An AU (Chickendragon's)

I have better things to work on
man yhis page is wild
I should write that au I've wanted to write for a while
Overview:
Darkstalker:
*When Darkstalker tries to enchant Arctic, Arctic beats him to it, freezing him in a block of ice.
*Clearsight and Fathom are horrified, but Clearsight can foresee a (somewhat) decent future out. She gets Fathom on her side, and threatens Arctic to let Whiteout go, in exchange for Darkstalker.
*Arctic agrees, letting Whiteout go and taking the ice block back to the palace. Darkstalker becomes Foeslayer's replacement, under Arctic's request, and Foeslayer is set free. 
*With Darkstalker out of her life, Clearsight can't bear to go back to the nightwing kingdom, knowing she'll be unable to bear the loss and would die trying to get him back. Foeslayer, who would have been disgraced for causing the war, also cannot return. 
*Clearsight gives the scroll to Fathom, not trusting herself to not use it. Fathom learns that if he destroys the scroll, darkstalker will regain his magic. He enchants the scroll to be indestructible, but not that it can't loose its magic. While living with Indigo, they lock the scroll in an enchanted box and bury it.
*Clearsight and Foeslayer leave for Pantala.
Post-Darkstalker to Pre-War, Pyrrhia:
* After some time, a rainwing uncovers the box. Still knowing how to read, they learn of the scroll's power, and wonder if they could transfer the magic to themselves. They do, and start a line of animus Rainwings. The animus ability in Rainwings is more like how Seawings use it. Ya just do, and hopefully it benefits everyone else. 
* The icewings regain their animus magic, and as their gifts become more and more numerous, the idea of the icewings being superior becomes extreme. The icewings close off their borders more and more, with less and less dragons leaving, and the kingdom itself becomes more and more self-sufficient. Some icewings, especially lower icewings, decide they don't want to be locked off from other tribes, starting a split between icewings, eventually forming the Lesser and Greater Icewing tribes. 
* The Greater icewings are the ones using magic in their superpowered kingdom. The Greater Icewings rarely, if at all, interact with other tribes, even refusing diplomatic meetings because why would that bother the Greater Icewings? The Lesser Icewings, however, aren't koi with this, because they are the ones affected by warfare and intertribal relations. The Greater Icewings look more like og icewings, but they can be brighter colors, even paler whites, and have longer spines. 
* The lesser ones live in the tundra area. Their bloodlines mixing with other tribes leaves the Lesser icewings as speckled, darker, greyer dragons with smaller, rounder spikes and overall much less spiky. They're a little more like some arctic birds than ice itself. The Lesser icewings eventually elect themselves a ruler, although they're not recognized by some tribes. 
* Nightwings, having become the dominant scientific power in Pyrrhia, spread outwards, instead of inwards, becoming present in many tribes, offering knowledge and advisorship. 
~ 4990 AS:
*The nightwing peninsula has been slowly crumbling, falling apart at the edges. The nightwings are fine with this, because they have food and powers and don't have volcano breath. They become a central for scientific development, jumping ahead of the other tribes in terms of development, but most of the other tribes aren't far behind. Since Battlewinner was never searching for a new home, she never gets frozen and rules rather peacefully, not nearly as cruel or manipulative as the Battlewinner in the books. Morrowseer, while still being her top advisor, is her seer advisor, and does not assist her on plans and political efforts. He's only supposed to predict the most likely futures, but that won't stop him from being a little shiet
*Scavengers don't exist anymore 'cause screw em. Oasis never dies to a scavenger, but Blister kills her mother by pinning a dragonbite viper and throwing the snake onto her while she sleeps. Blister claims the Eye of Onyx and the crown. 
*Burn is having none of that, but cannot take down Blister, who has the royal guard on her side, and the Onyx, but Burn isn't sure that it wouldn't kill her. Burn goes elsewhere to the skywings and mudwings, asking for their aid to take the palace and kill Blister, offering rewards for helping and punishments for refusing. Blister turns to the nightwings and seawings for their animus and scientific prowess. Blaze runs away, but still wanting the throne, tries to ally herself with the lesser icewings, offering more land, which the tribe desperately needs. Thus, the war begins.
Rethinking Morrowseer:
* Morrowseer as paraphrased by the wiki: Loyal to his tribe, lack of altruism (more self-centered). Manipulative, heartless, caring more about reputation than the lives of others. Close-minded. Very irritable and sour-tempered. 
* Major changes to Morrowseer in the au: Likely has one or both powers (makes it easier to become the right-wing dragon of Battlewinner). Did not grow up in a volcanic hellscape. Would also have to double on dad duty because he and Secretkeeper would totally raise Moonwatcher together since they're not on the island. 
* What would remain the same under the au: Still selfish, loyal, caring more about one's reputation than lives of non-nightwings. Still likely close-minded, but as a more solitary figure against other nightwings, although a fair amount share the "superior" problem. Like all tribes. 
* Goals of the Au: Without the threat of the volcano, Morrowseer wouldn't have the same motivations to seize the rainforest because they don't need it. Nightwings are already respected by other tribes because of their scientific and moonborn abilities, so if anything, Morrowseer's efforts would be to minimize the damage done to Nightwing sides, preventing invasions, causalities, etc. 
* If he were to create the prophecy, it would also likely be a lie, to deflect the efforts the nightwings need to contribute to instead, pass it on to a bunch of dragonets. Create a smokescreen where all the dragons are in a race to control the dragonets to win, while the Nightwings underhand the war and dispose of Burn and Blister, leaving their choice of candidate, Blaze, who is too stupid to interfere and not going to just keep the war going, never fully in the know and thinking that her efforts to control the dragonets were the ones to win her the war. Morrowseer could then continue to use underhand tactics & false prophecies to spread the nightwings' power, and maybe, just maybe, eventually rule over all the tribes. 
* However, several obstacles stand in his way. Notably, the Queen and Mastermind, who would be more opposed to Morrowseer's plans, but likely understanding of the same goals. Additionally, being only Head Seer to the Queen, he doesn't have much of a say in any actual actions, only allowed to give prophecies. Third, he's not the only seer under the queen. If the others figured out what he was doing, he would most certainly get booted out. 
Back to the AU
* So, over the first ten years of the war, Morrowseer plays a double game, both advising the Queen to not send nightwings to massacres or doomed battles, but also slowly replacing the seer council with other like minded dragons. At some point, when the council is fully replaced with dragons 100% on Morrowseer's goals, Morrowseer (or maybe not him directly, just some dragon under Morrowseer) attacks the Queen, leaving her disabled mentally and physically (maybe they just hit with a bat really hard or something) and is left for dead. 
* While Morrowseer doesn't initially assume leadership, Greatness is set on the throne to replace Battlewinner. She has no ruling experience and really doesn't know what to do. Morrowseer is the first to get to her, lying and manipulating Greatness into letting go of the other dragons in Battlewinner's council, either dropping the positions entirely or replacing them with more of Morrowseer's supporters. 
* He then starts the prophecy, making himself the lead advisor of the prophecy (a bogus and made up term) as to give himself an excuse to leave and monitor the prophecy (although he really doesn't care about the dragonets, he's just hoping they make a good image and seem convincing enough to end the war themselves.) He also starts gathering dragons he thinks could actually influence the war. As a final measure, some of his dragons steal a couple of rainwing eggs, understanding their value as rainwings are not part of the war, and would be the best tools in ending the war. 
* So on the night of the brightest night, what happens in the au? 
** Skywing: Despite managing to escape with his life, Hvitur is forced to destroy the skywing egg, and has to get a replacement (rainwing). He never forgives himself for his failure. The other guardians don't help either.
** Mudwing: Same as before.
** Seawing: Same as before
** Sandwing: Stonemover was one of the dragons under Morrowseer's talons, cause he was an animus, but he rarely, if at all, used his magic. He fell in love with Thorn and wanted to stay with her. Knowing that Morrowseer would never allow that, Stonemover enchanted a necklace to hide him from Morrowseer's memory and knowledge. Close to the night of Sunny's hatching, the seers predict that Sunny will have foresight and mind-reading. Confused, but concerned, as a dragon with mind reading and foresight would be really, really bad for his plans, he orders Dune to cover up the egg while he carries it away. Dune is confused but obliges anyway, not knowing moonlight causes abilities. He does a piss job at it, however, and Sunny is an empath with very faint foresight abilities (only able to see things moments before they happen.)
** Nightwing: Morrowseer purposefully targets Mastermind because he hates the guy and wants Mastermind to suffer. He is sure to completely hide Starflight's egg from the moonlight, making sure that he never has moon abilities.
* Eggs hatch, stuff happens yadda yadda. Stonemover is still too afraid of Morrowseer and his magic, but slowly works up the courage to temporarily leave Thorn's side and join the Talons of Peace, as some random nightwing who also doesn't like war. He keeps trying to work his way up to the dragonets and getting to see them
* Morrowseer also has the backup dragonets made, ready to dispose of one when the other gets set into action
* Somewhere along the way, Moonwatcher hatches, Morrowseer's first and beloved daughter. He takes Moon under his wing, given she is also a seer and the dragon most likely to take over Morrowseer's work when he is gone. 
* Somewhere back on the peninsula, Mastermind and some of the other former nightwing council members are frustrated at what is going on. They're infuriated that Greatness is such a weakling and infuriated that they don't even know if Battlewinner is still alive. 
* Morrowseer isn't willing to enact his murder plots yet, he's waiting for the world to burn. He is very disappointed that Sunny is an empath and Glory, but figures its not that bad of a detour
=== Book I ===
* Morrowseer arrives to meet the dragonets. He seems mostly uninterested in them, very silent and more distracted. Moonwatcher is with him, and Sunny later notes that she seemed, "very curious." Morrowseer has a meeting with the other guardians elsewhere, far out of earshot.
* Starflight, Clay, and Tsunami don't seem concerned about the visit, but Glory and Sunny are concerned. Glory feels very concerned, and Sunny seems extremely concerned, feeling malicious thoughts of the guards as they returned. That night, they make their escape. Same as before, Scarlet raids the cave and captures the dragonets. Dune is killed, Webs escapes, and Hvitur and Kestrel are made prisoners
* In the arena, some of Morrowseer's underlings kill off the prisoners that would have killed the dragonets. He's perfectly fine, however, with them being captured.
* First book plays out similarly to how it did before, with the major change being the Talons of Peace are informed about the dragonet's capture, and they run in to save the dragonets. In those moments of chaos, many prisoners are freed, Glory shoots her venom at Scarlet to stop her from killing Starflight in the fray. The palace is in chaos but the dragonets escape. Many dragons loose their lives in the fray, ranging from prisoners to Hvitur to skywings. Stonemover sees Sunny in the fray, but is too caught up in the fight to follow her. 
* Kestrel lives because Blister absolutely will not leave the palace. Kestrel is also disfigured further in the fight, and Blister's guards can no longer recognize her and kill her themselves. Morrowseer meets with Kestrel alone instead, Kestrel commenting how they cannot find the dragonets yet, but think they're headed for the Seawing kingdom. Morrowseer tells her not to worry, that this is going exactly as planned. 
Book II
* Book II plays out almost near identically to how it went in the original series, same with Anemone, the murders, everyone. The differences are small, mostly with a couple nightwings wandering around the palace. 
* The differences start with Blister. See Blister decides to arrive all the way to the Seawing Palace, just to meet the dragonets. Given the urgency of 
** A: Not knowing that the Nightwings, in fact, don't favor her and actually does think it's a free for all
** B: Having a very limited amount of time to actually spend with the dragonets
* So instead of being her usual self, Blister tries to be manipulative, appealing to their emotions, convincing the dragonets to come back to the sandwing palace
* But while the dragonets prepare to leave for the palace, the skywings attack. In the chaos, instead of killing Webs, remember the rainwings I mentioned Morrowseer kidnapped? Yea here they come into play. Two were stolen, and one of them, with a nightwing assistant, blended into the palace. In the chaos, the rainwing tried to kill Blister, posing as a seawing. In a critical error on the rainwing's end, however, they shoot venom at Blister, hitting her chest and an open wound on her arm, forcing her to cut her own arm off, realizing quickly it could kill her. Blister realized that the dragon who attacked her was not a seawing, but is not fully sure of what tribe it was. She gets hurried back to the palace to treat her wounds. She doesn't cut ties with the seawings for now, but the seawings cut ties with her, temporarily. 
* The dragonets temporarily decided that going back to the palace would not be a great idea, as Glory expresses interest in finding her parents.
* The nightwing and rainwing flee the castle, and the nightwing kills the rainwing for failing to kill Blister and foolishly using their venom. The nightwing reports back to Morrowseer, who becomes frustrated that killing Blister will be even more difficult. 
Book III
* Webs tags along with the other dragonets, acting a bit floppy about what happened back at the palace. He'll eventually leave and go elsewhere, but for now, he just hangs around. 
* When the dragonets are captured and brought into the kingdom, Glory is initially delighted to find that the kingdom is a beautiful, enchanted wonderland, but disappointed that yes, they are still lazy and uninformed about the war
* However, none of them know about stolen eggs, and there aren't any missing dragons. She just isn't sure what to do. 
* What does happen, however, is that she gets captured by Blister, not on hostile terms, but simply to talk. Blister comments that she wants to talk to Glory specifically because she thinks Glory is special. Glory slowly catches on that Blister may have more malicious motives. Blister figures out that rainwings have venom and alludes to wanting Glory to become Queen. 
* Glory learns that Blister wants the rainwings on her side, but Glory doesn't want to act without the other dragonets, and doesn't exactly trust her. She wants to meet blaze first. Blister seems frustrated, but lets Glory go. 
* After returning, the dragonets do decide the best idea is to visit Blaze, temporarily leaving the kingdom. And yea, Blaze is pretty stupid. However, on their way back, they run into Deathbringer and a rainwing, camping out on the coast. Glory tries to disguise herself as a sandwing, but she's found out really quickly by the rainwing, and her friends have to jump in and save her. 
* And the dragonets get owned by the rainwing and Deathbringer, knocking them all out and capturing Glory and Starflight, taking them back to the nightwing kingdom
* In the nightwing kingdom, Glory and Starflight try to escape, Glory succeeding, but Starflight remaining trapped. Little to their knowledge, this is part of Morrowseer's plan. Morrowseer's seers foresaw Blister gaining an upper hand if she tries to control the rainwings. If Glory becomes Queen, she'll prevent that. 
* And that's what she tries to do. Worried about the possible threat of Blister trying to take over/use the rainwings to her advantage, Glory realizes that the current Queen doesn't care, and decided to challenge her for the throne.
* During the competition, Grandeur forfeits, revealing that Magnificent used magic to cheat the games. The rainwings collectively decide that Glory should be the Queen because of Magnificent's cheating. Glory becomes the new Queen. 
Book IV
* Oh shiet we in the Nightwing kingdom now bois
* So Starflight is initially kept in prison, kinda waiting for his punishment. 
I need to brainstorm hhhh
So basically Starflight gets freed, and has to test if he's the right dragonet
There were only two picked to be prophecy dragonets, but other thrice-moonborn hatchlings exist. they're mostly just like, pure chaotic neutral, most aren't very malicious or concerned about the war thru Morrowseer's efforts to not get the nightwings that involved. Starflight starts to question the motives of Morrowseer and the prophecy itself, given that he too, hatched on the brightest night, but he and Fatespeaker both don't have powers. 
Thru the efforts of other dragons, Starflight learns of a rebellion that exists between some council dragons. The old Queen Battlewinner is still alive, kept alive by a traitor in Morrowseer's seers. She's been slowly regaining her health and injuries, but still suffers from amnesia and can't remember most elements about her life, just some large general ones and some minute details about her life through things she sees. The rebellion is slowly planning to ambush Morrowseer and the other seers, overthrowing Greatness and restoring Battlewinner to the throne. 
Morrowseer keeps alluding to one of the two dragonets being picked soon, and disposing of the other. He even, for one night, has a four on one on one between the false dragonets, Starflight, and Fatespeaker. Starflight cowardly leaves Fatespeaker to be attacked and hides elsewhere. Fatespeaker survives, after being maimed by the other dragonets because they too, don't like her. The only reason she survives is because one of Morrowseer's seers calls off the fight, unable to watch the dragonet getting mauled. 
Morrowseer decides to have escorts take Flame to the current location of the dragonets, after Moon picks the location from Starflight's mind. Flame is irritable, but glad to not be in the nightwing kingdom. The dragonets reject him, because they have Glory and are wondering where Starflight is. They don't trust the nightwings because of what they did to Starflight. Glory want to go in and save him, but is more concerned about building up the rainwing's defenses before Blister attacks. Flame keeps trying to run away, only for the escorts to bring him right back. 
Starflight knows that Morrowseer is willing to attack at any moment, and tries to appeal to Mastermind, the rebellion leader, to attack early so he does die. Mastermind declines, however, saying his dragons are not ready to attack. He also tries to go to Glory, asking her to come save him, but she can't either. 
Realizing nobody will save him, he realizes he must save himself. He goes to one of the non-prophecy dragonets, asking them to help find some super secret documents. Basically, he's trying to find incriminating evidence against Morrowseer, hoping to find something that proves he's a horrible dragon, although he's not sure if such papers even exist. Even still, he has a backup plan. 
However, when he enters the castle, he's stopped by a dragon. Moon. Moonwatcher foresaw what he was going to do, and hid the documents ahead of time. However, she didn't realize that by accidentally saying that, she's revealed that such documents do exist, and that Moon knows where they are. Starflight, in a series of quick thoughts, attacks Moon, pinning her down and holding her captive. He holds her to the thrice-moonborn dragon, and asks them to read her mind and find the location of the documents. But try as they might, they can't break Moon's mind. Starflight, quickly getting frustrated and aggressive to his panik, decides that they might not need the documents after all. There's one dragon who would know what happened themselves. 
He, captive Moonwatcher, and the thrice-moonborn dragon, go and find Battlewinner, and convince her to get up and follow them. She does, heading for the large courtyard in front of the castle. Many dragons see this happen, and word starts to spread. Once they get to the center, Starflight waits, letting Battlewinner greet some of the other dragons, although he's waiting for a particular dragon. Starflight's mind is filled with guilt and fears about how badly this could go, acting very hostile and wonders if he could even harm a dragon, if it ever came to that. Moon capitalizes on his fears, trying to convince him that he couldn't do it, that he's going to fail, and he'll be responsible for the death of Battlewinner, the rebellion, and himself. She almost succeeds, too, making Starflight seriously second-guess his sudden actions. Battlewinner, however, comes to reassure him, stating that she could have never been able to make such a stand in her state without Starflight. He's reassured, and hold onto Moonwatcher tightly. 
Then Morrowseer arrives, surprised to see the scene. Battlewinner seems to somewhat recognize Morrowseer with a lot of hatred. Starflight holds his shaking talons up to Moon's neck and threatens Morrowseer to spill what he did, or he'll hurt Moonwatcher. Morrowseer is fearful at first, but quickly calms down and starts giving little, fine details and diversions from the topic. Starflight has to constantly get back to the point and becomes increasingly worried that Morrowseer is stalling for something. The other dragonet points out that some of Morrowseer's underlings are coming to attack. 
Starflight really starts to panik, hoping that he'd have convinced the crowd by then, but for now, they are mostly suspicious and not really convinced. But out of the blue, Mastermind and the rebellion arrive, capturing Morrowseer and some of the seers, dragging them all into the castle, along with Starflight and the others. The rebellion proclaims mutiny, and a battle breaks out in the castle between the guards and the rebellion. Many members of the guard start switching sides when they see Battlewinner. As the battle starts to close, Morrowseer tries to escape, but is captured by Mastermind, who poisons him and drags him out to the center of the courtyard, telling him to confess to the attack on Battlewinner and his scummery, and Mastermind will give him the antidote. Morrowseer refuses, and Mastermind lets him die in the middle of everyone. Greatness, Battlewinner, Starflight, Moonwatcher, and the crowd. Starflight comments on how they can't figure out anything now, but Mastermind states he doesn't even have an antidote, and that he could pry confessions just as easily from the other seers. The battle ends, and Battlewinner is placed back on the throne, along with the seer that was keeping her alive as a guide. Greatness and the other seers are imprisoned for treason. 
The other dragonets, asides from Glory, and Flame just noped out of there, arrive at the kingdom, where they rejoin with Starflight. There, they here the confessions of some of the prisoners, including how the prophecy is faked. Seer after seer admits that they were responsible for faking the prophecy to protect the nightwings, and that they had planned for the war to be ended by their talons. Sunny can't take this, and runs away, where she gets kidnapped, starting book V. 
Events might be re-arranged later. 
Book V
* Final book let's a gooo
* So Sunny gets kidnapped by some of Morrowseer's underlings
* Many of the dragons working under Morrowseer head to a secluded location somewhere, where Moon has taken over after escaping from the battle. Sunny can tell that she's upset and infuriated after the battle and Morrowseer's death
* A lot of the other underlings don't trust her because she's still a dragonet and younger than most of them
* The group is really quickly falling apart. They haven't heard back from Deathbringer and the other rainwing, so they don't know if they've succeeded. One split off end from the group, the ones that kidnapped Sunny, plan on taking her to Blister and gaining her trust before turning on her and killing her. Moonwatcher, however, wants to focus on taking the other dragons down before word gets out that the prophecy is not real. If it does get out, then Sunny will be useless. 
* Despite this, the kidnappers leave, taking Sunny with them. She escapes from them, and decides to follow them. Along the way to the sandwing palace, they're stopped by a strange dragon, asking them if they've seen the prophecy dragonet. Fierceteeth recognizes this dragon, and, with her friends, discusses taking him to Blister instead, stating that he's valuable and that he's just as good of a replace as Sunny was. She then lies to the dragon, saying they do know, and they were headed back. Sunny overhears parts of this conversation through the obsidian mirror, and is curious about this other dragon. 
* They skip over the outclaws and head straight to the palace. After getting in, Fierceteeth pins the dragon and announces to Blister that this dragon is an animus, and that he'll help them win the war. The dragon, surprised, doesn't fight back, just seems concerned. Blister is curious about this dragon, and asks him to enchant something to prove his animus. Upon denying having magic and refusing to show it, and when Fierceteeth starts a ruckus, Blister has them all imprisoned. 
* Sunny pities the other dragon, and feels bad about him being imprisoned. She doesn't trust Blister, especially after Glory returned and stated what happened and what Blister might do. Instead of returning home, however, she temporarily stops at the Scorpion den to rest. 
* In the den, Sunny gets suspicious looks and brought before Thorn, who discovers that Sunny is her daughter and they have a happy rejoicing. 
* Sunny learns of her father and thinks about the dragon she saw
Category:Work in Progress
Category:Alternate Universes