The Dark Scale

Hello there! My name is Pura, and whether by a handy-dandy link, fate, or pure chance, you have found the heavy WIP of the first fanfic I ever wrote! Who knows if my writing style has changed since then! In any case, I hope you enjoy. I worked hard on it, and am probably still working hard. This fic has a lot of nostalgia in it and is very personal to me.
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Okay, I won't bother you anymore. Read on, dear wikian!
===Prologue===
“Didn’t I save dragons too? I’m not evil… I’m not…” Darkstalker said, turning to look at the dragons surrounding him. At clever Qibli, smug-looking Kinkajou, his mother Foeslayer, at Moon. Moon. Sweet, trusting, caring Moon, his first friend in over 2,000 years, when everything had fallen apart. And now it was happening again, his friends betraying him, locking him away again, except this time it was so, so much worse, because he wouldn’t be himself, he would be stripped of his powers, of his memory, of everything that made him him.
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“Not anymore,” Kinkajou said, looking immensely pleased with herself, at Darkstalkers own talons shrinking, his scales compressing themselves into the form of a tiny, helpless dragonet. He knew that they all wanted him gone, so that they wouldn’t have to deal with him and his ambition. Couldn’t they see he just wanted what was best for the world? For the Nightwings? …For himself?
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No. This would not be the end. He would not let his friends seal him away again. THEY WOULD NOT WIN. He was the most powerful dragon in the world. This was his world, and he would not let a couple of puny dragonets take it away from him. With the last of his animus power, dwindling away like flame on a candle, he subtly touched a scale on his forearm and urged a single thought through the fuzziness of his changing mind. I enchant this scale to contain my soul, my powers, my conscious, and my memories as Darkstalker, and any dragon that touches it will be able to speak with me, and I with them, so long as this scale exists.
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And with that final enchantment, Darkstalker ripped off the scale and let it fall down, down into the river below the mountain peak where he stood. He wondered where it would end up, pulled along by the currents across the continent. Soon. Soon I will be free again, he thought as he slipped away into nothingness.
It won’t be like last time.
===Part 1===
The Night Kingdom
===Chapter 1===
3 months later…
Fennec had been flying over the desert for hours. Long, hot, tiresome hours. Why had she even dared to try and brave this flight? What did she think she would find in the ancient Nightwing Kingdom? Nothing useful, probably. It was just a bunch of ruins. “But their stories…” said her hopeful mind. She shook out her tired wings, twitched her bionic tail barb, blazingly hot in the sun, and peered out across the endless horizon, searching for an oasis. Somewhere where she could get a drink of water and with it, her strength back. Both the sky and the desert stretched on forever. She felt like a tiny speck of sand in and endless sea of it, destined to drift to the ground and lay there forever. Didn’t sound so bad.
“Huff… puff… wheeze…”
Well, at least she had another speck with her. Himalaya, her best friend, was flying behind her, looking even more tired than she felt.
“Fennec… can we… please stop… I’msotired,” the green-and-white scaled Icewing said with one rushed breath. His red-rimmed glasses were askew on his face, and sweat trickled down his brow, or maybe it was his scales melting? Fennec couldn’t tell from the heat haze that wafted up from the desert below.
Not for the first time from the moment they crossed the border into the Sand Kingdom did Fennec feel a rush of guilt, even though Himalaya had volunteered to come, saying he would be worried without her and that maybe she’d like some company along the journey to BIG AWESOME RUINS with BIG AWESOME HISTORICAL TREASURES, even though it was only one treasure she was looking for. Fennec slowed her pace to fly alongside him, bumping one dusty gold colored wing against his pine green one. “Cheer up Himalaya. As soon as I find us an oasis, we can stop, and you can swim in all the nice, cold water you want.”
“The only cold thing in this moon-forsaken heat bath,” Himalaya said with a grumble. “I really hope these ruins are worth it.”
“You wanted to come!” Fennec exclaimed indignantly.
“I didn’t really think it all the way through now did I?” Himalaya gave a teasing smirk in Fennec’s direction. “In any case, I’m glad to see your excited. I could tell you weren’t the biggest fan of Jade Mountain Academy.”
Fennec thought back to school, the cramped hallways, her boring teachers, her uninteresting classes, and her grumpy clawmates that she had to share a cave with, THREE MOONS. “Yeah, your right. I’m more of an open skies kind of dragon. I yearn for adventure, to explore the world and experience it the way it was meant to: wandering! Besides,” and she casted a glance toward Himalaya, “You’re the only one in our winglet I actually like.” 
Fennec remembered fleeing from her and her father’s burning hut on the river, her feelings of fear and adrenaline and the tears in her eyes as she soared away from the only life she’d ever known with a bleeding stump of a tail where her barb should be and talons covered in blood, not all from Sandwings. She had flown across the wasteland between the Ice and Sand Kingdoms, collapsing near the Great Ice Cliff. When she had woken up, Fennec was in an Icewing watchtower, her wounds bandaged and Himalaya standing over her. He had saved her life.
Himalaya swished his tail, rattling his white-tipped tail spikes with a sound like tumbling crystals. “I’m more of an ‘experiencing the world through books’ kind of dragon,” he said, breaking Fennec out of her memories. “Still, anyone would want to visit ancient ruins, especially if the most powerful Nightwing of all time tried to rule Pyrrhia from it.”
“Yeah…” Fennec said, still distracted by her thoughts, until she saw, finally, blessedly, an oasis in the distance.
“FINALLY!” said Himalaya, putting on a burst of speed and angling his wings to soar down towards the shimmering blue lake. 
“I thought I would never see even a drop of water again, thank the ice spirits!”
Fennec laughed and flew down with him, her thoughts still running with sand and ruins and flames and ice.
===Chapter 2===
Stargazer slammed her head down onto her bed made of rainforest mosses, burying her head in the greenery, and screamed her frustration.
“STUPID FUTURE AND ITS STUPID VISIONS! WHY do I have these powers if I’m TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THEM? RRRRRGH.”
Her clawmate Lahar, sleeping on his own bunk of solid, black rock, tumbled off into a heap of brown and orange scales. A corner of a scroll on the floor touched his flailing talons and promptly burst into flames, crinckling into a pile of ashes.
	
“Ow. A thousand times ow. Aw, that was my history homework,” Lahar grumbled, his usually awkward Mudwing face turned down in annoyance at the scattering of cinders. “Why the rude awakening Star?”
Stargazer sighed, turning over and staring up at the underside of an empty hammock. Light globes hanging from the rocky ceiling made the silver scales on her wings twinkle like a night sky.
“Do you remember the visions I was having, about a month ago, about the black scale in the old Nightwing kingdom?” she said. Lahar nodded. “Well, today I overheard Sunny and Tsunami arguing about how best to find two dragonets, an Icewing and a Sandwing, who had left school flying in the direction of the old Nightwing Kingdom last night. And I wasn’t even awake to stop them!”
Lahar tilted his head at her, confused. “How do you know they’re going there? You have prophecy powers, not mindreading. You can’t possibly know. And whats so bad about this scale again? Your visions didn’t say anything except that it’s there, right?”
“I just have a feeling,” Stargazer snapped. Realizing her outburst, she looked down at her talons, abashed. “Sorry. But I’m really worried. I feel like something bad will happen if that scale is found.”
Suddenly, she snapped her head up, and stared intently at Lahar.
“Uh oh,” he said. “I know that look.”
“Let’s follow them,” Stargazer said, jumping to her feet and lashing her tail in excitement.
“No. Nonononono. Bad idea. Horrible idea,” said Lahar, shaking his head frantically. “Do you realize how worried we’ll make Sunny with not two, but four of her students gone in the span of two days? No. We’re not doing this.”
Oh Lahar, Stargazer thought. I wish you didn’t have to worry all the time. And I wish you didn’t make such good points.
“Aw come oooon,” she wheedled. “Don’t you want to try and stop all the bad things from happening? And it’ll be fuuuun. You and me, on an adventure, saving the world together! And won’t Sunny and Tsunami be proud when we bring back their students, safe and sound?”
Lahar looked frustrated, like he was having an internal battle, but she knew what side would win.
“Grrrrrr, fine,” Lahar said reluctantly. “I don’t really think the world needs saving right now, but I’ll go with you, if only to stop you from impaling yourself on a cactus or a broken pillar or something stupid like that.”
“Huzzah! Let’s go already then, let’s GOOO!” said Stargazer, vaulting off of her bed and zooming out into the hall.
“Wait, now?!” said Lahar, turning and running after her. 
Stargazer’s laughter and Lahar’s worried shouts of “Wait up!” echoed through the halls of Jade Mountain.
===Chapter 3===
Fennec dunked her head in the clear blue water, relishing the feel of it on her hot, dry scales for a moment, before lifting it back up and shaking vigorously. She had already filled up the two waterskins they had brought with them, so now she was free to think as she watched Himalaya swim and splash gracefully in the lake. She watched the shadows from the palm trees wave and dance on the water and sank into thought.
She could still remember her disbelief and awe as she and the other Sandwings at Jade Mountain listened to Qibli tell the story of his adventures in the Night Kingdom. Of how he and his friends uncovered Darkstalker’s plot to brainwash everyone into trusting him, of how Darkstalker had planned to rule all of Pyhrria, of how Darkstalker had taken Qibli to where he had slept for thousands of years and offered him animus power. And of how Qibli refused.
And although Fennec knew that Darkstalker was really, truly gone, she couldn’t help but hope that maybe, just maybe, some of him remained.
She knew that was a horrible thing to think. After all, he had nearly wiped out the Icewings with a magical plague and enchanted several people into loving him, plus who-knows-what else two thousand years ago when he was a dragonet. She remembered the rocking tremors from the storm and the blood-curdling screams of dying Icewings from the battle, while she and Himalaya hugged each other deep in the caverns of the mountain and prayed to the moons for it to stop.
But she still thought about how, if it was her, and not Qibli in a position to accept the greatest power the world had ever seen…
I would not refuse.
It would be for him, after all. Her father…
“Hello? Pyhrria to Fennec? Yoohoo? Hello? You in there?”
Fennec snapped her wings open in surprise and looked down to see Himalaya peering out at her from the oasis pool.
“Oh, good,” he said, a teasing look on his face. “Your head looked so far beyond the clouds! Luckily I was able to drag it back down before it hit one of the moons, haha!”
“Ha, yeah,” Fennec said, still partially lost in thought.
Himalaya frowned and swam closer to her. “Seriously though, you okay? You looked… sad. And wistful.”
Did I? Fennec thought. “No no, I’m fine. You ready to head out? We’re so close to the Night Kingdom.”
Himalaya looked as though he knew Fennec had purposefully changed the subject, peering at her thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said finally. “If you’re sure you’re alright.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Fennec said. Now Himalaya looked even more unsure.
Fennec sighed internally and lifted into the clouds with her friend.
===Chapter 4===
Himayala and Fennec soared over the mountain range that separated the ancient Night Kingdom from the rest of the continent. The off-white Icewing peered down at the canyons of the kingdom’s capital. There was the palace, and the square that Moon had said was called the Great Diamond. They looked exactly as she described them.
Himayala had no idea what Fennec was looking for. She had proposed the idea of visiting the kingdom after months of odd behavior, of being lost in thought and taking several tries of calling her name to get her to snap out of it, and of being more serious than her usual sweet and cocky self. He remembered the scene inside his sleeping cave:
“Hey Himalaya,” Fennec said. “We haven’t talked in a while, how’ve ya been?” It was the first time that she had appeared so fully present since the Jade Winglet had returned from their adventure. Maybe that’s why he had agreed to come with her. He missed how she used to be.
“Fennec, hi!” he said. He remembered how he was confused as to why she was visiting him. She was supposed to be in Herbs and Healing.
“Come with me to the Night Kingdom.” Fennec said abruptly. The look on her face was so serious, Himayala couldn’t help but be worried. He tried to keep a lighthearted tone, but her dark green eyes suddenly looked… unfamiliar.
“What, the one in the rainforest? Or on the volcano?” Although Himalaya knew what Night Kingdom Fennec meant, he still hoped that maybe she was back to normal, and they could leave all the Darkstalker stuff behind them.
“No,” she said. “The ancient one. The one that Darkstalker ruled. There’s something there that I need to find.”
And so Himayala had followed Fennec, out of Jade Mountain and into the sky. He was a little scared of how she was acting, but he would follow her to the ends of the world, if it meant that he could protect her. Maybe even from herself. Sure, he had begged her not to go, but she was adamant, and so he followed. He was terrified, but he followed.
“Finally, we’re here.” Fennec said. Himayala’s stomach churned at her tone. She arrowed down into the center of the Great Diamond, and Himalaya landed next to her, and looked around at the dark, towering cliffs.
“So what are we looking for? You still haven’t told me.” Himalaya said. He could smell sea to the north, But nothing else seemed particularly remarkable besides the huge, foreboding white stone of the palace.
“Something,” Fennec said. “I’m not sure what exactly, but I know it’s here, somewhere…”
Without another word, she spread her wings and flew up to one of the balconies of the palace and disappeared inside.
“Fennec?!” Himalaya shouted. “FENNEC!”
His call echoed around the clearing. No answer. Himalaya told his pounding heart to calm down. She’s fine, he told himself. She just needs to find whatever it is she’s looking for. She’ll find it, and everything can go back to normal. He thought.
Not feeling the least bit better, Himalaya flew up and surveyed the city. The passage of time for the old kingdom was suddenly very apparent. Massive glass-and-stone terrariums lay shattered on the ground, the chains from which they used to hang now drooping dejectedly from the towers of the school. Most of the houses in the canyon looked caved in or broken in some way. Pillars surrounding the Great Diamond were toppled over and eroded with the rain. Moss and vines covered everything. Evidently Darkstalker and his followers hadn’t made much progress on cleaning up.
He spotted a strip of white sand, barely visible through the stone and shadows. This must be where the ocean smell came from. Some feeling guided him as he soared towards it. Somehow he knew something was there, although he couldn’t explain it. He landed with a soft thud and peered around the beach, looking around at the waves smashing against jagged rocks and pieces of driftwood that lay scattered about in the seafoam. The sound of the water rolling in and out against the sand assaulted his ears and the salty smell of the sea was overpowering.
There didn’t seem to be anything here. He turned, getting ready to fly back to the Diamond when—there. A scale, black as the shadows in the canyons was lying next to one of the rocks, threatening to be swallowed by the pull of the tide and be lost in the swell of the ocean.
Himayala ran towards it and snatched it up in his claws just as it came free and rolled to the waves. He studied it, the greenish-white seafoam pooling around his claws as he watched the wet scale sparke in the sunlight. Himayala couldn’t explain it, but the scale seemed different than anything he had ever seen before. It seemed…important, somehow. Unnatural. Powerful. He rubbed the shining black surface with one claw. Suddenly he doubled over, gasping with splitting pain in his skull, and the scale he held seemed to burn like fire in his talons. Then the visions went rolling through his head like crashing waves, himself standing before thousands of dragons, a crown on his head, then crash, sitting on a pile of dragon skulls as he watched a palace burn, crash, dragonets scampering and tumbling around his claws as a dusty gold dragon leaned into his shoulder, crash, the same gold dragon falling off of a cliff ledge, crash, himself alive, then crash, himself dead, crash, everyone alive, crash, everyone dead, and just when it seemed that he would be swallowed by the visions, drown in them, he could feel the water around his claws surging up to swallow him whole–
“Himayala?” a voice asked.
Himayala looked around, and saw Fennec staring at him in concern. “Are you alright?”
“Oh… I’m fine I think…” He could still see the visions, like they were burned into his retinas. The pain in his head was gradually receding.
“What happened?”
“I…” Himayala had a sudden, strange desire not to tell her about what he had just seen.
“It’s nothing. I’m okay.” he said finally. Fennec cast him a worried glace before noticing the scale he held in his talons. 
“What’s that you’re holding?” she asked.
“It’s something I found here on the beach. I think it’s a scale, but it’s way too big to have come from any sort of dragon, right?” Himalaya said, looking down at the scale reflecting the afternoon light off it’s ebony surface.
Fennec stared at the scale for a long moment. She blinked slowly at it and asked, “Can I hold it?”
The question startled Himalaya for a second and he found himself instinctively holding it out for her to take. She took it and held it in her claws like a queen might hold her jewels before tucking them safely back into her treasury. Himalaya couldn’t figure out what her triumphant expression meant. Although it did scare him.
“Himalaya… Is it okay if I keep it?” Fennec asked.
“Are you sure?” Himalaya asked. We don’t really know what it is, and…”
“And what?”
“Nothing. Keep it if you want.”
“Thanks.” she said, still looking at the scale. He still couldn’t read her face.
Suddenly Fennec snapped to attention, her unusually large ears perking up, and looked away back towards the direction of the mountains where they first entered the Night Kingdom. “Someone’s coming,” she said. “I can hear wingbeats. Hide!”
Panicking, Himalaya followed Fennec and flew towards the shadows of the canyon houses, ducking inside one with half of it’s doorway crumbling inward on itself. Together, they peered out of the window to see two dragons flying over the mountains toward the Great Diamond.
Himayala looked at Fennec in alarm. He could see her olive green eyes gleaming in the darkness as she watched the soaring dragons.
“We’ve got company.” she said.
===Chapter 5===
Lahar didn’t remember sucking all the fire out of his twin and burning him to death while they were still in the egg. He certainly didn’t remember killing his bigwings as he tried to help Lahar out of said egg. But he did remember the distrustful stares of his sibs as they trained with him. He did remember the whispers about the lonely hybrid dragonet who had to stay away from everyone. He did remember having to sleep in his own bunkhouse, all alone wih only the chirps of crickets and the croaks of frogs keeping him company. And above all, he remembered his surprise - and extreme nervousness - as Queen Moorhen gave him permission to attend Jade Mountain Academy.
His first day was nothing like he had expected. He expected dragons to stay away from him, to stare at him and whisper like they had back in the Mud Kingdom. Instead, his winglet was very curious, asking Lahar what it was like to have firescales and how his day-to-day life was different from other dragons’. Even better, he had made a friend. Stargazer, a Nightwing who was hatched above the clouds and smoke of the volcano as her mother held her egg so that she could be born under the moons and see the sky. Him and Stargazer had shared stories late at night about their lonely childhoods. Stargazer had told Lahar about how she had to hide her seer powers from everyone, and Lahar had told her about being the only Mudwing-Skywing without a possibility of ever having true sibs. Lahar had come to trust Stargazer, and she Lahar.
That was why he was currently flying behind her, diving down towards a huge city square in the center of the home of the most powerful dragon Pyhrria had ever known.
“So,” Lahar said. “What do these troublemaking dragons look like? And where is the scale?”
“Grrrr,” Stargazer growled, looking around at the cracked stone buildings surrounding the square. “That’s the problem. I don’t know! My visions only showed me a Sandwing holding a scale, but the background and the Sandwing were all fuzzy. I have no idea where to start looking.”
Lahar paced around the square, carefully avoiding the flammable vines that covered the dirty stone bricks, and looked up at the crumbling cave houses dotting the sides of the canyon. His gaze stopped at one, where he could swear he saw two heads quickly duck down out of sight.
“Hey Stargazer?” Lahar called. “I think I found them.”
Stargazer ran towards him, skidding to a stop only a few feet away from his blazing-hot scales. He sidled away to put some safe distance between them and pointed up at the cave house where he had seen the two heads.
“Up there,” he said. “I saw two figures. I think they're watching us.”
Stargazer hopped from talon to talon excitedly. “Let’s go talk to them!”
“There aren’t any futures where bad things happen if we approach them first?” Lahar asked nervously.
Stargazer furrowed her brow and stared off into space, snapping back a moment later with a surprised look on her face. “Ooh, never mind, yes there are. There’s one where we fly up there and the Sandwing attacks us and kills me, and there’s one where she attacks you and she dies. So no on that plan.”
Lahar shuddered at the imagery of Stargazer being stabbed in the heart by a Sandwing tail barb. He shook off his sudden apprehension and asked, “So should we call out to them, or wait for them to fly down to us?”
“Ooh, good idea!” Stargazer said. Lahar nearly jumped three feet in the air as Stargazer shouted, “HEY DRAGONS! WE’RE DOWN HERE! WE NEED TO TALK TO YOU! COME DOWN SO WE CAN HAVE A FRIENDLY CONVERSATION!”
“Oh real nice,” Lahar said. “That’s not suspicious at all.”
But low and behold, a few seconds of tense silence later, the two dragons inside the cave house came leaping out the window and gliding down to meet them. Stargazer cast a smug grin at Lahar as they landed.
“So, friendly conversation, huh?” said one of the dragons. Lahar could see now that it was an Icewing, with unusually green spikes on his head and wings.
Stargazer leaned close to Lahar, as close as she could without touching his scales, and whispered, “What am I supposed to say?”
“You didn’t have a plan?” Lahar whispered back. “Alright, fine, let me do the talking.”
Lahar turned back to face the two new dragons. “Um, hi.” he said. “Uh, my name is Lahar, and this is Stargazer. Uh, you said something about a scale?”
Stargazer facepalmed as the two dragons looked at each other in utter shock.
“H-how do do you know about the scale?” said the second dragon, a Sandwing with brown stripes on her ruff and spots on her arm and tail, that ended with a silver tail barb.
Stargazer slipped past Lahar and said, “Okay, look. Recently I’ve been having some visions about a Sandwing - that looked a lot like you by the way, now that I’m thinking about it - holding a black scale that radiated some very bad vibes in the middle of some ruins. So I thought, ‘hey, that scale looks pretty dark, and how many ancient ruins are there in Pyhrria, really,’ so me and Lahar flew all the way here to tell you to throw away that scale, or bad things will happen.”
“Visions?!” “Bad vibes?” the Icewing and the Sandwing said at nearly the same second. The Icewing stepped forward towards Stargazer and said incredulously, “But there hasn’t been a Nightwing with prophecy powers since they all left the Night Kingdom to go live on the volcano! Well, apart from Moonwatcher.”
Stargazer looked immensely pleased with herself. “Well, now there’s me,” she said. “And I say with all my awesome visions that the scale you guys have is bad news and you should get rid of it.”
“It’s not bad news,” said the Sandwing. “It’s just a cool thing we found on the beach. And if you don’t even have a real, solid argument as to why we should get rid of it, I guess we’ll be going now, goodbye.” And with that, the Sandwing spread her wings and took off into the air.
“Wait!” Stargazer shouted after her. “Aren’t you gonna tell us who you are?”
The Sandwing slowed to a hover and said, “I’m Fennec, the Icewing still down there with you is Himalaya, and we’re leaving. Come on, Himalaya, let’s go.”
Himalaya turned to look at Stargazer and Lahar, an apologetic look on his face. “I’m sorry about her,” he said. “She’s not normally like this, she’s usually really nice, I promise. Sorry, but I have to go with her. Nice meeting you.” He turned and flew up to meet his friend, and together they flew over the mountains and disappeared.
“Well.” Lahar said. “I think that went swimmingly.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Stargazer exclaimed, looking at the spot where Fennec and Himalaya faded into the horizon. “Did you see the way the Sandwing shut me down?”
“Yeah,” Lahar said thoughtfully. “Her expression seemed to wall off when you mentioned ‘bad vibes.’ We know they’re students at Jade Mountain Academy right? Let’s just follow them back.”
Stargazer sighed. “The futures that stretch from that conversation aren’t good, but I still see a way we can change this.” She looked at Lahar with the air of someone going on a life-or-death mission. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”
…
A campfire crackled in the middle of a forest clearing. Two dragons rested beside it, a Sandwing and an Icewing, asleep. The moons shone down on dewdrops and scales while leaves rustled and owls sent their haunting notes to the sky. The Sandwing opened up one eye and looked toward her friend, checking to see if he as asleep, before sitting up and reaching for a small patchwork leather satchel that lay next to her. She opened it, and carefully brought out a small, midnight-black scale that glimmered in the firelight with a promise known only to her. Bringing it close to her face, she whispered to it:
“Hello, trapped dragon. My name is Fennec. Who might you be?”
Visions flashed through her mind, of a Nightwing standing on a stage watching an Icewing brutally main himself, sitting on a throne overlooking a white stone pavilion, leading dozens of Nightwings into battle against a sea of white scales and gleaming icicles.
Fennec smiled and looked up at the starry sky that stretched on and on and on.
===Part 2===
Upon a Star
===Chapter 6===
Fennec took the next day off and sat in her sleeping cave on the lush blue carpet, crafting a small chain about the size of her neck from scattered gold links on the ground. The scale she had taken from the Night Kingdom lay between her talons.
“So.” she said. “First of all, I would like to know how you got to be this way, trapped in what I assume to be your own scale.”
An image appeared in her mind of a smug Rainwing and shrinking talons. She saw a black scale falling from a Nightwing’s forearm and tumbling off a high ledge, into a rushing stream. Water filled her thoughts until sunlight streamed through. The vision flashed white and disappeared.
Another vision appeared, of a Nightwing looking at Fennec with it’s head tilted questioningly to one side. It’s facial features were fuzzy and insubstantial.
“You want to know about me?” Fennec asked. “Well, it’s a bit of a long story.”
“My father was a very skilled medic in Burn’s army,” She said. “His skill with herbs was known across the continent, but what he was really famous for was his prosthetics. He taught me in his craft, and I helped him make metal arms and limbs for dragons that had lost them, light-up plates for disfigured Seawings, even the occasional venom gland mechanism for Rainwings that were born without.”
“Life was peaceful, until Blister launched a campaign to kill dragons practicing war medicine to deal a heavy blow to Burn and Blaze.”
“My father was one of the first ones she targeted.” Fennec said with a sad pang in her chest.
“They came in the night, a Sandwing and a Seawing. I woke up because of noise in our living room, and when I walked out, Father was facing off against them and before I knew it they rammed a spear through his chest and killed him while he was still pleading for his life. I didn’t think. I didn’t even conrtol myself. I just… attacked.” Fennec realized she was crying, and she pressed her face into the soft blue fabric of the rug. “I attacked and I ran,” she sobbed. “And now there’s nothing left, he’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do.”
Fennec felt something then, like the shadow of a wing being cast around her shoulders, cool and comforting. She looked down at the scale and whispered, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I haven’t ever told anyone, not even Himalaya. I just… I wish there was something I could do…”
She looked up at the badly done painting of herself and Himalaya flying through a bright blue sky that she had made in art class. The colors of the sky hadn’t mixed right and the proportions were all wrong, but she loved it anyway.
“He’s been worried about me lately. I can tell. I should apologize, should’ve weeks ago, but I wanted to find you first because I thought that maybe if I did… then I could find a way to bring Father back.”
Silence greeted these words, so complete and absolute that it made Fennec want to dig a hole and never climb back out of it again.
But then visions, soft and calming, flowed through her head. Memories of her father playing with her when she was a tiny dragonet, reading her stories, showing her all the different tools in his workshop. She was crying again, but she blinked through the blurry tears as memories flowed into moments that would never come to pass: Fennec’s father helping her with homework, reading his letters to her and writing letters back, throwing her wings around him as she ran out of Jade Mountain, eating cactus fruits while watching the sunset sink over the dunes. She curled into a ball, sobbing into her wings, watching thousands of moments and memories flutter through her head like butterflies in a meadow until they all faded away, and a final image came to rest. A Nightwing, looking down at her and smiling softly.
Is this what you want, little dragon?
“Yes.” Fennec whispered shakily.
Then let me give it to you. The Nightwing held out one talon for her to take.
Fennec reached out and took it.
And felt a tingling grow in her own.
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)