m afraid I’ll have to be blunt. It turns out that Queen Coral did actually send out a few soldiers to try re-capturing you here at the academy, just as we had feared on the flight here. Well, not a few, to be honest - an entire squadron of veterans from the War of SandWing Succession. Don’t worry though - Tsunami and Qibli went out to talk to them, and I’m fairly certain they’ll be able to convince them that you’re not evil. Especially with Qibli’s enchanted paper and the truth-stone serving as strong pieces of evidence. I’m about to go help, but I just wanted to make certain someone told you what was happening.”
“Oh,” she blinked. “Be careful, Turtle, please. What if they capture you for supposedly being under one of my spells and take you away? Er - use the Infromaband’s invisibility switch if they try anything - er - anything at all. Are you sure any of you have to go? - shouldn’t I talk in front...of them…”
“No,” Turtle said firmly. “We all knew you really wouldn’t want to do that, and to be honest, they’ll probably listen to SeaWing royalty more than the supposed criminal they’re trying to catch. Speaking of the Informaband, I did copy mine and gave one to Qibli, so he’ll be alright. And to Kinkajou, of course, so now she’s safe. I suppose she does have camouflage scales, but the invisibility cast on the Informabands is rather more complete, right? Well, it’ll be okay, Anadrom. I promise.” With that he launched off into the sky, twisting and gliding down to the surface of the nearest lake. Oh, that’s why we didn’t see them while Solstice was showing me the grounds. They’re hiding underwater - from me - so they can create a plan to capture me again and lock me away for all eternity. This will show if the academy teachers can really help clear my name or not, I suppose, but I wish they didn’t have to risk their safety to do it. The Informabands will keep them safe, I hope.
Solstice looked entirely uncertain what to say, which was just how she felt, so they sat in silence for a while and watched flashes of Aquatic begin to glow out of the deepest part of the lake. No one suddenly rose out of the water with Turtle or Tsunami trapped in a net, which was a good sign, at least. Wait - where’s Qibli? Turtle said he had gone down, but I can’t see him anywhere above water. A realization struck her, and she glanced down at the metal band encircling her front arm. These must include protection from drowning - that’s certainly a form of harm, after all. Did he just test it by diving into the water and waiting to see what happened? By the moons, Qibli, that’s so dangerous. I’ll have to tell him not to trust my enchantments that much - they’re not worded perfectly like his would be. 
That was when she remembered that the SandWing was Solstice’s father, and turning to look at him saw a flicker of fear hidden in his eyes. He’s been so nice to me, and now his father’s in danger on my behalf. “He’ll be safe, no matter what,” she told her new friend quietly, and he jumped slightly, looking relieved just at the sound of her words. “The bracelet Turtle gave him - er - I call it the Informaband - it protects the wearer from all possible harm, and can’t be removed by anyone else. He can’t drown, and if the soldiers attacked, they wouldn’t be able to hurt him. Well, I suppose he’d be okay without the Infromaband too. I cast a spell on the mountain to make all dragons within a 10-mile radius safe from all harm as well. Including invulnerability to my magic - er - unless they personally ask to be enchanted.” It was the first time she and the SandWing/ NightWing had talked about her being a sort of animus, and she wondered how he’d react. 
“Sunny must have been pleased about that,” he responded quietly, still staring down at the lake. “I was trying to understand the function of your bracelet earlier, but - if you don’t mind my asking - what are the levers on this side for?” He pointed sheepishly at the teleportation section of her Informaband, and she wondered if he was unused to having machinery around that he couldn’t understand at a glance. 
“This is for teleportation,” she replied. “Er - I write the destination on the rectangle here, and then I can flick these levers to set parameters. If I wanted to bring everyone around me as well, I’d push this one down, for example. I didn’t mark them in any way, which in hindsight was possibly a bad idea.”
“Oh, wow,” Solstice said, looking intrigued. “Teleportation to anywhere in Pyrrhia with only a few quick motions? That’s incredible! There could be so much more cooperation and trade between the kingdoms if anyone or anything could be sent to any location instantly! You could set up transportation centers around the palaces - wait, no, no, no! Ignore that, please - by the scales of the sun, Solstice, you weren’t - arrgh!” He hit himself in the head with one of his wings, looking deeply frustrated at himself. “I’ll - I’m going to just go check on Qibli. Anadrom, I’m sorry - I’ll just leave.” He started to take off, blurted out, “Please don’t hate me!” and covered his snout with his talons in great dismay. Turning quickly, he dove out of the cave and downwards toward the lake with the sun reflecting off of his golden scales.
“What - wait, Solstice, come back!” she called out, but he was already diving towards the rippling water. With a small splash of foam and a last twinkle of sunlight off of golden scales, he vanished below the waves, seeming to trust that he really would be immune to drowning. What just happened to him? Anadrom wondered, staring down in shock and confusion. ‘Please don’t hate me?’ Did he think something horrible and just assumed that I’d have given myself mind-reading powers and had heard it? 
Solstice didn’t seem to have the slightest malice or negativity in him. Then it dawned on her - he’d been telling her to use her magic for something. He must believe that saying that made me think he’s only being friendly to have control over my magic. He must have promised himself to never once talk to me about it and to never even suggest anything. That’s so - different - than the mentality of any other dragon I’ve ever met before. Estuary wanted to abuse my powers, Qibli wanted to use them to test other dragons, and Moonwatcher or Sunny would probably want me to use them to change the world for the better. Wanting nothing to do with magic - wanting to entirely avoid the power altogether - that’s how I feel about it.
Anadrom achingly wanted to go down to Solstice and explain all of this to him, to make him feel normal around her again, but if she did the entire SeaWing battalion would be upon her. Spying on them while invisible probably wouldn’t especially inspire confidence, either, so she trudged back into the depths of the entrance cave and lay down on a shelf jutting out from a towering spire. Some of the studying students were staring at her now and whispering, so she nodded passively at them and flicked on the invisibility switch. A series of muffled gasps of amazement followed, and the chattering increased dramatically for a few moments before slowly dying away. From her position, Anadrom looked out over the meeting-lake, watching a ripple flow outwards every now and again as a SeaWing slammed the water with their tail as the debate became particularly heated. 
There was a blast of freezing air again, and Winter slid into the cave, with the look of majestic melancholy stir plastered over his curved snout. Holding her breath and staying entirely still, Anadrom watched as the IceWing disappeared into the right tunnel, heading up towards the offices. He must be going to talk to Moonwatcher, like Qibli did earlier. I wonder how much of what they both do is focused around her. Well, perhaps this meant that Winter was feeling remorseful at least for being so hostile earlier. She suddenly remembered the elaborate human den settled on top of the mountain, with their dragon-like structures and somehow organized community. That was the word for it - community - not a nest or a burrow, but a community, full of life and character. She might as well go visit it again, she reasoned, if everyone was going to continue fighting over whether she was evil or not for a while longer. 
As soon as Winter had entirely vanished into the tunnel, she launched off of her platform soundlessly and returned into the sunlight of the late afternoon. It was difficult to find the den again, but she eventually did, and landed on top of the same spot where they had spotted Winter brooding earlier. From here, she could see the winding paved streets of the community, with what looked like hanging lanterns nestled on top of metal beams placed strategically about to cast a warm glow over the entire network. Carts pulled by horses, of all things, were traveling up and about, carrying harvested plants that were disproportionately large compared to the tiny humans. There was a sudden noise from a hidden corner, and then an entirely white cart with a red cross on its side sped forward. All of the carts in the road currently immediately pulled over, and the oddly marked vehicle rocketed down the lane to a sprawling stone structure. Cupping her talons over her eyes, Anadrom peered at it more closely, and saw a human lying imply in the bed of the cart, with a bit of blood trickling from its arm. Well, a bit for her; it was probably a
 significant amount for a human. It’s hurt, for sure, but what are they going to do with it?
A metal gate at the front of the road leading up to the large stone structure was pushed open, and the cart slid to a stop directly in front of it. Several humans wrapped in white cloth rushed out of the building, which was marked with the same red cross as the cart, and quickly brought the damaged one inside. Oh, it’s a hospital. Through the murk of the lightning-thieving jellyfish - why did dragons ever eat these creatures? They're clearly just as intelligent as we are. And my spell on the mountain wouldn’t apply to them, of course.
Seeing how careful the humans had been with their injured fellow was tugging at her, and her claws were itching to cast a spell to protect their village forever. If Winter respected them as much as she did, then he wouldn’t mind, right? Oh, but what if he thinks I’m trying to get him to like me? It’d be no different than the Darkstalker giving all of the NightWing students magical abilities. He wouldn’t have to know, though, but then wasn’t that deceit? Look at the little creatures, though. Any dragonet as cruel as Estuary could kill them all with a single blast of flame at any time. If I protect them just from attack, then Winter would clearly know they were enchanted, but he wouldn’t have to find that out for a while, hopefully. Would I always have thought about it this way? The soul-meter read full, but wasn’t this theoretically a grey area of doing the right thing at the wrong time? I’m not doing it for Winter, though. I’m doing it for them.
That was the final bit of logic she needed to feel alright with herself, and she cast a quick spell over the community, so that any dragon approaching it with the intent to attack would find themselves suddenly at the base of Jade Mountain, entirely unharmed and unaltered in any way. Thinking for a moment longer, she added that any projectiles aimed at the village would disperse into thin air, entirely harmless. She included fire-breathing, RainWing venom, and frostbreath all in the definition of projectiles, and then cast the final bit - that her magic could no longer alter the area in any way unless Winter specifically asked her too. Feeling slightly better about everything, she studied the village below for a while longer, inspecting the smooth curves of the road and the neat bushes that lined the rural residences. The hospital was still alright with action, and several more humans had rushed in to help, so she was sure that the injured one would be alright. 
She wondered if Winter would ever allow her to attend his human relations lessons. For now, she was content to just watch the little beings in peace.
Chapter 12 
Qibli, Tsunami, and Turtle were apparently successful in their endeavors, for after a few hours a great host of SeaWings took to the air and glided off in the direction of the ocean. Anadrom watched them return, scanning them carefully for any injuries, then spiraled down and hugged Turtle gratefully. The effect might have been more unsettling than she had intended, however, as she quickly realized that she had forgotten to make herself visible again.
“Ack!” Turtle sputtered. “RainWing attack! - oh, it's you, Anadrom. Please never do that again. I think you split all my nerves in two. If launching yourself at your friends while invisible is your idea of displaying gratitude, we need to have a serious talk.”
Having returned to the spectrum of light and color, Anadrom let go of Turtle and hovered in the air, beaming at the three of them and laughing. “I’m sorry, Turtle, I forgot I had that on. I certainly didn’t mean to - er - frighten you at all. All of the soldiers left - they believed you, right?”
“I could have used a hug,” Qibli offered, and she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
“Yes,” Tsunami snorted, rolling her eyes at him. “Actually, Qibli’s Paper of Infinite Mystery and Unknown Magic convinced them in the end. He brought it down in some sort of glass container along with the truth-telling stone, and once he had established that you couldn’t have known about the truth-teller in advance, he answered a TON of their questions while holding it. Yes, Qibli, it was VERY CLEVER of you and all that. Star-spewing nightfish, you need praise more than a year-old dragonet does, sand-dweller.”
“Thank you for the sincere praise, then, Tsunami,” he responded, bumping his wing into her. “I’ll just assume that you're grumpy due to arguing with your tribe for the last few hours and that you actually are very impressed with me right now.”
“Er - good job, Qibli,” Anadrom said shyly, and he flashed a grin at her. “Er - by the way - you didn’t happen to see Solstice come down there, did you?” The absence of the dragonet from this group was worrying her. There was no way the SeaWings had taken him away, was there? Or had Nocturne and Abyss abducted him?
“Yes,” Qibli replied, glancing at her with a deep and elaborate scrutiny. “When we left, he was flying over to check on the irrigation system. Did something happen between you two?”
“Well,” she coughed nervously, “I - er - I think he doesn’t want to be around me because he’s afraid I hate him for offering a suggestion on what to use my magic for. I think - does that sound like him, Qibli? I don’t know - he was really nice, and gave me a tour of the academy, and I just want to tell him that it’s okay.”
The larger SandWing assumed a thoughtful expression and nodded. “Well, that does sound like something Solstice would do. There was this time he discovered how to replicate firescales using some odd metal, and he was petrified that he would accidentally burn someone, so he destroyed all of his research and prototypes on the matter. Anadrom, I’m certain he was nice to you because that’s who he is, and not because he wants to control your magic.” Her unasked next question answered, she nodded back at Qibli and fell silent. I guess I’m fairly good at reading and understanding dragons, then. Except for Estuary - but why do I always keep thinking about her?
Turtle suddenly stopped in mid-air, and turned around so quickly that Tsunami nearly collided with him. She made an aggressive noise, but the look on Turtle’s face cut it short. “Solstice - that’s right - I entirely forgot to ask Moon if she’d had any visions about Anadrom,” the SeaWing prince blurted out. “She was acting so strange when I mentioned the name in the dream-visit. Wow, I can’t believe I forgot.”
“Squidbrain,” Tsunami muttered affectionately, smiling at him. “Turtle, it’s fine. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been rather busy for the last while. Having a prophecy delayed for a few hours can’t be the biggest deal in the world; if it was super-important, Moon would have been yelling at us about it last night.”
“She doesn’t really yell, ever,” Qibli mused. “Except for at me and Winter recently. You know, she can be rather frightening when she’s telling you how terrible of a dragon you are.”
Anadrom tapped her talons nervously together, opening and closing her snout, then blurted out, “I’m so sorry about that. It’s because of me that you’re fighting, and I - er - I wish that I’d never caused any of that. Is there any way I could - could help make things better?”
“Oh, no,” the SandWing frowned, shaking his head. “It’s not your fault, Anadrom. Moonwatcher’s upset at me for not trusting her about you; although to be fair, I tried to trust her about the Darkstalker way back and that didn’t turn out very well. Oops - I mean, it’s clear now that you’re not like him, but when you first arrived I wasn’t so certain. Also, I made you talk up in front of the whole school, which was probably pretty awful, and I tricked you into -” He stopped suddenly, looking down at her with the expression Solstice had held. The fear that she was about to hate him. She blinked at him, wondering what he had done, but didn’t pressure him to say anything.
He coughed and looked askance, then continued, “I didn’t know that you were such an - an entirely good dragon at the time, right? So I put the truth-teller enchantment on the paper, but also made it so I -”
“I won’t be mad,” she promised, feeling a slight sense of foreboding.
“I made it so every spell you cast appears with the exact wording used on the paper,” he confessed, “And that it then has to be tapped twice by me to come into effect. As a matter of fact, the appearance of that human-safety spell was the final thing that convinced those SeaWings to trust you. But I see now that it’s not necessary, of course.” He reached for the paper in its hanging case around his neck, probably about to take it out and set it ablaze, but Anadrom motioned for him to stop.
“No, that’s not a bad idea, Qibli,” she said, entirely honestly. “I mean - er - there’s no - er - particular reason I should be trusted with magic more than any other dragon. I’m still rather young, after all, and I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing. But you - you’re a hero, and one of the cleverest dragons on Pyrrhia, if the legends are correct. Why shouldn’t you be able to regulate what I do?”
“No,” he grimaced, starting at her with utter confusion. “Why - you should be upset right now! I don’t understand.”
“I - er - It’s not naivety,” she replied. “I’m not a power-hungry dragon, and neither are you, right? I only want to ever cast spells that other dragons will all approve of anyways, and - er - you can be their voice. Or we could make it a larger group, if you want. There’s nothing about me that makes me - er - deserve this power, and I’d hand it over if I could, but I don’t want to endanger Pyrrhia - or anyone else’s souls.”
 There was silence as the other three dragons all stared at her, and she thought about flicking her invisibility back on. What did I say wrong? Do they think I’m trying to be manipulative? I’m not. Are Turtle and Tsunami upset that I handed that power over to Qibli and not them? Please, don’t let me fracture this group of heroes anymore than I already have! “I - um - is that okay?” she tried, having absolutely no idea what to say. 
“You’re entirely unlike any other animus dragon any of us have ever met,” Qibli said compassionately. “No offense, Turtle, but Anadorm, this is the most responsible I’ve ever seen a dragon be with magic. From your Informaband to this desperate will you have to make certain you never hurt another dragon - or scavenger, for that matter - everything you do is calculated to protect others and improve Pyrrhia. Which makes me feel that much worse for not trusting you in the first place, and for not listening to Moon.”
“I would agree,” Turtle nodded, “And not to interrupt, but we need to go talk to Moonwatcher about you before I forget again. Qibli, did you let the human spell go through?”
“Of course,” he said, and they all resumed flight towards the entrance cave. Wow, is all of that true? Anadrom wondered. Could I really be doing everything right when nobody is blackmailing me? I’m not that clever at all. Yet I have focused nearly everything on protecting other dragons from myself, and I suppose that would fall under the category of being responsible and caring. Ah, and onto Turtle’s point, what would Moonwatcher have seen? Maybe she’ll know why Pyrrhia is in danger, like Nocturne does, and then I can stop whatever might happen from ever occurring right now. Maybe I can even remove my powers in a few days if all goes well.
As they approached the side of Jade Mountain, Anadrom spotted the black-speckled golden scales of Solstice slipping away into the left tunnel, and she was relieved to know that he was alright. Turtle led them quickly to the right, and they hurried through the office section of the academy. Tsunami peeled off to go tell Sunny about the conversation with the SeaWing battalion, while Turtle, Qibli and Anadrom moved through a dizzying amount of turns before reaching the entrance to a large underground cavern. Moonwatcher’s cave was set up like a miniature rainforest, with a center spire covered in vines and hung with fake branches bustling with wide-brimmed leaves. Actual grass covered the floor, kept alive by the glow from the fire-orbs overhead, and a small waterfall and connected stream burbled over in the corner. A few sloths moved about, eating fruit from various small bushes or hanging asleep from higher branches, and above it all shone three massive white globes, representing the moons of Pyrrhia.
The NightWing was asleep, curled up in a divot in the cave floor, and Winter was standing beside her, tapping his serrated claws together nervously. He clearly couldn’t decide whether he wanted to wake his friend or not, and he scowled at the noise Turtle made as he rushed in. Anadrom looked away before she could see his expression at the sight of her, and nervously worked the grass with her feet. It was an odd sensation to stand on the material, which felt as light as sea-foam and as fresh as the youngest kelp in the reef. Moonwatcher stirred, feeling the effects of the chill emanating from Winter’s pale-blue scales. She’ll notice my mind here any moment now. Remember to just think normally.
“You all know that I have night shifts, right?” the older dragon muttered sleepily. “I haven’t slept since you woke me up yesterday, shouting that all of Pyrrhia was in danger from an evil SeaWing animus. Is something else going to end the world right now, or can I go back to sleep?”
“That’s just what Turtle would like to know,” Qibli replied, assuming a helpful expression. He was holding his wings rigidly in place, and Anadrom could tell that he was hoping Moonwatcher had forgiven him for everything. Beside him, Winter looked to be in a similar state, in addition to being somewhat frustrated that his moment of heartfelt apology was going to be interrupted. Moonwatcher, please don’t still be mad at them, Anadrom thought. They weren’t being mean or unreasonable dragons; they just really care about you and everyone else at the academy, and they only did what they did in order to make certain everyone was safe. Also, I really don’t want to be the reason that you’re fighting with anyone. If you stay mad at them, it’ll entirely be my fault and I’ll feel terrible forever.
Moonwatcher blinked ruefully at her and sighed. “Anadrom wants me to forgive you both,” she said, glancing at Winter and Qibli. Anadrom focused on trying not to feel any fear or think anything panicky as Winter cast a chilly glare her way, and for the most part she managed to do so. The effort was greatly assisted by the gratefulness and hope spiraling outwards from Qibli, which combatted the cold within the room. “She’s thinking that you were just trying to protect everyone, which I do know you were. The question I have is why you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you she was harmless. I knew she wasn’t enchanting me to see a manipulated version of her thoughts; Darkstalker did that, and I know how it feels, and I told you that. Yet you still had to threaten her and manipulate her into casting unknown enchantments, and talk in front of the entire school, which were the things she least wanted to have to do. Neither of you felt the need to tell everyone at once about my abilities, or for Turtle’s for that matter, so why hers?”
“I panicked,” Winter said quietly, tapping his curved claws in a quick and nervous rhythm. “And the rumors, Moon; it was just different than with you or Turtle. Sure, your powers and - Anadrom’s - had both resurfaced from extinction, but you didn’t come with stories of conspiracy against the queen and enchantments in league with the Loyalist Force.” His voice dropped to an even lower and hoarser murmur, sorrowful and majestic in remorse. “I failed entirely last time to help in any way. Qibli went off to send magic earrings to every dragon in Pyrrhia, Turtle saved Anemone from corruption, Kinkajou and you solved the great riddle of power and brought upon the end of the Darkstalker, and all I did was shout at you and attack your tribe in his battle. This time, I wanted to be the savior, to show that I’m capable of helping protect everyone I love; and all I did was make a fool of myself again, shouting at a harmless dragonet until she was entirely afraid of me. I’m sorry, Anadrom. You didn’t deserve it.” 
He was being entirely serious and genuine, for at that moment a single tear fell from his left eye, gleaming like a frozen shard of ice before falling to the ground. It burnt a tiny section of grass, leaving frost marks spiraled around in a snowflake pattern, and Winter gazed at it with an expression of dismay. That’s right; as an IceWing and a royal prince, he’s never supposed to show any emotion. What a regal and tragic dragon. Moonwatcher reached out and hugged him, and he looked startled for a moment, then rested his head on her neck. “I’m glad you apologized to her, Winter,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault last time. You were perhaps the first dragon Darkstalker enchanted, and by the time Qibli freed you, all the worst had already occurred.”
“Hrm,” the SandWing coughed. “I have a feeling my heartfelt and sincere apology will no longer be quite as appreciated after that. But Moon, I’m sorry for not trusting your judgment, no matter what was going on. I’ve told Anadrom about the entire enchantment on this paper, and I’ve seen that she’s a very responsible and decent dragonet. Winter, this you’ll probably want to know; she’s enchanted your human den to be immune to all forms of attack.”
The IceWing’s eyes widened and he glanced at her with strong, albeit slightly puzzled, gratitude. “Really? That’s - fantastic - the amount of times I’ve had to stop Quartz from burning the place down - entirely safe? I was worried about bringing them all here, concentrated in one place, but they’re all protected forever now? A human refuge - the human sanctuary of Jade Mountain - this will be incredible! Imagine the wonders they’ll build in a few years, kept entirely safe from dragon attack! But why use your magic on them?”
“I saw their hospital,” Anadrom replied simply, and Winter nodded thoughtfully. He looked even more abashed than before now, and gently pushed Moonwatcher off of him. Yikes, that must not be a great feeling, finding out that the dragon he yelled at for a while loves to watch humans as much as he does. 
“Alright then, I’ll forgive you both, with the animus’s approval,” Moonwatcher sighed. “And not just because I’m exhausted, I hope. Oh, Anadrom, while you’re here, feel free to take a pouch and a skyfire shard from the globe by the door. I usually give them to every new student, and you’re going to become one now, right? We decided that mind-reading is a rather blatant invasion of privacy.” As Anadrom wondered if she should accept, the NightWing seemed to read her hesitation. “No, I insist. You don’t need me reading your mind to make certain you’re not going crazy; you have the Informaband and Qibli’s approval-scroll already. There is such a thing as too much redundancy, you know.”
Anadrom slowly reached a talon into the globe and pulled out a clean leather pouch, as tan as Ocotillo’s scales and heavy with the weight of the odd metal known for blocking NightWing powers. She wound the pouch around her wrist directly above the Infromband, and Moonwatcher nodded to confirm that it was working. Every student - that meant that her mind had been the only one the NightWing had been able to read in years, except perhaps for Peril’s. That’s just what I want to do; come to terms with my power and effectively remove my ability to use it for the better of others. 
“Skyfire doesn’t block visions, right?” Turtle asked curiously. “Wait - that’s right, I remember now. That MudWing student was wearing a skyfire band and you were still able to foresee her becoming trapped in that collapsing cave and warn her in time. Well, that’s good, because apologies aside, we all came here to ask you exactly what you foresaw surrounding Anadrom.” Moonwatcher looked somewhat startled, and shook her head slightly, but Turtle only frowned at her. “Moon, I know you’ve foreseen something. When I mentioned Anadrom’s name in the dream visit you nearly fell over. If Nocturne’s really seeing futures where Pyrrhia is destroyed in a few years or even months - just - please, tell us what you know.” 
The NightWing blinked up at them for a moment, glancing over at Anadorm, then focused her gaze down at the floor of the cave. She gently lifted a crawling inchworm and cupped it between her talons, watching its staggering movements as her eyes filled with the grey of storm clouds. “Turtle, I really rather wouldn’t. They aren’t pleasant visions, and they just can’t be possible. There must be a mistake; maybe some wires are crossing in my brain, or maybe NightWing powers deteriorate with age. I don’t want to cause panic by telling you what I’ve seen if it's not right, and from seeing it I can tell you that it’s certainly not.”
“Viper-spewing cacti!” Qibli sputtered. “Is that your idea of not being alarming? Yikes, Moon, you have to tell us about it so we can figure out how to stop it! I don’t really want to ask, but what exactly is not possible if we’re considering that you were accepting of visions showing Jade Mountain collapsing?”
“Moon, please,” Winter growled softly. “Remember what happened last time you held a secret about upcoming danger?”
“It’s not usual,” she blurted out. “The visions aren’t usual, I mean. They’re somehow more jagged and cut up than all of the ones before have been, like images rather than scenes, and some of them conflict with the others. There’s no chronological order to the way they present themselves, no reasoning behind it at all. Only the day before we first heard about Anadrom did I have a vision showing her trapped in the SeaWing royal prison, whereas I had seen Estuary dying regularly, starting months ago. But - erm - there seems to be a general pattern emerging, one that I don’t like in the least.”
There was a brief silence heavy with suspense, and then the NightWing continued solemnly. “The Loyalist Force emerging with an unstoppable, impossible army - a NightWing dragonet, crying out from within twisting shadows - eyes wild with savagery - Qibli and Solstice disappearing under a stream of burning light - the shattering of the moons - Winter falling with a spear of darkness in his chest - and there’s a few lines, a snippet of what I assume is a larger prophecy, that echoes over and over in my mind.” She paused for a moment, shifted her wings nervously, then continued, “One and one only will stand in their path, the sole dragon able to counter their wrath; One and one only to have survived the last, ancient remnant of the kind long past. Always followed by a SeaWing dragonet - by Anadrom - shining with impossibly brilliant light and striking out against shadowy opponents. But I - she - er - eventually, she’s enveloped in shadow, and then I see a void rushing towards me - and then absolute nothingness.” Moonwatcher bowed her head and released the inchworm back onto the grass.
Anadrom felt a chill rushing through her, corresponding with a rush of light pouring from her scales. She twisted her wings to try blocking the brilliant glare from reaching the other dragons before realizing that the undersides of her wings were casting the exact same type of light. What’s going to happen that will cause all of these terrible things? I really wish those lines hadn’t referred to a ‘them’. What entity is capable of such hostility and power? And I fail to stop them, and all of Pyrrhia dies along with me. Oh, no, no, no. This is far worse than I had ever imagined.
“Their path?” Qibli repeated, stunned, as he followed the same line of thought Anadrom was currently trapped in. “There’s a sort of thinking force behind all of - all of that? And - wait, Moon, those visions you had; there is a pattern among them after all, although I really don’t like it. They - they all deal with what would be your worst fears, right? All of your family and closest friends dying, and the moons collapsing, of all things? It seems targeted right at you.”
“You think the attacking force is controlling what Moon can foresee?” Turtle gasped. “But then why show her anything at all? Just to frighten us? Oh, this is very, very, very bad. Moon, next time I ask you to tell me about a horrible future, please just tell me to go bite an electric eel instead. If there is a next time. Brr, nope, that’s horrible.”
Qibli looked entirely stricken, then a flash of something seemed to pass behind his eyes. “Wait - Turtle, I need paper and ink, now!” Before the SeaWing could blink, Qibli had darted over and unhooked the pouch hanging around his dark-scaled neck. He tore the leather container open, grabbed the closest scroll, and stuck his talon directly into the inkpot, cracking the glass in his rapid efforts. The SandWing scribbled something frantically, hesitated for just the smallest fraction of a second, then cried, “Anadrom, please enchant whatever’s on this scroll to come into being, just like you did with the first one!”
“I - what?” she protested, wondering what on earth Qibli had written. His imploring look spoke volumes, however, so she quickly obliqued. He tapped his original scroll twice to confirm her spell, and then they all waited. Nothing of significance seemed to happen at first, and the world was suspended in quiet anticipation, frozen in a delicate state. Then Moonwatcher stirred, pressing her talons to her forehead, a migraine seemingly rising behind her temples. 
“Ow - Qibli, what-” the NightWing muttered, then blinked. “Oh, shining moonfish and sun-lizards, that’s a lot of information. I’m going to need to...collapse for a moment…” She returned to lying on the ground, burying her head in her talons.
“Qibli, what did you do?” Winter barked, crashing his tail into the ground and sending blades of grass flying about. Anadrom wondered the same, staring curiously at the SandWing. She knew he would never cause Moonwatcher to suffer on purpose, so what had he just used her magic for? 
“Well,” the SandWing said, reading over the wording of his spell again, “I think I’ve erased us entirely from their knowledge - us being everyone wearing an Informaband. Turtle, could Winter possibly have one fairly soon?” Anadrom hadn’t noticed before, but Moonwatcher was already wearing one of the sleek metal bands around her forearm, where it had been hidden by her wings for the majority of her conflict-resolution and future-telling. Qibli waited for Turtle to retrieve his magic bowl from his pouch, snap off his Informaband, and make a set of copies. The SeaWing handed one over to the IceWing, who locked it onto his front leg as Qibli continued. “It’s pretty much the same spell you used to hide yourself from the Darkstalker, Turtle. No entity in Pyrrhia besides for the dragons recognized as being in or hybrids of the seven tribes, and besides Anadrom the LostWing, is now able to know of our existence or whereabouts. They can’t see us in their visions or manipulate us with their magic or any other powers, and cannot learn about our existence even if told directly about it by another source. The information would slip out of their minds no matter how often it was repeated - and they’d never be capable of suspecting anything.” 
	“It seems to have worked,” Winter commented, looking between Moonwatcher and Qibli with an odd sort of admiration. “I suppose you acted so quickly they were unable to stop anything and now it’ll be too late for them. But wouldn’t they have seen this coming centuries in advance, if they can control NightWing powers?”
“Just as the Darkstalker failed to stop me,” Turtle mused, “They might have been focusing on other things in the moment, or thought that this possibility was too futile to pay attention to. Or maybe they know entirely about this, and in the long run it doesn’t throw a wrench in their works.” He tilted his head quizzically at the SandWing. “What’s the other thing on there, Qibli?”
Qibli blinked for a moment, looked guiltily at Anadrom, and rubbed his talons together. Oh, sun-baked jellyfish and rotten eels, what did he do now? He cleared his throat, wrinkled his snout thoughtfully, then said, “Anadrom, you’re - ah - not going to be a fan of this, but please don’t panic. Alright? Well, the other spell reads as follows: Establish the magic of Anadrom the LostWing as the dominant force over Pyrrhia and the sun-system beyond, with any enchantments made by her in the past or in the future unbreakable by other wielders of magic of any sort. Followingly, allow her to be able to fully alter any enchantments made by any other force than herself, past, present or future, to an infinite extent. Once completed, this spell will be entirely irreversible.”
Chapter 13
“What?” Anadrom cried, staring at the SandWing and hoping against all else that he was lying. I can’t be trusted with that sort of power, not in the least. What I already had was bad enough. I don’t want to be the most powerful entity in the entire sun-system, I don’t want any power at all! But the Informaband still works; that spell didn’t change any enchantments I had already cast at all. Then as long as I wear it, which will be for as long as I live, I can’t do anything evil or murderous. This - I’m exactly the wrong dragonet for all of this. I’m too nervous, too gloomy, and not nearly clever enough to be the hero that everything says I’ll have to be. She couldn’t think of a word else to say, so she just slumped dejectedly in the grass, her scales fading back to normal as her emotions washed away into a gentle state of hopelessness.
“I’m sorry,” Qibli said sincerely, looking quite uncomfortable. “You didn’t particularly strike me as the type of dragon who would want more power, or really any power at all, but this is the only way Pyrrhia can be safe!” He sounded eerily like Nocturne, and Anadrom had to remind herself that the daughter of Queen Glory was not her enemy. She was manipulative and uncaring in regards to Anadrom, certainly, but she was just focused on keeping all of dragonkind safe. I’m being selfish again, aren’t I. What I want or would prefer doesn’t matter here - I’ll have to give up everything I know about myself to keep everyone else safe. Will I be the same at the end of all of this? Am I the same now as I was a few months ago in the Kingdom of the Sea?
“I’ll do what I have to,” she murmured dismally, shivering at the words. “Qibli, you’re right, Pyrrhia itself comes first. Just - I’ll do whatever I have to do to myself, but I’ll never hurt another dragon. I can’t and I won’t, even if Pyrrhia falls because of it. I - er - didn’t want this.”
“You’ll never have to hurt anyone,” Moonwatcher promised, standing up and lowering her talons from her head. “We’ll make certain of it, Anadrom. And you didn’t do anything remotely evil in any of the visions I just had, if that helps. Speaking of which, I really need to fall asleep right now to forget them all. It was - what happened to Winter and Solstice and Qibli, but with so many dragons that I didn’t know. Dozens of horrible deaths, all under shadows and collapsing moons.” She shivered, and Anadrom thought about how entirely horrible it must be to be riddled with visions of the worst possible futures all of the time. 
Turtle seemed to be thinking along the same lines, for he moved over to lay a wing on the NightWing. “I’m sorry to have coerced you into telling us all that, Moon,” he said quietly. “Do you need us to help with anything? It can’t be pleasant to have that many dark futures running through your mind - are you feeling alright?”
“It wasn’t anything I haven’t experienced before,” Moonwatcher said, which Anadrom believed was a lie. “I don’t need you all worrying about me - we should focus on saving Pyrrhia for now. I know that none of what I’m seeing will happen because we’ll all stop it. You’re included in that, Anadrom. I’m in the presence of heroes, whose names will be forever remembered for their valiant acts in the time to come. I do need some time to analyze what I’ve seen, but I’ll still make my night shift at the library tonight.”
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the poetic and inspiring writer,” Turtle replied with a quiet laugh. “We’ll all check in later, Moon. Remember that we’re here for you if you need to talk about anything before then.”
They all quietly left the NightWing in peace and worried about her for a moment in the hall outside of her cave. “Turtle,” Winter commanded to break the silence, “Come with me. We’ll tell the others about all of this and provide them with Informabands to protect them. Anadrom, Qibli’ll lead you to your new cave, which is up to his discretion.” He paused for a moment, then continued, “Feel free to join my human relations class with the rest of your winglet.” With that he and Turtle turned and quickly ran down the tunnel towards the office of the head of school.
“I’m sorry as well for making you enchant those scrolls,” Qibli added quietly. “I feel like some cruel puppetmaster, using you for your magic. I wish I was more like Solstice. I’m not a power-hungry dragon, or at least I really hope that I’m not. From now on, no more hidden enchantments, I promise.”
“No hard feelings,” Anadrom said quietly, and as always she meant it. It just wasn’t in her nature to put herself first - she looked within other dragons to understand their reasoning and think about how she would feel in their shoes, rather than just obstinately hating them for not acting as she might think they should. Now that they knew her, and the imminent threat was postponed, Winter and Qibli would surely be entirely friendly and normal to her, and to still be angry at them would be a waste of an opportunity for friendship. And they were heroes, of course; whatever they did had to be right. They were looking out for all of Pyrrhia, after all! 
“I find you a little puzzling,” the SandWing told her with a hopeful smile. “Well, here’s a choice all and entirely up to you. We have three winglets with openings currently; as the school expanded, not all of the tribes had enough dragonets available to send here in order for us to keep each winglet entirely composed of one dragon from each tribe. There’s the Topaz Winglet, first of all, although they do already have a SeaWing member, and Quartz the SkyWing in that group is not the favorite dragonet of anyone in this school. After everything you went through under Estuary, it may not be best for you to learn alongside another dragon fairly similar to her. Then there’s the Ruby Winglet and the Amber Winglet, which both need SeaWings, and which are both great. Solstice is in the Amber Winglet, along with Turtle’s daughter Tamandua, and an unusual SkyWing named Crevasse. Most dragons here tend to avoid him, but I don’t think you’d be inclined to. That is, if I’ve gauged you correctly at all.”
“Why?” Anadrom asked, her curiosity creeping to the surface. “Does he have firescales like Peril?” Would Qibli know I accidentally made myself invulnerable in order to survive the Kingdom of the Sea and that I wouldn’t be afraid of firescales? Although no one can actually be burnt while within the academy anymore, thanks to my magic protection. What could it be? Is it obnoxious or intrusive to ask? “Nevermind,” she blurted quickly. “I won’t mind anything - er - except possibly evil dragonets and all. Maybe the Amber Winglet, if that’s okay?” Does he want me near Solstice, or does he want us both to be protected from each other? Would Solstice want me near him? Perhaps running away from me won’t be possible if we’re in the same Winglet, and I can convince him not to worry about me, and we can maybe be friends.
“Wait - er - where are Ocotillo and Eelgrass going to be staying?” she asked, wondering if she could perhaps still share a cave with them. 
“The Amber Winglet is a good choice,” Qibli smiled at her. “Your parents will be staying in the office area with us so that no students try to bother them at all. Also, I do believe that Ocotillo is outside of the reach of IceWing law here since Jade Mountain recently signed a peace agreement with all of the Queens to become a neutral zone. You’ll be learning all about that, of course, and anything else you want to know. The selection of scrolls here are far less - censored - than those in the Kingdom of the Sea, even after all the progress that was made there towards a free press.”
That was excellent news; she’d still been worrying about Ocotillo being taken away, although she had known that it would no longer be to his death anymore, not after she made him an Informaband. Having her father safely in the academy rather than trapped away in an IceWing dungeon was far more preferable. She tried to annunciate as much to the SandWing teacher, but it just came out as a sort of happy nod. 
“Alright then,” Qibli said. “I need to go off and regulate whatever brainstorming session everyone else is beginning without me. Unless you want me to walk you to your cave? It’ll be the - let’s see here - the thirty-seventh on the right side of the main left tunnel, marked with that number and a small cartoon sun, courtesy of Sunny. You’ll have a clawmate, Millpond the MudWing, but he’s a fairly calm and non-threatening dragonet.”
“I can go myself,” Anadrom offered, and then with a nod and a wave Qibli was rushing off to go enter the office with everyone else. I kind of wish I could follow him and discuss how to save the world with them, since I suppose I’ll be the one to do it in the end. Yikes, that’s still a terrifying thought. To have everything resting - and everyone depending - on me. I don’t have any ideas anyways, and all of them have the experience of saving the world already, so they’ll have plenty of them. I mean, Qibli’s already had several and they may have already saved us all. I’ll let the heroes take care of everything, and try to learn as much as I can about the world they’re trying to save in the meantime.
With that she started off towards the main cavern, resisting the urge to flick on her invisibility and melt into the shadows. After a while, she began to notice a blur in the color of the rock around her, and realized that at least one RainWing student was now spying on her. She ducked closer to the ground and picked up her pace, trying to keep her head from swiveling at every noise. The massive cavern opened up ahead of her, and all of the studying dragonets there looked up and followed her with their eyes again. Her scales crawled and she ducked into the left tunnel, and from there on it was even worse. There were students about in the hall, chatting with each other or playing some sort of running game, but as she approached they all fell silent and watched, then whispered to each other behind her back. As she became more and more nervous, her scales began to cast off a slight light again, which didn’t help matters in the least. It was unfortunately obvious that the light wasn’t just rising from her bioluminescent SeaWing scales, for it also shone in notable quantities from her horns and wing-membranes.
Luckily, she didn’t run into Quartz or any other hostile and potentially dangerous students on the way to her cave. The small cavern, marked just as Qibli had said it would be, was empty at the moment of all MudWings or other dragons, so she ducked inside to hide from the staring students in the halls. There was a somewhat elaborate setup within, with three carved sleeping platforms circling a stone table covered in parchments and ink-bottles. More scrolls hung from the walls alongside artwork of the cave’s current and previous inhabitants. Millpond didn’t seem to have been the neatest dragon, for the area was strewn with scraps of paper and small half-painted wooden models, as well as a considerable amount of seeds and fruit peels. Upon the empty platforms were resting larger statues, near-life-size busts of the Dragonets of Destiny that were elaborately painted and meticulously carved. They were kept entirely polished and reflected the light of the fire-globes to send cascades of dappled light about the cavern. Millpond had fixed dangling chains of metal from the globes that clicked together from the displacement of air she had created by rushing in, sending a charming ringing through the air. The entire effect was of a confused quagmire of art and garbage, and Anadrom felt somewhat conflicted about it.
She stood in the center of the cave for a while, not wanting to move and possibly damage one of the statues, and pricked her ears for the sound of any approaching dragons. There were a variety of whispers running through the door now, seemingly debating whether Millpond was lucky or terribly unfortunate to have her as a clawmate. “Maybe she’ll cast spells for him, make his statues come to life or let him talk with his family in the Mud Kingdom! He’d love that, I’m sure - I mean, who wouldn’t?” contrasted with, “He better hope he’s not around when she snaps, no matter what spells she says she’s made. She’s not even a SeaWing, you know? What if her mysterious LostWing powers snap out and melt him in his sleep or something?” 
So that was the way most dragons thought of her - as a powerful tool or a dangerous weapon. She turned back to studying the decor of the cave. There was something she hadn’t noticed at first; right upon a ledge directly next to Millpond’s bed, there stood five detailed statues of entire MudWing dragonets, all somewhat older by appearance. They must be his sibs, the others from his hatching. How odd, to have siblings to love instead of parents, although I suppose SeaWings often do have both. I still think like a SeaWing; for all purposes, aren’t I really one? Maybe when I transformed into one after hatching, it was a sign directing my life and told me who to be in this confusing world. She studied the statues for a moment longer, wondering if Millpond really would want her to bring them to life, and if she would if he asked her to. 
Silence fell outside, and she turned around to find the MudWing standing in the doorway, watching her quietly. She didn’t know what to do - was she supposed to bow, like Solstice had, or think of something interesting to say, or wait for him to initiate greetings? The MudWing wasn’t particularly imposing; Qibli had been right about that. He was smaller than her in stature, and she was only a medium-sized dragonet herself. His scales were the brown of driftwood, with dots of black and cream scattered around on the undersides of his wings, and his snout was the usual broad MudWing shape. His talons were stained just like Turtle’s were, but with a shimmering combination of colors rather than just the black of ink. His eyes held a constant flicker of motion and appreciation for what he saw, and even now he seemed to be appraising her as if she was a statue crafted by his talons, his gaze glancing along her tail and up to the tips of her wings.
“You can stop all standing there,” he said, turning to address the students all crowding around the door. There was a muffled murmur of disappointment, and then the sound of many footsteps moving away. “All the RainWings as well,” Millpond affirmed after a moment, and there was an audible sigh as two of the rainforest dragons lowered their camouflage and stalked off. After all was clear, he turned back to her, and she realized she still had nothing ready to say.
“I’m sorry about the mess in here,” Millpond muttered, glancing about. “If I’d known I was going to have a new clawmate, I would’ve picked most of this up.” He didn’t seem entirely pleased about the arrangement, although maybe it was just the concept of having to share his cave that bothered him, not her in particular.
“No, it’s - er - fine,” she tried, looking about. “I won’t take up much space or get in the way, I promise. If you want your statues on the ledges, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Oh,” he blinked, looking abashed. “No, that’s alright, I can move them all to the same one. Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so hostile about it. Qibli hasn’t had the time to tell me about you, I suppose, and every dragon I passed on the way here looked at me as if I was about to die. I thought maybe Quartz would be in here, about to destroy some of my things again. It made me a bit tense, I guess.”
“Has he done that a lot?” Anadrom asked, dismayed. “They’re incredible - that - wow, I’m sorry about that.” I really hope I don’t have to meet this SkyWing bully anytime soon. He really doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Qibli’s right; I don’t need another Estuary in my life.
“Hmfp.” Millpond clicked his tongue, looking quizzically into her eyes. “You’re being sincere, as far as I can tell. Thank you, then, but they’re not all that great. I can’t get the shapes of the ears quite right, and the ones of my sibs are hopeless. There’s nothing incredible about any of them, really.” He was examining her again, and she shifted uncomfortably. “Now, what you do is really quite impressive. You’re nearly a perfect SeaWing, and from any farther away I wouldn’t be able to tell that anything was off. But from up close...your eyes are different than any SeaWing’s I’ve ever seen, and the shape of your head is more concave in the back.”
She was puzzled for a moment, then realized he was talking about her turning herself into a SeaWing as a dragonet through whatever process she had used. “Oh, I - er - I can’t control that. It just happened for whatever reason that it did, and I - er - can’t change it at all. Is it not a perfect copy? I did - I don’t like being underwater, so I knew there was some flaw, but you can tell that visually?”
“Sorry,” Millpond said again, glancing down at his talons. “It’s probably a strange thing for me to be talking about. I just really like examining the structure of dragons, and I haven’t seen anyone as just barely unusual as you since I first came here and met Solstice and Tamandua. I find it interesting. So you don’t know what you’d look like as a LostWing?”
“No,” she admitted. “So far, I’m just brighter whenever - er - my appearance changes.”
“I noticed,” he said, even though there was only a faint glow off of her scales at the moment. “I don’t know how I’d put that into a sculpture. Maybe use reflective material or have Solstice run some lights throughout it. Oh, I should explain this, so you don’t think I’m weirder than you already do. I’ve sculpted everyone in our Winglet so far. They’re all in Solstice’s cave, and they’re not as terrible as the ones in here. It’s just a thing I do.” Anadrom couldn’t tell if he had really accepted her just like that, but she felt calmer anyways, and somewhat relieved. Millpond bustled around for a moment, clearing off one of the platforms and rearranging his statues throughout the room. There was an elegance to the way he moved, a gracefulness that seemed entirely natural, and the gentle way his talons held his works reminded her of a SeaWing artist who had visited the village when she was younger. 
She didn’t have a great read on her clawmate yet, so she quietly asked, “Er - why did you decide to come to the academy?”
“I ask myself that very question sometimes,” he replied, looking over at the statues of his sibs. That was all he offered, so she just went over to her ledge and pretended to be busy reading the scrolls in the case beside it. Millpond spoke again shortly, once all of his art was safely relocated. “We have the last class of the day in a few minutes; history with Webbs. Do you want to come, or stay here and -” Cast spells, she finished for him in her mind. A class already, with not only this strange dragonet but untold others? And Solstice, who doesn’t know I’m in his Winglet yet.
“Maybe not?” she said, trying to hide the worry from her voice. “I - er - you don’t have to worry about my using magic in here. Are there any rules you - er - want me to follow? No coming close to the statues or anything?”
“You are a rather obliging dragonet, aren’t you?” Millpond mused. “I can’t tell if you’re acting for me or really are being courteous. I’m not in charge of you, you know. Maybe - how about just not damaging anything? That’s all I’d ask. And not snoring, if you can help it. Most SeaWings here are very difficult to sleep in the same cave with. I would know; we do sleep-outs in the entrance hall sometimes.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking about the snoring, but she nodded anyway. He doesn’t entirely trust me yet, she thought uneasily. Not that I’m trying to make him on purpose, but I hope he doesn’t try to attack me when I’m sleeping or anything. Not that I think he would. Not in charge of me...but shouldn’t he be? This was his sleeping cave first, and I’ve already messed up his studio.
“I’ll be going to class now,” he said, and quickly stepped out of the cave. There was an onset of dragons about him, all asking questions at once, but he brushed nimbly past them all. That’s something, at least, not wanting to gossip about me. She hoped none of the dragons would come into the cave and transfer their questions to her, although she had the feeling no one would really want to talk directly to her at the moment. 
She would be able to sleep on the rock ledge, she supposed, but some kelp blankets would be preferable, and she had seen some in a bin down the hall on her tour with Solstice earlier. Maybe once everyone was off to class she could go grab some without being watched. This seemed like a preferable course of action, so she waited for a while while the sounds of dragon claw-steps echoed throughout the halls alongside a happy chatter of conversation. There were a few stragglers still not out of the corridor after five minutes, but then everything was silent and she poked her head out of the cave. No one was around, not even any RainWings (as far as she could tell), so she slipped out of the cave and headed down the tunnel.
The rack was right where she remembered, a set of shelves all holding various types of sleeping material and marked as “Free for the Taking” by a slate sign above. She grabbed a woven seaweed disc, and returning to her cave, lay it out on her ledge. The Daring Adventures of Anadrom the LostWing in Saving the World and Acquiring Blankets, she thought cynically, then: I’m going to have to face the judging masses soon, by tomorrow at the latest. Maybe I should have gone down to history today; but now Solstice will hear about it - me - from someone else and won’t be as surprised, or annoyed, or however he’ll feel. She swept a few more seeds off of her section of the cave with her tail absent-mindedly. Millpond didn’t strike her as the type who hoarded food just for the sake of it - more likely, he just ate while working on his sculptures rather than in the prey center with everyone else. 
The history class was over surprisingly quickly, and she was jolted out of her worries by the sounds of students once again swarming into the halls. The noise picked up in intensity rather quickly, and then there was a sudden shout from just down the hall. Anadrom paused for a moment, wondering what could possibly be happening, then heard a good deal more shouting and decided to go investigate. Peering out of the cave, she saw a great crowd of students forming about a dozen tail-lengths down the hall, with more being drawn towards it from all directions. She caught a glimpse of golden scales in the middle of it all, and realized that something was happening to either Sunny or Solstice - she couldn’t be certain, but she didn’t want either of them to come to harm, so it didn’t matter in the long run. There was a sudden shift in the mob of dragons, allowing her to catch a glimpse into the action contained within, and her heart lurched upward in her chest.
Solstice was being pinned to the ground by a larger SkyWing, who in a quick movement tore one of the inventor’s many odd bracelets off of his wrist and held it up in the light. The SkyWing sneered down at the struggling hybrid, crushing the delicate machinery in his claws. With a voice seeping with danger and poison, he hissed, “So, Solstice, I heard you took the new animus on a tour of everything earlier. Now, I’m not certain you know this, sand-breathing hybrid scum, but some of us here don’t particularly trust her. We’d appreciate it if you would keep your distance. Yes, yes, we would indeed. That goes for everyone else here as well, I may add.” The SkyWing glared around at the crowd of surrounding dragons, who all flinched under his wrathful gaze. “You think you can charm her into using her magic for you, eh, sand-breather? Tough luck, then. If she’s going to be working for anyone, it’ll be me.” With that, he snapped his head to glare directly at Anadorm, and she froze in place. Everyone else turned towards her at once, all with wide eyes and dismayed expressions, but no one stepped forward to block the SkyWing.
“I am Quartz, prince of the SkyWings,” the bully snarled at her, still holding Solstice down with his front talons alone. “As a royal, I have all right to demand of lesser dragons exactly what I want, you hear? And of course, you can do anything and everything I would ever want. See the connections here, you little tragic LostWing? Do what I want, and we won’t have any - ah - problems.” He crushed Solstice’s invention in his talons, causing a look of outrage and crushing sadness to fly across the mechanic’s snout. Quartz loomed over all of the dragons in the hall, staring at her with his entirely black eyes, and everything about him was so like Estuary that for a moment Anadrom saw the blackmailer’s face painted over his own.
Suddenly a muffled gasp rose from the gathered dragons, and everyone lifted their eyes from Anadrom to stare just over her shoulder. She remained frozen in place and felt a creeping fear wash over her. There was a hoarse, wheezing sort of breath emanating from behind her, and she knew another dragon must be standing there. Talons fell on her shoulders gently, and she felt herself being steered aside by a massive SkyWing. Once she had been directed safely out of the way, the SkyWing turned to face Quartz, and Anadrom blinked at just how powerful he seemed.
She supposed this had to be Crevasse - the strange SkyWing Qibli had mentioned to be in her winglet - for he was decidedly unusual. Nearly his entire body was torn and scarred, twisted into odd ridges and misshapen indents. His scales must naturally have been the redish-orange of most SkyWings, but now the majority of them were a dead black color, yet far rougher and more twisted than the gleaming scales of NightWings. One of his front legs was entirely missing and had seemingly been replaced with a metal attachment of some sort, a gleaming hunk of thick-cut copper and steel that glinted dangerously in the light of the fire-globes. His wings were patched together with a sort of metal mesh over gaping tears in his transparent red membranes, and most of his spikes had been snapped or twisted off. 
Most peculiar of all was his snout, of which Anadrom briefly caught a glance as he advanced on Quartz. One of his ears was torn halfway down, and thick scars twisted his scales from there in a ridge down his neck, puffing out one side and making his head look off-centered. His eyes gleamed with a brilliant yellow glare, ridged by puffed splotches of those dark, dead scales. An array of scars twisted out in a spider-web fashion from the left one, spiraling in smaller ridges. After half a moment, Anadrom lowered her gaze to not stare at the dragonet, remembering how uncomfortable being watched made her. He looks like he must be in pain all the time - I wonder what happened to him? It’s not my business, at all, though, and I’ll never ask. Despite all of his injuries and scars, the SkyWing was formidable in every way. He was nearly as muscular as Estuary had been in her altered form, and his wingspan would have easily stretched across the tunnel. Crevasse would be larger than Qibli, Anadorm thought, if the two were placed next to each other. And yet the SkyWing must still be a dragonet if he was a student here.
“Ah, look what we have here,” Quartz sneered, although a flicker of fear in his eyes betrayed him. “Your boyfriend’s here to save you again, hybrid scum.”
The wounded SkyWing flicked his metal arm through some contraction of nearby muscles, and with a little hiss of escaping air, five gleaming metal talons slid out of the contraption and impacted the floor with a fearsome clank. Quartz swallowed and eased his pressure on Solstice as he moved to back away, which allowed the smaller dragonet to escape his clutches and bolt a few feet forward. Crevasse stood for a moment longer in the suspended silence his presence had created, breathing slowly in his staggered, wheezing way. Finally opening his snout with a low series of creaks, he hissed in a voice that rang with an odd echo, “I told you to never - bother - Solstice - again.” With each of his words he took a step forward and spread his wings, so his figure loomed over that of the bully.
“Give me it,” he snapped, and Quartz threw the crumpled invention he had stolen towards Crevasse’s chest. With surprising dexterity, the other SkyWing caught it deftly and held it gently in his large talons. He passed the object down to Solstice, who was now standing at his side, and advanced closer to Quartz, backing him up against a wall. “Listen, your highness. My friend will do whatever he pleases with whoever he wants, and you will stay out of it.” He lowered his snout to be directly level with the bully’s, his yellow eyes casting a glare capable of melting iron. “And the animus isn’t a tool, you frog-hearted, pig-souled goat! She’s a dragon, and she’s in my winglet, and if I ever catch you or anyone else trying to manipulate her, I will have Sunny kick them out no matter who their parents are. Or far worse, believe me.” 
Quartz lurched downwards suddenly, stabbing his tail into a scar on Crevasse’s underside, and slid away as the larger dragon roared with pain. He disappeared down into the tunnel, while the other dragon leaned against the cave wall for a moment before gathering himself enough to stand upright again. “And, animus,” he hissed, turning towards her. “If Solstice wants you to stay away from him, you will.”
“I - yes,” Anadrom coughed, feeling her spirit sink into her talons. “I - er - are you - are you both okay?”
“I’m fine,” Crevasse growled, and Solstice nodded from beside him. “Alright everyone, time to clear out,” the SkyWing boomed, and the crowd quietly dispersed around him. “Anyone want to come with me to report this to Sunny?”
“I will,” a quiet voice murmured, and Anadrom was surprised to see that it was Millpond. He was looking rather nervous about the decision, and she could imagine why. Who knew what Quartz would do to him or his art as revenge for this? Yet he was doing it for her, to protect his clawmate, which was actually amazing. 
“I - you don’t have to,” she tried, “Not if Quartz’ll - er - break your art because of it.”
“I do have to,” Millpond responded, and then he and Crevasse turned and began walking down the corridor. Anadrom called a quiet thank-you out to the both of them, then turned around and found herself entirely alone again. Solstice had vanished in the blink of an eye to who knew where. He still doesn’t want me around him. It was dismaying, to say the least, and everything that had happened in the last few minutes was ringing around inside of her like an array of angry bats.
Most dragons here really did see her only as a tool. For the power-hungry, that meant that she was an instrument to be used for their own gain, but for everyone else it was nearly as bad; she was something to be kept out of dangerous talons, a simple weapon all too powerful in the talons of its bearer. Hardly anyone saw her the way Crevasse did, as a living and breathing dragonet with her own mind and thoughts. He must know what it feels like to be outcast, if Qibli was right about most dragons avoiding him on purpose. And he’s powerful in his way as well; I wonder if Quartz tried to force him to do his bidding a while ago and he refused then. More than anything, she wanted to remove her powers there and then, but the recent words Moonwatcher had recalled as sections of the prophecy kept returning to her. This burden was more than she could bear, and she thought she would break under it some day soon, but if that was what needed to happen for Pyrrhia to stay safe, it was what she would do.
It was nighttime, finally. She would get to sleep soon and escape this nightmare for a while. Anadrom still wanted to give the academy a chance, was still holding out that maybe things would improve and this would be the best part of her dragonhood, but her hope was diminished somewhat after the day of starring students and violent bullies. Millpond and Crevasse were nicer, at least, in their odd and protective ways, respectively. Was it only because she was in their winglet now, or because of who she was as a dragon? Or what I am?
Her scales were glowing enough to illuminate the room when she returned to the sleeping-cave, and they weren’t likely to calm down anytime soon with the parade of worry and disappointment running through her mind. Alongside her remaining hope was a counter-voice telling her that the next day would only be worse, that everyone would stay farther away after Quartz’s threats, and that she would be driven out of the academy before the end of the week. She covered herself with the kelp blanket so her light wouldn’t keep Millpond awake, lying on the painfully hard rock shelf and worrying about the day to come.
Chapter 14
	Her sleep was haunted by nightmares, mostly of Solstice being captured by a horde of deadly SkyWings or of him locking her away in a dark cave, and she arose as soon as the fire-globes were re-lit outside of their cave. She was entirely exhausted, and had a slight headache, so she decided to head for the underwater lake Solstice had shown her for a quick swim before everyone else woke up. The tunnels were easy to navigate, as she was able to remember how they interconnected with each other, and she found the open cavern after only a few minutes.
	The water was frigid, hidden from sunlight as it was, and the lake was barren of all life. It was nothing like the colorful and active coral reefs of her home with the darting silver fishes and bizarre ocean creatures all shining in the cool glow of the sun. All that was here was a sort of slimy algae, and the water was covered in discarded parts of silkworms fallen from their nests overhead. Still, it helped her wake up, and like the other freshwater around, it didn’t hurt her as much to swim as it did in the ocean. Another SeaWing came over a half hour after she arrived, and spotting her, moved to the opposite side of the cave. He had the grace at least to pretend to just be looking for something he had dropped rather than acknowledging her presence, peering under some rocks around him before diving into the water. 
	She returned to her cave and found Millpond working away on something inside, so she just waited in the hall for a bit, not wanting to get in his way. After a while a gong sounded from the entrance hall, and he stopped whatever he was doing to enter the corridor. “Oh, you’re right there,” he blinked, gazing at her. “I was about to go look for you. It’s your cave too, you know. You don’t have to wait until I’m not there to go in. Or were you just not trying to get in my way?” He peered into her eyes and nodded to himself. “That seems more likely. I really don’t mind. You’re not a large dragon, you know, and if you sat on your ledge or at the table, I wouldn’t be able to even notice that you were there.”
	“Er - okay,” she replied. “What - what were you working on just now? Should I be asking that, or is it - er - not my business?”
	A light came into Millpond’s eyes, one that seemed to be positive in nature. “No, that’s fine. This project is working out well so far, actually. I’m doing a miniature of a SandWing, just for practice, and I believe the curve of the tail I carved is nearly correct. The barb is always difficult, but if I don’t mess it up, this could be an interesting work.” Something seemed to pass over his face for a moment, and he frowned at her thoughtfully. It was very difficult to read this dragon, but she thought he was looking somewhat jealousy at her, if only for a moment. 
“What’s bothering you?” she asked nervously, wondering if he secretly despised her.
Millpond blinked at her, keeping his expression entirely composed for a long while, then sighed deeply. “It makes me seem like not a great dragon to be feeling this way, but I don’t understand why you find my carvings interesting. I mean, you could create a perfect work with only a few words, if you wanted. You could literally bring carvings to life more than I ever could be capable of doing. In a minute, you could create something that would render everything I’ve ever made seem as pointless and barren as pieces of driftwood.”
“Oh!” Anadrom inhaled, curling her wings towards herself. “Millpond, I wouldn’t do that to you. What you can do is amazing, more than any ability I have or ever will have. You - er - trained your entire life to be able to make such beautiful things, and I just happened to be born this way. What you do is better in all ways - er - purer, and more complete, right? Anything I make is set aside as being made magically, not skillfully. I don’t want you to feel like - like everything you’ve worked for is nothing. Yikes, I’m sorry if you’ve been feeling that way all this time.”
These must have been the right things to say, for the glare in Millpond’s eyes melted away. “I see,” he said carefully. “I should be more careful with presumptions, I assume. You’re not unskilled, I don’t believe, Anadrom. Qibli says your spells are worded as carefully as any he ever made, and your Informaband is well-planned.” Despite his careful words, the dragonet seemed friendlier now, and he relaxed a little bit. 
“Well, you’ll probably want to know the plan for today,” he said, and she nodded, feeling a little tinge of excitement and hope despite herself. This was her first real day as a student of the academy, as terrifying and wonderful as that was. “Classes start at the third ring of the gong, and rotate daily. There’s a schedule posted outside each sleeping-cave. Today we had hunting practice scheduled with Clay, but Winter decided to replace that with a discussion period for our winglet only. They usually only do that at the end of the week or just when a new year begins, but I suppose he wants you to introduce yourself to all of us. That’ll be interesting, right? It’s off in the third spare cave, which I believe is three lefts and two rights from this corridor.”
It was actually four lefts and one right, but they arrived just before the third gong went off, so all was well. The third spare cave was mostly unaltered from its natural state besides for a large central globe of light with a circle of seats positioned below it. Shadows were cast sharply outward from the stalactites and stalagmites towards the edges of the cave, reminding Anadrom of the spiraling scars around one of Crevasse’s eyes. The massive SkyWing was sitting upon a rocky ledge now, with Solstice beside him in what appeared to be a bed of sand and an unknown RainWing on his other side sitting upon a stack of rainforest leaves. There was a NightWing and an IceWing upon Solstice’s other side, neither of which she had seen before either, and the only remaining seats were a clean pool of water and a divot containing freshly-churned mud. It was obvious which was intended for her as a supposed SeaWing, so she quietly moved into the pool, while Millpond squelched into the mud next to her. The RainWing on her other side sent her a smile, which she tried to replicate back at her. 
Solstice wasn’t looking in her direction, and Millpond was busy sinking into the mud, but everyone else was staring at her now. While most of their looks were more friendly than those she had received in the hall on the way there, she still felt rather nervous and drummed one of her back talons in a soundless rhythm against the stone bottom of the pool. At least her scales were under control for now. The idea of this room was great; having it adjusted for every tribe was a nice touch that she supposed was relatively new, and it appeared to be operating on Solstice’s water system. A metal pipe with some sort of gauge stuck out of the ceiling above her pool, and she felt a small covered drain in the surface below her front talons. Everyone at the circle was at mostly the same height, centered in equity..
Winter arrived just a moment later, his chilling aurora sweeping into the room before him, and he took his place on the ground just outside of their circle. With a quick hiss of frostbreath, he froze the ground beneath him, then sat regally upon it and faced his winglet. “Fatespeaker was excited about her duties again,” he huffed majestically. “I assure you, I am definitely not late. She rang the gong earlier than she should have on that last time. There’s supposed to be a sixty second interval, not fifty-five, I’m fairly certain.”
	“Either way, you were cutting it pretty close,” Crevasse observed, which drew quiet laughter from the IceWing and RainWing students. Winter frowned for a moment.
	“Alright, I overslept,” he muttered. “Qibli was talking for an eternity during the school meeting last night, and I had to stay awake for all of it. If this was the Ice Kingdom, I’d be sent off to go clean walrus hides for the next few hours for that, but luckily I set the rules now. Or at least some of them some of the time, when everyone decides I can.” He glared dramatically at Crevasse, but Anadrom detected a fondness of the SkyWing dragonet buried in his cool blue eyes. “For example, I could have sworn that I forbade any talking back on the first day I was put in charge of this winglet.”
	“Better tell her the rules quickly then,” the IceWing dragonet said, gesturing at Anadrom. “She looks like she’s planning a brilliant retort of sarcastic comebacks as we speak.” Winter glared between the two of them for a moment with tired eyes, attempting to decipher which one of them was being the troublemaker, then sighed again and focused his cold stare on the IceWing. 
“Peregrine, no bullying the new student,” he told her sternly. “As far as I’ve seen, Anadrom doesn’t have any sarcasm in her.”
“Bullying? Nooo,” Peregrine smiled. “Maybe teasing a little? Yes, definitely that. I’m sorry Anadrom, I just never get the chance. No one in this winglet ever lets me do it to them.”
“Alright,” Anadrom nodded, holding back a smile. “I - er - resignedly accept your offer.”
“Ha!” Peregrine crowed. “Great! Now, let’s see - hmm - if you were any quieter, I’d mistake you for a puddle with a bizarre fashion sense!” There was varied laughter around the circle from this, but not from Solstice, which was slightly disappointing. Anadrom didn’t really mind it in the least, for it was far preferable to being treated as she had been by all of the other dragonets in the school, but Winter frowned at the IceWing.
“Enough, Peregrine,” he growled. “I’m definitely going to need more sleep after this. Well, to finally get to why we’re all here instead of hunting with Clay, you all have a new clawmate.” He gestured at Anadrom, and with this Solstice cast the briefest look in her direction. The action set a flutter of hope rising in her chest, but he quickly turned away. “Her name is Anadrom, and she hails from the Kingdom of the Sea, north of the Summer Palace Ruins - I mean, the revitalized Summer Palace. You’ve all been hearing rumors about her, I presume, but thanks to Qibli’s good sense we’ve managed to confirm that she’s not actually an evil, power-hungry animus or a Loyalist servant. Which you already have known since yesterday’s assembly, I suppose.”
“In which I acted rather unfairly and with volatile prejudice,” the IceWing teacher admitted. “In hindsight. So I would ask all of you to treat Anadrom just like any other student here, no matter what rumors you hear or what certain violent SkyWings tell you. And certainly don’t pressure her into using her magic for you, please. Not that any of you would. Excepting Peregrine, maybe, since you clearly have to be the center of attention.”
“Nope, not funny at all,” the IceWing dragonet retorted, and Winter sighed again. 
“I tried,” he muttered. “Well, I’m going to sit here and not fall asleep, and all of you are going to have a thoughtful and reasonable introductory discussion.” He sat entirely upright and fixed them with an unwavering glare, curling his spiked tail around his long front claws. “Names, first, of course. Crevasse, we’ll start with you and go around thataway.” 
The SkyWing straightened up and nodded at Anadrom. “We’ve met, but formally, I am Crevasse the SkyWing. Ally of Queen Ruby, opponent to the Loyalist Force, and official protector of Solstice, full-time.” He smiled at the hybrid beside him, the scars on his face twisting and shifting in a chaotic array. Sitting back down, he gestured his metal talon to the inventor, who coughed and fiddled with a device on his arm as he spoke.
“I’m Solstice,” he began, and then everyone else except Winter and Anadrom cried at one, “The Sandy-NightWing!” He smiled and gave a little bow, returning to his proper and cheerful self for an instant. “Indeed,” he confirmed. “Also an inventor extraordinaire, and the full-time maintenance-dragon and protectee of Crevasse the SkyWing.”
Peregrine was next, and she performed a neat bow as she announced, “Peregrine the IceWing, somewhat. I hail from Possibility, the Northwest Corridor, where my parents raised me outside of IceWing territory. Also, I do believe Winter is now asleep.” She was right, as their teacher lay curled upon on his frozen section of the floor, wings tucked over his sides and breathing peacefully. “Crevasse and Solstice do tend to have that effect on people. No, let’s not wake him. I think he needs the rest, and of course it’ll be more fun this way.” 
Anadrom wondered somewhat nervously what the IceWing’s idea of more fun was. Growing up in Possibility did explain some things about the dragonet; primarily how she was so rebellious and spontaneously snippy, which Anadrom did not think would be traits usually valued in the Ice Kingdom. She looked different from Winter as well, to be honest. Her scales were not quite as polished and were stained in odd areas, as if she had grown up in an urban area with all sorts of dyes and fruits being shipped about and possibly falling on her. Where unmarked, her scales were a faint white-cream, with hints of pale blue around her shining horns, and her purple eyes gleamed with mischief. “You’re next, sinister darkness-wing and Winter’s fellow sleepy-snout,” she chirped now.
“Hrmph,” sighed the NightWing next to her. He looked neither sinister nor particularly dark, but certainly tired and thin. Peregrine was as sleek as the birds from which her name was taken, but this dragonet was downright scraggly and wiry even compared to her. Yet in a way he seemed to have hidden power in his nimble frame, and determination built into his very bones; he emanated an odd hint of mystery. “Can I just sleep as well, please?” he muttered. “I was tracking down Dewdrop’s missing sloth all last night. Well, my name’s Shadowcaster, but call me Paradox, if you would be so obliging.”
“Shadowcaster!” Peregrine snorted, and everyone else but Anadrom sighed, as if she had said whatever she was about to say a thousand times before. “NightWing names, right? Aren’t we all shadowcasters? Look, I have one right now; even these rocks do! You know, it’s such an awe-inspiring name, so much better than Paradox. I think you should keep using it instead.”
“Moons, Peregrine,” he sighed. “Every single time?”
“Yup,” she chirped happily, and he buried his head in his talons.
Millpond went next, raising himself out of the mud for a while. “I’m Millpond, your new clawmate, as you know. I would like to become a sculptor when I’m older, of course. That’s all.”
It was her time to speak now, and she still didn’t entirely have the words planned. “Er - hello, everyone,” she began nervously. “I’m Anadrom, the mostly-SeaWing, and - er - and everything else that you all know that I am.” She wondered what would happen next, but luckily the dragonet on the other side of her spoke up quickly, as if she had sensed that Anadrom no longer wanted the attention of the room to be upon her.
“Greetings, Anadorm. I’m Tamandua, daughter of Turtle and Kinkajou,” she offered. The dragonet was older than her, with a larger wingspan, and was on closer inspection noticeably a SeaWing/RainWing hybrid. Most of her body was the same shade blue as Turtle’s, but it was entirely clear of all bioluminescent markings, and shaded gradually to white around her wing-joints. The undersides of her wings were an arc of water-related pastel tones, from a light white-yellow the color of beaches to a soft pink that reminded her of glowing jellyfish. Tamandua’s snout was shaped in the sharp fashion of RainWings, and her wings followed the sharp curves and graceful arcs of that tribe. She was a rounder dragon, like Turtle, with a kindly and friendly air to her. The necklaces she was wearing of little carved shells and tiny coral bits added to the effect, as did the genuine smile she was sending at Anadorm. This dragonet, it was clear, would have no trouble treating her as any normal new student.
“Alright,” Peregrine said, clicking her talons together. “Boring names are finally out of the way, so let’s move on! While, boring and ridiculous names. Specifically one ridiculous name.”
“I wish you would focus on the moving on part,” Paradox huffed, leaning tiredly on his left wing and looking like he really might fall asleep sitting there. 
“Question time, then!” the IceWing announced, with an energetic swirling of her talons. “Anyone have anything to ask Anadrom? Or do you want to know anything about how the school works, newbie? Ha - take that Winter - I can say anything and you’re too asleep to notice. Maybe I should slip something into his prey sometimes to make him do this more often…”
“I have a question,” Tamandua offered. “Is there anything you’re missing about the Kingdom of the Sea so far, Anadrom? Kinkajou raised me in the rainforest, and on my first days here I couldn’t sleep because there was no chirping of insects or tumbling of waterfalls. It’s hard to move to such a new and different area, right?”
Anadrom was entirely grateful for the normalcy of the question. “I suppose most - er - SeaWings would say they missed the water itself, but I never really enjoyed swimming. I miss the wildlife most, I think. There’s all sorts of interesting plantlife up in this mountain, but I haven’t seen any living animals yet. In the sea - we lived on a coral reef - there were schools of fish all about you all the time, and turtles, dolphins, and even more bizarre creatures. Everything was always interesting and alive, and above water, everything seemed more - er - calm?”
“Good question, Tamandua,” Peregrine said cheerfully. “Let’s see...Aha! On that matter, what was the weirdest creature you ever saw underwater? There was something about a giant shark during the assembly, which is so cool. Except for the part where it attacked someone, obviously. I heard there were creatures in the deep that could swallow dragons whole and not even notice - things larger than mountains and taller than the clouds. Is that true?”
The haunting roars of the leviathans circling beyond the reef returned into Anadrom’s memory, as vivid as if they were filling the very cave around her at that moment. “I would hear things,” she said, and a slight shiver went down her spine. “These cries coming out of the deep, shaking the water about you, and you just knew to not go any closer to whatever could be making them. The weirdest thing, though? I - er - there was this terrifying creature once, beside a pearl deposit,” she recalled, referencing the creature that she had enchanted away, not the farmer-being, who she still wasn’t ready to share with anyone. She told them about the wing-finned and many-tentacled monster, with its deadly spikes and beaks, and all of them listened raptly. It was an odd feeling, being able to hold the attention of others with her words, and she stammered quite a bit as a result.
“Goodness,” Paradox said when she finished. “I’ve grown up hearing about how terrible the NightWing volcano was, but at least we were the top predators there. It’s bizarre that dragons would live anywhere near such danger.”
“How were the wings attached?” Millpond interrupted, tilting his head at her. “To the stinger and the head? That can’t have been very aerodynamic. Tamandua, give her some paper so she can draw it. If you want to, Anadrom.”
She nodded and the friendly hybrid handed over a scrap of parchment and a stick of graphite out of the pouch around her neck. Anadrom thought for a moment, trying to recall the creature completely, then did her best to replace the image onto the paper. It turned out better than she had been expecting, with the sharpness of the stinger and the pure size of the hinged mouth in decent scale to the rest of the body. She looked up, found everyone staring at her rather than the drawing, and instinctively drew her wings inward. “What?” she asked, staring down at herself. She wasn’t glowing at all, and the drawing wasn’t really good enough to be impressive. What did I do wrong this time?
“Nothing,” Millpond said quickly, and she realized then that it had been a test. The MudWing hadn’t really intended for it to be, but it was one nonetheless. They all wanted to see whether she would have used her magic to create a perfect drawing, to judge whether she was wasteful of her power, or if she was the type to show off, or any amount of similar things about her. Her clawmate moved forward, peering down at the drawing now. “I see. Was the mouth really that large?” She nodded, and he glanced down at the drawing as if afraid the monster pictured upon it would come to life and attack him.
“I have a question,” Crevasse said sharply, his voice rasping and echoing oddly as usual. “Why is it that Solstice wants to avoid you so entirely? What happened on that tour yesterday?”
“Vipers, Crevasse, no!” Solstice blurted out, and Anadrom’s heart bounced wildly inside of her. I don’t even know why - I’d just assumed it was because he was afraid of how he’d act around me. What do I say? Twisting-armed jellyfish, I haven’t the slightest idea. She sat there for a while, frozen in place, looking directly at Solstice, willing him to explain himself.
“Avoiding you?” Peregrine asked curiously. “What, did you make fun of his water system or something? Oooh, or did you use your magic in front of him and scare him? That would be creepy. Argh, one of you please tell me! The suspense is killing me.”
“Why, Crevasse?” Solstice growled. He glanced around nervously for a bit, then looked down at his talons. “It’s my fault, not hers. The tour was fine, and she appreciated my water system to a suitable degree, Peregrine. At the end, though, I - erm - I…” Shame was riding across his snout and across his entire body, dragging down his wings and curling his non-barbed tail into a tight spiral. He looked as if he was confessing to a conspiracy against the queen. “I - er - I told her what to use her magic on,” the SandWing/NightWing blurted out finally, then covered his head with his wings.
“By the grace of the queen,” Crevasse sighed. “I thought she attacked you or something from the way you were acting. Is this your whole what-if-I'm-an-evil-dragon thing again?”
“He just suggested something accidentally,” Anadrom said. “He didn’t tell me to do anything, and it was a good idea. Solstice, I don’t understand - but - er - you need to know that I’m not mad at you, and I certainly don’t hate you.”
“Really?” he asked, and blinked up at her. “Your soul - though - it was such a stupid and heartless thing to suggest, doing such a massive enchantment as that. And I told myself not to ever ask you to do anything - I just wanted to be friends with the new student. But what if Quartz was right, and I was just doing it to steal your magic from you? What if I am a terrible dragon and I can’t be trusted near power?”
“Don’t tell me you actually listened to that piece of work,” Crevasse growled, and Anadrom nodded fervently.
“I’ve had dragons try to use me,” she said quietly to Solstice. “What they did was nothing like what you did. You were just being friendly and nice; and you know that the motives for your actions weren’t evil. If - er - if it makes you feel better, I - er - will never cast any spells you suggest to me, accidentally or otherwise, unless the safety of Pyrrhia depends upon it.”
“Was that just a spell?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “It was a promise.”
He smiled sadly at her, the same way that Qibli and Winter had, as if they couldn’t believe she could have forgiven them so quickly and easily. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “And now you’ve had your first acquaintance hide from you because of your magic, in under a day of knowing you. That can’t be a great feeling either. Anadrom, I’m so sorry. I’m such a foolish dragon, even when I’m trying really, really hard not to be.”
Tamandua coughed from beside her. “Anadrom, I’d like your promise to be extended to me as well. I would never want to compromise your soul on my behalf under any circumstances, even if I wasn’t really being serious about what I was saying or was just being forgetful. You should never feel pressured to use your magic by anyone at the academy, especially the dragonets in your own winglet.”
“Yup,” Peregrine said quickly. “I totally agree.” There were murmurs of agreement and nods from Crevasse, Paradox, and Millpond as well, and Anadrom smiled at them all.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, and they all sat for a moment in silence, thinking about everything. This makes everything so much better - I don’t have to wonder what they want from me anymore at all. Nobody will be jealous of what I use my magic on, because I’ll never have to use it here. That’s a wonderful thing, a truly, truly wonderful thing. And Solstice would be able to talk to her again, with his charm and quick ideas, which would be even better.
The gong rang a moment later, jolting Winter out of his sleep with a start. He cursed to himself, looking about at the seven of them still in their circle. “Thank you for waking me,” he snarled sarcastically. “Anadrom, I want you to know that I’m always proper and punctual, and that today is just a fluke. Well, you’re all off to history with Webs now, right? I suppose you all had an adequate discussion while I was - ah - otherwise occupied. Alright, everyone, get going!” At his last words, the gong rang a second time, and they all hurried out into the corridor to make it to their next class in time.
Chapter 15
	Solstice ran beside her, with Crevasse close on his heels, his metal leg clinking against the floor with every fourth-footfall. The golden tail of the SandWing/NightWing streamed elegantly behind him as he ran, his wings gracefully lowered to his sides, and he smiled apologetically at Anadrom again. Her heart was fluttering as she returned the gesture, falling back so he could lead them down into the next cave. It was entirely great to have him not avoiding her anymore, in ways that she couldn’t begin to describe.
	The third gong rang as they all burst into a cave, earning them a cross look from the older SeaWing teacher. He could be easily identified as Webs, the only surviving former guardian of the Dragonets of Destiny. There was another winglet already seated on stones about the cave, which Quartz luckily was not in. Anadrom placed herself on top of the closest seat, focusing on the instructor while her peripheral vision wandered about and examined her surroundings. 
The walls were covered in maps from various periods of Pyrrhia’s history, from just a few centuries after the Scorching to the recent border changes after the War of SandWing Succession. A great table covered in a three-dimensional representation of Pyrrhia sat before the class, carved to show the depths of the oceans and the peaks of every mountain in a stunning array of detail. All of the known structures of Pyrrhia were carved upon it, gracefully arching up towards the cave ceiling, and someone had even replaced the Summer Palace Ruins with a model of the one she had created a month ago. Fire-proofed scroll racks lined each wall below the maps, and recreations of various famous artifacts were encased in frames and hung from the ceiling by invisible wire. There was an inkpot and blank scroll upon the small raised ledge in front of each seat, next to a tray of odd instruments and tools. The entire cave was entrancing with knowledge, and she was entirely impressed by it. At the front of the room, Webs coughed, and all of the students turned to face him.
“Good morning, students,” he announced rather non-energetically. “As I have said many times before, I require everyone in the academy to be entirely punctual to my classes. Don’t cut it that close again, Amber Winglet.” He looked at them all sternly, wrinkling his brow at Anadrom as if he hadn’t expected to see her there. Yet the SeaWing didn’t comment on the matter in the slightest, moving right on in his dry voice. “As all of you were told at the end of yesterday’s class, today will be a break from our exploration of the Second Millenia. Sunny has recently decided that updates on modern Pyrrhian history might encourage students to pay more attention when we return to the past, and as doubtful as this seems, I am willing to give it a shot. Let’s begin, then.”
The older SeaWing reached upwards to a ring on the wall and pulled down a large chart, titled Populations of the Seven Tribes, From 4925 - 5025 Y.F.S., while a smaller note at the bottom read Based upon the data collected in the 5025 Census and on royal population records retrieved by Starflight and Moonwatcher of the NightWings upon that same year. 
“Now,” Webs said, standing so that his wings blocked the data, “We will begin by testing your knowledge of our present. Who here can tell me what the most populous tribe in Pyrrhia currently is?”
There was a shuffling of wings from the students in response, and then Crevasse wheezed, “The most populous tribe is the SeaWings, closely followed by IceWings, I believe.”
“Correct,” Webs nodded appraisingly, and stepped back. The data upon the charts was rather shocking to read, for most of them held a sudden and steep decline due to the devastation the War of SandWing Succession had caused. The angle and length of the downwards slope made Anadrom feel deeply uneasy, and a few of her peers clearly felt the same, for there was a general dismayed murmur. Webs seemingly didn’t notice this, or perhaps didn’t care to address it. “As you know from your independent studies of the war, the IceWing and SeaWing tribes fought mostly defensively, as was pertained by their unique and impenetrable environments of habitation. Besides for the destruction of the SeaWing Summer Palace, the tribe was entirely protected from the sort of massacres that befell the other belligerents on the regular. That is to say, all IceWing and SeaWing civilian targets were unreachable, and so were not eliminated as those of other tribes were in regular raids.”
He paused for a moment, clearly recalling the horror of that assault. The Palace had been bombed while entirely at capacity, with the Royal Family and several dozen dragonets inside placed in direct danger. Of course, Anadorm remembered, he himself had been nearly killed in the assault, although by the SeaWing ally Blister rather than the crusading MudWings and SkyWings. After clearing his throat, he said, “This decline here shows the effect the collapse of the Summer Palace had upon the SeaWing population. It is significant to note that if not for the advanced medical practices and rescue efforts of the tribe at that time, it is calculated that perhaps twice as many dragons would have died in all. The IceWing tribe was for a brief period after the war more populous for the SeaWings due to that attack, but the effects of Darkstalker’s plague and the devastation his brief war brought quickly countered that lead.” His talon traced down a long and nearly vertical line, where nearly a hundred IceWing lives had been taken by the horrid animus.
“Thus the SeaWings pulled ahead again, making them the most populous tribe at 9,263 dragons based on data collected in the 5015 Y.F.S Census, with Y.F.S. indiciating Years From Scorching. The IceWings are behind at 9,129, and then followed by the MudWing tribe at 7,291, due to the large sibling groups that tribe is known to have. SkyWings follow at 6,591, the difference there likely due to the tyrannical and bloody reign of Queen Scarlet. SandWings are next at 6,215, due to the devastation they caused each other by fighting upon all three sides, and then the RainWings at 862, which is due to not to any particular devastation being dealt to the tribe, but rather by their tendency to remain lower in both population and territory due to their non-expansive nature before the arrival of Queen Glory. The only damage done to their numbers lies here, at the time where their tribe members were captured and experimented upon by the NightWings, and again here when the predecessor of the Loyalist Force launched a massive attack against Queen Glory that the royal army was just barely able to fend off. In last place are the NightWings, at 428, due to the effects of harsh volcanic life, of the inability of most dragons to lay eggs under those conditions, and due to the devastation once again caused by Darkstalker’s War. Not all of his soldiers were invulnerable, after all, and many of the remaining NightWings died upon that dark day above this academy.”
Webs paused, and all of the dragonets present understood and held a moment of silence for all those who had been killed in the two devastating wars. Anadrom couldn’t understand why such violence had been necessary, why thousands of dragons had died to choose a new queen for a different tribe. If I was around then, I would have tried to stop this from ever occurring. My magic might have been able to create something like the at-the-time-lost Eye of Onyx, and then only the unworthy queens would have to be harmed rather than all of those soldiers and civilians. Not even be harmed, for even under those circumstances I would never cast a spell that would kill or hurt someone. They would be denied the throne by my artifact peacefully, perhaps only banished to an island somewhere instead of being fried alive like Blister was. Yikes, what was the original creator of the Eye of Onyx thinking? Why kill dragons when more peaceful solutions would suffice? Why were so many cruel and uncaring dragons gifted with animus magic?
“From 5015 Y.F.S. to the present time of 5028 Y.F.S.,” Webs resumed after a few minutes, “The populations of the tribes would be further lowered by the outbreak of the Scaleating Virus. This deadly disease had its first outbreak in the Sky Kingdom, transmitted from a piece of rotten prey to a SkyWing merchant. Due to the close trade connections between the Sky Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Sea, and the Mud Kingdom, the virus spread mainly to those three before it was contained by the other tribes. As you are all likely aware, after a year dozens of dragons had been killed by the disease and hundreds more were infected, including members of all three royal families. If not for the work of - well, I suppose I should ask one of you. Sunny’s ideas of student engagement are exhaustive and exhausting. Who here has a guess - I mean, who here knows the names of the two dragons credited with curing the plague?”
“The brilliant doctor Lichen of the RainWings, and his assistant Pangolin of the MudWings,” Crevasse muttered after a moment of room-wide silence and blank stares. “Using a treatment derived of the fernwood root and moonshadow mold, which effectively combated the virus. While unable to revert the damage done by the - disease - it stopped the condition from worsening or being able to spread to other dragons.”
“Exactly,” Webs confirmed, and gave Crevasse a quick look of scrutiny and perhaps pity. “The queens were quickly to provide the treatment to their citizens, and hundreds of lives were saved. In total, there were 57 SkyWing casualties, 32 MudWing, 28 SeaWing, and 2 IceWing, the latter being doctors exposed to the virus while in an early stage of attempted and unsuccessful treatment. Statues in their honor can be seen in the Ice Kingdom today, directly in the palace courtyard. Or so the queen says, but it’s not exactly as if any other tribes can visit. Now - the most populous city in Pyrrhia?”
“That would be Possibility!” chirped Peregrine. “With a population of two and a half thousand, composed of all the tribes.”
“Yes,” their teacher replied. “That is correct. Possibility has massively expanded over the last decade and a half, as dragons flocked to work in harmony thanks to the work this very academy has completed. Original attempts influenced by the Loyalist Force to divide the city into districts based on tribes were overcome in 5018 Y.F.S., and a council of mayor was appointed with a representative of each tribe elected by the citizenry of that community. This was determined to be the best way of settling the unique needs of the growing and diverse community, rather than having them fall under SandWing jurisdiction due to their location. Queen Thorn was entirely understanding on the matter, for which she was voted into power as the SandWing sub-mayor in that same year. The town is divided into eight cardinal corridors, with each being utilized for a certain industry or trade. The Northwest Corridor, for example, is the artist and dye-maker’s district, while the Southeast is the bakery and agriculture section.” There was a general murmur of amazement at this, and Anadrom realized that the population of the single city was greater than that of the entire NightWing and RainWing tribes combined. 
“Has everyone taken notes on the subject?” Webs asked, and there was a flurry of movement as most of the dragonets began scribbling frantically. Anadrom had actually been taking notes on a piece of paper she had grabbed before leaving her sleeping-cave that morning, although she hoped she wouldn’t have to memorize the depressing figures upon them. “Well, that’s all I planned to cover today. I know it's a rather - heavy - material, and if any of you want to go talk to Sunny or Moonwatcher about it, you are welcome to at this time.”
Chapter 16
As Anadrom followed the flow of dragonets out of the classroom, waiting until she was one of the last in line so she didn’t have to compete with anyone for space, Tamandua slid up next to her. The kind ocean-blue eyes of the SeaWing/RainWing emanated compassion and a sort of remorseful wonder, which calmed the racing of her heart after that discussion. “How are you doing?” she asked softly, reaching a wing out to rest gently on Anadrom’s shoulder as they moved forward. Her scales were cool and soft, like how she imagined rainforest leaves must feel, and it reminded her comfortingly of her home in the coral reef. “After that assembly yesterday - having everything that happened to you brought up at once like that, and in front of a bunch of unknown dragonets - that can’t be pleasant, not in the least.”
“No,” Anadrom admitted, with a slight shake of her head. Tamandua knew exactly how she felt at the moment, and could tell exactly what was bothering her. It’s incredible - I can read other dragons myself, but when I do, I have no idea how to convey what I see to them. I just stammer and end up confusing them more. “Everyone keeps calling me LostWing, too. I - I don’t really like that.” She swallowed and looked down at her talons. “I do feel lost, all of the time now. I am - I am just a relic of the past, an accidental survivor who will never belong.”
 Tamandua looked crushed, gazing sorrowfully at her. “I can’t imagine what that’s like for you. Just know that not many dragons could have gone through what happened to you. Really, Anadrom, it’s amazing. Winter and Qibli were so mean to you, as were almost all of the tribe you belong to, and you’ve forgiven them all. Being able to understand other dragons is what other animuses have been lacking through all these years - they all think that they’re special because they deserve to be and that they have the right to shape the world as they please. If I’m right about you, the opposite is true for you; you can’t understand why such power was given to you, and you want to protect everyone else from it above all else.”
Anadrom nodded, and the hybrid gave her a warm smile. “You’ll fit in here, don’t worry. Every dragonet in this academy is brilliantly unusual and you’re just like all of them in that and other regards. We’re all different, and because of that we’re all the same. You are a capable dragonet, from what I’ve seen. Everything will be okay here. And - I really, really want you to know I’m not being nice so you’ll enchant something for me. You promised not to already, I know, but I don’t want you to think I’m being insincere for a moment.” There was no need for Tamandua to elaborate on this final statement; Anadrom had been able to tell from the warmth in her eyes that she had been telling nothing but the truth the entire time.
“I know,” she said. “Thanks, Tamandua.” She wanted to express her growing admiration for the compassionate hybrid, but as always, nothing came to her. Then they had arrived at the prey center, where animals and fruit were neatly organized into pens and shelves, and Peregrine came rushing over.
“Heya, slowpokes!” she beamed. “Here, Tamandua, I grabbed a pomegranate for you before the RainWing rush arrived.” She handed the shining red fruit over carefully, looking guiltily at Anadrom. “I would grab you something too, but - er - what do you like? Wait - I know - I’ll show you around myself! Way to go, me, not being a terrible new classmate. Follow me!”
“Thanks, Peregrine!” Tamandua called, and the IceWing performed a little skip of happiness as she led Anadrom through the room.
“She was probably trying to cheer you up?” Peregrine guessed. “Webs was pretty stern, right? Well, you probably don’t want to think about that, so - here’s the prey center instead! This used to just be a cave full of prey and fruit scattered about, but that was chaos, so they reorganized it. When the winglets and teachers go out hunting, any prey they catch but don’t want to eat at the time is brought back here and stored away. There are shipments from all of the Kingdoms, as well, and prey and fruit brought up from the farms below. It’s organized alphabetically, left to right and top to bottom, by the name of the food specifically. For example, mountain goat is right here. Yay, they have one today! Oh, and yes, there’s ovens over there for cooking, so dragons don’t start fires everywhere to char their prey. It tastes much better cooked and not all ashy, to be honest.” The IceWing grabbed a section of the goat and rushed off, and Anadrom followed, selecting some berries out of curiosity. 
“Here, come stand over here for a second,” the IceWing said, pulling Anadrom behind an oven so they were largely out of sight and sound. She placed the goat inside and fiddled with some knobs, until the device gave a little puff of smoke and began running with a low purr. “Odd question upcoming, just to warn you.” The IceWing paused, which was unusual for her, and began fiddling with her talons nervously. “Really odd question. Yes. But - ah - you grew up with fathers from different tribes?”
“Oh,” Anadrom blinked, wondering why the IceWing wanted to confirm this so badly. “Erm - yes, I did.”
“Did...ah…” Peregrine murmured, winding her talons through each other. “Did anyone in the village - ah - mind at all? Were they mean to them?”
Anadrom considered the IceWing, but was unable to detect ridicule in her expression. If Peregrine was performing an elaborate trick of some kind on her, she supposed she’d walk into it. “It was secret that they were from different tribes, because of Ocotillo - er - being on the run and all. Some dragons were jerks about it sometimes, especially her, calling them names and excluding Eelgrass from events. But I never minded growing up the way I did.” She weighed the last bit, glancing at the IceWing curiously.
“Oh, no,” Peregrine stammered. “I don’t mind it at all, Anadrom. I think it’s nice - ah - romantic, even - that Ocotillo saved Eelgrass and then fell in love with him. It’s very sweet, truly. But nobody forced them to - ah - separate? Or tried to kick them out of the village?”
“No, nothing like that,” Anadrom replied. “Er - why are you asking?” At that moment, the oven went off with a beep, and Peregrine moved out to busily and loudly open it. After grabbing her cooked piece of goat, she turned back to Anadrom with a strained expression.
“It’s not for anything mean,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to tell anyone anything, and I didn’t ask to make you uncomfortable. But - ah - could you also not tell anyone about this? Please?” 
Anadrom nodded quickly.
“Thanks,” Peregrine murmured, still winding her talons together. “Ah - our winglet usually sits over in the corner by the exit there. The sunlight’s nice, and we can smell the flowers of the meadows below. Here, come with me.” The IceWing rushed off again in her energetic way, beckoning Anadrom with her curved talons, and she followed quickly, trying to puzzle out what exactly had just happened. Solstice, Crevasse, and Tamandua were all sitting over by the open area, but neither Millpond or Paradox were in sight. None of the dragons were really eating whatever they had grabbed, only poking at it half-heartedly, which Anadrom entirely understood after the difficult lesson they had just had. The lines of population decline appeared behind her eyes again, and with a shiver she remembered how suddenly they dropped in certain sections due to massive battles or the destruction of entire villages.
She could smell the flowers below from here, a clean rosy scent that was entirely unfamiliar and interesting. It was nothing like the stagnant odors of underwater plants or rotting kelp, but somehow more mild than the few blooming tropical flowers she had seen clustered upon the little islands around the reef. Tamandua had angled herself so that the sunlight streaming into the room collided with her scales and shot off in every direction, a sparkling array that was more beautiful than dazzling. Being half RainWing, of course, it would be logical for her to need some suntime. Crevasse was talking to Solstice when they sat down, and he paused to give them a brief nod. 
“That wasn’t a very fun lesson, right?” he commented. “One of the worst we’ve ever had, to be frank. It’s usually less horrifying than that, Anadrom, I promise. Viper-tailed eagles, you can’t be having a very good first day here, can you?”
“The IceWings,” Peregrine said with a shiver. “Not to be self-centered or anything, but there were so many more killed by the Darkstalker than I thought. Did you see the note by the graph that half of the deaths in that battle above the academy were at his talons? I am so glad that your parents stopped that monster, Tamandua and Solstice. Thank them again for me. Hmm, I don’t think I’ll be eating this goat after all.”
“Are you alright, Anadrom?” Solstice asked, tilting his head at her. “You’re glowing more than I think is usual. Yes, I do believe that is a sign of not being happy. Great detective work, me. Paradox would be proud. Erm - can we help at all?”
She was nervous, she admitted to herself, thinking of how deadly the Darkstalker had been, and how many lives his magic had claimed. Was there a branch of reality somewhere, one that Nocturne might have seen, where she had gone just as evil as he was and never made an Informaband to protect others from herself? Where she had killed hundreds of dragons with a single spell? I will never hurt another dragon, but I really hate that I could in an instant if I wanted to. How did so many animuses put up with that for so long throughout Pyrrhian history? Turtle must have been so worried that he’d hurt someone, as noble and reasonable as he is, but not even he created an Informaband. I will never hurt another dragon, I swear by all of the moons. Estuary’s face flashed before her again, and despite everything Turtle and everyone else had said about it, a spear of guilt flashed sharply through her heart. Never, never, never again, not in any way, I swear. It was indirectly my fault that time, but I have to make certain no other dragons ever die because of my magic. 
“You’ll never do anything like that, like him,” Crevasse wheezed in his ringing way, seeming to follow her train of thought. “We can all tell that you’d never want to, for one. And Qibli’s scroll of your spells shows the original Informaband one directly. One of the first spells you ever cast, and it limited your power so it would never be able to hurt anyone. You couldn’t even if you tried, Anadorm, and you never will.”
“Oh, sorry,” Peregrine said, blinking. “Yikes, Anadorm, you’re such a little worry-rat. Everything I say seems to send you into a glowstorm. Try not to be so panicked all of the time! The founders all keep us safe here, and you made us all safe from yourself. There are so many good things you could do with your magic, so focus on them rather than the bad, right? I would, at least, but then I guess I won’t make an Informaband for myself until it was too late. Just - just make your way less extreme, or your brain is going to spontaneously combust from pure worried energy one of these days.”
“I’m sorry,” Anadrom said. “I must be a nuisance by now, a - er - buzzkill? Just moping around and looking like a sorry human who lost their pet sheep. I’ll try to be more cheerful, I promise. Erm - let’s see. I - it’s not raining out? Yeay?”
Peregrine bent over in a laugh, while Crevasse just looked mildly amused. Wanting to change the subject, she continued, “Nevermind. Erm - where did Paradox and Millpond go off to? Do they have private classes right now or something like that? Do those even exist?”
“The only dragon in Pyrrhia capable of casting a shadow behind him,” Peregrine snorted, “doesn’t really eat things, as far as I can tell. I’ve only seen him consume food a few times, and only then when he can think of absolutely nothing else he should be doing. He’s probably napping in his cave right now. Absurd aloof NightWing, with his dedication to his cases and his acting so superior to his clawmate. That’s me. He told me everything about myself just by looking at me on our first day, and then proceeded to solve several of the mysteries I had been wondering about for years. It was showing off, pure and simple, and he hasn’t stopped since then. I feel so useless all of the time, with Mr. Mechanic and Mr. Bodyguard over there being so good with what they do, and with Millpond being the best sculptor I’ve ever seen. Any now there’s an animus here, to complete how not-special I am. Speaking of Millpond, he’s off in your cave, probably working.”
“Ha,” Crevasse snorted. “There’s nothing special about me either, Peregrine. My only talent is not dying when all of the odds say I should.” He ran a talon along the scars on his face, tracing the blackened curving ridges that distorted his features. “I couldn’t even walk properly before Solstice fixed my leg.” The SkyWing cast an admiring look at the SandWing/NightWing, who smiled back happily, pleased that he had managed to improve the world in some way.
“You’re all special,” Tamandua laughed. “We probably should actually eat now, though. Anadrom, just so you know, music with Qibli tends to be exhausting.”
“True,” Solstice admitted. “As a counter-argument, I humbly present that music with Qibli most often tends to be the favorite class of dragonets at the academy. O’ grand tapestry of sound, the webs of voice woven in strands of crystal, within the singing of the dragonets. Turtle wrote that, and I believe it describes it fairly perfectly.”
At that they did eat what they had grabbed. The berries were ripe and sour, but not unpleasantly so. The prey center seemed to only stock fresh harvests, with no rotten meat or plants anywhere to be seen. Her talons were stained considerably red after a few minutes, which Peregrine helpfully pointed out made her look like a mad scribe writing with blood, so she washed them off in the bubbling pool along one of the side walls. This time they were all waiting outside of the next class when the gong rang for the first time, and Qibli lifted aside a row of hanging beads to let them in.
The SandWing beamed at everyone who entered, his handsome ochre snout lifted in a genuine smile, and he gestured them to the seats at the back of the room. Instruments had been placed in front of each, and everyone seemed to be choosing which one they wanted to try playing for that lesson. Having no idea what any of them did, Anadrom sat down behind a disc with taunt strings wrapped around it vertically and little bells hanging off of its edges. Crevasse sat beside her, and she only had a moment to wonder why before realizing that Quartz was indeed in this class. The bully glanced over at her with malice in his eyes as he chose a seat as far away from Crevasse as he could, and she was glad for the protection of the scarred SkyWing.
“Good afternoon, everyone!” Qibli called out after a few minutes had passed, standing in front of the room with his talons neatly folded over each other. “How have your classes treated you so far today?”
There were general murmurs of approval and a snarl of disdain from Quartz. Qibli nodded, looking as if this was the response he always received but which he found interesting nonetheless. “If everyone has chosen an instrument, we will begin today’s lesson. Is anyone here familiar with the story behind the Ballad of the Brightest Night?”
“It was one of the works written about the future arrival of the Dragonets of Destiny,” Crevasse provided. “Not the one famously sung in the SkyWing prisoner arena during their stay as captives there, but the one invented by the IceWings and secretly performed when the royal guards weren’t about.”
“Very good, Crevasse,” Qibli nodded, the acknowledgement of his student’s name instantly making him seem more connected and caring then Webs ever was. “Written by Lemming the bard, an IceWing inhabitant of a remote village of the kingdom, the melody was outlawed by the Queen for spreading false hope and the possibility of the war ending against IceWing favor. The ability of the dragonets to choose any of the three queens did not sit well with her, for she wanted her subjects to be certain that Blaze would be the surviving sister and the new SandWing queen. Yet for the hope of peace it carried with it, the song became popular in remote IceWing outposts and was published after the conclusion of the fighting. In true IceWing fashion there are no lyrics to the tune, but it in itself conveys the meaning, and provides the desired message.”
The SandWing instructor walked over to a large contraption of pedals and cylinders, keeping his barbed tail carefully close to his side. Placing his front talons all upon different pedals and using his tail to occasionally strike a ringing bell or quiet cymbal, he began playing a hauntingly beautiful melody. The notes from the contraption echoed throughout the small cave, ringing and rebounding in a cascade of tension leading to determined hope and wishes, while the steady tapping of his tail upon the bells made the entire melody oddly stirring and uplifting. The work was elaborate and beautiful, and Anadrom felt as if she understood what he meant by being able to hear the message through just the melody. When he finished, there was applause from the gathered students, which she participated in as energetically as she could.
	“Thank you,” Qibli said with a Solstice-esqe bow. “The released work is performed by an entire orchestra, and sounds far more elegant than I could ever hope to convey. We will be rehearsing this for the new few weeks, alongside some of the battle songs of the tribes and the RainWing-NightWing hymn of unity.” The next hour was a blur of misplayed notes and bizarre scratches on scrolls which Qibli reminded everyone could be read to show what notes to play and for how long. Anadrom was entirely puzzled by it and decided to do some research on her own time, not wanting to be the only dragonet in her grade who would be out of harmony with the others. It was a far more uplifting class than history had been, for sure, and there was an excited chatter as everyone left at the ring of the gongs. Anadrom was so cheered by the wonders of Qibli’s teaching that she nearly didn’t notice the way Crevasse made certain to plant himself between her and Quartz.
	Their last class that day was art, which they all mostly spent admiring the fantastic sketch of an armored scavenger riding upon a horse that Millpond drew. He captured the spark of ferocity in the tiny creature’s eyes, the nobility in the plume of the helmet and the hint of danger in the shining edges of the unsheathed sword. Winter returned right as class ended and was particularly thrilled by it, so the MudWing gave it to him after a while, which made a rare smile flicker across the tired IceWing’s face. Anadrom had spent the time poorly using the elements of shading taught by the youngest teacher she had seen yet, the NightWing known as Mightyclaws. He was a quieter dragon who she vaguely remembered had been gifted by Darkstalker to have the ability to transform anything he drew into a real object, only to find his enchanted earring crumbling to ash right before the NightWing animus was defeated. This was thought to be another component of the Darkstalker’s spiteful spell; if he would ever fall, he wanted to make certain that no dragons would be able to use his magic without him. Which made it even odder that his dreamvisitors still functioned, but perhaps he really had just been too fond of them to destroy them.
	Mightyclaws seemed somewhat sickly from his experience on the volcano while young, for he moved about slowly and had the same odd wheeze to his voice that Crevasse bore. She found herself feeling rather bad for him, having had the one good thing that ever happened to him ripped out of his grasp by a spiteful animus. He was still a masterful artist, even better than Millpond at capturing the shadows and colors of objects, and was a kind enough teacher to make her want to return to his class before long.
	The last bell of the day rang and most of the dragonets scattered off to go hang out with their friends from other winglets or to start on any homework they had been given. Anadrom didn’t really have any plans of her own, but remembering what Solstice had mentioned way back during the tour, asked him if he still wanted her to examine the SeaWing guest cave. The hybrid beamed at her, and Crevasse sternly told him to be safe, since he himself would be heading off to the library. “Stick to the more crowded corridors, so Quartz can’t catch you alone,” he commanded, looking at them nervously. “And if he does, remember that he can’t actually hurt you because of Anadrom’s spells, so just ignore him and keep walking. Maybe I should come with you? But I really need to research IceWing musical culture…”
	“We’ll be fine, Commander Crevasse,” Solstice said with a salute. “You can count on us to complete the mission, m’lord.”
	“Be careful!” the SkyWing called out as they turned and joined the rush of walking dragons, heading towards the entrance cave. Solstice was an expert at keeping out of the way of other dragons and sneaking into tiny gaps as they formed, and she herself was fairly good at avoiding contact with others, so they arrived at the main entrance before the majority of the other students. From there they took the less crowded tunnel up to the offices, scanning around constantly for Quartz or other hostile students. The silence of their vigilant journey was only broken as Solstice stopped outside of a metal door bearing a massive handle, which apparently opened by splitting in half and moving into the wall on each side based upon the carved divot running vertically down it.
	“I am obliged for your recollection of this matter,” the SandWing/NightWing said cheerfully in his oddly formal way. “The rings upon the water-ducts are in dire need of inspection, and no other SeaWing students have been willing to check on them of late. Now, I have to stay outside because of air and all, but I’ll tell you how this works. Once you travel through this door here, you will be in a small chamber with another identical door on the opposite side. Make certain to close the door you entered through, then travel through the second door into the cave. The chamber will flood with water, but that is entirely planned. See if anything seems amiss, if you wouldn’t mind terribly, then return back that way, closing the inner door and waiting for the water to drain before opening the outer door. Does that make sense? Sorry, I’m not exactly the best at explaining these things.”
	“Mostly,” she affirmed, and then he had latched his talons into the wheel on the face of the outer door and twisted it open. With a bow and a curling of an outstretched talon, he directed her inside, and together they closed the metal wall behind her. The chamber she was within was truly tiny, perhaps twice her size from wall to wall, and an identical door stood at the other end, as promised. There were carved rectangles in the floor, making walking somewhat difficult, and she assumed that these were the drains Solstice had mentioned. They were open at the moment, but as she pulled open the second door, pieces of metal snapped over all of them instantly. At the same time a rush of water greeted her, and she was grateful for her gills.
	She hadn’t really known what to expect, but this was more than she would have ever thought to be possible. The entire cave was filled from floor to ceiling with clear water, as fresh as any she had ever swam in, as if she had entered a winding underwater tunnel. As the chamber behind her became entirely filled with water, the current leveled out and became negligible, and the water level dropped a foot or so from the roof. Even as she watched in awe, there was a click from spouts in the ceiling overhead, and with a hiss fresh rainwater poured down until the cave was entirely filled again. There were aquatic mosses thriving on the stalactites and stalagmites, the lush and flowery kind she had only seen in the clearest parts of the reef, and a little school of fish that must have been brought in as eggs was swimming around, their wide eyes following Anadrom suspiciously. Pearls and aquamarine gems lined the walls, while beds had been made of living and woven kelp strands tied to the floor. It was a marvel of engineering that so much water could be introduced and maintained in what had been a previously dry cave, and she was amazed that Solstice was ever doubted in his ability to change the world. 
	It was as perfect as if one of her spells had created it; she saw absolutely no flaws with the system anywhere. All of the ceiling spouts had turned on and released water, and a little filtered drain that she spotted in the floor seemed to be entirely unclogged. After a few more minutes of startled wonder, she returned to the chamber and pulled the inner door shut. As it closed, the rectangular drains in the floor opened up again, and with a great whooshing and sucking all of the water within the chamber sank down into the pipes. It was an odd sensation, having the water drained around her rather than walking out of it of her own will, and her scales tingled oddly as the liquid was sucked away from them. She opened the outer door when all was well and found an anxious Solstice waiting for her.
	“Great glowing jellyfish,” she cried, staring at him in awe. “Solstice, it’s incredible. Everything’s entirely perfect, as far as I can tell. How did you - the way the drains close when the inner door is opened - it’s brilliant, entirely brilliant. I would have gladly stayed in there for weeks if I hadn’t been assigned to Millpond’s cave. There’s - there’s actual live fish in there! I haven’t seen those since the Kingdom of the Sea! I can’t understand how anyone would ever doubt you, not when you can create things as magical as that.” She beamed at him, entirely impressed by his abilities. He had done this, and created a new leg for Crevasse, and who could guess what else?
	Solstice looked at her for a moment, then blushed and looked down with a radiant smile. “I - er - thanks, Anadrom. It’s not very - er - interesting, really - just some pipes attached to the tanks and some lever-based stops -”
	“It’s very interesting,” she corrected him, and his snout turned as red as that of a SkyWing. 
	“Thanks,” he said again, and certainly looked very grateful. “I’m glad to hear of the functionality of this model of the AquaCave MK1. Your experience has been documented in our records.” He paused for a moment, looking shyly at the ground. “I probably sound silly when I talk like that, right? Or is it funny, hopefully?”
	“I daresay I find it positively grand,” Anadrom tried, which made him laugh. The sound flooded her with a strong emotion of happiness, for reasons she still couldn’t entirely understand, and a softer light rose from her scales for just a moment. They began walking toward the library together, both knowing they had homework to complete, and chatted as they did so. He told her about the flaws in the system when he had first designed it, and how many ideas he had for improvement, and she listened raptly. His mind was working at a level and speed higher than that of any other dragon she had ever met, constantly racing ahead and finding problems with solutions he hadn’t yet thought of. Everything he said made sense to her entirely, but she could never have come up with it on her own for the life of her.
	She thought he was entirely charming and intelligent, and was so glad that he was talking to her again. They didn’t mention her magic even once as they talked, and strayed from her being a LostWing no matter how her scales glowed when they laughed. As they entered the library, they fell silent, and waited for the day librarian Starflight to address them. The blind NightWing turned his head towards them and greeted Solstice kindly, but seemed to have difficulty determining who Anadorm was. “Who’s that with you?” he asked eventually with a slight tilt of his head. “I can’t quite decipher their talon-steps - they sound like a SeaWing, maybe, but lighter at walking than any of the students here? Ah, that’s right, we have a new student. Anadrom, correct?”
	“Yes,” she piped up, and the blind NightWing nodded in her direction with a smile.
	“Welcome to the Academy Library,” he said with a spread of his wings, gesturing to the shelves of scrolls all around him. Light was streaming in from the stained-glass windows, illuminating the towering arrays of knowledge, as well as the reference maps and data tables stored along the walls. There were quiet reading corners scattered about, with rainforest-leaf chairs surrounding little tables for laying scrolls upon and with tiny carved paperweights to hold down the ends of parchment as needed. It was a beautiful place, and the librarian certainly seemed to love it based on the smile across his scarred features. “Turtle told me of your coming via his dreamvisitor a while back, and Fatespeaker insisted that she foresaw you becoming a student, so I carved you a library card.” He handed her a light slip of wood, which she moved forward to take and examined before slipping it into the pouch in which she held the skyfire Moonwatcher had given her. It was a small, thin rectangle with her name upon it and a series of little holes, which she suspected was a method of allowing Starflight to determine who the owner of a given card was.
	“It’s great,” she told him, and he nodded in absolute agreement. “I haven’t - er - seen this many scrolls in one place ever before. The library in my village probably only had as many as a single shelf does here.”
	“We do have quite the collection,” Starflight informed her. “There were a considerable amount of donations from the queens once the success of the academy was understood. We’ve also put in a significant amount of work ourselves to acquire rare documents and gather historic records of the seven tribes. After the discovery of the lost NightWing city, Moonwatcher was able to transfer or recreate a ton of their ancient scrolls, so we have an entire section with works from over two thousand years ago. There’s labels upon each shelf showing the subject, as you can see, and the far back section is for visually-impaired dragons. We’ve created a hole-based alphabet which can be read with just your talons, and it’s been working quite well for myself and a few of our students.”
	“The best spot is over there, under the window,” Solstice said with a flick of his talon towards a rosy-lit table where Crevasse was pouring over a set of scrolls and ink-pots. They walked over, and the SkyWing only looked up for a moment of brief acknowledgement before turning back to his homework. Anadrom pulled out the population data she was supposed to be studying, but after a few moments she could stand that no longer and instead browsed about for information on the city of Possibility. That scroll was far more uplifting, telling stories of the first large-scale cooperation of the tribes, the legalization of cross-tribe marriage within the city borders, the establishment of the first public school besides for the academy, and similar uplifting tales of progress. Queen Thorn was an excellent SandWing-representative mayor by all standards, able to use her experience as the leader of the Outclaws to establish jobs and homes for the worse-off dragons, and many believed the success of the community was largely due to her involvement.
	Time passed by quickly in the sunlight cavern, a blur of reading and wonder, and before she knew it the sky outside had shifted to twilight. Feeling rather tired after this demanding first day, she left Crevasse and Solstice to finish their work as she returned to Millpond’s cave. There was no disaster waiting for her there, no acts of violence by Quartz against the statues or traps waiting on her ledge, and Millpond was already asleep as she quietly entered. Everything had gone, for the most part, better than she had dared to hope. Sure, Webs’ classes were going to be unpleasant, but everything else was so interesting and entirely new. And her classmates were all such - she didn’t know exactly how to phrase it - such decent dragons? More than that, though, really. They were caring and creative, diverse and noble, and she felt unspeakably lucky to be able to learn and live alongside them. 
The only darkness running through her mind as she went to her sleeping-cave was her continual guilt over Estuary’s death and her wondering about Nocturne’s location. The RainWing/NightWing surely must have been able to reach the academy by now, so where was she? Was this a part of her vague plan - to keep Anadrom waiting forever? As she drifted off, she somewhat hoped for a dream-visit from the princess, but her sleep that night was entirely unbroken and calm.
Chapter 17
Anadrom entered a routine over the next few days that provided a stability to her life she hadn’t known since before Estuary first began blackmailing her. Every day was a constant, and a positive constant at that; a flurry of varied information from entirely excellent teachers, short breaks where Solstice and Peregrine entertained them all with their witty humor, and afternoons of studying in the peaceful library or joyfully visiting Eelgrass and Ocotillo. Her parents seemed happy enough here, as far as she could tell, finally free from the dread of IceWing legalities and able to openly interact with other dragons more than they ever were able to back in the Talon’s Hideout. They greeted her cheerfully whenever she entered their shared cave, and they sat and reminisced about the Kingdom of the Sea or allowed Anadrom to tell them about whatever she had learned that day. There was never any talk of LostWings, or world-endings, or even magic, which she appreciated with every fiber of her being.
This wasn’t exclusive to her parents; most of the other students seemed more bored by her now than threatened, and she could walk down the halls with only a few odd eyes on her back here and there. Quartz had left her alone except for a few snide comments, and a few dragonets she didn’t know had actually come up to her and apologized for their behavior. She didn’t know how to act when this happened at first, but Crevasse and Solstice by her side always shook the talon of the dragonet in question, and she began doing this as well before long. There were letters as well, addressed to her from dragons all across Pyrrhia, an overflow of requests, apologies, commentaries, a few threats, and an assortment of harder-to-categorize media. Falling within this last category, there was sent by a SeaWing noble a scroll on recommendations for use of magic based upon the collected experiences of every SeaWing animus throughout history, which was so large Anadrom couldn’t really carry it around herself. She read the entire thing from start to finish anyways, which took three days, and some of it helped reshape her thinking on the matter. As Peregrine had said, she didn’t have to be afraid of her powers, especially since she had already protected everyone from them. She was anyways, of course, but in a way that became less and less obstructive of more positive thinking. Why couldn’t she use them for good after all, especially now that everyone had accepted her on their own without any magical gifts persuading them? 
The positivity of most of the correspondence outweighed any of the hostile letters, of which there were only a few. Some of these were from types such as Quartz, offering her total power if she allied with them in conquest of Pyrrhia, which she always threw away with no more notice than a shiver and sick feeling in her chest. A few were more personal attacks, from parents threatening to kill her in all sorts of horrifying ways if she cast any spells on their children, and there was a single package containing a deceased dragonbite viper, which she lost a fair amount of sleep over.
There was one letter that had turned over and over in her mind from the moment she read it, a short piece of torn parchment clumsily lettered, “Please help my sister, animus. She’s dying and the doctors can’t help. Please, I love her very much. Her name is Mongoose and I very much don’t want her to die.” The handwriting was clearly from a very young dragonet, and there were a few tear-stains across the crinkled sheet of paper. It was heart-wrenching in every way, this plea, and Anadrom had decided after a few hours of thought that this was the first requested use of her magic that she would actually perform. She sought out Paradox, needing to know which tribe the sister belonged to for her spell, and after only a moment of looking at the paper he had his answer.
“RainWing,” he said quickly, tracing the paper with one talon. “This material is most commonly utilized in their communities - it’s made out of the lumber of that region mixed with tropical fibers - and the ink is a sort of berry-made dye from all appearances. The handwriting is additionally distinctive of that tribe; they tend to have higher sweeps on their letters due to the angles of their eyes and the sharpness of their talons. I would agree that a young dragonet wrote this, although it's difficult to be certain due to the unique situation of the tribe in only becoming mostly literate under Queen Glory a decade ago. Are you going to help them?”
She had replied with an affirmative, and after informing Qibli of this as well, she formulated and cast her enchantment; allow Mongoose the RainWing and her family to be entirely cured of all diseases, known and unknown, and repaired entirely from any damage already caused by such diseases and other maladies. Prevent them from being harmed by any such calamity again, and have their recovery be entirely quick and painless. The SandWing confirmed the spell and sent her off to her sleeping quarters with an approving smile on his face. Her scales tingled in little sparks of excitement for the rest of the night as she wondered if it had worked, and if such a spell could be cast from such a long distance without her ever having met the dragon in question. This query was answered three days later by a return note from the dragonet, beaming with praise and overjoyed gratitude, which made her scales light up in joy herself every time she read it. In art class the next day she encased it in the flexible-glass material they used to preserve leaves and feathers, and kept it in her pouch with her alongside her skyfire and library card.
Her turning to Paradox in the situation was a result of her furthered study and analysis of her fellow students in the Amber Winglet. The first impressions she had formed of them were mostly accurate, but as time passed she found them to be even nobler, cleverer, and more interesting than they had first revealed themselves to be. Paradox was a sort of genius reasoner, a detective straight out of one of Turtle’s stories, who set himself to solving the little mysteries of his fellow students with incredible deductive reasoning and an overwhelming streak of determination. He was worn bone-thin and ragged by his work, hardly ever bothering to eat or sleep as he solved case after case, but he never complained of anything and didn’t really seem all that worse for wear. The NightWing altered the academy constantly in ways most students weren’t even aware of, ending arguments between students as he proved one or the other wasn’t to blame for the accusations placed upon them, or finding lost pets and items taken by Quartz or misplaced in the labyrinth of the school. Occasionally Anadrom found herself wondering what each of her clawmates would want magically granted to them, and when she did she thought that Paradox would want to be able to live without ever having to eat or rest, to be able to utilize every moment of every day for his work and his role in the world. The dragonet found every mundane task to be a complete bore and waste of his time, which made him at once aloof and respectable. 
Crevasse escorted her and Solstice on their walks around the academy every day still, but she saw now that there was far more to him than just being a powerful, loyal guard. The injured SkyWing was perhaps the most knowledgeable student in the school; he could answer any question thrown his way by a teacher, and excelled in every class. She had yet to see him get anything besides a perfect score on an assessment, but he was so humble about this that it was difficult to notice. He never once tried to show off for them, and always waited to see if anyone else would provide an answer before he offered his. Nor did he ever mention his scars, and he had earned such a fearsome reputation for himself so that no one else ever commented on them. Despite all of this, Anadrom could state fairly certainly that he wouldn’t remove them if he was given the choice. Solstice clearly was best friends with the SkyWing despite his appearance, and so he had learned that others would judge him on his actions rather than his looks, and that the dragons who chose to befriend him as he was were the most worthy of his returned friendship. What he would have wanted as an enchantment wasn’t as obvious to her, but it likely would have been some way to protect his friends and clawmates from all sorts of danger, which she had already done.
	And alongside Crevasse at all times was Solstice, the very thought of whom made her feel light on her talons and joyful in her heart. The Sandy-NightWing was a truly whimsical entertainer and a bizarre genius, who she could never really find the words to describe. A song from Qibli’s class one day fit the dragonet more closely than anything she could think of; a free and beautiful melody of scattered notes and runaway harmonies, spiraling about and sweeping down in graceful arcs of sound. The dragonet was kind, charming, and handsome, with his twinkling eyes and golden scales, and the soft ringing of metal against metal that emanated from the countless gadgets wound across his arms. She knew what most of them did now; there was a time-teller with ticking little arrows, a water-filled device that displayed altitude, a three-dimensional compass, a device that spun when it was about to rain and whistled slightly on sunny days, and many more enchanting and wonderful things. The only thing he would want from her magic was to be able to change the world on his own rather than having her do it for him, and with this she was entirely willing to oblige. There was no doubt in her mind that he would be able to improve Pyrrhia in ways of equal worth to anything she would ever create - probably even to a superior extent at that.
	Then there was Millpond, who was as distant and quiet as ever, which she now realized was due to his missing his siblings greatly. All the students of the academy on their first day had been provided with a dream-visitor to allow them to talk with their family (Anadrom had received hers a few days ago), but this didn’t seem to suffice for the strong MudWing sibling bond. Millpond probably wanted to really be present with them, not one-on-one in their individual dreams, and she wondered if he was even able to reach most of them on the average night. Obviously, his spell of choice would have been a better way to communicate with those he loved from afar. The MudWing had a very artistic approach to life, which was true to his profession of choice. Everything he saw before him was treated like a piece of artwork to be critically interpreted and analyzed, his cool brown eyes sweeping for errors in the work or discrepancies in the information provided. She never really saw him anywhere but in classes and in their shared cave, but he was nice enough in both of those locations in his discrete way. 
One morning she had woken up to find a perfectly-carved model of herself resting upon the homework-table, unpainted in that moment but still entirely representative of her very being. Millpond had captured the nervous way she held her wings and her tendency to keep her head slightly down at all times, and had given her a most mystifying expression. The eyes of the statue were benevolent and wise, and there was a slight frown woven across her features, one of deep thought rather than any form of disdain. It was interesting, for certain, to see this representation of herself from Millpond’s mind, and she wondered how accurate it was. She couldn’t possibly look as noble as he had carved her to be, as quietly radiating with power and hope. Wanting to return the efforts of her clawmate in a way further than a thank-you (although of course she gave a verbal one as well), she attempted to create a sketch of Millpond in art class one day, and surprisingly managed to capture his thoughtful and creative expression fairly well. It now hung on the cave wall above his ledge, while her statue had been placed on the alcove beside hers.
 Tamandua was perhaps an easier case of study, although Anadrom often felt that there was more to the SeaWing/RainWing hybrid than she understood. It was difficult to describe, but she expected it was the way Moonwatcher must have felt about Turtle, able to detect something more to the dragon than what they showed or said outwardly. Any secret held by Tamandua certainly wasn’t a sinister one, however, for the student was the nicest dragonet in the academy by all standards. She knew exactly what to say to everyone at exactly the right times and seemed to base her life around helping others, sincerely comforting anyone who was feeling bad for any reason. There was a depth of emotion and sincerity to her as well, in her serious and thoughtful demeanor and her ability to analyze other dragons at a level comparable to that of Paradox. She had a streak of Turtle’s quiet creativity and Kinkajou’s belief in the good of every dragon, which made her rather uplifting to talk with. Yet Anadrom couldn’t quite place what she would have asked for; perhaps some odd artistic ability like that Mightyclaws had formerly held, perhaps some improved method of writing scrolls, or perhaps she would be entirely happy without any magical artifacts in her life.
Peregrine was close to the opposite of the thoughtful hybrid, in her teasing and boisterous ways and excellent ability to say exactly the wrong things by accident. She was entirely unlike everything Anadrom had expected of an IceWing from the scrolls about them she had read, being lighthearted and comedical where most were somber and aloof, being teasing and somewhat rebellious rather than comformative and respectful, and most of all in being entirely willing to befriend any dragon regardless of their social status. Crevasse wasn’t exactly a popular dragon within the school, and Anadrom was comparably outcast, but Peregrine didn’t mind in the least being seen with them. The IceWing treated everyone the same with the exception of Tamandua, to whom she was more openly kind and respectful. She was first to agree with whatever the SeaWing/RainWing said and the first to laugh at her rare jokes. Whenever Tamandua entered the room, a soft light came into Peregrine’s eyes and her posture snapped into a more formal position, as if she wanted to seem more impressive and regal. Yet despite her efforts she became considerably more clumsy whenever she was around Tamandua, looking growingly embarrassed with each thing she knocked over or dropped onto the corridor floor. The wish of the IceWing, Anadrom thought, would likely be the ability to transform into a SeaWing and explore the Kingdom of the Sea with Turtle’s daughter at her side.
	Anadrom rarely thought about using her magic for herself, but over the passing days as she became more accepted into the life of the academy, her guilt over her role in Estuary’s death grew like a tumor in her chest. There was no way she deserved the respect of these dragons after having killed someone in the past; every time they smiled at her it felt as if she was lying to them. Looking back, she kept running over how she could have avoided the entire situation if she’d just been cleverer or quicker or simply more courageous. At the moment Estuary held up Starfish, she could have enchanted him to be entirely immune from harm or teleported him away from a distance, rendering the tactics of the blackmailer useless. But you didn’t know at the time, a compassionate voice in her head always reminded her. You hadn’t tested your magic at all - you still believed you had to be holding an object to enchant it back then. And you weren’t functioning at your best regardless; what Estuary did was sudden and shocking, and you didn’t really have time to react.
	Still, it was entirely her fault for falling so obediently into the SeaWing’s trap, and she kept trying to think of ways she could have stopped the blackmailer’s plans. Maybe she could have tried to remove the earring herself and then just refused to cast any new spells after that? But Estuary had been enchanted with super-strength, and Anadrom hadn’t been made invulnerable at the time, so that surely would have just resulted in her death and likely Ocotillo’s to follow. Perhaps she should have run away and tried to warn Ocotillo before the IceWings could reach him - but she didn’t know where the village was relative to the Summer Palace, and there could be IceWings stationed only a few hours’ travel from the hideout that would have reached him before her. Through all her wonderings and worrying Estuary’s face returned to her over and over again, with more terrible thoughts each time around. What if Queen Coral would have actually released her?
	On her fifth day at the academy, she went to see Qibli in his private cave after her lessons, twisting her talons together nervously as she waited for the SandWing to finish filling his paperwork for the day. He eventually noticed her out of the corner of his eye and turned away from his work with a concerned expression on his snout. “How may I be of assistance, Anadrom?”
	“I need help with an enchantment,” she blurted out, and watched an assortment of odd emotions fly across her teacher’s features. “I can’t really - er - describe it properly, but I want to create something that will - er - let me get facts from the past? And - er - maybe make it something that any dragon could use, if they wanted, but not for nefarious purposes? Does it sound crazy? I don’t know…”
	“Why do you want it?” Qibli asked her with a quizzical expression. “Something able to perform a check on past information…is this about what happened to Estuary in the Kingdom of the Sea? You want to make certain it wasn’t really your fault?”
	“It was,” she said quickly and sadly. “But - er - yes. I want to know Queen Coral was really going to have them executed regardless. I don’t think knowing will help at all, really, but - er - maybe?”
	Qibli nodded thoughtfully at her, looking bemused and a bit sympathetic. “Alright, I’ll help. Have you talked to Turtle about this? You know, he had to use his magic to harm another dragon once as well; although in his case it was done willingly. He was saving us from Charmeleon, Peril’s sinister father, and he told me afterwards that ever since doing it he felt like he couldn’t trust his own talons. I think he was a bit relieved when the Darkstalker’s last spell removed his magic, to be honest. Also, I’m not certain it is your fault, if Queen Coral was the one who told the statue what to do in the end. But back to your enchantment...yes, let’s make it so everyone can use it, to make the best use of the spell.”
	They discussed it together for a while, working out every possible error or loophole, and then came up with a final plan to create an enchanted chalkboard to be hung in the library. Any question written upon it in regard to the present or past would be answered, as long as doing so did not in any way contrast with the wishes of the involved dragon or dragons and could not be used maliciously to pit the tribes against each other. Qibli called this Just and Necessary Selective Censorship, reminding her once again of Solstice. Anadrom completed the spell and he confirmed it as it appeared upon his enchanted scroll, and before them chalkboard materialized in the middle of the cavern. Qibli graciously left for a few minutes to allow her to privately research what she wanted, even though she could tell he was itching to use the device himself.
	It was difficult to start writing, to formulate by written word exactly what she had done, but Anadorm eventually worked up the courage and wrote in a shaking hand, What was the name of the dragon killed by an enchanted statue outside the reconstructed Summer Palace last month? There was a moment where nothing happened and she wondered if this question was blocked by their preventative censorship methods, and then her chalk began to reform into a single word. Estuary. Anadrom swallowed, her throat filling with emotion.
Was Estuary the SeaWing really going to be executed by Queen Coral regardless when the truth came out? Yes. The affirmative given to this question by the board didn’t drive away the guilt residing within Anadrom’s chest, but it lessened it more than she had dared hope for, and dissolved it further still when the board informed her next that Estuary had been the only casualty of the statue. Her magic being used as the method of death was terrible in every way, but Estuary had been deemed to deserve the death sentence by the SeaWing courts. She would have died anyway - so does it matter? Yikes - no - of course it matters! What am I thinking - how could I ever - it was my fault, and that’s all there is to it. Why did I think otherwise - no - am I losing my soul? Oh, this is bad, so very bad. What if I’m already evil and I can’t tell?
	With that panicked thought, she wrote Does Anadrom the LostWing still have a soul as intact as that she was hatched with? upon the board. The reply of Yes burned into her eyes, and she was so grateful for it that she was able to calm down for a moment. Things were bad, for absolutely certain, but not as bad as they might have been. She’d managed to avoid creating an entire army of those monstrous sculptures for Estuary to send against the other tribes, and she’d saved Ocotillo, after all. If the statue had killed an innocent dragon she never would have been able to live with herself, but Estuary had been cruel and terrible. Anadrom hated herself for letting it all occur with every fiber of her being, but she was at the same time deeply glad that nothing worse had happened. I’ll carry her death with me for the rest of my life, but I’ll be able to manage that pain. I’m not like the Darkstalker, who killed without the slightest regret or bother. What happened was awful, but I’ll have to live with it, and make Pyrrhia all the better for it having ever occurred. 
	She did talk with it about Turtle later, and their joint understanding of exactly how the other felt was solidly reassuring. He understood her fear of her magic entirely, the echoing guilt over what it had done in the past, and he was able to further lessen that pain. “You were far less to blame for that death than I was for hurting Chameleon,” Turtle told her solemnly. “As I understand it, you hadn't slept well for weeks preceding being forced into casting that spell, and for that entire time the entire Kingdom of the Sea had been turned against you. You were reeling with the cruelty and darkness of the world, and it bogged down your mind on top of everything else. There was nothing to prepare you for all of that, no way for you to have been more ready and able to resist it. There was really nothing else that you could have done, with Ocotillo’s life being so clearly threatened. As for not acting when you should have - Anadrom, I could have stopped the Darkstalker sooner myself if I had been faster and more courageous. I could have prevented all of the deaths he brought upon among the IceWings and NightWings if I had been willing to use my power for anything larger than a magic bowl. The weight of a blackmailer- one already condemned to death, at that - will forever be upon your conscience, since you are a decent dragon, but the weight of hundreds of innocent soldiers is upon mine. The world isn’t kind to animus dragons, not at all, but we can be kind to it.”
	“Turtle, you can’t think that,” she sputtered, alarmed. “It wasn’t your - but he killed all of those dragons - I - I’m so sorry. I’m being selfish again, aren’t I? You had to face such worse things than I ever will. Yikes, Turtle, I don’t know what to say - but you’re a hero, and you saved so many dragons with your magic in the end...”
	“If it’s not my fault, what you did certainly wasn’t yours,” he replied carefully, and they sat in silence for a while, quietly feeling bad for the other and wondering at how similar they were. Anadrom considered this counter to her own reasoning for a while, and then gave Turtle’s arm a reassuring hug before she left for her next class. It felt wrong to think so, but Turtle’s points were accurate, even those he hadn’t meant to make. Things could have been so much worse. I’m not exactly glad that things turned out the way they did, but it's - preferable - to almost every other outcome. I’m almost lucky in such an odd way that I can’t really understand it.
Later that week the chalkboard was hung in the library, and before long there were clusters of dragons about it researching their ancestors and trying to understand the changes made in Pyrrhia throughout history. It was the first animus-touched object she had created within the academy and thus her first spell with widely interesting results, which meant a spike in the frequency of stares from other students for a few days. There was more gossip about her again, and after the curing of Mongoose was told across the kingdoms, she began receiving dozens of letters asking her to do the same for sick or injured dragons within families of all seven tribes. Not wanting to keep having to bother Qibli about her magic, she created an indestructible scroll that would apply the spell she had cast for Mongoose onto any dragon whose name was written down upon it - this way, she only had to ask her teacher to confirm one thing, and it was far a more efficient use of her magic.
So day after day she opened letters from dragons she had never met, read each carefully and thoroughly, and wrote name after name upon the scroll. There were letters from wounded veterans who simply wanted to be able to fly with their grandchildren, from doctors asking her to help them save their otherwise incurable patents, from parents worried over their sickly children, and even from a few blind or deaf dragons who wanted to be able to experience the world just as everyone else did. Name after name appeared onto the scroll, until the first page was nearly covered even with her tiny writing and neatly organized rows. Remembering the injuries received by her fellow villager Starfish back in the Kingdom of Sea, she quickly jolted him down as well. 
After some consideration, she went to the library early one morning just as Starflight was entering and asked him softly if he would ever want to be cured of his blindness. The NightWing had paused for a moment as a range of emotions traveled over his bandaged snout. “I’ve heard that you were curing dragons across the land of all their maladies,” he murmured softly. “I just don’t know, Anadrom. I’m so used to this that I don’t exactly remember what it's like to live without it. I’ll - I’ll think about it, alright? Thank you for offering.”
As she was leaving her last class later that day, she saw the librarian waiting for her and walked over to him curiously. He asked her to follow him to his office, and she did, finding that Qibli, Fatespeaker, and Sunny had been summoned as well into the scroll-covered room. “Does the offer still hold, Anadrom?” Starflight asked, more a formality than anything else, and of course she nodded in affirmative.
Fatespeaker let out a little happy chirp, taking Starflight by the talons and sweeping him in a dance across the room. “Starflight, this will be amazing! I can show you everything now - I can show you the world, and everything beautiful in it! Wait until you see what Mightyclaws can paint, and how the moons shine at midnight, and the way the dew glimmers on the grass! I mean, you’ve already seen most of that, but it’ll be like it's new, right? And I’ll be able to see your eyes again - and perhaps you’ll be slightly better at dancing?” The last stemmed from Starflight bumping into and overturning one of his desks as she pulled him around the room.
“I doubt it,” he replied with a laugh, then smiled nervously at Anadrom. “I do have an odd request, though, if you don’t mind. There’s something comforting about the darkness to me now, something solid and constant in the void, and I don’t think I could just leave that forever. Ah - so - I’ve seen your invisibility contraption, and I was wondering if you could make one where I could - ah - switch my vision on and off? Just to adjust at first. But if you don’t want to use your magic more than you have to - I feel terrible asking - the scroll would be just fine.”
“Erm,” Anadrom blinked, then nodded. “No, of course, that’s - er - absolutely okay. As far as I can tell, my using magic doesn’t actually drain my soul - while, not so far, at least. If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.” Sunny and Starflight both looked at her gratefully, and she concentrated for a moment. Create an armband immune to all external damage, including magic, and which can only be put on or removed by Starflight of the NightWings - otherwise it will shrink if picked up into a size too small to be worn. This was to prevent another student from accidentally blinding themselves and panicking, which would certainly not be a great time for them. Upon this armband, place a horizontal switch which while in the left position - at which it will start - allows Starflight to be in his present state of vision, while if flicked to the right will restore his vision to being as clear as that of any dragon. She ran it over in her mind and asked,“Qibli, how’s that?”
“Perfect,” he announced, reading down the spell and tapping it twice with a neat flick of his talon. Before the five of them, a patch of glistening silver dust materialized in midair, and proceeded to swirl and compact into the form of the bracelet just as she had specified it. Fatespeaker reached for the object and handed it to Starflight, beaming and quivering with excitement, and everyone in the room held their breath as the NightWing placed it onto his front arm. With trembling talons he flicked the switch to the right, keeping the bandage in place upon his eyes. There was a pause for a long moment, and then he gently lifted the woven leaves slightly down and, blinking a mile a minute, looked carefully around the room. He seemed to be absorbing and categorizing every detail, taking in every minute detail of the visual world.
“By the moons,” he murmured softly, looking about at all of them. “Qibli, you’re absolutely nothing like what I thought you’d look like.” The SandWing acknowledged this with a puzzled smile, as if he was wondering how Starflight had pictured him. Anadrom beamed up at the NightWing as he turned to her, and then he moved to Fatespeaker and gently touched her face. “Wow - you’re so grown up now, Fatespeaker. I - the last time I saw you, you could’ve fit under one of these desks alongside me.”
“I’m far more shiny and beautiful as well, of course,” Fatespeaker said, jostling his wing with hers and looking like she was holding back tears. 
“Of course,” he repeated with a sad smile, unable to tear his eyes away from her face. “This is - I’ll have to get used to this. Was everything always this - detailed? Complex? The world seemed smoother before - or maybe I just remembered it as being so?”
“It must be odd,” Sunny piped up, and his gaze fell upon her now, sweeping over her sleek golden frame and expression of heartfelt warmth. “But I haven’t seen you this happy in years, Starflight. I’d forgotten what your smile looked like.”
“Good gracious, Sunny,” he laughed. “I - this is - I can’t explain it…”
Anadrom nudged Qibli with her tail and he glanced down at her, then blinked and nodded, following her out of the room. She had determined that the trio of old friends would probably want some time alone with this development, without her and one of their first students infringing on their privacy. The SandWing walked with her for a while, leading her down through the unfinished tunnels of the academy, until they stood on a westward-facing opening where just the faintest hint of the ocean could be seen in the distance. 
She stood there now, a moment of present and future uncharted, looking out over the majestic land of Pyrrhia as the setting sun cast golden rays spiraling down through the light clouds. Every tree was beautiful in its complexity and individuality, every rising peak and rolling valley the touch of an artist upon the land, every dragon flying or walking below a spark of brilliance and hope in the recovering world. 
“I’m glad you’re here,” Qibli said after a while, the light reflecting off of his amber earring into a million shards of brilliant crystal. “Pyrrhia needs someone like you right now, Anadrom, and I don’t mean just because you’re an animus. The world is close to unity and peace, so very close, but the scars of the war are distributing the final settlement of the tribes into a single whole. The Loyalist Force - the marauders and bandits preying on new trade routes - and the threat from the unknown them that will rock the core of the world - magic alone could never combat them, but when coupled with a capable, resilient and kind dragonet such as yourself, we just may stand a chance. Pyrrhia knows your name now, daring Precursor, and knows it as that of benevolence and compassion. It hasn’t been easy for you, but you’ve made it out of the darkness and into the light, so to speak.”
“I don’t want fame,” Anadrom told him with a shiver of her wings. “All that matters is the - the well-being of other dragons, and the prosperity of the world. I would be - er - more than fine with never having appeared in the spotlight. But it’s just how things turned out, I suppose.”
“All truly noble dragons stray from vanity,” Qibli replied, looking out at the first rising star. “Anadrom, you’re perhaps the best dragon suited to be an animus that I’ve ever met. Especially since you think the opposite,” he added as she shook her head. “The powers of enchantment have awoken again in Pyrrhia, but for the better of us all, I do believe.”
“Awoken,” she repeated, watching a trio of students flying about overhead, all of different tribes and all laughing together. The word sent a soft glow off of her scales, of which emotions she couldn’t yet identify. Hope stirred within her as she contemplated his words. The dragons of Pyrrhia had forgiven her for being what she was, she had great friends for the first time in her life, and she had already helped so many dragons in the last few days. Maybe the future really was brighter than she could have hoped for. 
Unity, peace, and prosperity; Pyrrhia would finally become a region of acceptance and progress, with all of the tribes living in harmony side by side and each helping the other in times of need. The world was an uncut diamond, ripe with promise of greatness and beauty, and she couldn’t wait to see it polished to perfection.
There was only a single problem, and that was of the them that posed an unspeakable and unknown danger to absolutely everything and everyone about her. Of which only Nocturne knew - and where was she at the moment?
Where was she?
Was this part of her plan, one of the ways she was following the pathways of the futures where Pyrrhia survived? Or was it exactly the opposite, and had they already lost?
She would find out soon, Anadrom supposed, one way or the other. 
Epilogue
	Ocotillo paced about the well-lit little cavern, his tail arcing in graceful sweeps as it billowed out behind him. Eelgrass was watching with a patient expression, his head tilted at just a slight angle as if he found his husband to be an interesting case of study. There were many things whirling about within the SandWing’s mind, as there always were after Anadrom’s evening visits. In itself, that was the greatest problem of all - visits. In the Kingdom of the Sea, they had spent the vast majority of every day together, just the three of them, but now he barely saw her for more than an hour a day. The passage of time felt so hollow without the presence of his daughter, without her nervous smile and her kind, trusting eyes that were so similar to his.
	“She would have wanted to come here eventually, regardless,” he said aloud, earning a nod from Eelgrass. “As smart and hopeful as she always was - is - well, there’s nothing she would have liked better than being able to attend this - this grand - Jade Mountain Academy.”
	“You’re still disappointed in them,” Eelgrass observed, and Ocotillo hissed under his breath. His tail lashed against the floor now, little sparks and flecks of dust rising from the spots where his poisonous barb collided with the stone.
	“How can the leaders of the - the peace effort, the progressive movement, whatever they call it - how can they be such prejudiced, terrible dragons without anyone caring? And why doesn’t she?” He fumed for a moment, thinking of the cruelly regal IceWing and the cunning SandWing, who had put his Anadrom through such harm without anyone seeming to care. And then there was his daughter’s quiet acceptance of the apologies given to her by those two - and her irrational willingness to entirely start over with them. “I saw her with Qibli again today, going off who knows where to do who knows what.”
	“I have vouched for the possibility,” Eelgrass huffed, and Ocotillo nodded at him.
	“Of course they must have enchanted her, Eelgrass! Remember Qibli’s mystery-scroll while she was in front of the whole school? - the whole school - but disregard that aspect of their evil for a moment. Sure, he told everyone the scroll just made the truth-stone, but didn’t Anadrom tell us later that it also put him in charge of her powers? Able to control which spells she could cast and which she couldn’t? If you were a conniving - and, frankly, power-hungry - teacher who had already become renowned for defeating one animus, wouldn’t your top priority be to make certain the next would do whatever you asked?”
	“The Darkstalker had that popularity spell of his,” the SeaWing provided. “Which was strong enough to prevent Queen Glory from even opposing his capture of half of her subjects, so we know that such things are possible. Qibli probably tricked Anadorm into casting a spell on herself, so that she would immediately like all of them, all of those dragonets of the Jade Mountain Prophecy. Would do anything they asked, believing entirely that it was just the right thing to do.”
	“I need to get a look at that scroll,” Ocotillo murmured. “His cave and office aren’t far from ours, you know, and the Informabands do have the invisibility option. I just want to make sure she’s safe and thinking for herself. This is the situation with Estuary all over again, but this time she doesn’t even know it.”
	“And if it’s really on there?”
	He mused for a moment. “Tell her, I suppose, and see if that changes anything. Then get her as far away from all these heroes - ha! - to keep her safe.”
	“Not all of them are terrible,” Eelgrass countered. “Turtle wouldn’t have been involved in any of this, to be certain - he saved her from the Kingdom of the Sea originally, remember? And the NightWing - Moonwatcher - she fought against Qibli’s ideas in their meeting. It's really just the IceWing and him that are the problem.”
	“Right,” Ocotillo agreed. “The others wouldn’t even know - Qibli would be hiding it from them, afraid they’d turn on him if they knew the truth. Well, we’ll make sure they do. We’ll bring him to justice, and then we’ll take Anadrom to a far better place than this.” It’ll crush her, he thought sadly. Learning that the dragons she looked up to all her life - the dragons we all looked up to, to be honest - are no better than the Darkstalker. Is this the right thing to do? Even if she is enchanted, she loves it here, especially because of her clawmates. I would hate to take her away from them - but it’s what has to be done to keep her safe. She’s my daughter, and I just want her to be protected from all of these manipulative dragons.
	He reached absentmindedly up to his ear, the one Anadrom had magically repaired, and twisted it beneath his cold talons. I would do anything to protect her from them.
	From within her cave, Moonwatcher heard the entire conversation play out in the minds of Anadrom’s parents. She hadn’t meant to, of course, but they hadn’t yet been given skyfire rocks and she was always too busy to remember to give the privacy-protecting stones out herself. The words of the two concerned dragons echoed within her as she made her way to the library for her night shift. Qibli wasn’t the kind of dragon they thought he was - that she knew for certain. He was clever, of course, but not in a deceitful or manipulative way. And as to his being power-hungry - that was entirely unjustified. He had denied the ability to become an animus when Darkstalker presented him with the choice, and he had become a humble music teacher here at the academy rather than the commander of Queen Thorn’s royal guard, a notable position which had been offered to him. 
	Yet she had strongly disliked the way Qibli had acted surrounding Anadrom at first, treating the nervous dragonet as if she was worse than Darkstalker had ever been. He had refused to listen to her repeatedly as she insisted that the SeaWing had truly been framed - and she, of all dragons, would know what she was talking about. What was the good of being able to read the minds of others if no one else would listen to you? 
The scroll had seemed manipulative at the time, to be honest, and he hadn’t yet shown the entire thing to any of them.
Don’t be absurd, she told herself firmly. Qibli would never have done that to her. Like they said, it was something Darkstalker would do, and my husband couldn’t be more different then him. She would just ask Qibli to show her the scroll tomorrow, and then she was certain that all doubt would be cleared and provided to be entirely unwarranted. Even now, she felt guilty for ever thinking her beloved Qibli would ever do something so devious. She knew him to be - and loved him for being - a noble and kind dragon. 
The last thought of Ocotillo’s that she had heard - that of taking Anadorm far away to keep her safe - that at least she knew wouldn’t be possible. Her visions weren’t as clear as usual, not yet, but they were more focused now and were just beginning to be decipherable. There had been more words as well, all of which were chilling and unpleasant, and contributed to the dark knowledge within her that Pyrrhia was about to be entirely destroyed in its most likely futures. Beams of darkness spiraling down from the heavens to strike and melt the Earth - Anadrom rising against the shadows in a regal form of light seemingly unquenchable in brilliance, only to fall at the talons of some unseeable tyrant - and then, worst of all, the image that had shaken her to the bone these last few days.
A flicker of movement within a darkened cave, a stirring of some great malice, and then the opening of slitted eyes from the gloom. Darkstalker’s eyes, full of malice, watching her every time she closed her eyes. And then the words hissed in his deep, brassy voice: You betrayed me, little Moon. I’ll make certain you pay for that, you and everyone you love. The true darkness of dragons is coming, and you don’t have the faintest hope of stopping it.