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Wings of Fire: Revenant
The Final Chapter
Part 2 of 3
Part One http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24681726/ - Part Three http://www.furaffinity.net/view/29144126/
“Make your choice, Turtle. Does she live, or does she die?”
Turtle was trembling so violently now that Peacemaker wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole mountain began to shake along with him. His gold-flecked eyes darted frantically left and right as he tried to meet Kinkajou’s gaze behind the veil of Peacemaker’s upraised wings.
Peacemaker felt the chain wound around his wrist jerk violently, and the young hybrid turned to find Kinkajou frantically shaking her head, pleading with Turtle to say no, to let her die if it meant Darkstalker could not return. Respect welled suddenly and unwelcomingly in Peacemaker’s already overcrowded head, but he quickly squashed it, concentrating instead on the steady tempo of rage which had fueled him so far.
“I’m not going to sit here all night, Turtle!” he snapped. He was fairly confident in Turtle’s lack of brainpower, but he didn’t want to risk allowing the Seawing time to figure out one of the numerous ways he could get around this plan.
“I…I don’t…I…”
“Peacemaker!” a voice suddenly cried through the cacophony of distant thunder.
Peacemaker whirled in the direction of the sound, his heart beating a furious rhythm in his chest. It couldn’t be! How could she know he was here?
A midnight-black form suddenly emerged from the gloom, eyes burning like emerald flames.
“Mother?! Wh…what are you doing here?!”
“I’ve come to bring you home,” Hope replied as she lighted down neatly on the cliff next to Turtle.
Foeslayer! he silently corrected himself. There is no Hope! It was a lie, like everything else in my life!
Peacemaker gritted his teeth. “I am going home, Mother. My real home…in the Night Kingdom.”
“Peacemaker, stop this foolishness! The Night Kingdom is practically destroyed. There’s nothing for you to go back to.”
“There will be when I get my powers back! I’ll return our kingdom to its original glory, and our tribe won’t have to grovel to Rainwings ever again.”
Foeslayer didn’t seem particularly swayed by this declaration, as if somehow she had already known what his plan was.
“We don’t grovel to anyone, and you know that. Don’t tell me getting back the memories of your first life has suddenly made you forget your second one.”
“How did you know I’d gotten my memory back? You don’t seem terribly surprised by any of this. It’s almost like someone…told you.”
Foeslayer narrowed her eyes, but didn’t reply.
“You’re not alone…are you?”
Suddenly, a second form, smaller than the first, materialized from the darkness. The silver scales on either side of her eyes flashed like teardrops as she lighted down on the cliff beside him.
“Moon,” he hissed, “I should have known.” Silently he cursed himself for not anticipating this.
“Peacemaker…” she started.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped. “You know as well as I do that, that dragon doesn’t exist!”
Rage burned in his chest like a boiling pot threatening to spill over. More than Foeslayer, more than Turtle, more than even Kinkajou, this was the dragon whose betrayal he felt the most. Kinkajou may have masterminded his enchantment, but he had barely even known her at the time. She was nothing to him, so why should she think twice about ripping away his powers? But Moon had been his friend, the only real friend he had, had after emerging from the mountain. He had spared her from his enchantments because he had trusted her, and look where that trust had gotten him.
She stared back at him for a moment, as if at a loss for words. Unlike Foeslayer, who looked equal parts angry, frustrated, afraid, and distressed, Moon simply looked sad. Maybe in her visions she had seen what he had seen, felt what he had felt. Maybe she knew how much he hated her now.
“I’m sorry, Peac…I’m sorry. I never wanted you to find out like this.”
“You never wanted me to find out at all!” he snapped.
“We gave you the chance to choose for yourself, and you refused. It was the only way to keep Pyrrhia safe from you.” She sighed heavily. “Because you couldn’t be trusted, Darkstalker.”
“I couldn’t be trusted?! I was always truthful with you, Moon! You above everyone else.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” she replied calmly. “You deceived me as much as you deceived everyone else. Maybe even more so.”
“You have no right to preach to me about deception, Moonwatcher! Before me you were nothing! A miserable, pitiful little dragon afraid of her own shadow that was convinced her visions were nothing but bad dreams. I taught you how to use your powers, and what did you do? You used them against me! ‘He was picking strawberries’, right? A great, happy new life for everyone. Well, your vision was a lie! Did you see this in my great new future?” he demanded, spreading his wings to indicate the scene around them.
Moon hung her head. “No, I didn’t. But I do see what happens if you get your powers back.”
Peacemaker lowered his head so he could look her in the eye, and hissed, “So enlighten me.”
She looked back at him. “The same thing that was going to happen before Clearsight put you under the mountain. You’ll destroy Pyrrhia, Darkstalker.”
“That’s not the future I saw.”
“That’s not the future you wanted to see. But it’s the one Clearsight saw.”
He gritted his teeth. “Clearsight betrayed me.”
“Only because you left her no other choice. After what you did to your father, there was no going back.”
“My father deserved it!”
“No one deserves to die like that.” The icy calm in her voice was infuriating. It made him want to reach out and claw that self righteous look right off of her face.
“You don’t know what he was like!” Peacemaker snapped.
She glanced up at him, anger showing for the first time beneath the blanket of eerie calm. “From the sound of it, he was a lot like you.”
Rage shot through him like a wave of flame, spreading all the way to the tips of his talons. “Shut up!”
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but Arctic was a dragon just like you. He made mistakes. He let his power corrupt him.”
“He wanted to destroy our tribe!”
“The only one trying to destroy our tribe is you!” Moon replied sharply.
“I said shut up!” he snapped, and before he realized what he was doing, a blast of flame shot from his jaws and barreled furiously in Moon’s direction. She reeled backwards just as the flame made contact with her right wing, teetering for a brief moment before she toppled over the edge of the cliff. Peacemaker watched in horror as she began to fall, the burn spreading, blackening and shriveling the wing membrane like it was made of paper.
“Moon!” he gasped, making a move to catch her, but not fast enough.
For a brief, terrifying moment Moon disappeared from sight over the side of the cliff, her cry of distress swallowed up by the distant thunder. Kinkajou was pulling desperately at her chains, a horrified scream streaming wordlessly from her clenched jaws.
Three moons, what have I done?!
Then, before Peacemaker had a chance to realize what was happening, Foeslayer was in the air. She dove with the speed and precision of a hunting falcon, and emerged, struggling under the weight of the younger dragon slung across her back. She deposited Moon gently on the cliff beside Turtle, who was staring at the two of them in frozen, silent horror.
At first Moon was completely still, her blackened wing flopping uselessly at her side, her eyes closed and her head resting against the stone cliff. For one horrible moment Peacemaker was sure she must be dead, until suddenly her injured wing twitched, and a long, soft groan of pain escaped her.
“Are you all right, Moon?” Foeslayer demanded.
Moon raised her head, her eyes glazed with pain. “I…I think so….”
She looked up and outwards, her eyes meeting Peacemaker’s with a look that should have been angry or frustrated or confused…a look that should not have been as hopelessly heartbroken as it was.
Peacemaker could feel tears stinging his eyes. “I…I didn’t mean…I didn’t want to…”
The anger inside him was now warring with equal parts guilt and sadness, but still he attempted to hold onto it. She had betrayed him! She deserved it!
“Enough of this!” he snapped, taking the chain in his talons and tossing Kinkajou over the side of the cliff. For a brief moment she fell down, down towards the black abyss below, only to hit the end of the chain and dangle precariously by the lengths of metal attached to her feet, wings, neck, and mouth. All three of the onlookers gasped in unison as their friend hung there, strung up by her feet like nothing more than a roasting pig.
Peacemaker raised the end of the chain he was holding so all three of them could see it clearly. “Now change me back, or I drop her!”
“All right, I’ll do it!” Turtle suddenly burst out.
“Turtle, no!” Moon cried, grimacing as she attempted to stand, only to be hindered by her injured wing. “Kinkajou wouldn’t want that.”
The frantic shaking of Kinkajou’s head seemed to indicate that Moon was right, but Turtle didn’t seem swayed by this.
“It won’t matter what she does or doesn’t want if she’s dead!”
“If Darkstalker comes back, then she’s already dead!” Foeslayer cried.
A prick of sadness struck right in the center of Peacemaker’s heart. His own mother thought he was nothing but a monster.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let her die,” Turtle cried, tears streaming from his eyes. “I love her.”
He took a deep breath. “I enchant…”
“Wait! Stop!” a new voice suddenly rang out, more powerful even than the sound of the storm.
Peacemaker looked up just in time to see a form illuminated by the lightning dancing between the billowing clouds.
“Seeker?”
Clearsight.
“Truthseeker, what are you doing here?” Foeslayer demanded. “I told you to stay back at Jade Mountain!”
“I’m sorry, Hope, but I have to be here. I…I have to talk to him…because I’m the only one who can. There’s…there’s something you don’t know about me.”
The young Nightwing flew across to Peacemaker, as if she intended to light down next to him, then at the last minute seemed to think better of it and instead decided to stay airborne.
“Have you come to appeal to my better nature too, then?” Peacemaker asked.
“I just want to talk,” she replied, her wings flapping heavily as she hovered in the air before him.
“I’ve had enough talk,” he said, “either I get my powers back or this dragon dies.” He held up the chain briefly before winding it around a nearby spire of rock to take the crushing weight off his wrist.
“I don’t think you want to kill anyone, Peacemaker.”
“Is that right?” he replied skeptically.
“No, because I think you’re a good dragon. I think you’ve always been a good dragon.”
This reply managed to give him pause, and he found himself looking at her more intently than he had been before.
“But sometimes…sometimes when a dragon is angry or scared or feels helpless, sometimes they…they do bad things. They do bad things and they think it’s okay because other dragons have done the same things to them. I think everyone’s felt that way before, but most of us don’t have the power to act on it. If we did then…I think it would be a lot easier for a good dragon to do a lot of bad things.”
Peacemaker narrowed his eyes. “How can you claim to know what kind of dragon I am? Maybe you’d feel differently if you really knew all the things I’ve done.”
“But I do know. I don’t know how, but when you go your memories back, so did I. Suddenly I remembered when you were Darkstalker…and I was Clearsight.”
Foeslayer and Moon both looked surprised by her sudden confession, but not particularly astonished by the revelation that the young blacksmith and the ancient seer were one and the same. Somehow Peacemaker was sure that they had known already, though he wasn’t sure exactly how.
“You were right about who you thought I was,” Truthseeker continued.
“But how is that possible? Did you put an enchantment on yourself with my old scroll?”
“No, it wasn’t anything like that. I lived and I died like any normal dragon, and then somehow I…I came back. I came back as a new dragon, only I didn’t remember who I used to be. Sometimes the memories would come to me as dreams, dreams of places I had never been and dragons I had never seen…and one dragon in particular, with eyes that looked like yours.”
Peacemaker stared fixedly at her, remembering his own dreams about a dragon he loved, a dragon that he had feared for so long did not exist.
“Now I think I finally understand why I came back,” she said.
“And why is that?”
“For you.”
Peacemaker narrowed his eyes. “To stop me.”
“To help you. To do what I couldn’t do before. To have a chance at those happy futures we missed out on all those years ago.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m trying to do! In all of my happiest futures I was king of the Nightwings, and you were my queen. We had our dragonets, remember? Eclipse and Shadowhunter? If you let me get my powers back, then we can finally have that. We can be together, Clearsight!”
Truthseeker sighed and shook her head. “You saw the futures where you were king as nothing but happiness and prosperity because that’s all you ever wanted to see. In my visions you were a tyrant, manipulating dragons’ minds, killing, trying to take over all of Pyrrhia…and you were never happy. Not once. We were never happy.”
Peacemaker growled. “Is that why you tricked me and stuck me under the ground for two thousand years? Why should I believe anything you say when the last time we met you took everything from me?”
“You think I wanted to do that?!” Her expression turned suddenly angry. “I suffered every day for the rest of my life because of that decision, but you left me no choice! You chose your future, and in that future there was no room for anyone else. Not me or any other dragon. So I did what I had to do to save the world from you, and I don’t regret that I did it.”
“Then why are you here in the first place?! If I’m just a selfish monster, why do you want to have anything to do with me?”
“Because never, not once in all the years I lived after I left you under that mountain, did I stop loving you. And I don’t think you’re a selfish monster. I think you made some pretty selfish, monstrous decisions, but I always knew that at your core was a good dragon, a dragon who was born with more power than anyone should have and didn’t know how to deal with it. But you also got something most dragons never get: a second chance. A chance to start again…to be a better dragon…and you have been, Peacemaker. You have been.”
Peacemaker had a million things to say, and yet he couldn’t think of any of them.
Truthseeker raised her left arm, and he saw that she had his beaded red and white necklace wrapped around her wrist. “Do you remember when I made this for you? Remember how excited you were?”
Peacemaker sighed. “Yes, I remember.”
“And do you remember when my father died? You were the only one I could count on. On those days when I was sure I didn’t want to live without him, I kept going because of you.”
Peacemaker’s shoulders threatened to buckle. “I…I didn’t know that.”
“I think there are a lot of things you don’t know. Did you know Auklet wanted to give up on weaving because she felt she wasn’t good enough? She only changed her mind because you told her how talented she was. Did you know Cliff thought the only reason anyone liked him was because he was a prince? And then he met you, and you never cared at all about his title. He told me that because of that, he felt you were the first real friend he’s ever had. Did you know Orchid still has flashbacks from her time in the Nightwing labs? And she feels like she can’t tell Mangrove, because he worries too much? But she said that on those days where it becomes so overwhelming she feels like she can’t go on, your silly little songs always cheer her up.”
“But I…I thought she hated my singing.”
“She only says that to wind you up, because she knows it’s more fun if you think she doesn’t want you to do it. She told me ‘Strawberries as Big as a Scavenger’s Head’ always makes her smile, even if it is a little morbid.”
A smile pulled at the corner’s of Peacemaker’s mouth. “I…I would always sing that one when we were picking the strawberries. I thought it drove her crazy.”
She paused. “You know, for a dragon that doesn’t exist…you sure do have a lot of happy memories.”
“But it was a lie! All of it was built on lies!”
“It wasn’t a lie. It was you. You without your powers. And that’s what I think you don’t want to believe. That the you that never had powers was a better dragon. A happier dragon.”
Peacemaker shook his head stubbornly, reaching back into his memories for something, anything that would indicate that she was wrong. Hadn’t he been happy in his other life? Hadn’t he done good things? He thought about his sister, Whiteout. They had been happy together, hadn’t they? Then he remembered the look of horror on her face when she had seen her father rip himself to pieces in front of her. Had she ever forgotten that, or had she carried that memory around for the rest of her life? Peacemaker grimaced. He had been so busy thinking about getting revenge on his father that he hadn’t stopped to think about how it would affect his sister.
What about Foeslayer? He thought of his dragonethood as Darkstalker, of the fighting and the yelling and the cold looks exchanged over silent dinners. Then he thought of being Peacemaker, of lazy days in the rainforest making mud pies so that Hope had to rinse him off in the stream, of eating bananas and listening to the tree frogs call as the moon rose high over the thick canopy. He could almost feel the warmth of her scales as he snuggled beneath her wing to sleep, comfortable in the knowledge that his mother could chase away any bad dreams that came in the night.
One by one he thought of his friends. He thought of Moon’s patience and Kinkajou’s enthusiasm, of Auklet’s kindness and Cliff’s boundless confidence. They had liked him when he had no spells to cast, no superpowers to give out, no positions of authority to promise them. They had wanted to be his friend simply because of the dragon he was, the utterly ordinary, unspectacular dragon with nothing special to offer them.
“But if I’m not king…if I have no powers…who am I? I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”
“You’re Peacemaker. That’s all you need to be.”
Peacemaker felt as if he were being ripped in two, his body tearing and cracking and breaking apart. If he was Peacemaker, he was nothing! An ordinary dragon with no special destiny. He couldn’t live like that. He couldn’t!
But if he was Darkstalker, then who what would he be? A king who everyone hated? A king whose own mother feared him? A king whose lifelong friend would willingly give her life to keep him from returning? A king who had to cast spells to make other dragons like him? Because now even Moon would never trust him again, and for the rest of one long, never-ending life he would know it was all fake. It was all a lie. Darkstalker was a dragon no one could love and no one could trust. Even surrounded by subjects and admirers and enchanted friends, he would be alone. He would be as alone as if he were still trapped under that mountain.
His legs finally gave out from under him, and he collapsed onto the cold stone. The sound of the thunder in his ears seemed as if it were coming from a million miles away. He felt the long-held tears finally fall from his eyes, and tasted their bitter, salty tang as they met his lips.
“What do I do?”
He didn’t realize that Truthseeker had lighted down next to him until he felt her tail fall comfortingly across his shoulders. He looked up to see her violet eyes looking softly down at him.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered.
He shook his head, the tears burning in his eyes, and the taste of smoke still in his mouth.
“I can’t. I can’t go back. Not after everything I’ve done.”
“Peacemaker…” Her expression was now twisted with worry, as if she feared all she had done had amounted to nothing.
Slowly, Peacemaker rose to his feet and unfastened the chain from the spire of rock where he had anchored it. For a moment he held the chain suspended in the air, aware of the weight of this last hope dangling over the abyss. In his talons he held to opportunity to get back everything he ever wanted, to be king of Pyrrhia, to live forever, to have powers no other dragon could dream of. It was all his for the taking.
So as a clap of thunder shook the stone beneath his feet, Peacemaker lighted into the air and dragged Kinkajou back onto the cliff. As she lay there, willing to blood to siphon back into her limbs, Peacemaker quietly landed and withdrew the key from where it was hidden.
Silently, he handed it to Truthseeker.
She smiled at him as if he’d somehow delivered her one of the moons and said it was all for her. “You’re a good dragon, Peacemaker.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
Her brows knit together into a look of concern.
“You’re a good dragon, Clearsight. I’m nothing. I’m no one. And now I’ve ruined everything.”
“Don’t say that. Look, let’s just go home, and we can forget about all this.”
He shook his head again. “I can’t. There’s nowhere for me to go.”
“Peacemaker…”
“Free Kinkajou. Help Turtle heal Moon. Keep them safe.” He took a few steps back. “I can’t stay here.”
“Peacemaker, wait…”
“I’m sorry.” And with that he lighted into the air and disappeared into the shadows of the storm.
So I finally made the next segment for my fan fiction, and it only took me two months. Yay me! :sarcasm: Sorry, it's just my fandom motivation is always either at 0 or 100. There is no in-between. The follow-up to this scene is here http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24542597/ but I haven’t made the written segment for that yet.
No critique desired. Please respect that.
Wings of Fire belongs to Tui T. Sutherland
The art and writing belongs to me, and you are not permitted to steal, trace, copy, reference, or otherwise redistribute it in any way. I also do not want to see this posted on RP sites, Facebook, YouTube, etc. without my permission. That's still art theft.
The Final Chapter
Part 2 of 3
Part One http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24681726/ - Part Three http://www.furaffinity.net/view/29144126/
“Make your choice, Turtle. Does she live, or does she die?”
Turtle was trembling so violently now that Peacemaker wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole mountain began to shake along with him. His gold-flecked eyes darted frantically left and right as he tried to meet Kinkajou’s gaze behind the veil of Peacemaker’s upraised wings.
Peacemaker felt the chain wound around his wrist jerk violently, and the young hybrid turned to find Kinkajou frantically shaking her head, pleading with Turtle to say no, to let her die if it meant Darkstalker could not return. Respect welled suddenly and unwelcomingly in Peacemaker’s already overcrowded head, but he quickly squashed it, concentrating instead on the steady tempo of rage which had fueled him so far.
“I’m not going to sit here all night, Turtle!” he snapped. He was fairly confident in Turtle’s lack of brainpower, but he didn’t want to risk allowing the Seawing time to figure out one of the numerous ways he could get around this plan.
“I…I don’t…I…”
“Peacemaker!” a voice suddenly cried through the cacophony of distant thunder.
Peacemaker whirled in the direction of the sound, his heart beating a furious rhythm in his chest. It couldn’t be! How could she know he was here?
A midnight-black form suddenly emerged from the gloom, eyes burning like emerald flames.
“Mother?! Wh…what are you doing here?!”
“I’ve come to bring you home,” Hope replied as she lighted down neatly on the cliff next to Turtle.
Foeslayer! he silently corrected himself. There is no Hope! It was a lie, like everything else in my life!
Peacemaker gritted his teeth. “I am going home, Mother. My real home…in the Night Kingdom.”
“Peacemaker, stop this foolishness! The Night Kingdom is practically destroyed. There’s nothing for you to go back to.”
“There will be when I get my powers back! I’ll return our kingdom to its original glory, and our tribe won’t have to grovel to Rainwings ever again.”
Foeslayer didn’t seem particularly swayed by this declaration, as if somehow she had already known what his plan was.
“We don’t grovel to anyone, and you know that. Don’t tell me getting back the memories of your first life has suddenly made you forget your second one.”
“How did you know I’d gotten my memory back? You don’t seem terribly surprised by any of this. It’s almost like someone…told you.”
Foeslayer narrowed her eyes, but didn’t reply.
“You’re not alone…are you?”
Suddenly, a second form, smaller than the first, materialized from the darkness. The silver scales on either side of her eyes flashed like teardrops as she lighted down on the cliff beside him.
“Moon,” he hissed, “I should have known.” Silently he cursed himself for not anticipating this.
“Peacemaker…” she started.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped. “You know as well as I do that, that dragon doesn’t exist!”
Rage burned in his chest like a boiling pot threatening to spill over. More than Foeslayer, more than Turtle, more than even Kinkajou, this was the dragon whose betrayal he felt the most. Kinkajou may have masterminded his enchantment, but he had barely even known her at the time. She was nothing to him, so why should she think twice about ripping away his powers? But Moon had been his friend, the only real friend he had, had after emerging from the mountain. He had spared her from his enchantments because he had trusted her, and look where that trust had gotten him.
She stared back at him for a moment, as if at a loss for words. Unlike Foeslayer, who looked equal parts angry, frustrated, afraid, and distressed, Moon simply looked sad. Maybe in her visions she had seen what he had seen, felt what he had felt. Maybe she knew how much he hated her now.
“I’m sorry, Peac…I’m sorry. I never wanted you to find out like this.”
“You never wanted me to find out at all!” he snapped.
“We gave you the chance to choose for yourself, and you refused. It was the only way to keep Pyrrhia safe from you.” She sighed heavily. “Because you couldn’t be trusted, Darkstalker.”
“I couldn’t be trusted?! I was always truthful with you, Moon! You above everyone else.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” she replied calmly. “You deceived me as much as you deceived everyone else. Maybe even more so.”
“You have no right to preach to me about deception, Moonwatcher! Before me you were nothing! A miserable, pitiful little dragon afraid of her own shadow that was convinced her visions were nothing but bad dreams. I taught you how to use your powers, and what did you do? You used them against me! ‘He was picking strawberries’, right? A great, happy new life for everyone. Well, your vision was a lie! Did you see this in my great new future?” he demanded, spreading his wings to indicate the scene around them.
Moon hung her head. “No, I didn’t. But I do see what happens if you get your powers back.”
Peacemaker lowered his head so he could look her in the eye, and hissed, “So enlighten me.”
She looked back at him. “The same thing that was going to happen before Clearsight put you under the mountain. You’ll destroy Pyrrhia, Darkstalker.”
“That’s not the future I saw.”
“That’s not the future you wanted to see. But it’s the one Clearsight saw.”
He gritted his teeth. “Clearsight betrayed me.”
“Only because you left her no other choice. After what you did to your father, there was no going back.”
“My father deserved it!”
“No one deserves to die like that.” The icy calm in her voice was infuriating. It made him want to reach out and claw that self righteous look right off of her face.
“You don’t know what he was like!” Peacemaker snapped.
She glanced up at him, anger showing for the first time beneath the blanket of eerie calm. “From the sound of it, he was a lot like you.”
Rage shot through him like a wave of flame, spreading all the way to the tips of his talons. “Shut up!”
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but Arctic was a dragon just like you. He made mistakes. He let his power corrupt him.”
“He wanted to destroy our tribe!”
“The only one trying to destroy our tribe is you!” Moon replied sharply.
“I said shut up!” he snapped, and before he realized what he was doing, a blast of flame shot from his jaws and barreled furiously in Moon’s direction. She reeled backwards just as the flame made contact with her right wing, teetering for a brief moment before she toppled over the edge of the cliff. Peacemaker watched in horror as she began to fall, the burn spreading, blackening and shriveling the wing membrane like it was made of paper.
“Moon!” he gasped, making a move to catch her, but not fast enough.
For a brief, terrifying moment Moon disappeared from sight over the side of the cliff, her cry of distress swallowed up by the distant thunder. Kinkajou was pulling desperately at her chains, a horrified scream streaming wordlessly from her clenched jaws.
Three moons, what have I done?!
Then, before Peacemaker had a chance to realize what was happening, Foeslayer was in the air. She dove with the speed and precision of a hunting falcon, and emerged, struggling under the weight of the younger dragon slung across her back. She deposited Moon gently on the cliff beside Turtle, who was staring at the two of them in frozen, silent horror.
At first Moon was completely still, her blackened wing flopping uselessly at her side, her eyes closed and her head resting against the stone cliff. For one horrible moment Peacemaker was sure she must be dead, until suddenly her injured wing twitched, and a long, soft groan of pain escaped her.
“Are you all right, Moon?” Foeslayer demanded.
Moon raised her head, her eyes glazed with pain. “I…I think so….”
She looked up and outwards, her eyes meeting Peacemaker’s with a look that should have been angry or frustrated or confused…a look that should not have been as hopelessly heartbroken as it was.
Peacemaker could feel tears stinging his eyes. “I…I didn’t mean…I didn’t want to…”
The anger inside him was now warring with equal parts guilt and sadness, but still he attempted to hold onto it. She had betrayed him! She deserved it!
“Enough of this!” he snapped, taking the chain in his talons and tossing Kinkajou over the side of the cliff. For a brief moment she fell down, down towards the black abyss below, only to hit the end of the chain and dangle precariously by the lengths of metal attached to her feet, wings, neck, and mouth. All three of the onlookers gasped in unison as their friend hung there, strung up by her feet like nothing more than a roasting pig.
Peacemaker raised the end of the chain he was holding so all three of them could see it clearly. “Now change me back, or I drop her!”
“All right, I’ll do it!” Turtle suddenly burst out.
“Turtle, no!” Moon cried, grimacing as she attempted to stand, only to be hindered by her injured wing. “Kinkajou wouldn’t want that.”
The frantic shaking of Kinkajou’s head seemed to indicate that Moon was right, but Turtle didn’t seem swayed by this.
“It won’t matter what she does or doesn’t want if she’s dead!”
“If Darkstalker comes back, then she’s already dead!” Foeslayer cried.
A prick of sadness struck right in the center of Peacemaker’s heart. His own mother thought he was nothing but a monster.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let her die,” Turtle cried, tears streaming from his eyes. “I love her.”
He took a deep breath. “I enchant…”
“Wait! Stop!” a new voice suddenly rang out, more powerful even than the sound of the storm.
Peacemaker looked up just in time to see a form illuminated by the lightning dancing between the billowing clouds.
“Seeker?”
Clearsight.
“Truthseeker, what are you doing here?” Foeslayer demanded. “I told you to stay back at Jade Mountain!”
“I’m sorry, Hope, but I have to be here. I…I have to talk to him…because I’m the only one who can. There’s…there’s something you don’t know about me.”
The young Nightwing flew across to Peacemaker, as if she intended to light down next to him, then at the last minute seemed to think better of it and instead decided to stay airborne.
“Have you come to appeal to my better nature too, then?” Peacemaker asked.
“I just want to talk,” she replied, her wings flapping heavily as she hovered in the air before him.
“I’ve had enough talk,” he said, “either I get my powers back or this dragon dies.” He held up the chain briefly before winding it around a nearby spire of rock to take the crushing weight off his wrist.
“I don’t think you want to kill anyone, Peacemaker.”
“Is that right?” he replied skeptically.
“No, because I think you’re a good dragon. I think you’ve always been a good dragon.”
This reply managed to give him pause, and he found himself looking at her more intently than he had been before.
“But sometimes…sometimes when a dragon is angry or scared or feels helpless, sometimes they…they do bad things. They do bad things and they think it’s okay because other dragons have done the same things to them. I think everyone’s felt that way before, but most of us don’t have the power to act on it. If we did then…I think it would be a lot easier for a good dragon to do a lot of bad things.”
Peacemaker narrowed his eyes. “How can you claim to know what kind of dragon I am? Maybe you’d feel differently if you really knew all the things I’ve done.”
“But I do know. I don’t know how, but when you go your memories back, so did I. Suddenly I remembered when you were Darkstalker…and I was Clearsight.”
Foeslayer and Moon both looked surprised by her sudden confession, but not particularly astonished by the revelation that the young blacksmith and the ancient seer were one and the same. Somehow Peacemaker was sure that they had known already, though he wasn’t sure exactly how.
“You were right about who you thought I was,” Truthseeker continued.
“But how is that possible? Did you put an enchantment on yourself with my old scroll?”
“No, it wasn’t anything like that. I lived and I died like any normal dragon, and then somehow I…I came back. I came back as a new dragon, only I didn’t remember who I used to be. Sometimes the memories would come to me as dreams, dreams of places I had never been and dragons I had never seen…and one dragon in particular, with eyes that looked like yours.”
Peacemaker stared fixedly at her, remembering his own dreams about a dragon he loved, a dragon that he had feared for so long did not exist.
“Now I think I finally understand why I came back,” she said.
“And why is that?”
“For you.”
Peacemaker narrowed his eyes. “To stop me.”
“To help you. To do what I couldn’t do before. To have a chance at those happy futures we missed out on all those years ago.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m trying to do! In all of my happiest futures I was king of the Nightwings, and you were my queen. We had our dragonets, remember? Eclipse and Shadowhunter? If you let me get my powers back, then we can finally have that. We can be together, Clearsight!”
Truthseeker sighed and shook her head. “You saw the futures where you were king as nothing but happiness and prosperity because that’s all you ever wanted to see. In my visions you were a tyrant, manipulating dragons’ minds, killing, trying to take over all of Pyrrhia…and you were never happy. Not once. We were never happy.”
Peacemaker growled. “Is that why you tricked me and stuck me under the ground for two thousand years? Why should I believe anything you say when the last time we met you took everything from me?”
“You think I wanted to do that?!” Her expression turned suddenly angry. “I suffered every day for the rest of my life because of that decision, but you left me no choice! You chose your future, and in that future there was no room for anyone else. Not me or any other dragon. So I did what I had to do to save the world from you, and I don’t regret that I did it.”
“Then why are you here in the first place?! If I’m just a selfish monster, why do you want to have anything to do with me?”
“Because never, not once in all the years I lived after I left you under that mountain, did I stop loving you. And I don’t think you’re a selfish monster. I think you made some pretty selfish, monstrous decisions, but I always knew that at your core was a good dragon, a dragon who was born with more power than anyone should have and didn’t know how to deal with it. But you also got something most dragons never get: a second chance. A chance to start again…to be a better dragon…and you have been, Peacemaker. You have been.”
Peacemaker had a million things to say, and yet he couldn’t think of any of them.
Truthseeker raised her left arm, and he saw that she had his beaded red and white necklace wrapped around her wrist. “Do you remember when I made this for you? Remember how excited you were?”
Peacemaker sighed. “Yes, I remember.”
“And do you remember when my father died? You were the only one I could count on. On those days when I was sure I didn’t want to live without him, I kept going because of you.”
Peacemaker’s shoulders threatened to buckle. “I…I didn’t know that.”
“I think there are a lot of things you don’t know. Did you know Auklet wanted to give up on weaving because she felt she wasn’t good enough? She only changed her mind because you told her how talented she was. Did you know Cliff thought the only reason anyone liked him was because he was a prince? And then he met you, and you never cared at all about his title. He told me that because of that, he felt you were the first real friend he’s ever had. Did you know Orchid still has flashbacks from her time in the Nightwing labs? And she feels like she can’t tell Mangrove, because he worries too much? But she said that on those days where it becomes so overwhelming she feels like she can’t go on, your silly little songs always cheer her up.”
“But I…I thought she hated my singing.”
“She only says that to wind you up, because she knows it’s more fun if you think she doesn’t want you to do it. She told me ‘Strawberries as Big as a Scavenger’s Head’ always makes her smile, even if it is a little morbid.”
A smile pulled at the corner’s of Peacemaker’s mouth. “I…I would always sing that one when we were picking the strawberries. I thought it drove her crazy.”
She paused. “You know, for a dragon that doesn’t exist…you sure do have a lot of happy memories.”
“But it was a lie! All of it was built on lies!”
“It wasn’t a lie. It was you. You without your powers. And that’s what I think you don’t want to believe. That the you that never had powers was a better dragon. A happier dragon.”
Peacemaker shook his head stubbornly, reaching back into his memories for something, anything that would indicate that she was wrong. Hadn’t he been happy in his other life? Hadn’t he done good things? He thought about his sister, Whiteout. They had been happy together, hadn’t they? Then he remembered the look of horror on her face when she had seen her father rip himself to pieces in front of her. Had she ever forgotten that, or had she carried that memory around for the rest of her life? Peacemaker grimaced. He had been so busy thinking about getting revenge on his father that he hadn’t stopped to think about how it would affect his sister.
What about Foeslayer? He thought of his dragonethood as Darkstalker, of the fighting and the yelling and the cold looks exchanged over silent dinners. Then he thought of being Peacemaker, of lazy days in the rainforest making mud pies so that Hope had to rinse him off in the stream, of eating bananas and listening to the tree frogs call as the moon rose high over the thick canopy. He could almost feel the warmth of her scales as he snuggled beneath her wing to sleep, comfortable in the knowledge that his mother could chase away any bad dreams that came in the night.
One by one he thought of his friends. He thought of Moon’s patience and Kinkajou’s enthusiasm, of Auklet’s kindness and Cliff’s boundless confidence. They had liked him when he had no spells to cast, no superpowers to give out, no positions of authority to promise them. They had wanted to be his friend simply because of the dragon he was, the utterly ordinary, unspectacular dragon with nothing special to offer them.
“But if I’m not king…if I have no powers…who am I? I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”
“You’re Peacemaker. That’s all you need to be.”
Peacemaker felt as if he were being ripped in two, his body tearing and cracking and breaking apart. If he was Peacemaker, he was nothing! An ordinary dragon with no special destiny. He couldn’t live like that. He couldn’t!
But if he was Darkstalker, then who what would he be? A king who everyone hated? A king whose own mother feared him? A king whose lifelong friend would willingly give her life to keep him from returning? A king who had to cast spells to make other dragons like him? Because now even Moon would never trust him again, and for the rest of one long, never-ending life he would know it was all fake. It was all a lie. Darkstalker was a dragon no one could love and no one could trust. Even surrounded by subjects and admirers and enchanted friends, he would be alone. He would be as alone as if he were still trapped under that mountain.
His legs finally gave out from under him, and he collapsed onto the cold stone. The sound of the thunder in his ears seemed as if it were coming from a million miles away. He felt the long-held tears finally fall from his eyes, and tasted their bitter, salty tang as they met his lips.
“What do I do?”
He didn’t realize that Truthseeker had lighted down next to him until he felt her tail fall comfortingly across his shoulders. He looked up to see her violet eyes looking softly down at him.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered.
He shook his head, the tears burning in his eyes, and the taste of smoke still in his mouth.
“I can’t. I can’t go back. Not after everything I’ve done.”
“Peacemaker…” Her expression was now twisted with worry, as if she feared all she had done had amounted to nothing.
Slowly, Peacemaker rose to his feet and unfastened the chain from the spire of rock where he had anchored it. For a moment he held the chain suspended in the air, aware of the weight of this last hope dangling over the abyss. In his talons he held to opportunity to get back everything he ever wanted, to be king of Pyrrhia, to live forever, to have powers no other dragon could dream of. It was all his for the taking.
So as a clap of thunder shook the stone beneath his feet, Peacemaker lighted into the air and dragged Kinkajou back onto the cliff. As she lay there, willing to blood to siphon back into her limbs, Peacemaker quietly landed and withdrew the key from where it was hidden.
Silently, he handed it to Truthseeker.
She smiled at him as if he’d somehow delivered her one of the moons and said it was all for her. “You’re a good dragon, Peacemaker.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
Her brows knit together into a look of concern.
“You’re a good dragon, Clearsight. I’m nothing. I’m no one. And now I’ve ruined everything.”
“Don’t say that. Look, let’s just go home, and we can forget about all this.”
He shook his head again. “I can’t. There’s nowhere for me to go.”
“Peacemaker…”
“Free Kinkajou. Help Turtle heal Moon. Keep them safe.” He took a few steps back. “I can’t stay here.”
“Peacemaker, wait…”
“I’m sorry.” And with that he lighted into the air and disappeared into the shadows of the storm.
So I finally made the next segment for my fan fiction, and it only took me two months. Yay me! :sarcasm: Sorry, it's just my fandom motivation is always either at 0 or 100. There is no in-between. The follow-up to this scene is here http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24542597/ but I haven’t made the written segment for that yet.
No critique desired. Please respect that.
Wings of Fire belongs to Tui T. Sutherland
The art and writing belongs to me, and you are not permitted to steal, trace, copy, reference, or otherwise redistribute it in any way. I also do not want to see this posted on RP sites, Facebook, YouTube, etc. without my permission. That's still art theft.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fanart
Species Dragon (Other)
Size 1280 x 963px
File Size 927.7 kB
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