The MudWing Powers Prologue

==Summary==
When Darkstalker walked the earth, the MudWings were once capable of beatufiul powers that shaped the way they lived in the swamp. But tragically, the animus mind reader took these powers just before he was trapped below the surface of Pyrrhia. For centuries, the MudWings lived with no knowledge of their hidden powers, buried beneath enchantments. 
But on a breeding night, of all places, these once-famed abilites resurface in three young MudWings, who are the first in generations to hold as much power as they do. 
==Prologue==
Fen could see the corners of the room, just barely, through the hazel green eyes on top of his head. The NightWings padded around the chamber, speaking to each other in hushed whispers about the prince imprisoned in the tiny hole carved into the stone ground and blocked with a metal mesh plate. Fen gave one final whack at it with his tail, but it didn’t budge. Too bad he had snarkily thought Well, if I get captured, I’ll break free through prison bars. I’m a strong MudWing when he was being captured and the black dragons had probably read his mind meaning they found this sunken-in prison just for him. 
“How ya feeling?” asked one of the NightWings with unusual cheerfulness. He was a young male with dark scales with just hints of magenta highlights glistening along his back. The silver under scales on his wings splashed out from the center like a nebula in the sky. 
“You know Queen Morass will come and get me,” he growled through the slates in the stone plate. 
“That’s a good thing, right?” responded the dark magenta NightWing, smirking at the prince. 
“Good thing we got Morass’ brother, huh? Rather than her mate. Do MudWings even have mates?” The second dragon cast a glance at Fen, a smirk on her dark grey face. “She’ll definitely come for him.”
“If you are going to try and kill Mo--” Fen started with a strong fierceness in his voice, but he was cut off. 
“Relax, relax. We don’t want her dead. We just want to make a deal with her. Sorry, but this is the only way we can actually do that,” interrupted Mister Magenta.  
“So you’re holding the prince hostage?” barked Fen. “The NightWings will pay when my sister comes!”
“Don’t know about that,” muttered a third Nightwing who hadn’t spoken before. He was seemingly older and his voice sinister. Fen craned his thick neck to see him, but couldn’t. He heaved out a sigh and collapsed on the stone floor of his little prison-ditch. He would protect his sister. He would do whatever it took to save her, even as the hostage. 
     It wasn’t until several hours later that help finally arrived. Queen Morass burst into the prison, knocking down the wooden door from the outside. Prince Fen jumped up excitedly, watching as she seized the male and female NightWings in her wide talons, hissing at them. “You will not hurt the prince!” she growled. 
“We wouldn’t! We promise we won’t!” cried the dark grey female. 
“We have to speak with you,” hissed the magenta male. “But you refused last time, leaving us with no choice.” He gestured with his tail to Fen, who was anxiously crouched on the bottom of the prison. 
“I will not speak until you free my brother,” Morass said, her voice cold. She relaxed her grip on the female, who scurried over to the roof of the prison, reaching for some kind of tool. Her talons shaking, she used a stick with prongs on the end to pry the top of the cave loose until it slid off, leaving Fen in the open. But the third NightWing still remained in the shadowy corners. Fen tentatively jumped out of the cave with one bat of his scaly wings so he was on level with the other dragons. A guard of Morass ushered him into the small group flanking the huge queen. 
“Satisfied, your majesty?” asked the male, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. 
“Very. Now what was thing topic so dire to you scrawny NightWings?” replied Morass, returning the lack of seriousness. 
“To put it simply, you mud dragons are a threat,” answered the female. “Cosmosgazer, how about you take it away?” She gestured towards the pinkish black male. Fen snorted. Cosmosgazer? That was a new name. And now the MudWings were a threat to them? “Figures, what with their silly schemes,” the prince muttered to himself. Another one of the guards clamped her wide jaws in a way that seemed to be hiding a chuckle. “And what is this threat to you poor little guys?” she taunted. 
“Power,” said the NightWing in the corner. At first Fen cast an amused glance at the MudWing next to him, but when he looked over at the cold grey eyes of the shadowy dragon, something shivery creeped along his back. “Your power is holding the NightWings from greatness.” 
“And who might you be?” Morass asked warily. 
“Want to find out?” growled the hidden dragon. For the first time Fen noticed the other two black dragons had taken a step away from the corner where the third captivator lurked, something like caution in their dark eyes. 
“I am a queen. You will not inflict harm in me or my tribe without consequences.” Even so, Morass did not take a step closer. 
          “Right then,” replied the NightWing. He took a step into the dim torchlight, letting reflections flicker off of his purple-black scales. “You have threatened an animus dragon. Satisfied, your majesty?” He imitated the previous NightWing’s sarcastic tone, seemingly giving up the ominous and mysterious nature from before. “My name is Darkstalker. Welcome, MudWing queen.” 
For a second, there was complete silence from both parties. Darkstalker drew closer to the MudWings with his wings fanned out, scanning the brown and green dragons. 
“Darkstalker,” growled Morass. “We’ve heard about your powers. Prophecy, mind reading, and animus, huh?” She smirked. “Go on then, read my mind.” 
“I would be honored. You know what a rare opportunity this is.” The black dragon closed his eyes and grimaced, as though he was intently searching. Fen could only watch the NightWing pry through the kind of his defiant queen. “Ah, let's see,” Darkstalker said. “You are thankful your brother is back safely but you hope nobody knows how much you care about him. You’re also fighting back the urge to smack these other two NightWings with your tail. Cosmosgazer and Victoryclaws here are scared about what will happen to them. Yes, Duckweed, I know you didn't ask for their minds. It's not really something I can help. Apologies. Now, back to Morass---”
“Stop, stop!” the queen cried, clutching her talons to her head. “Okay, we get it. I believe you. Can we be done here?” 
“Why, we haven't even made our deal here!” Darkstalker cried, clasping his talons together in excitement. His voice suddenly became somber as he lowered his eyes. “Are you familiar, with what the NightWings want? Or rather, need?” 
Morass snorted. “Food, water, and other dragons. Nothing more.”
Darkstalker grinned. “Charming, this one. See, I have been told by the highest ranking NightWings, nothing below head of the Guard, that what the queen really wants is power. Power over her tribe, yes, but power over the other tribes.” He stopped pacing and stared directly at not just Morass, but all of the guards and Fen. “We can use the other tribes. SkyWing fighters, SeaWing hunters, IceWing guards, RainWing weaponry, and SandWing scouts, but MudWings….” Darkstalker paused, and for a moment no dragon in the room spoke. Morass looked plain horrified. “You--you want to use each of the tribes for the NightWing’s benefit? Forcing them to do things for you you couldn’t?” The hardened queen was lost for words. 
“This does not concern MudWings,” Victoryclaws replied coldly. “For the MudWings powers of healing and hunting are exclusive to them and wouldn’t benefit us.” 
“In short, your tribe is not a help, but a threat to the absolute power our superior tribe will reach one day. Mud dragons are the one thing standing in the way of a peaceful NightWing domination.” 
This was it. Queen Morass flung herself forward and tried to shove the tall dragon, but before her claws reached him, Darkstalker stepped with an elegant grace to the side. Morass roared in fury, falling to the ground with a painful crash. Darkstalker tapped the side of his head. “Future seeing, remember?” 
Steam was practically pouring out of the queen’s ears, but Darkstalker refused to be swayed. Apparently he didn’t see a future where he was harmed. “The plan is to cast a minor spell on the MudWings to simply cleanly remove these powers without a struggle or fight or memory in any dragon alive.” He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged, like it was no big deal. Morass, still rubbing bruises, wasn’t responding. 
Fen decided to speak. “And what makes you think we will oblige? We could leave this room right now and never have to see your ugly mug again.”
“Well, yes, theoretically,” Darkstalker replied. “But animus dragons are powerful. If we can take Prince Fen, the queen’s favorite brother, and get him into a secure prison, imagine what we can do to the citizens of the Mud Kingdom.” His eyes glazed over, and Fen could guess he was having a vision of a future where NightWings massacred the MudWings. He desperately tried to stay focused, but from the way Darkstalker was twitching, he could tell it was not a pleasant future. 
“And what would we have to do to stop your tribe from snapping the necks of every MudWing alive right now?” Morass growled, her voice wavering. 
“Now that. See, you would have to let me cast a spell that takes away from your unique gifts and returns them to the rightful owners. You would return safely with no memory of your encounter here and never use the powers again.”
Morass gasped. “That’s not a deal! That is a scheme!” She curled her lip, revealing her teeth. “We will not surrender!”
“NightWings are the rightful owners of this power. If we can destroy the abilities of an entire tribe, then I believe our plans for a NightWing-ruled world are justified.” Cosmosgazer flapped his wings elegantly. 
“Our gifts, as you call them, were not Animus given. You cannot take them like you took the power from the IceWings.” Morass rose to her full height. “Our powers were shaped from years of brilliant evolution, not force, not greed.”
Darkstalker cracked his neck. “Evolution or whatever will not save your tribe. NightWing domination is inevitable, I see it in almost every future.” He examined his claws. “Almost. Something in every future, now, is no power in the MudWings.”
He took a deep breath, and suddenly Cosmosgazer and Victoryclaws were flanking Morass and her guard. Darkstalker began his enchantment, with no stopping from the queen or anyone. He seemed to have cast a silent spell to make the MudWings silent “Make it so, that when I say the word ‘Enchant,’ the MudWings will lose all abilities of healing, Mud Walking, Earthscales, Mud producing, and any other Mudwing specific power. After this enchantment is completed, Morass and every other MudWing in this room will wake up in the Mud Palace in their respective bedrooms, with no memory of what has happened and without their powers. Every other MudWing on Pyrrhia will lose these powers without memory of ever having them, whenever in the presence of, er, swamp mud.
“All other dragons, excluding me, will not remember that these powers existed and any scrolls mentioning them will be obliterated from real life and from any dragon’s mind. The MudWing powers will vanish without a trace.” Darkstalker cast a half-smile at Morass before, whispering, letting the word settle on his tongue, “Enchant.” 
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