Chapter Text
Me and my mom were flying to J.M.A. When we saw the mountain it was breathtaking, I knew it was the tallest mountain but it towered over the surrounding landscape.
“Are you sure about this?” my mom asked.
“Of course I am. Are you?”
“No, it feels like I just got you back and now you're going away again.”
“I promise I’ll write.”
“I know you will but I’m worried that something will happen and I won’t be there to help you.”
“Mom, I survived 3 years with him. I can handle myself, plus I have my powers.”
“Speaking of them, don’t tell anyone about them”
“I know, telling someone you can read minds after it went public they we didn’t have those isn’t the best idea”
“ Yes, but also dragons won’t trust you, you’d be an outcast. And the whole reason you're doing this is to make friends.”
And future allies. I added silently “ I know mom you don’t have to worry about that, I know how to keep a secret.” I said as we landed, there were other parents and dragonets there too. Immediately I saw a Seawing, Tsunami. She was currently thinking about when her mother and sisters would be arriving.
There was also a female Skywing and a male Mudwing, the Skywing was actually quite displeased with being here, something about being a soldier and not supposed to make friends. The Mudwing on the other hand was stereotypical thinking about what was for lunch.
“Okay, write to me, stay safe, and make some friends.” she said hugging me, I hugged back and said
“I will, I love you, mom.”
“I love you too Moonbug” she said, kissing the top of my head, then pulling away from the hug.
“Bye, mom” I said walking away.
“Bye, moonbug” she said, taking off, shortly after she thought. “And no dating!”
I rolled my eyes, that wasn’t even something I was thinking of doing, I was more focused on enjoying the rest of my childhood, and if the opportunity presented itself, getting closer to achieving my plan, drakes would just complicate that.
As I walked to the entrance, four Seawings landed. Queen Coral, Princess Anemone and Princess Auklet, as well as another male seawing about my age. I assumed he was one of Coral’s 32 sons from his wing markings, making him a prince, there was nothing particularly of note about him, except I couldn’t read his mind.
That’s new, I’ll have to figure out how he’s doing it. He’s nervous, I can tell from his face, so he is clearly blocking my powers. If I can’t figure out how he’s doing it I have to at the very least get him on my side.
“You came!” Tsunami said coming over and hugging Anemone as Auklet tried to join in, but her harness stopped her.
“I’m really not sure about this.” Coral said.
“It’ll be great” Tsunami promised “I’ll take care of Anemone, I promise.”
Plus I have my magic. I heard Anemone think.
Magic? Wait, does she mean Aniums magic? Like that Stonemover dragon I read about? Huh, if that’s the case I definitely want her on my side.
“Me too, me too.” Auklet yelled “I want to go to school too.” She pounced on her harness.
“You're much too young,” Coral said sternly, pulling Akulet up right. “I can’t risk anything happening to you, especially with Anemone this far away”
“Maybe next year Akulet” Tsunami said, causing Auklet to beam hopefully. Coral frowned at Tsunami.
“And I’m only letting this happen because Anemone has been badgering me about it everyday since she got your message about the school. But you can come home anytime, you understand? If you feel threatened, or lonely or overworked, or tired-”
“I’ll be fine,” Anemone assured her.
Damn, and I thought my mom was overprotective.
“Who’s this?” Tsunami asked, referring to the male seawing.
“This is one of your brothers” Coral said “He heard about this and really wanted to come, too. Which one are you again”
“Turtle,” he said, smiling at Tsunami.
“One of my brothers?” Tsunami echoed. “I didn’t realize- I mean, I guess I knew the male eggs were surviving every time your female eggs were destroyed by the Orca statue- but I didn’t even think about having brothers.”
“There are about thirty of us.” Turtle shrugged.
“THIRTY?” Tsunami shouted. “I have THIRTY BROTHERS?”
“Well, thirty-two,” he said.
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Tsunami demanded, wiping towards her mother.
“Who cares about them?” Coral asked, “They can’t inherit the throne.”
What the- who just says that about their dragonet? Right in front of them! Not even Morrosear went that low! When I rule Pyrrhia she is definitely going to pay for that, maybe jail, maybe let her sons get revenge, I’ll figure it out by then. When I finished scheming, I noticed that all the Seawings were gone. I should probably head inside now.
As I entered the cave a voice loudly greeted me.
“Hello!” said someone I couldn’t see as my eyes were still adjusting.
“Welcome to the Great Hall of Jade Mountain! Let me guess, your Moonwatcher, aren’t you? I’m tremendously good at guessing. In fact, one might say I’m mysteriously good at it.” The dragon, who turned out to be a Nightwing, said before lowering her voice. “Almost as though I’m…reading your mind, eh?
If there was a Nightwing so open with their powers the rest of the tribe would have been using you. I thought, rolling my eyes.
“Just kidding, MAAAAYBE. I’m Fatespeaker. I’m not like the other teachers. I’m just helping whoever I can. Here’s your welcome scroll and your map.” she said, thrusting to scrolls into my talons. “Hey, look, you have silver scales next to your eyes just like I do! Yours are bigger and sparklier, though. It is Moonwatcher, right?”
“Yeah, just Moon.” I said before looking around the Great Hall. There was a giant banner with the words “Welcome Students.” And two cave tunnels on each side of the cave. And it was full of dragons. It gave me a small headache, I still wasn’t used to hearing this many dragons thought’s.
“Moon, Moon, Moon.” Fatespeaker said, talon running down a scroll. “Ah, here you are. Second tunnel on the left, fifth cave on the right. You’re going to love your clawmates.”
“Clawmates? What are those?”
“Those are the dragons you’re sharing a cave with.”
We’re sharing caves? Really hope I do love my clawmates than.
“Oh, here come some Icewings, want to stay and meet them?”
“Yeah, no.” I say leaving. Does she not know about our tribe's rivalry with them? And I prefer not to get into a fight today. But speaking of meeting dragons, I need to find Princess Anemone.
I went to my cave. On the left there was a scroll shelf. I put my two scrolls there. There was a stone ledge, a hammock and a pile of leaves in the cave too. Are those supposed where we sleep? Huh, they have a pile of leaves, like the one I slept in back in the rainforest, weird.
I walked out of our cave and spotted Anemone. Well that's convenient. I walked over to her and tapped her shoulder.
“Hey ar-”
“What do you want?” she interrupted.
“I just wanted to ask if you were Anemone?”
“It’s Princess Anemone. And I don’t have time for you, Nightwing.” she said, walking away, subsequently bumping into the Skywing I saw at the landing.
“Watch where you're going!” Anemone yelled.
“You’re the one who ran into me!” The Skywing responded.
“You should have seen me and gotten out of my way.”
“And why should I do that, brat.” the Skywing said, snarling.
“Hey! You can’t talk to the Princess like that!” A male Seawing, about the same size as Anemone, said, stepping in between them.
“I very much can, and it’s true.” She retorted, causing the Seawing to leap at her. The Skywing rolled to the side before slashing her claws on his back. As they continued fighting dragons formed a circle around them, I was one of them. It was a little overwhelming but I didn’t want to miss this, the fight was fairly even but the Skywing seemed to be winning.
Aha there you are. A voice boomed in my head.
What the fu-
Language.
Who the hell are you!
Who are you?
None of your damn business. He paused for a moment before responding.
Hello Moonwatcher.
Another telepath?
It’s almost as if you’ve had no training at all. How old are you?
95, 76, 12.
Four already and that’s all you can do.
Shit. Who are you and how are you doing that!
You really have no idea, hmmmmmmm. Fascinating. Let me think about that. I waited for the voice to return but it never did.
Hello? Are you still there? No reply. What just happened? Did I imagange it? Maybe I imagined it. Or maybe all the noise and the headache confused me. Or I’m finally going insane. But what if it was real. Maybe they could help me control my powers and/or help me with my plan.
“Hey now,hey there. Stop, stop, stop” A real voice said.
Clay! Multiple voices thought. It’s him, it’s really him. Oooo, he’s even cuter in real life. Oooo, look at his heroic limp. Oooo, I think he looked at me.
Clay was holding the two dragons apart. “It’s only the first day folks” he said gently “Nothing to be so grumpy about. You're probably both just hungry. Carnelian, take a deep breath and see me later, Pike, walk with me.” He spread his wing over the Seawing and guided him down the hallway. Carnelian growled to herself and to my surprise walked into the cave I was staying in.
Well, might as well make a good impression. I walked into the cave and found her lying on the stone ledge.
“You’er Carnelian, right?”
“What do you want?” Great, I have a Nightwing as a clawmate.
“No need to be so grumpy. Is it about that fight?”
“None of your business.”
“You were in the right, you know.”
“What?”
“Anemone’s a brat, and judging from how her mother is a queen, a spoiled one. Someone has to put her in her place.”
“Thanks, I guess.” I shouldn’t be here, I should be fighting, I’m a soldier, not a student.
A soldier, good to know.
“Were you a soldier in the war? Because you put up a pretty good fight.”
“Uh, yeah, I actually was.”
“Really? What battles did you fight in.”
“Oh! I was at The Battle of Lake Emerald, The Siege of Scarletgrad, The Defence of- wait, no, she’s probably just trying to get information out of me! Quick switch the subject. Um, anyway, um, what was your, uh, childhood like.”
I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. Suspicious of enemy threats like the war never ended.
“Well if you want to know, the first 6 months of my life I grew up in the rainforest, than the Nightwings found me and I spent the rest of my life at the volcano, and it was awful, it was just a generally bad place to live, the rest of my tribe hated me because I lived in the rainforest for a bit, and with the fact I was Morrowsears daughter meant I had high expectations on me, an-”
“Wait! You're Morrowsears daughter!”
“Yeah, yeah, I hate him just as much as the rest of the continent. He was a horrible father, I think I cheered when I heard he died.”
“Oh.” Carnelian said, shocked.
“Yeah, it wasn’t fun, but I did meet Jou so it wasn’t all bad.”
“What kind of name is Jou?”
“Oh it’s-”
“MOONIE!” I was interrupted by a blur of pink as I was tackled to the ground.
“Uff, hey Jou.”
“Is this your sleeping cave too!”
“Yeah, why else would I be in here?”
“I’m so relieved, when I first saw a Nightwing in her I thought that I’d be staying with one of the other ones and I had a bit of a panic attack but then I saw it was you and I calmed down!”
“Oh great, she’s loud, and gets scared easily, great.”
“Hey! The Nightwings tortured and experimented on her! She had every reason to be scared of them!” I snapped back.
An image of Skywings being tortured and then one of Carnelian being tortured by a Sandwing flashed in her head.
“Oh…sorry” she said empathetically.
I…didn’t expect that, she’s been through a lot more than I thought. Well she did say she was at Scarletgrad.
“Did something happen?” I asked
“No” she lied. “And even if something did it’s none of your business.”
“Hey, Jou, why don’t head to the library since you were so excited to learn how to read, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll see you there!” she said sprinting out of the room. I turned to Carnelian who was lying on her bed, facing away from me.
“So, Carni, I-”
“My name is Carnelian.”
“Carnelian, I know that something happened. Your mood changed way too quickly. If you don’t want to talk about it then I won’t push, but if you ever do, I’m open.” I waited for a response but I never got one, so I left the cave. I saw Kinkajou outside listening in. I motioned her to follow me and we both headed to the library. Once we were out of earshot of the cave I started speaking to her.
“I thought you were heading to the library.”
“I’m not dumb, I knew what you were doing and I wanted to know what was up with her.”
“I don’t think you're dumb, just a little naive.”
“I’m not naive! Just optimistic.”
“Those two things are not mutually exclusive.” I teased as we entered the library.