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Chapter Text

    Shard lay sprawled across the floor of his cave in Jade Mountain Academy. His claw mate was out doing something, though what, he wasn’t sure. He was reading A History of The Othermind , which, as the name would imply, discussed the origins and fate of the entity that had threatened to destroy dragon kind twenty years prior.

    The book was written by Cricket, a HiveWing who was among the ten dragons that had journeyed to Pantala to destroy the Othermind. They had succeeded, and in doing so uncovered long-lost knowledge about the start of the Scorching. It was fascinating.

    Shard was particularly fascinated by Freedom, a dragonet from an unknown tribe who was forced to assist in the creation of the Othermind. Cottonmouth, her captor, was the human who had directly caused the Scorching. He had used her to control the Breath of Evil, which was a parasitic plant that he could use to control the bodies of dragons, humans, and other animals.

    From the book, it seemed that Freedom had known a whole lot about ancient history, particularly that of the humans who lived in that region of Pantala. She’d only managed to pass on a small portion of what she knew to Luna before she died. Shard wished he could have met her. He wanted to be able to know all that stuff. And now all those secrets were lost forever. Or were they? Shard smiled, the beginnings of an idea forming in his mind. 

    He heard a noise from behind. He grabbed the bracelet around his wrist, thankful that it was still there. Not that there was any reason for it not to be. He was just being paranoid. 

He turned around to see his claw mate, Starhunter, entering the cave. 

“You keeping secrets?” Starhunter asked.

“I- uhh… no?”

“It’s fine. I don’t need to know everything about you, and that skyfire helps me sleep when you stay up late.”

Shard let out a sigh of relief. He was still terrified that Starhunter would figure out his secret eventually, but as things were it seemed that hopefully wouldn’t happen in the near future. Unless, of course, someone figured out what he was about to do.

Chapter Text

Mandarin glided down and landed on the windswept ledge that served as the main entrance to Jade Mountain Academy. She’d just been having a chat with Starhunter on one of the countless small outcroppings that dotted the sides of Jade Mountain. 

There was no one there, save for a tiny dragonet that Mandarin didn’t recognise. She looked to be part LeafWing, and maybe part SkyWing as well? She also definitely looked too young to have flown here. Mandarin landed next two her and asked “Who are you?”

The dragonet looked deeply confused. She turned to look up at Mandarin, paused for a moment.

“Me?” She asked. “I’m Liz- er… Freedom.”

“Hi, Freedom, I’m Mandarin. How did you get here?”

“I don’t know… Am I dead?”

“Well it sure doesn’t look like- Wait,” Mandarin’s eyes went wide, “you’re that Freedom? The one Shard keeps talking about? The one who stopped the Othermind?”

“Luna was really the one that did that. I just let her. Wait, are you saying I’m not dead?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m dead, and you don’t look very dead to me.”

“But… But that’s impossible. Luna killed me. She killed me and stopped the Breath of Evil. But wait… If I am alive, does that mean I’m, like, actually alive, and not just some plant zombie?”

“You don’t look like a plant zombie. I heard that one of the students here heard a description of what you looked like when Luna found you and it gave him nightmares.”

Just then, Mandarin heard the sound of another dragon landing on the ledge behind her. It was Starhunter.

“I thought you were going hunting,” She said.

“I was, but there were some dark clouds nearby, so I thought it best to turn back. Anyway, who’s thi-”

Starhunter cut off as his eyes met Freedom’s. They both stared at each other as though in a trance. Mandarin glanced back and forth between them, trying to figure out what was going on. They both just stood there, still as statues, staring into each other’s eyes.

This weird staring contest continued so long that Mandarin was starting to get worried. Finally, both dragons suddenly began moving again. Starhunter looked baffled, and Freedom, well, Freedom somehow looked even more confused than she already had.

“Uhh… What just happened?” Mandarin asked.

“Apparently I still have access to the mindspace.”

“The what now?”

“The mindspace. The place where I spent the last five thousand years of my not-life.”

“It’s some kind of mental construct. An imaginary world of sorts.” Starhunter explained. “Shard has talked about it before, and Freedom explained a bit more about it while we were in there. Apparently Moonwatcher was able to enter it as well by using her telepathy on Breath of Evil infected dragons.”

“Which doesn’t really explain how he,” Freedom pointed at Starhunter, “could get there. Or how I still could, for that matter. The plant wasn’t there, so I shouldn’t have been able to be either.”

“Huh. I think we should go talk to Tsunami about all this.” Mandarin said.

“Agreed.” Starhunter replied, walking off into the Great Hall. Mandarin followed, with Freedom scampering along behind the two of them.

They went to Tsunami’s office, where she was busy writing something on a scroll. She looked up to see them as they entered.

“Uhh, Tsunami? Are there any animus dragons currently here at JMA?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

“Because I don’t know how else to explain this.” Mandarin said, gesturing toward Freedom. 

Tsunami looked at the tiny dragonet for a moment, trying to figure out what the heck Mandarin meant by that. Then she froze.

“Is that Freedom ?”

Mandarin nodded.

Tsunami crouched down behind her desk and retrieved something. It was a star-shaped sapphire with an eerie blue glow emanating from within. Mandarin looked at it for a moment, unsure of what it was exactly, beyond the fact that it was clearly animus touched. Starhunter looked surprised.

“What’s that?” Mandarin asked.

“A dreamvisitor.” Starhunter replied before Tsunami had the chance.

“Now it should be night time in Pantala right now.” Tsunami said. “Freedom?”

The dragonet took a moment to respond. “Oh. You were talking to me. I didn’t expect to actually go by that name when I picked it. It will take some getting used to.”

“Ok. So, this thing will allow you to contact Luna. Since she knows more about what happened to you than anyone else currently alive, I think you should talk to her. So just hold this up to your forehead and think about Luna.”

Freedom took it and did as she was told. She closed her eyes and stood there, motionless, save for her breathing.

Chapter Text

Luna woke with a start. This was the third night in a row that she had seen Freedom in her dreams, holding a dreamvisitor. The dragonet looked exactly as she had in the mindspace, and insisted she was somehow alive and at Jade Mountain Academy of all places. 

It couldn’t be real, could it?

She wished she could have saved the poor little dragonet, but there was nothing she could have done. She almost started to cry. Why were these dreams happening now? It had been twenty years . She sighed and tried to go back to sleep.

When morning came, she got up and began weaving. Swordtail was already up and about doing something or other.

“Luna?” A voice called up to her from the ground below her webs. She looked down to see an unexpected, but familiar face.

“Dusky?”

“Hi, Luna. Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure. What is it?” She replied, climbing down from the webbing.

“I’ve been having weird dreams lately.”

Luna looked at him, a little nervous. “What kind of weird dreams?”

“Freedom. Like, Freedom as in the Othermind. She showed up in my dreams last night and the night before and asked me to talk to you.”

Luna was taken aback. Could her dreams have been real?

“Did she say she was at Jade Mountain Academy?”

“Yeah. I take it you’ve been having these dreams too?”

“Yup. Past three nights. I didn’t think they were real, but if you’ve been having them too, then…”

“...then they probably are.”

“Yeah. We should talk to Cricket about this.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

***

Cricket and Axolotl were busy reading when Luna came to visit them.

“Hi Luna, what’s up?” Cricket asked.

“Hrm. I’m not sure how to say this in a way that won’t sound crazy. I think that Freedom may have somehow come back from the dead.”

“Huh? Wait, what ? How?”

“I don’t know. Dusky and I have both been having these weird dreams where she appears, holding a dreamvisitor. She says that she’s at Jade Mountain Academy.”

“Huh. That’s weird. Actually, there’s a JMA student who came all the way out here to Pantala to ask me about Freedom. I would think he would have mentioned it if she was there.”

“This began recently. Only three days ago. If she actually is there, she probably arrived sometime after that student left.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. Why don’t I go talk to him about it. Actually, he’s right over there. Hey, Shard!”

The dragon who came over to them appeared to be an IceWing/SeaWing hybrid. He had gills, bioluminescent scales, and webbed feet. He had the spikes and jagged claws of an IceWing, and his scales were white with a tiny hint of blue. He wore a wide bracelet around his right forelimb, and in the middle of the bracelet a circular black stone with glittering silver flecks was embedded. He also had swirly lines along the edge of his wings.

“Are you Luna?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, cool. We’ve got some of your tapestries at JMA. My favorite is the one with Freedom and all those other dragons flying around.”

“Oh. Yeah. About that. Do you think it’s possible that she could be at Jade Mountain?”

“Who?”

“Freedom.”

“Isn’t she dead?”

“I certainly thought so, but Dusky and I keep having these weird dreams where she shows up with a dreamvisitor and says she’s at Jade Mountain Academy.”

Shard thought for a moment. “So you’re wondering if she somehow came back, made it all the way to Pyrrhia, and is now trying to contact you via dreamvisitor? As crazy as that sounds, it would be an awfully strange coincidence if these were just regular dreams. Either way, it seems like there would have to be animus magic involved, and I haven’t heard of there being any animus dragons since Darkstalker’s defeat.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, before Shard spoke again. “I was planning to go back to JMA fairly soon anyway. I suppose I could go back early and check out what’s going on, and then send you guys a message with the dreamvisitor if Tsunami lets me.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to visit JMA myself,” Cricket said. “Do you think I could go there with you?”

“I don’t see why not. When should we leave?”

“Let me go get Blue and then get some stuff ready.”

***

The weather was perfect the whole way. The wind kept blowing in the direction they were going and there was no turbulence whatsoever. They made it to Pyrrhia in a whopping two days. They stopped on the coast for a night before flying over the Kingdom of Sand to Jade Mountain.

It was around noon when they arrived. Mandarin was sprawled across the ground toward one end of the entrance ledge, absorbing sunlight in typical RainWing fashion. Shard sighed. Of course they’d arrived at sun time.

He led Cricket and Blue, with Axolotl riding on the first one’s back, down to Tsunami’s office.

“Oh. Hi Shard.” She said, looking up. “Oh. Hi Cricket! Long time, no see.”

“Hi Tsunami,” Cricket replied. “Is there something odd going on here?”

“Uhh… Yeah… About that… Luna said she talked to you about what was going on. She told me that you left to come here after you heard about the situation. The night after you left we decided that I should try contacting her, which finally let us actually explain things to her instead of her starting to wake up the moment she saw Freedom. We tried to reach you on the way, but we didn’t get the timing right.”

“So it’s really happened? Freedom is really here? Alive?”

“See for yourselves.” Tsunami said, leading them out of the office and down one of the hallways to a very small sleeping cave where a tiny orange and green dragonet was sitting and reading a book. A human sized book, since she was so small. Even knowing how old this dragonet actually was, it still felt odd to see such a tiny dragon reading.

Chapter Text

Shard’s jaw dropped. He’d half expected that this was all some kind of elaborate prank. But here she was. Freedom, the dragon that he’d been desperately wishing he could have had the chance to talk to, was sitting here in front of him. He started mentally running through all the possibilities he could think of for how this could have happened. There was one thing he was all but certain of: There was an animus involved.

But who? Who would want to bring back this one, very specific dragon? Probably someone like him, who was fascinated by history. But then, how? Shard didn’t know of any animus dragons currently alive, so if there was one they were probably trying to keep their powers a secret. So then why would they do something so obvious? Wouldn’t that cause others to start looking for an animus dragon, and thus compromise their secrecy? What if Jerboa found out and used her divination scroll to figure out who it was. Actually, that didn’t sound like a half-bad idea. Maybe they should go visit Jerboa’s hut and ask her to find out who did it.

***

Shard landed on the sandy part of the beach near Jerboa’s hut. The sand was uncomfortably warm by his IceWing standards, but neither Starhunter nor Cricket seemed to care. Shard walked up and tapped on the door with a claw. A SandWing opened it a moment later.

“Hello?” She said, “Who are you?”

“I’m Shard. This is Starhunter, and I believe you know Cricket.”

“Indeed… I don’t get many visitors, what brings you here?”

“Her.” Shard answered. He pointed toward the dragonet who was currently clinging to the back of Cricket’s neck.

Jerboa looked at the tiny dragon for a moment, then gasped. “ Is that- ? ”

“Yeah.” Shard answered. “We want to know who brought her back and how. We suspect that there may be an animus out there somewhere, and if so we want to know who it is.”

    “Hmm… One moment.” Jerboa went into the hut and came back with a piece of paper and an inkwell. She looked around for a moment, realized there wasn’t a good surface to write on, and went back inside. She came back looking mildly annoyed. She held up the scroll so her visitors could see it. Written on the scroll was the following:

    Was an animus spell used to resurrect Freedom?

    Yes.
    Who cast the spell that was used to resurrect Freedom?

    That answer is not available yet.  

    What was the exact wording of the spell used to resurrect Freedom?  

    “Transport the remains of the dragon Freedom to the circle I have drawn at the entrance of Jade Mountain Academy, then heal her of all ailments up to and including death itself.”

    Who drew the circle at the entrance of Jade Mountain Academy?  

    That answer is not available yet.  

    What are the names of all currently living animus dragons?  

    There are none.  

    Shard sighed. He supposed it was good to know the wording of a spell that could bring dragons back from the dead, but that wasn’t exactly helpful information at the moment. It seemed that whoever did this knew how to keep themselves hidden. And he didn’t like the fact that the scroll didn’t seem to think that there were any living animus dragons.

Chapter Text

Starhunter returned to his sleeping cave to find Shard staring off into space, looking deeply troubled. It had been four days since they met with Jerboa, and they hadn’t made any progress in uncovering who resurrected Freedom.

“Shard? What’s wrong?”

The IceWing/SeaWing hybrid didn’t respond for a few moments. Then he turned to face Starhunter.

“I think I might have been the one who brought her back.”

“Freedom?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean by ‘might have’? Wouldn’t you know if you cast a spell like the one that did that? And you aren’t an animus, are you?”

“I have this… vague echo of a memory. Like a dream that I’ve mostly forgotten, but I feel like, just before I went to Pantala, I thought I had a way to bring her back. But that’s like all I remember.”

“I mean, something like that could just have been an actual dream. Or a false memory.”

“It could be, but that’s not all. This bracelet. I don’t know where it came from. I just remember suddenly having it shortly before I came to Jade Mountain. It’s like it just appeared, and then I was suddenly totally used to it being there. And it’s not like skyfire is easy to come by. I would think I would remember getting something like this. And on top of all that, I don’t even know how to take it off. It doesn’t even have a clasp, which probably means it’s animus touched.”

“Hmm… Wouldn’t that make it more likely that whoever made the bracelet also resurrected Freedom? Maybe you asked them to do so, and then they erased your memories of their existence?”

Shard thought for a moment. “That would make a lot of sense, but it doesn’t bring us any closer to finding out who this mystery animus actually is .”

The two of them stood there in silence for a moment. The pause led Starhunter to notice that there was another mind in the room. It was well hidden, carefully thinking about the stone floor so it could blend in.

He went over to a pile of blankets in the corner and tossed it aside. 

“Eep!”

There Freedom sat underneath it, right next to that book, A History of The Othermind , that Shard was obsessed with. The book was bigger than she was.

“Hi there. What are you doing here?”

Her mind was scrambling to think of a response. Fortunately, it seemed that she had just snuck into the cave to read and ended up with Shard walking in on her. It had actually proven quite difficult to consciously read her surface thoughts without accidentally getting sucked into her mindspace, but he’d been practicing over the past few days.

“Please don’t kill me!” She squeaked.

“Freedom! We’ve been over this. That’s not-” Starhunter sighed. “That’s not how dragons work.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that Scarlet and Burn were like that.”

Freedom squeaked. Starhunter glared at Shard. “Not helping.”

“Don’t worry, they’re both dead.” He added helpfully.

“Freedom. You really need to understand that most dragons aren’t really violent toward each other.”

“I- I know. It’s just… after five thousand years… it’s… hard to remember that. Having only seen it from human perspectives.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like. Well, actually I can, bu-”

“Shard! Starhunter!” Mandarin ran up to the entrance to their sleeping cave. “It’s Moonwatcher! She’s here! And there’s a new prophecy!”

Her voice sounded frantic and her scales were flashing all different shades of green. That couldn’t be good.

“What does it say?” Starhunter asked, though he wasn’t certain he wanted to know.

Mandarin unfurled a scroll and read it aloud.

“When the ocean is ruled by the living dead, 

When the queen has fallen, a dark mage in her stead,

When a being of old holds a gift newly made,

Beware the promise that has been betrayed.

Bring a swift end to a dawning age,

or the world will fall to the mad queen’s rage.”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

“Well that doesn’t sound good.” Starhunter said.

Shard glanced between him and Mandarin. “Yeah. No kidding.”

Chapter Text

Freedom buried herself deeper in the pile of blankets in her sleeping cave. Rumors of the new prophecy had been circulating around Jade Mountain for days, and it seemed that the most popular interpretation involved her being the “living dead” that would rule the ocean. As if she’d even want to rule the ocean. Whatever the case, half the students seemed to think she was going to turn into some mad animus like Darkstalker and take over the Sea Kingdom. How they thought she could do that was beyond her. She wasn’t an animus and she couldn’t even breathe under water.

At least the sapphire winglet, which she’d semi-officially become a part of, seemed to accept her. Each winglet was composed of seven dragons of different tribes. The academy had tried ten for a while, but it became a little much to handle, and with hybrids so much more common than they used to be, trying to have one dragon from each tribe was an even more confusing task. Thus, they decided to have seven students to a winglet, and where possible include hybrids so that most, if not all, of the tribes could be represented.

In the sapphire winglet, Starhunter, Mandarin, and Shard together represented the NightWings, the Rainwings, the IceWings, and the SeaWings. There was also a SandWing named Quartz, whose name caused no end of confusion with the quartz winglet. Lastly, there was a SilkWing named Sphynx, a HiveWing named Manillae, and a MudWing whose name Freedom kept forgetting.

And then there was Freedom herself, who her peers seemed to think was most closely related to the SkyWings and the LeafWings. So it worked out kind of perfectly, with all ten tribes kinda sorta being represented. Even if it required an eighth dragon.

Many of the RainWings seemed to like Freedom, at the very least. Particularly those that liked plants, as she was one of only three (Well, technically four) dragons currently at Jade Mountain who could use leafspeak. And among them, hers was the strongest. It could have just been her imagination, but she could have sworn that her leafspeak was slightly more powerful than it had been before her death. Her second death, that is. 

The way the majority of students treated her, though, wasn’t helped by her small size. Ordinarily, a dragon as young as she physically was wouldn’t be able to attend Jade Mountain Academy until they got older. But she was a rather unusual case, having witnessed five thousand years worth of human memories, and having no tribe to go back to, Tsunami decided to allow her to attend.

Freedom wasn’t exactly certain that had been the right decision. Maybe it would have been better if she had gone to live at this village called “Sanctuary” that she’d heard about, at least until she was big enough to attend Jade Mountain without standing out.

“You alright in there?” Starhunter’s voice called from the entrance to the cave. He, like most fully grown dragons, was too big to fit inside. 

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.”

That was the problem with being friends with a mind reader.

“Please tell me what’s wrong.”

Freedom knew he could figure that out himself. She wasn’t sure if he was avoiding doing so out of courtesy or because he was worried about getting stuck in her mindspace again . 

“It’s just all the dragons saying the prophecy is about me . I just wanted to be able to live my life as a normal dragon. Even if that doesn’t mean what I thought it did, I don’t think being the subject of an ominous prophecy is something that normal dragons do.”

Starhunter was silent for a moment, thinking.

“You know what I think?” He said. “I’m scared that there might be an animus among Queen Coral’s granddaughters. One who knows how to hide her powers. I don’t think we’ve ever seen this many children of an animus bloodline in a single generation in Pyrrhian history. I would almost be surprised if Coral didn’t have any animus grandchildren.”

He paused for a moment, then continued more quietly. “There’s also another reason I think that. You know how I said I don’t have foresight powers? Well, I think I actually do. On the night I hatched, two moons were full. One of them was mostly obscured by clouds, though. Anyway, sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see glimpses of this dark green royal SeaWing on Coral’s throne.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“No. And that’s what troubles me. I keep meaning to tell Shard, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Wouldn’t that make him start worrying, though?”

“Ehh, you’re probably right. But at the same time, he’s the most likely to have some idea what’s happening. Well, actually Moonwatcher would be the most likely, but I think she left.”

“Hmm… So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know… I guess we just have to wait until we have more information.”

Chapter Text

“You should go tell him,” Mandarin said, “I just saw him walking down the hallway.”

“Bu- but wh- what if I mess it up?” Quartz stammered.

“Then we can deal with that if it happens. I believe in you, and I don’t think Shard is the type to take something like this badly.”

“But what if he doesss?” Quartz whined.

“He won’t. Like I said, you should just go up and tell him.”

“But what if- Oh, fine. I guess I’ll try.”

Quartz slowly turned around and stepped out into the hallway. He began walking in the direction he was pretty sure Shard had gone, and before long found the sparkly hybrid standing in the hallway ahead of him, pausing to inspect the weird bracelet around his wrist. His scales glittered in a ray of sunlight that filtered in through a nearby window.

“Shard?”

The hybrid looked up, startled, and swiveled his head around to face Quartz.

“Hi Quartz. What’s up?”

“Uhh… umm… I… I have something to tell you.” Quartz managed to say. 

“Oh. What is it?”

“I umm… I… well… I… Oh, nevermind. It isn’t important.”

Quartz turned around and scurried sheepishly back to where he’d been talking to Mandarin. He barely heard Shard call after him “You sure it isn’t important?”

The moment he got within line of sight of the cave, Mandarin excitedly asked “What did he say?”

Quartz frowned.

“Did he say no?”

Quartz whimpered, shaking his head ever so slightly.

“What’s wrong then?”

It took Quartz a moment to find the words. “I- I… I didn’t ask.”

“ Why not?! ”

“I… I tried, but… I couldn’t say it.”

Mandarin sighed.

“Ok. I’m planning to meet up with Shard later today to talk with him about a project I’m working on. When that’s done, how about I tell him that you want to talk to him and you can ask him then.”

“Ok. I guess we can try that.”

Chapter Text

Mandarin sat in the library, reading. She was researching the history of Shard’s family, particularly his father’s side. The research was technically for history class, but she’d chosen the SeaWing royal family as the subject because Shard didn’t talk about his family much and she wanted to know more about him.

She’d already known he had a lot of uncles, but she hadn’t realized just how many. The reason why he had so many uncles had shocked her. She was surprised that she hadn’t heard this before, but apparently there was an animus-touched statue, made by one of Queen Coral’s oldest daughters, that was enchanted to kill any potential heirs to the throne when the royal hatchery was unattended.

Apparently said daughter, Orca, had not planned to impale herself on a narwhal horn whilst battling Coral in a royal challenge. Why Orca hadn’t just used magic to win was beyond Mandarin. Then again, so was the reason why other tribes had such violent ways of transferring power. 

“Hey there.” 

Mandarin turned to face Starhunter.

“You’re not usually one to read books like that.” He said.

“It’s for a project.”

“You’re blue.”

Mandarin swiveled her head to look at herself. He had a point. Her curiosity about the book’s contents was rather plainly displayed on her scales.

“Anyway, what brings you he-” She cut off. Starhunter was staring at the page the book was open to with an expression of what Mandarin thought was shock and fear. It was hard to tell without color-changing scales.

“Who- is- that?” He asked.

He was looking at a very detailed portrait of Orca.

“That’s Princess Orca of the SeaWings.”

“Oh no. Oh no! I need to find Tsunami! Now! ” He darted out of the library and began sprinting down the hall.

Mandarin turned to Starflight. “What was that about?”

The blind librarian shrugged.

Mandarin glanced out one of the windows. The sun was hanging pretty low in the sky. Oops. She was supposed to meet Shard like an hour ago.

She ran out of the library, not even remembering to put away the book she was reading. She went up to the Great Hall, jumped off the entrance ledge, and spread her wings. After gliding down to their planned meeting spot, she found that Shard wasn’t there. That was weird. Normally he would wait for her. Even if she was this late.

Maybe he’d just had something to do. She flew back to the academy entrance and went around the hallways, looking for him. Eventually she ran into Freedom and asked her if she’d seen him. Apparently she hadn’t, but she agreed to help look for him.

Chapter Text

Freedom spread her wings and took to the skies. She wasn’t a very good flier, but apparently most dragonets of her size couldn’t fly at all, so it wasn’t exactly surprising. Good flier or not, she loved finally being able to spread her wings and ride the wind. It was the thing she’d dreamed of doing for five thousand years!

She’d agreed to look for Shard, but really she’d just wanted an excuse to go out flying on her own. She decided to go down to a nearby river where she knew he sometimes liked to go fishing. She had to land on the bank, as her wings weren’t strong enough for her to stay in the air for too long.

She paced down the river but found no sign of Shard. She turned back toward the peak of Jade Mountain. There was a blue streak down the front face of the cliff beneath the ledge that served as the academy’s main entrance. That definitely hadn’t been there the day before.

She took off again. Getting back up to the ledge was much more difficult than coming down. As she drew closer, she could see that, at the base of the cliff, there was a blue splotch with something whitish in the middle. She swooped down to get a closer look, and was met by a truly horrifying sight.

“Shard!” She cried.

His wings were bent at unnatural angles. At least one of his legs was clearly broken, and there was a large gash along one side of his body. One of his wings covered his head and neck.

Freedom reached out and touched one of his talons. It was warm. Too warm. His scales were normally ice cold.

“Shard! Wake up! We need to get you to the infirmary!”

He didn’t respond. Freedom moved around to the other side of him, allowing her to get a look at his face. His neck was bent the wrong way. His eyes were glassy and stared blankly at the cliff face.

“No. No! Shard! Please, no!”

Freedom felt something brush against her talon and jumped. She looked down, and found a silver wire coiling itself around one of her front legs. She tried to pull away, but it had already latched onto her. A moment later, a round, black object that was attached to the wire slid up onto her leg and positioned itself, as the wire organized into a rather elegant looking band. It was Shard’s bracelet, she realized. It had somehow made itself smaller so that it would fit her, and the movement seemed to indicate that it was, in fact, magical.

The strangeness of what just happened momentarily distracted her from her grief. She stared at the bracelet in awe and confusion. Her bewilderment only grew as silvery text seemed to fade into existence, floating in the air in front of her. 

Gift of Utility

Version 23

Welcome, Freedom

She stared blankly at the text, then the bracelet. What was this thing? Maybe she should ask Shard abo- Oh. Right. She snapped back to reality. She looked at her friend’s lifeless body. In the five thousand years of her existence, she’d seen grief indirectly through the eyes of humans, but this was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It felt almost… surreal.

She spread her wings and flew up to the ledge above with speed she didn’t know she was capable of. She sprinted inside and began searching for her friends. She found Mandarin first, who seemed to still be looking for Shard.

“It’s Shard! He’s- He’s…” Freedom trailed off, staring blankly past Mandarin.

“He’s what? Where is he?”

“He’s… Dead.”

“ What?! ”

Freedom didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She tried to repeat herself, but nothing came out. Mandarin’s scales were now covered in shifting patterns of green and white.

“B- B- Below… the… m- main entrance…” Freedom finally managed to say. Mandarin ran off in that direction.

Chapter Text

Starhunter barged into Tsunami’s office.

“Tsunami! This is urgent! I think I figured out the prophecy! Orca is coming back!”

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down. What?! ”

“ When the ocean is ruled by the living dead. When the queen has fallen, a dark mage in her stead. I think Orca is going to come back and challenge Coral again. And win.”

“But that’s imp- Three moons! You mean come back the same way that Freedom did?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Why Orca specifically, though?”

“I keep seeing these… visions of her. On the throne.”

“I thought you couldn’t see the future.”

“That’s what I thought too, but I technically hatched under two full moons, just with one partially obscured.”

“Hmm… We have to warn Coral. It should be night time in the Deep Palace.” Tsunami said, retrieving the dreamvisitor from under her desk.

She held it to her forehead for a moment, then sighed.

“She must be awake. I can’t get through.”

Starhunter didn’t say anything for a moment. Tsunami kept trying to use the dreamvisitor, but wasn’t speaking either, so he decided to go. He went back to his sleeping cave. To his surprise, Shard wasn’t there. He sat down and began thinking through the situation. At one point, his pondering was interrupted by Mandarin, who asked him if he knew where Shard was. He said he had no idea, and she continued down the corridor.

A while later, he began to sense a distant ruccase of various minds frantically thinking about… something. It was too distant and chaotic for him to figure out what. He figured he should investigate, so he got up and walked down to Tsunami’s office again. She was still trying to use the dreamvisitor to contact Queen Coral.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on out front?” He asked.

“Uhh… no?”

“Huh. Well, there’s something going on, and it sounds pretty urgent. It’s too chaotic for me to make out what anyone’s thinking, and I fear if I get too close I’ll be driven insane by the noise.

“Ok. I’ll go check it out.”

“Thanks.” 

Starhunter left the office again. On his way back to his cave, he found Freedom standing in the middle of the hallway, staring blankly at the wall. He was about to ask what was wrong, but her surface thoughts gave away the answer before he could.

He felt sick. All he saw was one image. One horrifying image. Shard’s mangled corpse, lying at the bottom of the cliff below JMA’s main entrance.

No wonder there was such a commotion. And to think that only a moment ago, he’d believed that Freedom’s memory of what she looked like in the abyss, controlled by the Breath of Evil, would be the most disturbing thing he would see in his life. But with that, he knew that Freedom was alive and in front of him when he saw it. But this… Shard, his friend, wasn’t coming back. Wait . Why not? If Freedom could come back, then Shard could as well, right? He knew the wording of the resurrection spell that saved Freedom, so all he had to do was figure out who cast it and ask them to do it for Shard as well.

He was starting to come up with a plan, when he noticed something odd.

“Freedom? Are you wearing Shard’s bracelet?”

The tiny dragonet didn’t respond.

“Freedom?”

When she didn’t react, he gently tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped.

“What?!”

“Are you wearing Shard’s bracelet?”

She looked down at her leg.

“Uhh… Yeah?”

“It looks smaller than when he wore it. Did it change size to fit you?”

“Yeah. It moved like a vine being commanded with leafspeak and wrapped around my leg.” She shuddered. “It was creepy. Too much like the Breath of Evil.”

“So it’s animus touched, then.”

“Uhh… yeah… I guess.”

“Wait a minute. How could I read your mind?” Starhunter looked down at the bracelet. The skyfire no longer had silver flecks in it. Like it had been replaced by a different, but similar looking rock.

“Uhh… NightWing powers?”

Freedom seemed a little distant.

“The skyfire in the bracelet looks like it’s been replaced with something else.”

“Huh? Oh. Huh. That’s odd.”

“Do you know anything else about that thing’s enchantments?”

“Uhh… I don’t think so… Actually, when it put itself on, this weird text appeared in the air.”

“What did it say?”

“Gift of… uhh… Utility, or something?”

Starhunter thought about it for a moment. Then it hit him.

“What?”

“ When a being of old holds a gift newly made. ”

“Huh?”

“The prophecy! In ancient times, whenever there was IceWing animus, they would cast a single spell intended to benefit the whole IceWing tribe, and then never use their magic again. If there’s a new IceWing animus, then they could have made that bracelet. Which would make you ‘a being of old’, holding ‘a gift newly made’.”

Freedom blinked. 

“So I am in the prophecy?”

“Seems like it. Which probably means you’re important to whatever is going on right now. So we should probably try to figure out how to use that gift.”

Chapter Text

Mandarin lay, shivering, on the cold desert sand. She was huddled against Quartz for warmth, but that didn’t keep the icy wind at bay. She shuddered, thinking about how tomorrow would be even colder.

After they discovered that the Gift of Utility was enchanted, Tsunami had arranged for the entire sapphire winglet to travel to the Ice Kingdom and meet with Queen Snowfall. It had seemed like a fun idea at the time, but the cold… Nothing could have prepared her for this kind of cold. Well, except maybe if she’d experienced it before.

On the other side of Quartz lay Mire, the sapphire winglet’s MudWing member. Sphinx had woven some kind of blanket for himself and Manillae, making Mandarin kind of jealous. She’d almost asked him to make something similar for her, but he had already fallen asleep by the time she’d noticed the blanket. 

Freedom was sleeping on top of Quartz, and because of her small size, she was able to spread her wings across his back and absorb the heat radiating from his scales.

That left only Starhunter, who was pacing worriedly nearby. He looked troubled, and when Mandarin suggested he try sleeping, he only said he couldn’t. 

It took a while, but Mandarin was eventually able to sleep. She was restless, and the cold woke her up several times, but finally the sun rose and things got better. She yawned and stretched, spreading her wings to catch the light of the rising sun. Quartz seemed to already be awake, but didn’t want to wake Freedom by getting up. Mire and the Pantalan dragons were still fast asleep, and Starhunter was drowsily lying in the sand nearby with his eyes half closed.

Mandarin just waited around for everyone to wake up. Eventually Quartz moved his head to look around a bit, and in doing so accidentally jostled Freedom, immediately waking her up. She looked around, startled.

“What did Tsunami have to say?” Mandarin asked her.

“Huh? Uhh… She didn’t contact me.”

“That’s weird. She said she would. Did you sleep ok?”

“I think so.”

“Hey, Starhunter!” Mandarin called toward the drowsy NightWing. “Did Tsunami contact you?”

He took a moment to process the question, clearly not fully awake. “I barely slept.”

“Hmm… Well, she didn’t contact me, though I didn’t sleep too well, so that could be why. Quartz?”

The SandWing turned to face her. “Hmm?”

“Did you get any message from Tsunami?”

“Nope.”

“Should we wake the others?” Mandarin asked no one in particular.

“What if… she… contacts one of them?” Starhunter mumbled.

“The sun is up, silly.” Mandarin walked over and playfully batted his nose. He recoiled, blinking.

“Sorry, what’s going on again?”

“Tsunami didn’t contact us with the dreamvisitor like she promised to.”

“That’s… odd.” He said, thinking. “She’s not normally one to forget something like that.”

“So. Do we keep going, or turn back?”

Starhunter paused to think some more. “I don’t think so. We need to figure out how this thing works.” He said, gesturing toward where Freedom stood, wearing the Gift of Utility.

“Let’s wake the others, make sure they’re on board, and continue on then.”

With everyone awake, well, mostly awake, Starhunter was still quite drowsy, the sapphire winglet discussed their situation. Ultimately, they decided to finish their journey and ask Queen Snowfall if she had any further information when they arrived.

As they took off, Manillae turned to Freedom and spoke. “I’m surprised you were able to fly as far as you did yesterday. Are you sure you’re up to doing that again today? I’m sure one of us could carry you if you want.”

Freedom thought for a moment. “I think the Gift of Utility might be keeping me from getting tired. I feel like I could fly for days straight.”

“Huh. I guess it lives up to its name.”

The air got colder and colder as the dragons flew further north. It was halfway between noon and sundown by the time they reached Queen Snowfall’s palace. Mandarin was having a hard time thinking about anything other than the cold. She barely noticed as they were approaching the palace that an IceWing had flown up to greet them.

The stranger spoke to Freedom first. “I don’t know if you’ll recognise me, Freedom, but I’m Lynx.”

Chapter Text

Lynx led the sapphire winglet into the palace. They followed her through various hallways and out to an open ledge. Beyond the ledge stood a massive dome, its icy surface glowing with orange light from within. On the far side of the dome lay a rocky beach, which sloped down to the splashing waves of the low tide ocean below.

The winglet followed Lynx down from the ledge and in through one of the entrances at the base of the dome. Freedom was shocked to step across the threshold into sudden warmth. Several of the others gasped in surprise. Mandarin in particular looked like she’d been about to freeze her tail off until she entered the dome.

An IceWing wearing a silver tiara stood in front of them. Freedom thought for a moment, then realized she recognised this dragon. It was Snowfall. Well, apparently Queen Snowfall, now. This was the dragon who said Lynx wasn’t afraid of walruses. Freedom giggled.

Snowfall looked at her. “So this is the dragon who saved dragonkind?”

“Uhh… Yeah? I did that, didn’t I? Well, it was really Luna, but still.”

“I never thought I’d get the chance to meet you. Though pleasantries will have to wait. We’ve got a problem.”

“Huh?”

“The prophecy. That, and the fact that Tsunami didn’t follow up with me like she was supposed to.”

Starhunter suddenly spoke. “We reached the same conclusion.”

Everyone turned to him in surprise. Only he and Snowfall seemed to have any idea what he was talking about. 

“I also believe that the line of the prophecy about ‘a being of old’ holding ‘a gift newly made’ refers to Freedom and the Gift of Utility.” He clarified.

“Which then raises the question of how this is relevant to the rest of the prophecy,” Snowfall said, “Presumably it’s important, but the prophecy gives no indication of how it relates to the mad queen of the sea… What do we know about the Gift of Utility so far?”

“It seems to keep me from getting tired. When I put it on, or rather when it put itself on me, it showed me this… like, floating silver text. That’s how we know what it’s called. It said ‘Gift of Utility version twenty three’ and then ‘Welcome, Freedom’. Also, when Shard was wearing it, it had a piece of skyfire in it, but now the skyfire seems to have turned into a plain black rock. So maybe it can turn back into skyfire?”

“Hmm… Have you tried experimenting with it? Most gifts were made only to do one thing, but this already seems to have multiple functions. And do we know who created it?”

“We haven’t had time to experiment, and we don’t know who made it. Shard said that one day he suddenly just had it, and he didn’t know where it came from.”

“That’s… odd. Hmm… Presumably there’s some way to interact with it. Have you tried talking to it?”

Freedom giggled. “That’s silly!”

She paused for a moment. Everyone was looking at her. She glanced around, puzzled.

“What?”

“Queen Snowfall wasn’t joking,” Starhunter explained, “That is a completely reasonable way for an animus touched object to work. Shard told you about Turtle’s bowl, right?”

“Oh… Right. I remember that now. The bowl that doubles stuff when you say, uhh… I don’t remember the exact phrase.”

“So why don’t you try asking it something?”

“Ok. Uhh… What can you do?” Freedom asked, looking at the bracelet.

Silvery text appeared in the air in front of her.

Gift of Utility Feature List, Version 23:

    TODO: Add a list of things the GoU can do.

“Well that’s not very helpful.”

“What is it?” Mandarin asked.

“You can’t see this?” Freedom replied, then read the text out loud.

They all sat there quietly for a moment, before Manillae broke the silence.

“Perhaps try asking it other questions?”

Freedom thought for a moment. “Can you answer questions like Jerboa’s scroll can?”

Yes.  

“Well that is useful. Can you tell us why Tsunami didn’t contact us last night?”

She was not able to.

“Why not?”

She did not have a way to do so.  

“What happened to the dreamvisitor, then?”

It was stolen.  

“By who?!”

Queen Orca of the SeaWings.

Chapter Text

Swirls of deep azure and green spread across Mandarin’s scales as she watched Freedom question the bracelet. To her, the dragonet looked to be staring at the air in front of her and having a conversation with no one. She had no idea what the last question was talking about, but from Freedom’s panicked tone and the look of confusion that followed, it probably wasn’t good. More concerning, however, was the look of abject horror on Starhunter’s face.

“Ask if Tsunami is ok.” He practically ordered Freedom.

She did so, only for Starhunter to look mildly annoyed.

“Ok, ask it if she’s alive, then if she’s injured.”

Mandarin’s scales went white and emerald green. She was about to ask what in the three moons was happening, but Freedom echoed his questions to the bracelet before she could think of what to say. Starhunter looked relieved.

“Ok. What is going on here?” She asked.

“Orca’s back. Already.” Starhunter replied, looking grim.

“Who’s Orca?” Freedom piped up.

“Someone very powerful, and very, very bad. She’s one of Tsunami’s sisters. She’s also the reason Tsunami has so few sisters. And so many brothers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s an animus.”

It was hard for Mandarin to tell, but she was pretty sure from Freedom’s silence and expression that the dragonet knew what that meant well enough to be scared. In retrospect, it was quite likely that Starhunter or Shard had explained animus magic to her at some point.

Every dragon in earshot was staring at the three of them, trying to figure out what was going on. 

All was quiet for a moment, before Mandarin broke the silence.

“So what do we do?”

Starhunter looked thoughtful. “We should go back to Jade Mountain and make sure everyone’s ok. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“That will take a while. And we just got here too. Shouldn’t we study the Gift of Utility more first?”

Starhunter thought for a moment, then turned to Freedom.

“Ask it what the fastest way to get to Jade Mountain from here is.”

Freedom did so, then pointed at the doorway they’d come in through.

“It says to go that way.”

“Why don’t we go where it says a little ways and see where it leads.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it just lead us south?” Mandarin asked, her scales a mix of orange and purple in her confusion.

“Maybe. But I’ve got a hunch that we might be surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s see.”

Starhunter began walking toward the door, and gestured for Freedom to follow. The tiny dragonet bounded ahead of him, and the rest of the sapphire winglet hesitantly followed them.

Mandarin hesitated at the threshold, not wanting to return to the frigid air outside.

Not wanting to be left behind, she braced herself and went outside. The cold was even worse than she’d expected, and she sprinted to catch up with her friends. Lynx and Snowfall were tagging along as well.

It soon became apparent that wherever Freedom was leading them, it was not toward the southern border of the Ice Kingdom. Instead, they headed back into the palace, Freedom taking them down narrow side corridors that seemed largely deserted. 

Mandarin was shivering when the group finally stopped. Freedom was staring up as if in awe at… A blank wall? Starhunter looked at her, intrigued.

Freedom cautiously reached forward, placing one talon on the wall in front of her. Every dragon present jumped in surprise at the loud crack that followed. There was now a rectangle of cracks in the wall, large enough for a full grown dragon to walk through. With a second loud crack, the area within the rectangle became covered in hairline cracks. 

There was an eerie silence as the rectangle suddenly imploded , revealing a short corridor that opened out into a brightly lit cavern. Warm air flooded the space where the dragons stood.

Freedom cautiously stepped forward, then crept down the corridor into the cave beyond. Starhunter followed, then Mandarin. The RainWing blinked as she emerged into… Shard’s sleeping cave?

“What the…?”

She looked around. On this end, the portal took the form of a tall mirror. The rest of the sapphire winglet followed her through, and Snowfall and Lynx simply stared into the cave from across the continent.

Without warning, a swarm of glass shards spontaneously appeared in the corridor and reformed into the mirror. They sealed together seamlessly and silently, leaving no trace of it having ever been broken.

“I’m gonna go check on Tsunami.” Mandarin said.

After seeing Starhunter nod in acknowledgement, she stepped out into the hallway. She turned to go down to Tsunami’s office, only to find herself staring into a pair of large, sapphire eyes.

Chapter Text

A few moments earlier.  

“Show me the fastest way to get to Jade Mountain Academy from here.”

As Freedom finished the request, a silvery thread materialized in the air. It led out the doorway through which they’d come in, then turned and disappeared out of sight.

“It says to go that way,” she said.

“Why don’t we go where it says a little ways and see where it leads.” Starhunter suggested.

“Why? Wouldn’t it just lead us south?” Mandarin asked.

“Maybe. But I’ve got a hunch that we might be surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s see.”

Starhunter began walking in the direction Freedom had indicated, and gestured to her. She scampered past him, leading him and the others along the winding path the bracelet was showing her. To her surprise, it led them back into the palace, taking them through a series of seemingly random tunnels, each barely wide enough for two dragons to stand next to one another. 

Eventually, Freedom reached the place that the silver thread was leading her to. She looked up in awe at a rectangle of faintly glowing silver lines that hovered just beneath the surface of the ice. The outer edge of the rectangle was decorated with patterns that looked like halves of snowflakes.

Within the rectangle, she saw a talonprint. It was just below her eye level, and perfectly sized for her right talon. She reached out and placed her talon on the symbol, then jumped at the sound of a loud crack that followed. She glanced around. The others, or at least those she could see, looked just as alarmed as she was. 

There was now a large crack just within the perimeter of the silver rectangle. The noise came again, as the section of wall within the rectangle all but shattered, broken pieces staying in place. A moment later, those fragments were suddenly sucked backwards, vanishing into thin air and revealing an open corridor leading to a sunny cavern. It was kind of freaky how the shards of ice made no noise whatsoever as the tunnel opened.

A wave of heat swept out of the opening. Hesitantly, Freedom stepped forward into the corridor. As her talon crossed the threshold, she felt a chill shoot down her spine. Something about this thing felt distinctly unnatural. Despite this she continued on, the weird feeling of the space mostly subsiding as she walked, until she exited the tunnel, at which point she was hit by another wave of that subtle… wrongness.

At the very least, it was far warmer here. Freedom looked around at her surroundings. She was in Shard and Starhunter’s sleeping cave. Well, just Starhunter’s now, she thought sadly.

A silvery pattern caught her eye. She looked over at it, finding a cylindrical wooden object encased in a cage of silver lines. On one end there was a symbol of a talonprint like the one on the portal. Freedom ran over to it. She touched the talonprint, causing the end of the cylinder to suddenly pop off, connected by a string, revealing a padded hollow space within.

Inside, she found… a pair of glasses? Shard never wore glasses. At least not that she knew. Why would he have these? She pulled them out, and nearly dropped them as they suddenly shrunk in her talons. She looked at them, puzzled. It seemed that they were now her size. Huh.

She put them on and looked around. She didn’t notice any real difference in her vision. Looking across the room, however, she found that there was a scroll on the other side of the cave that, despite looking to be human sized, she could read easily. So these glasses had vision enhancing magic, then?

Freedom’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud scream.

Chapter Text

“Mandarin!” Quartz yelled.

He darted out into the hallway and frantically looked around. Mandarin was nowhere to be seen, but there was a green marble statue of a seawing just standing there in the middle of the hallway.

“Mandarin! Are you ok?!”

“Quiet down. I’m right here. I’m just invisible.”

Quartz sighed in relief. “What was that about?”

“The murder statue.”

Quartz whirled around to face the statue, alarmed. “The what?!”

“That thing looks identical to the statue that Orca used to kill the SeaWing heirs. And given its location, I’m assuming it’s animus touched. We should go find Tsunami to make sure it hasn’t done anything to her.”

Quartz cautiously stepped around the statue, eyeing it warily as he did. He crept down the hallway past it, and looked back to see if Mandarin had followed. He couldn’t see her, of course, but she tapped his tail with a talon to let him know she was there.

They slowly walked down the hallway, glancing back at the statue every few seconds. As soon as they were out of line of sight of it, Mandarin became visible again. They were about halfway to Tsunami’s office when Freedom bounded up behind them.

“There you are! You two had everyone worried!”

Mandarin’s scales turned a mix of pink and dark purple. Quartz looked at her.

“Yeah. We really should have told them where we were going,” she said, then turned to face Freedom. “We’re checking on Tsunami. We were worried that that statue might have done something to her since we asked the bracelet if she was ok.”

Freedom looked at the bracelet. “Is Princess Tsunami alive?” She asked it, then “Is Princess Tsunami hurt?”

She frowned in annoyance, then asked “Is she injured ?”

She looked up at the SandWing and RainWing. “She’s fine.”

“Ok,” Mandarin said, “but we should still go check on her.”

“Fine. You go do that, I’ll tell everyone that you two are ok.”

Freedom scampered back down the hallway.

“Why didn’t she just use the bracelet to check on us?” Mandarin muttered.

Quartz just shrugged.

They found Tsunami pacing in her office with a grumpy and slightly worried expression.

“Tsunami! What happened?!”

The SeaWing princess looked at Mandarin.

“My sister came back from the dead is what happened. She stole the dreamvisitor, which is why I didn’t contact you last night. Judging by the fact that you’re here right now, I assume you turned around after you didn’t hear from me?”

“Umm, no actually,” Mandarin said, “We went all the way to the ice kingdom and started tinkering with the bracelet. We discovered that it can answer questions, so we asked it why you didn’t contact us and learned about what happened with Orca. We asked it what the fastest way back here was and it opened a portal to Shard’s sleeping cave.”

“Huh. How much do you know about what’s going on?”

“Not much beyond what I just said. We know Orca stole the dreamvisitor, we checked to make sure she didn’t kill you, we know that the Gift of Utility can make portals and answer questions, though the questions have to be very specific I think. Whenever a question is too vague or subjective, Freedom or Starhunter just glare at the bracelet and reword the question.”

“Ok then. I don’t have much info either. Here’s what I know: Orca came back from the dead somehow, killed Queen Coral, and took the throne. She’s used her powers to restore the statue from the royal hatchery, and replaced the enchantment on it so that instead of murdering heirs, it now obeys her commands and allows her to control it like the Othermind could with dragons. On top of that, she made an unknown number of copies of it. I’ve seen two here at JMA and when she spoke to me through them she implied that there were a lot more.”

“That’s… bad.”

“I know. And I have no idea what we’re going to do about it. Which is a problem since, as Orca’s sister, I should be the one dealing with this.”

Just then, Freedom darted into the room.

“Quartz, Mandarin, I have an idea! We should try resurrecting Shard and see if he has any idea what’s going on!”

Mandarin became a confused mix of orange and purple. “How?”

“With the bracelet! Maybe he used it to bring me back or something! And then forgot… or something. Or maybe he just didn’t want to reveal he had animus magic.”

“Didn’t Jerboa’s scroll say that there weren’t any animus dragons alive at the time?”

“Well… yeah, but it also said that it couldn’t figure out who resurrected me or something. So maybe he used magic to hide from it!”

Quartz looked at Freedom, skeptical. What she’d said seemed a bit far fetched, even to him, and he wasn’t normally one to question others very much.

Freedom continued. “Plus, how else would he just happen to have the ‘gift newly made’ from the prophecy unless he made it. There has to be an animus out there somewhere to make it, and probably an IceWing considering that it follows the whole ‘gift of so-and-so’ naming convention.”

Quartz just blinked at her. He still wasn’t convinced that Shard was… well, had been, an animus. But the idea of trying to resurrect his “best friend” sounded good to him.

He left Mandarin to continue talking to Tsunami, figuring that he hadn’t really been adding anything to that conversation anyway, and followed Freedom down to the cave where Shard’s body was being kept. He stopped just outside the entrance, not wanting to look in. It hurt him too much to see Shard like that. The one time he’d gone in to look at the carnage he’d broken down crying and it took half the sapphire winglet to come in and carry him out of there.

He swallowed and stepped inside, keeping his eyes closed. Thankfully, the JMA staff had grown a variety of fragrant flowers in the room with the help of Freedom and some of the other students with leafspeak. That, coupled with the fact that one of the IceWing students was helping to keep Shard’s body frozen at all times, made it so that the smell of IceWing blood was barely noticeable. 

Freedom spoke. “Heal Prince Shard of all ailments up to and including death itself.”

As she started talking, Quartz mentally prepared himself for the most likely scenario: That it wouldn’t work. He shouldn’t get his hopes up. But as she finished speaking, he heard some loud and somewhat sickening noises and opened his eyes. Shard’s body shifted and put itself back together. 

“Shard!” He exclaimed, the moment the movement stopped.

“Shard?”

Something was wrong. Shard wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving at all . Quartz put a talon on his chest. He was cold, but only the usual amount of cold for an IceWing, not frozen solid. But Quartz couldn’t feel a heartbeat. 

“Shard! Please! No! Please…” he whimpered. “Why didn’t it work?”

Freedom echoed his question to the bracelet, then sighed. “It says ‘Permission Denied’, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

Quartz was too wrapped up in grief to think about what that might mean. He’d been so close to seeing his favorite dragon in the whole world again, and then that glimmer of hope had been snatched away. And it was his own fault that he’d never told Shard how he felt. Why did it have to happen like this? Why couldn’t the spell have just failed entirely? Why did it tease him like this?

Quartz curled up next to Shard, waiting, desperately hoping, futily, that by some miracle the prince would wake up. But he didn’t.

Chapter Text

Starhunter walked down the hallway. He’d had a premonition of something important that was going to happen in this part of the school. He had gotten annoyingly little information about what it actually was.

He couldn’t see it yet, but as he drew near the cave where Shard’s body was being kept, he sensed three minds therein. Freedom’s was easy to identify, the SandWing wallowing in despair had to be Quartz, but the third one puzzled him. At first, he thought it might be Blizzard, the IceWing from the ruby winglet who was in charge of keeping Shard’s body frozen until they could figure out how and where to transport it.

That, he quickly realized, didn’t make sense. The IceWing mind he felt certainly didn’t seem to be conscious. There wasn’t exactly a reason Blizzard would be sleeping in there, and with how loudly Quartz was crying, Starhunter doubted he could sleep in there at the moment. Which actually made things more confusing. Presumably whatever IceWing was in there wasn’t sleeping, but rather was unconscious for some other reason.

Starhunter didn’t have to speculate any longer, though, as he then came into the cavern and saw for himself what was happening. The mind he felt, he now realized, unquestionably belonged to Shard, whose body was no longer a mangled corpse, but rather appeared to be peacefully sleeping. But if he was alive, then why were Quartz and Freedom so upset?

Looking for an answer in Quartz’s thoughts proved futile, as the chaotic storm of emotions drowned out any semblance of a coherent idea. Freedom’s mind was more helpful. She was puzzled as to why the resurrection spell she’d cast with the bracelet hadn’t worked.

At first, Starhunter was still confused, given that to him it very much looked like Shard had been resurrected. But after a moment he picked up from Freedom’s thoughts that she and Quartz had both extensively searched Shard’s body for signs of life and found none. Freedom had tried to resuscitate him without magic, but she was far too small, and Quartz was a helpless ball of grief on the floor.

Starhunter stepped forward, rolled Shard on his back, and tried pushing on his chest repeatedly. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

“I was gonna try that, but I’m not big enough,” Freedom said.

“I know. That’s why I thought of it.”

“Oh. Right. Mind reading. Do you think we can try that for a bit longer to see if it works?”

“I don’t think it’s going to. My foresight isn’t exactly powerful enough for me to be sure, but I haven’t seen any visions where Shard is alive. That said, I don’t think he’s quite ‘dead’ anymore either. He seems to be comatose, but I can sense his mind now.”

“Oh. That’s weird. Is he dreaming or something?”

“Something like that. I can’t make out any details, but it does seem like some kind of dream.”

“If only we still had the dreamvisitor. Actually, I wonder if the Gift of Utility can make one. Probably not, but hey, it’s worth a try. Gift of Utility, make me a new dreamvisitor.”

Nothing happened.

“Oh well, it was worth trying.”

“There might be another way to communicate with him,” Starhunter observed, “I could try to do a mindspace bridge like Moon did.”

Freedom thought for a moment.

“Huh. I guess that could work. Maybe. Let’s try it.”

Starhunter looked at the three dragons in the room other than himself. He focused on them all at once, slowly pushing his focus toward Freedom specifically. Surprisingly, it worked on the first try. Four dragons now stood in an empty void. Well, two stood, one lay on the ground, and one was still curled up in a little ball.

Freedom walked over and prodded Quartz, who shifted a little but kept his head covered with his wings. She paused for a moment, then yelled “Look out!”

Quartz jumped, looking around frantically, freaking out even more as he saw only an empty void. He then spotted the others and calmed down a bit, before looking really worried again upon spotting Shard, who was now trying to stand up with little success. 

“Am I dead now too?” Quartz asked.

“No, silly, you’re in my mindspace. I just yelled that to scare you so you’d get your head out of your wings and actually pay attention to what’s happening.”

“Oh. What is happening?”

“Shard’s still dead, but he isn’t brain dead apparently, so Starhunter brought him into my mindspace so we could talk to him.”

“Oh. Really?!”

“See for yourself!” Freedom said, pointing at Shard.

Shard was now standing and attempting to hobble forward. He was clearly disoriented, and promptly fell over after taking another step.

“Sh- Shard?” Quartz asked, “Ar- Are you ok?”

“Kwarz? Waas gowin awn?” Shard sounded half asleep and his words were almost incomprehensible. He tried to get up again, fell, and tried again with more success.

“Wah apning? Ey don fel zo gud.”

Chapter Text

Quartz stood in stunned silence for a moment. There was obviously something wrong with Shard. Probably something to do with the still being dead and all. Quartz was on the verge of tears again. Moments ago, he thought he’d have given nearly anything to hear Shard’s voice again. But this wasn’t what he wanted.

“Kwarz? Es evithin okee?”

Quartz didn’t know how to reply. He whimpered a little bit.

“Wass wong?”

“We… we tried to bring you back… and… this happened…”

“Huhh?”

“We tried to bring you back, but it… it didn’t work. You’re still dead. We’re using Freedom’s mindspace to talk to you.”

“Minspice…? Im deed? Thas uh prooblum…” 

“Hey Shard,” Starhunter interrupted, “what do you know about the Gift of Utility?”

Shard took a moment to reply.

“Giff uf utilly?” he said, then looked down at his arm. “Wher iv ih?!”

“So he does know what it is…” Starhunter mused.

“Wha wha iv?”

“The Gift of Utility.”

Shard looked at his arm again as though he hadn’t just checked it.

“Wher ih gow? Wher ih gow?! ” Shard looked around frantically, spotted the bracelet on Freedom’s wrist, and sighed in relief.

“Fweeda hass ih. Goob. Ey ness ih bek, doh.”

“What?” Quartz asked.

“Ehh… Ey don rember… Wha wer weh tawken bout agan?”

“The Gift of Utility.”

Shard checked his wrist a third time, looked around, saw Freedom had it, and before he could finish a repeat of the last time, Quartz interrupted him.

“Shard.”

Shard turned to face him.

“Wha?”

Quartz turned to Freedom and Starhunter.

“Could I talk to him for a bit?... Alone?”

Starhunter nodded, turned, and walked away. Freedom looked puzzled, but followed him anyway. 

Quartz turned to face Shard.

“Shard?”

“Wha?”

“I have something to tell you.”

“Wha iv ih?”

“Shard, I-” He paused for a moment, “I…”

“Yu wha?”

“I love you.” He blurted, then quickly turned away.

“Yu… luv meh? Huh… Oh, hy Kwarz! Was op?”

Quartz let out a quiet whine. He’d finally built up the courage to tell Shard his feelings and he… he just forgot. What did Quartz expect would happen, anyway? This wasn’t some human fairy tale. Shard wouldn’t just miraculously come back because Quartz confessed his love for him. Three moons, not even animus magic was able to bring him back! What gave Quartz the idea that mere words… Well, mere words from a non-animus dragon, could do it.

He stared longingly at Shard’s puzzled face, wishing, hoping beyond hope, that some miracle would happen. Then, all of a sudden, Quartz found himself curled up on the ground with his wings covering his face. He got up and looked around. He was back in the real world, and there was an IceWing standing in the doorway. Both Starhunter and Freedom were facing the newcomer.

“Well it seems like something has happened since the last time I was in here.”

“Indeed.” Starhunter was the first to reply. “He seems… less dead? If that makes any sense. He’s still dead, but… well… less so?”

“I see. Does he still need to stay frozen?”

“I… umm… I’m not actually sure.”

“Hmm… So, out of curiosity is one of you guys an animus, or have you learned something about the bracelet? How exactly did this happen?”

Freedom spoke. “We tried to use the bracelet to bring him back. I think that may have been what he did for me, though I’m not sure. Whatever the case, it didn’t go as intended. He’s still… well… mostly dead.”

“What exactly do you mean by that? He looks pretty dead to me, albeit more intact.”

“He’s sort of like… dreaming,” Starhunter explained, “He’s visible to my telepathy, and we can communicate with him through Freedom’s mindspace. What’s your name again, by the way?”

“Blizzard.”

“Ok then. How about this: I don’t know how much longer we’ll be in here, but why don’t you check on Shard’s body periodically for a little while. If he starts to warm up, start freezing him again, if not probably just leave him be.”

“Fine by me.”

“Ok, in that case, now that I think about it, I think there’s something that Quartz, Freedom, and I should try doing.”

Chapter Text

“Where are we going, exactly?” Freedom asked, trotting along behind Starhunter as he led her and Quartz through the winding caverns of Jade Mountain.

“To see Frostwalker.”

Freedom looked to Quartz, who seemed a bit startled at hearing that name.

“Who’s that?” She asked. She was sure she’d heard the name before, but had no idea who it belonged to.

“One of the moon power management teachers. She oversees teaching mind readers how to use their powers responsibly. Her sister does the same with the seers.”

“Why are we going to visit the most powerful mind reader in the world?” Quartz asked, his voice a little nervous.

“I have an idea, but this isn’t the right place to talk about it. You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to, but I need Freedom for this to work.”

Quartz hesitated. “I’ll come,” he said a moment later.

The three of them kept walking without saying much. It wasn’t long before they found themselves in a part of the academy that Freedom had never seen before. Starhunter led them into a cave that was evidently used as a classroom. A dragon stood behind a lectern at the opposite end of the room, looking down at a book thereupon. Her scales were mostly black, with blue-white spikes running down her back and the length of her tail. Her wings bore a gradient from black at the front to that same blue-white color near the back edges. Perhaps most importantly, she had the shiniest silver scales in the corners of her eyes that Freedom had ever seen.

As the three dragonets entered the room, she looked up at them. Starhunter locked eyes with her, and the two just stared at each other. It was a little creepy, not that Freedom hadn’t seen far far worse.

“What are they doing?” She asked Quartz.

“I think they’re talking - err, thinking - to each other. Starhunter does this whenever he wants to have a private conversation with another telepath.”

The two of them sat there in silence for a moment, unsure of what they should be doing, before the NightWings finished whatever they were talking about. Frostwalker abruptly stood up, and Starhunter turned around, gesturing for his friends to follow as he left the room.

“Where are we going now?” Freedom asked.

“To Tsunami’s office,” he replied.

“Why?”

“You’ll see very soon.”

They arrived in Tsunami’s office shortly thereafter, where the head of the academy was angrily scribbling away at a scroll under the menacing sapphire gaze of a statue that stood in the corner, armed with a spear with a shaft of crimson coral and a golden blade in the shape of a teardrop. 

Frostwalker went ahead of the trio of dragonets and spoke to Tsunami.

“At Starhunter’s suggestion, I would like to start teaching a class on meditation.”

Tsunami gave her a funny look.

“That’s an odd thing for you to request.”

“Why don’t I demonstrate the kind of thing I’m thinking of. Here, lie down like this.”

Frostwalker settled down on the floor and closed her eyes. Hesitantly and with a puzzled look on her face, Tsunami did the same.

“Join us, you three,” Frostwalker said, briefly opening her eyes and facing the trio as she did.

Starhunter did so immediately, then Quartz and Freedom followed suit, the two of them just as confused as Tsunami.

“Now breathe,” Frostwalker instructed.

Freedom took a deep breath, and heard the others do the same. Before she could exhale, however, she found herself standing in a blank void. Looking around, she found the others in the room with her were there as well.

“So this is what the mindspace looks like,” Frostwalker commented, “I’ve been meaning to ask if I could see it, but as it stands we need a place to discuss the current situation where a certain queen won’t be able to eavesdrop. Starhunter had the excellent idea of using meditation as cover for being here. Now, first question: Tsunami, is there any way you know of that we can open the box without risking Orca getting her claws on a piece of the scroll?”

“No. I was told very specifically that all ten queens must unanimously vote to open it with full knowledge of what’s inside.”

“I’m sorry, what are we talking about?” Freedom asked.

“Should I tell her?” Frostwalker asked Tsunami.

“I don’t see how it makes any difference. I doubt Orca can open the darn thing herself, even with animus magic. Mind controlling the other queens will stop it from opening, and forcing it open is pretty darn well near impossible, as far as I can tell. And that’s what Anemone, Turtle, Jerboa, and Qibli all said after reading the enchantment. They know more about this stuff than I do.”

“Ok then. So, Freedom, have you heard of Darkstalker’s scroll?”

“Umm… I think so?”

“It was destroyed, right?” Quartz asked, looking kind of nervous.

“Mostly,” Frostwalker answered, “But a few pieces survived. Freedom, in case you aren’t aware, shortly before your second death there was… an incident that involved an enchanted scroll that could cast animus spells. Most of it was destroyed, but a few fragments remained in the possession of a RainWing named Chameleon, who used them to shapeshift into dragons of other tribes. These fragments were eventually stolen from him, and used to create a box that could contain them. The individual who made this box was a bit lacking in forethought, not to mention politically ignorant, and as a consequence the thing is… problematic to open. It requires informed consent from the queens of all ten tribes to open.”

“But I thought the SilkWings didn’t have a queen?” Freedom asked.

“We actually worked that one out. When we learned about the box, the SilkWing assembly made a law that lets them appoint a ‘Queen’ who can contribute a vote to opening the box, but otherwise holds no political power or significance from the title. And Glory’s vote counts for both the RainWings and NightWings. The problem is that there’s no way to get the scroll pieces out without Orca knowing and likely actively trying to steal them.”

“Why would she want to steal them?”

Tsunami was the one to reply this time. “While she was talking to me through the statue she let slip that she believes that every spell she casts damages her soul, so to preserve her sanity she wants to cast as few spells as possible. If she gets that scroll, she will feel safe using magic at will, despite the fact that I’m quite confident that it won’t protect her the way she probably thinks it would.”

“And all this leads us to the question of what we should do next.” Starhunter announced.

Chapter Text

Orca paced back and forth anxiously across the floor of the council platform in the Summer Palace. She should have made SRILN first, then had the statues restore the palace instead of wasting her magic doing it herself. 

Six statues now stood guard around the perimeter of the platform. Most of the SeaWing guards had been too loyal to her mother for her to fully trust them. Besides, SRILN was far better at defending her than any dragon could be. Any dragon that wasn’t an animus at least.

The other tribes were putting up more of a fight than she was expecting. It wasn’t like they could actually stand up to her. Not with SRILN in the way. So why couldn’t they seem to see that?

She’d considered casting a spell to allow her to mimic the powers of the NightWings, so she might be able to better figure out why her new subjects were being so difficult, but ultimately decided against it as she was already having a hard time processing even a small fraction of the information SRILN was giving her. She shouldn’t need to anyway, unless she somehow managed to underestimate whoever it was that was trying to manipulate her. SRILN proved frustratingly unhelpful in finding that individuals identity, but it assured her that whoever they were, her spell had in fact killed them. So unless they had found a way to cheat death or trick SRILN, they shouldn’t be able to do anything to her anymore.

With that situation hopefully resolved, Orca could turn her attention to trying to sort out the current political situation. Things weren’t working out nearly as well as she’d anticipated, and she was beginning to feel a nagging worry that she’d bit off more than she could chew. Again.

Chapter Text

“First thing’s first,” Frostwalker announced, “Tsunami, in here it should be safe to discuss the real reason for the meditation classes I’ve proposed. Brainstorming ideas for how to use the Gift of Utility verbally would carry a high risk of Orca overhearing. My sister has verified this. Doing so in the mindspace provides cover, but having everyone involved stand around staring off into space will raise suspicion as well. To solve this, Starhunter has suggested that we have a meditation class wherein students can spend time in the mindspace without raising suspicion.”

Tsunami took a moment to respond. Frostwalker was a fast talker, and everyone present had to take a few moments to process all the stuff she had just said.

“Ok. That seems like a good idea, except for the fact that we’re talking about sharing sensitive information with a bunch of dragonets, many of whom couldn’t keep a secret to save their lives.”

“We had the same thought, but Dustraiser and I have yet to identify a near future scenario wherein Orca becomes aware of the Gift’s capabilities by way of student gossip. She seems to be preoccupied and is focusing her efforts on monitoring those that she deems important enough to need her attention. And that includes both you and I, but not any of the current students here. As long as we do not discuss it outside of the mindspace, there shouldn’t be any issues with Orca learning too much.”

Why is Frostwalker important enough to draw Orca’s attention? Freedom wondered.

“Wouldn’t it be safer to just look into the future to get ideas for how to use the bracelet?” Tsunami asked.

“I had the same thought,” Frostwalker responded, “but Dustraiser said otherwise. Come to think of it, maybe we should discuss this with her too. Starhunter, would you go bring her here?”

Starhunter nodded, then vanished. He reappeared a moment later with a golden SandWing by his side. At first glance, the newcomer looked just like Sunny. Upon a closer look, however, the color of her scales was about where the similarities ended. She had black markings along her back and neck, although they were hard to see from Freedom’s vantage point. Unlike Sunny, she did have a SandWing tail stinger, although it was a bit smaller than normal in proportion to the rest of her. She also had slightly shiny light gray scales in the corners of her eyes.

“Alright, where are we?” Dustraiser asked.

After Tsunami and the NightWings had filled her in on the conversation, she explained, “From what I have gathered from looking into the future myself, as well as from talking to a student of mine who is a particularly gifted seer, it seems to be impossible for seers to have visions of events that take place within the mindspace. Furthermore, neither I nor said student have been able to glean any reliable information regarding futures where discussions about the Gift of Utility are held outside the mindspace. We can see the events just prior to the discussions, as well as a variety of incidents, few of them good, that occur after such discussions. Most of these involve Freedom and various other students, usually members of the sapphire winglet, getting abducted by Orca. These paths become so chaotic and tangled after that point that neither I nor Truthwatcher can make any sense of them. Thus, I believe that it would be best to hold these discussions within the mindspace as Starhunter has suggested. I have not seen any futures where Orca discovers such meetings prior to learning of the Gift of Utility’s existence.”

Freedom again found herself struggling to process that flood of information. Dustraiser spoke only slightly slower than Frostwalker, and her monologue went on for even longer. Were they related or something? They were sure acting like it, even if they looked nothing alike.

“Hey Dust?” Frostwalker asked. Dustraiser looked up. “Is there any chance that Mom will check in here soon? She’s actually got experience with this kind of thing.”

“Doesn’t seem like she’s planning to stop by, but if you want her here she’s bound to find out soon enough.”

“Typical.”

Freedom was now thoroughly confused.

“Anyway,” Frostwalker continued, “Unless anyone has anything else for us to talk about right now…”

She trailed off, looking around at the others as if waiting for one of them to interject. When none did, she continued, “Tsunami, we need to work out a plan for me to ‘convince’ you about this meditation thing. I’m not sure how much Orca knows about you, but I fear it would seem uncharacteristic of you to simply jump on board with this whole meditation class idea after randomly meditating for a few minutes.”

Tsunami nodded, after which the two of them discussed how their act should play out. Freedom didn’t bother to listen. She just sort of zoned out, thinking about miscellaneous things. 

She was startled out of her trance as she found herself thrust back into the material world. She opened her eyes and looked around. Frostwalker stood and stretched, yawning as she did. Tsunami, hearing that Frostwalker was up, opened her eyes and stood as well. Starhunter followed suit, then prodded Quartz, who seemed to have actually fallen asleep.

“So. I can see the appeal of meditation, Frost, but is it really something that should have a full class dedicated to it?”

 “Truthwatcher and a few of her peers in my sister’s Applications of Prophecy class have been working on a research project that has shown that meditation may help to reduce stress in students. Although this research is still in its infancy, I do believe that establishing this class has the potential to improve the rate at which students learn and retain information. Furthermore, it would allow us to study this phenomenon in the real world as opposed to hypothetical future scenarios, thus negating the effects of seers’ bias.”

“Well if that’s your reasoning, there’s no way I’ll hear the end of it from Sunny or Starflight if I say no. When do you want to start?”

“I’d prefer sooner rather than later. What’s the soonest you think you can resolve all the scheduling conflicts?”

Tsunami opened a drawer in her desk, pulled out a stack of papers, and began shuffling through them. When she finished she said, “Next week.”

“Yay!” Frostwalker replied excitedly, “In the meantime, do you think I could try a trial run with the sapphire winglet? Starhunter said he could probably talk them into it, and I’d like to see how it goes.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and one last thing. Is it ok if Dust teaches the class with me?”

“Yeah, that should be fine.”

“Good.”

Frostwalker left the office, gesturing for the dragonets to follow. As they walked down the hallway, Dustraiser emerged from the room next to Tsunami’s office and joined them.

They walked in silence for a few moments, with Freedom having no clue where they were going. Quartz of all dragons broke the silence, saying “Pr-” before being interrupted by Frostwalker.

“You really don’t have to call me that. I may technically be royalty, but there’s no way I’d ever consider challenging Snowfall. The IceWings would never accept a NightWing hybrid as queen in anywhere close to the near future. Not with what Darkstalker did only twenty years ago.”

Quartz blinked a few times, evidently not expecting such a hasty response. When he didn’t say anything, Frostwalker spoke again.

“You were saying?”

“Huh? Oh. Umm… What is seers’ bias?”

“Oh. Dustraiser is probably a better dragon to ask about that. Dust?”

“Seers’ bias,” Dustraiser explained, “is a cognitive bias that extends from the fact that when a seer actively looks into the future they’re more likely to find futures they want to see. Really it’s functionally just a form of confirmation bias, but the distinction can be helpful in some contexts.”

Quartz nodded.

Chapter Text

Mire sat in her cave, drearily flipping through a book about the Royal SeaWing Massacre. She was supposed to be reading it for an assignment, but she had picked the topic before… before Shard died. Losing him was like losing a brother. Again.

She doubted the others realized how hard she’d taken his death. After what happened to her sibs, well… why couldn’t she have a family where no one died before she turned seven? At four she’d lost everything. A little over a year later, she found a new home in Jade Mountain. And when she’d finally started to recover from her past, this happened.

“Mire?” Starhunter’s voice came from the doorway.

She looked up.

“Frostwalker is teaching a new class, and she wants the sapphire winglet to do a trial run.”

“Oh?”

“She wants to do one session tomorrow morning and see how it goes. If things work out we may do more this week, and next week it’ll be officially added as a class.”

Mire nodded in understanding. Starhunter returned the gesture and hurried away. The MudWing was pretty sure he knew how she was currently feeling, even if the others didn’t. Whatever the case, he didn’t pester her about it, and she was grateful for that. More puzzling was that he hadn’t bothered to tell her what this new class was. He had to have known that she wanted to know that information. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. If his mind was too busy to pick up on her thoughts or he was intentionally tuning them out, then he wouldn’t know. Considering that the two of them had worked out some time ago that it was better to communicate telepathically in situations like this due to Mire’s quiet tendencies, the former option was more likely. This made her even more curious as to what this new class could possibly be. As far as she knew, there was never a time in the academy’s history when a new class had been added so suddenly.

Despite this unusual occurrence, Mire tried to force her attention back to the research she was doing. She was already a bit behind on the project due to the trip north, and now there was another thing to somehow fit into her schedule. She hoped that Webs would extend the deadline for the sapphire winglet, considering everything they’d been going through.

Mire was now deeply regretting her choice of topic. With what had just happened in the Sea Kingdom, it felt as though the events she was reading about were happening again before her. Eventually, after managing to push through reading a page or so, she decided to go to sleep.

***

When Mire awoke the next morning, one of the normally leaf-covered windows had its green curtain pushed aside to let the morning sun shine on the sleeping RainWing that now lay nearby.

Mire stood up and stretched, then walked out into the hallway. She’d realized that Starhunter hadn’t told her when or where the new class was being held, and was now trying to look for him. She found him in the first place she looked: asleep in his cave. It wasn’t a surprise that he was sleeping, considering how little he’d slept in the desert the night before. It was, however, inconvenient for her, as it meant she now had to ask the other members of the winglet and hope they knew the answers.

She walked over to the cave where Sphynx and Manillae stayed. The pantalan dragons for whatever reason tended to get up earlier than the other members of the winglet. Indeed Mire could hear the sounds of two dragons moving around within. She gently tapped a claw on the stone in front of the chamber’s entrance. A moment later the face of a light brownish colored SilkWing emerged from behind the silk curtain in front of her.

“What is it?” Sphynx asked. His tone sounded annoyed, but Mire knew by this point that that was just how he sounded.

“What is the new class we’re taking?”

“Some meditation thing, apparently.”

“Meditation?” Mire slowly repeated.

“Yeah. I have no clue why it’s so important either. Apparently Frostwalker is really obsessed with this and managed to push it through really fast.”

Mire nodded, then turned to walk away before quickly turning back and asking “What time?”

“It’s in about two hours.”

Mire nodded again, then returned to her own cave. Seeing Mandarin still asleep, she crouched down under the window and crawled beneath the RainWing’s sunbeam across to the bulky tome she’d been using for her research. She opened it quietly and returned to the page she’d left off at. It was discussing various possible causes for Prince Albatross’s descent into madness. Recent philosophers and historians had begun to call into question the long-held belief that it was either the stone structure at the heart of the Summer Palace or the collective effects of the numerous smaller spells he had cast which had led to his act of mass regicide. Many had now begun to posit, in light of the events that transpired following Darkstalker’s return and attempted genocide, that animus madness may in fact be caused by a complicated and nuanced combination of psychological factors that arise from the inherent power imbalance between an animus dragon and their peers. This school of thought was still in its infancy, however, and was not widely accepted, or even known, by the general populace. 

The lengthy volume Mire was reading was a recently assembled anthology of various documents written over the course of the last two thousand years. It went in circles chronologically, retelling the same events as they were perceived by historians at various points in history, organized such that the oldest writings came first while the newest were at the back. The first tenth or so of the book as well as its final quarter were the sections most pertinent to Mire’s study, as the former part was written primarily by contemporary historians while the latter had all been written within the last twenty years, and therefore contained the thoughts of many modern philosophers who had Jade Mountain’s archive of historical records from every tribe at their disposal.

The physical volume itself had been produced only two years ago, using a human invention known as a printing press. This, combined with pantalan technique of book binding had allowed JMA staff to condense the contents of the main library cave to the point that everything they had before now fit on a single shelf. With the newly freed space they had, they expanded their archive to become the largest collection of knowledge in the entire world. Furthermore, they were in the process of making two copies of each of their documents to give to each tribe, on top of several backups for their own records. The main thing that was holding them up was the production and transport of the massive quantities of paper required for the project. Because of this, many of the more obscure and specialized books were scaled down to human size. With the glassworking technology invented by the HiveWings, it was no longer particularly difficult for dragons to read these tiny documents, as large lenses could be used to magnify the text to a size that was easy to read. There were several such devices in the library, and Shard had one in his cave. Shard. Mire had gotten distracted again, and now she was thinking about Shard, which was a distraction she certainly didn’t need.

At least an hour had passed, and she’d only gotten through a couple of pages. The sunbeam that had been shining on Mandarin was now mostly directed at the stone floor. Mire stood up and closed the book, unintentionally making it slam shut. The sleeping RainWing began to stir. With a yawn and a stretch she stood up, then walked over back into the sunlight.

She turned to Mire.

“How long do we have until meditation class?”

Mire shrugged. “Maybe an hour? Ask Sphynx.”

Mandarin hurried out the door. Mire hesitated for a moment, then followed.

***

As it turned out they only had twenty minutes. The class was taking place in Frostwalker’s classroom, which was located in one of the deeper caves in the academy that didn’t have access to direct sunlight. The cave was chosen under the assumption that only NightWing students would attend Frostwalker’s classes. It was for this reason that Mandarin hurried off to the academy’s moon globe tree, returning with six glowing orbs trailing behind her.

She distributed them to each of the non-NightWing members of the winglet, then went and retrieved Starhunter from his cave. The seven of them then made their way down to Frostwalker’s classroom.

They found the cave empty. According to Sphynx they were exactly on time. Mire was beginning to worry that they were in the wrong place or got the time wrong or something, but then Frostwalker came rushing in.

“Sorry I’m late. Let’s get started,” Frostwalker said, short on breath from her sprint to the classroom, “Let’s start by forming a circle. Starhunter, since this class was your idea, why don’t you come here and sit next to me. Actually, Freedom, why don’t you sit here between the two of us. Everyone else, just form a circle.”

Quartz sat down next to Starhunter, then Mandarin beside him. Mire sat down next to her, and then Manillae beside Mire, before Sphynx nudged the HiveWing’s shoulder, prompting them to move over and allow the Silkwing in between them and Mire.

Mire was a bit puzzled by this interaction, though she did notice that Sphynx was frequently glancing in Frostwalker’s direction with what might have been a hint of unease. The NightWing hybrid didn’t seem to notice.

“Now that we are seated, let us begin our first exercise. Let’s all find a comfortable position to lie down in and begin our meditation.”

Mire lay down as if she were trying to sleep. Most of the others did too, though Sphynx seemed hesitant. Manillae got up and whispered something in his ear that seemed to make him relax a bit. They then lay down with the rest.

“Now. Let’s close our eyes and relax. I understand that you all had a very busy day yesterday, and it’s perfectly fine if you fall asleep.”

Mire closed her eyes. A few brief moments went by, before Frostwalker spoke again in a far more anxious tone.

“Ok, now it’s safe to explain the real reason I brought you all here.”

Chapter Text

Mandarin lifted her head up and opened her eyes. She looked around, puzzled. Something felt subtly… wrong in the cave. The light, she realized. The moon globes had disappeared, and the whole cave was lit by a dim ambient light from no apparent source.

“In light of recent events,” Frostwalker continued, “Starhunter has suggested that I push for starting the meditation class we’ve been discussing for some time, and use it as cover for a discussion of possible uses for the Gift of Utility. When questioned, the Gift has claimed that Orca will not be able to spy on conversations that take place here within Freedom’s mindspace, and although it will not tell us why, it has already demonstrated its ability to block attempts to glean information about itself or its wearer using animus magic. Furthermore, Dustraiser has corroborated this belief by searching for futures where Orca demonstrates knowledge of what we might discuss here and finding none that cannot be explained without scrying. As such, Tsunami and I have deemed it safe to hold this discussion here.”

More than half of the winglet was now staring at Frostwalker with incredulous expressions. Only Starhunter, Freedom, and Quartz seemed largely unperturbed by the sudden change in the situation. The first two made sense, she figured, though she wondered why Quartz seemed unsurprised by the revelation.

Everyone was silent for a moment, before Starhunter nudged Freedom and she began speaking.

“So… apparently the Gift of Utility can answer questions here in the mindspace…”

She trailed off, seemingly unsure if she should continue. Starhunter looked at her expectantly, and she added, “...so that means we can ask it questions without worrying about Orca possibly overhearing us.”

With that, Starhunter spoke up, “For those who are not yet aware, last night Freedom and Quartz attempted to resurrect Shard using the Gift of Utility. They were… not quite successful, however his current state is with little doubt an improvement over what it was before. Furthermore, when queried on why the attempt did not work as intended, the bracelet indicated that it was capable of performing the task at hand, but refused on the basis that it did not have permission to do so.”

The NightWing paused for a moment before continuing.

“Although Shard’s physical body is completely unresponsive, he does now possess some form of consciousness that we were able to communicate with through the mindspace. In doing so, we learned that he does in fact recognise the Gift of Utility by name, though what exactly he knows about it is unclear. His ability to think and communicate is… impared by his condition.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mandarin asked.

Starhunter turned to Frostwalker.

“I don’t have the range to get him, but I think I can keep everyone in here if you bring him in.”

“Are you sure? We haven’t tried connecting this many dragons to the mindspace at once before, much less with a single telepath.”

“The worst case scenario is that we’ll lose the connection and I’ll get a headache. If that happens we can just rest for a bit like we’re pretending to do anyway and then bring everyone back in.”

“Fair enough,” Frostwalker said, “Ready?”

Starhunter nodded, then winced as the teacher disappeared. He was evidently struggling to keep everyone in the mindspace at once. A moment later, Frostwalker reappeared with a very alive looking Shard sprawled on the floor behind her.

He looked up.

“O, ‘ey gyze!”

Mandarin turned a mix of white and a pale green that almost matched Shard’s scales. Even she could tell from the others’ expressions that they were spooked. Only Freedom, Quartz, and the NightWings seemed to not be startled.

Quartz gazed toward the dead prince. He looked to be on the verge of tears. Shard, in the meantime, was struggling to stand up. His serrated claws allowed him to grip the floor just fine, but he seemed to have almost no sense of balance and stumbled around, toppling over a number of times before he finally found a rather awkward looking pose with his legs spread out to the sides that allowed him to stand up.

“Im dezzie.”

Quartz looked away. Shard looked down at his wrist, then began looking around with a panicked expression.

“Wher mah breceleet?!”

Freedom rolled her eyes, stared intensely at Shard for a moment, and his bracelet materialized around his wrist.

“It’s right there, silly.”

Shard looked down at it.

“Wah? Meh brezlit?”

“Yeah. You were just looking for it.”

“O. Wie wass e loukin fer ih agen?”

Freedom turned toward the others.

“You see the issue?”

“Wah izoo?” Shard asked.

Some of the dragons present nodded while others just stared at him. Mandarin was in the latter group, her scales a mix of light blue and green as she gazed at her not quite dead friend.

“He has no idea what’s going on, does he?” Sphynx asked.

“Nope,” Starhunter said, “Seems to remember stuff from when he was alive, but can’t remember anything that happens here for more than a few seconds.”

“So what are we going to do to help him?” Mandarin asked.

“I don’t know. Dustraiser said that she can’t see any futures where he’s alive, but she also couldn’t see him in his current state prior to the healing spell being cast on him. Although it refuses to confirm this, we suspect that the Gift of Utility blocks NightWing foresight in the same manner that it does animus divination. Thus, seers can’t predict the end result of any of the ‘spells’ cast using the gift.”

“So it’s capable of pseudo-resurrection,” Sphynx began, “Have you guys learned anything else about what it can do since yesterday?”

“Nothing concrete, although we’ve made some observations and hypotheses. Freedom used her leafspeak for the first time since donning the bracelet and found it to be considerably more powerful than before. It is not clear if this is an intentional feature of the bracelet or a side effect of its apparent ability to augment her physical capabilities. I do not recall if this has been shared with everyone else yet, but Freedom also has the power to toggle the black stone in the bracelet between skyfire and an unknown material. When it’s made of skyfire, Freedom’s mind is shielded as normal, and she also appears to be completely invisible to seer powers. I find this interesting, as Shard was still visible to seers while wearing the skyfire version of the bracelet. In addition to all of this, I have come to a rather… worrying conclusion regarding possible reasons for the Gift to have been made this way. I fear that the bracelet, which is by all appearances of IceWing make, may have been created by an animus who feared that Darkstalker might somehow return, and thus made a Gift that would grant its user an edge in fighting him.”

Manillae spoke up, “Are you suggesting that possible countermeasures against Darkstalker might need to be applied to the Orca situation?”

“Exactly. And that brings us to the reason we organized this meeting. We need to know as much as possible about what the Gift of Utility is actually capable of in regards to fighting an animus. The mindspace is a place where we can safely brainstorm ideas for testing what the bracelet might be able to do.”

Chapter Text

“If the thing was made to fight Darkstalker, I would think that it would probably have some way of negating other animus spells,” Sphinx suggested.

“That would make a lot of sense,” Starhunter said, “though I don’t think we can really test that in here. Hmm… we need to come up with a way to keep track of all the things we come up with and can’t test in here.”

Sphinx glanced at his clawmates, then looked over and called, “Hey, Shard! Does the Gift of Utility have a to-do list feature?”

“Uhh… Yef?”

“How do you use it?”

“Haw d’ew oze wah?”

“The to-do list feature.”

“Wah tudew lesp fetre?”

Sphinx sighed.

Freedom piped up, “Hey, that’s useful information at least! Gift of Utility, make me a to-do list. Oh, hey! It worked! Gift of Utility, remind me to test whether or not you can negate animus spells. Umm, when this meeting is done? Actually, can you remind me to test each of the ideas we come up with in this meeting individually? Cool! Also when the meeting is done.”

Freedom looked up at everyone else. “That was easier than I expected.”

“So it just listened to you? Can it just cast any animus spell you ask it to, just with some restrictions?”

“I don’t think so. I told it to make a new dreamvisitor and nothing happened. It kinda seems like it has a predefined list of things it can do. And whoever created it seems to have planned to write that list down so people can see it but never got around to actually doing so.”

“So what do we currently know it can do? It can answer questions, it can open a portal from the IceWing palace to Jade Mountain, it can maybe bring back the dead, and what else?”

“It can block divination.”

“Well, yeah, I knew that. Is there anything else we’ve found?”

“There was this tube thing that had a talonprint symbol on it like the portal and I was able to open it and it had these glasses in it.”

“There was a talonprint symbol on the portal?”

“Only I could see it. And Starhunter, but only when he looked at what I was seeing. Actually, here.”

Freedom gestured behind her, where a wall of ice materialized. On it there was a silvery outline of a rectangular frame with fractal snowflake patterns extending from its outer edge. Within the rectangle and near the bottom there was an outline of a tiny dragonet’s talonprint. 

“This is what the portal looked like from my perspective when we found it.”

“How did you do that?” Manilla asked.

“We’re in the mindspace, remember. What you’re seeing here is a piece of my memory of the portal. Now watch.”

She trotted over to the ice wall and placed her talon on the print. It was exactly the right size. Sphinx watched as the wall cracked and imploded. He’d been behind most of the others when the portal had opened in the real world, and hadn’t gotten a good look. He now could see down into the open corridor that led to Shard and Starhunter’s cave. Freedom scurried through it and gestured for the others to follow.

The winglet went through it one by one, followed by Frostwalker. Sphinx couldn’t help but notice that the desks were totally empty and had unnaturally monochrome and featureless surfaces.

“Why isn’t there anything on any of the desks?” he asked.

“Umm… Oh, I guess I didn’t see what was on them when we were here in person, so that information isn’t contained within the memory.”

“I can help with that,” Starhunter said, “here.”

Freedom nodded and various objects materialized on the tops of the desks. Sphinx tried reading one of the scrolls and thought it made sense until he looked away and realized he couldn’t recall anything about what it said. He tried again with the same result.

“Something’s up with these scrolls. They’re on Shard’s desk, so could they have magic on them or something to keep people from reading them?”

Freedom hopped up on the desk and tried to read them. She then looked up at Sphinx and said, “Nope. Well, they could be, but more likely they’re just homework or something that Starhunter hasn’t tried to actually read. Text in the mindspace is weird. Remember that this is a memory of a scroll, not the scroll itself. The memory is incomplete and doesn’t contain the actual contents of the text. Trying to read stuff like this feels weird. I figured that out back when Luna wanted to show me her memories and didn’t want me to find the map to get to Pyrrhia. You’d have to read the scrolls in person to tell if they were magic.”

Starhunter came over and stood next to Sphinx.

“That, however, is magical,” he said, pointing to a moonglobe sitting on a wooden stand.

Sphinx looked at him. “Well duh.”

“The reason I bring it up is that I don’t remember Shard ever touching it.” Starhunter said, then looked puzzled. “Freedom, could you ask the Gift when that globe was picked from the tree?”

Freedom parroted the query to the bracelet and responded, “Six months ago.”

Starhunter raised a brow. “I don’t use moonglobes much, but if I remember correctly they’re only supposed to last a couple of weeks.”

“You’re suggesting that it was modified using the bracelet?” Sphinx asked.

“Exactly. Now the question is how.”

Freedom looked at the bracelet. “What additional spells were cast on this specific moonglobe?” She read the response aloud, “ThAt AnSwEr iS NoT cUrReNtLy AvAiLaBlE.”

“We should try this again outside of the mindspace. It’s possible that the Gift thinks you’re asking about this memory of the globe, which is of course not itself magical, and therefore isn’t telling us about the real world object.”

Freedom jumped off the table and scurried across the floor, grabbing a wooden cylinder that was nearly as big as she was. She tried to drag it, which proved difficult, then grumbled and stared at it until it literally started levitating. It floated up onto the desk and she leapt up after it.

“This is what I brought you guys here for. Watch.”

She placed a talon on a glowing silver print on the end of the cylinder, causing the wooden cap to pop off. The cap remained attached by a string, and Freedom reached inside of the tube and pulled out a pair of glasses that showed just how tiny she was- At least for a moment, before they shrunk down to her size.

“These things seem to help me see better. Like, I can read a human-sized book from across the room super easily. I’m pretty sure they’re magic. I mean, like more than just changing size and stuff.”

Sphinx looked more closely at the glasses, first the pair that Freedom had pulled out of the tube, then the identical one she was wearing. He thought back when the sapphire winglet was walking down to the meeting. At one point he’d blinked and sworn he’d seen a glimpse of emerald green eyes framed in a pair of rectangles that resembled the shape of the enchanted spectacles.

It would be an odd coincidence if it was one, but he couldn’t imagine why whatever enchantment was on the thing would do something like that. And no one else had mentioned such experiences. He was pretty sure Mandarin would have brought it up if she’d seen the same thing.

Sphinx stepped away from Freedom and Starhunter and pulled Manillae aside. 

“Have you seen Freedom’s eyes when you blink?”

“Umm… No?” they replied, “What do you mean?”

“When we were on our way down to Frostwalker’s classroom, I blinked and saw Freedom’s eyes. Like, through the glasses somehow.”

“That’s odd. I think she was behind us for most of the trip. She’s fast for her size, but still moves slower than us most of the time.”

“Hmm.”

Chapter Text

With the meeting over, Starhunter walked back to his sleeping cave. He had to know what was up with that moonglobe. It was important. Somehow.

He’d asked Freedom to wait to do the testing until he was ready, at which point they would stay in their respective caves and she would test each of their ideas while he supervised telepathically to ensure nothing went wrong. 

Freedom had apparently been bombarded with reminders to test every single one of the ideas discussed in the meeting simultaneously the moment it concluded. She’d had to dismiss the reminders and tell the Gift to make a new todo list that would remind her of each test after she concluded the previous one.

The testing would come soon, but first Starhunter had a test of his own to do. He entered his cave and walked over to Shard’s desk. There it was. The strange moonglobe, which he somehow knew, whether through foresight powers or mundane intuition, would be important in stopping the catastrophe warned of by the prophecy.

He took a deep breath, reached out, and picked it up. And then he saw everything .

Cascading threads of chaos were laid bare before him. Countless paths extending millennia onwards before vanishing into the distance. A SandWing talon with claws of stone. A flash of light. A grand palace with a roof of leaves. A green SeaWing with royal markings and a gold and red coral amulet, flanked by stone statues. A hybrid staring smugly at a terrified HiveWing while a very large, baffled NightWing looked back and forth between them. Eyes in the darkness. A silver ring set with opal. Familiar faces much too far beyond.  

For that one moment, he could see into eternity. And then it was gone. The moonglobe fell from stunned talons and shattered against the stone floor. Its glow vanished.

Starhunter had a splitting headache. He couldn’t think. He’d seen too much for any dragon to comprehend in such a short time. It took him a moment to even notice the shards of ice that were now beginning to melt at his feet. Where did those come from? He felt dizzy and disoriented. Where was he? He looked around and nearly lost his balance. The world was swimming around him. This was… Was it his cave? Yes, he was pretty sure it was. He was at Jade Mountain. And there was something seriously wrong with him. He had to get to the infirmary.

He managed to stumble into the hallway without tripping and started walking toward the Healing Center. He made it a few steps before he slipped on a rock and toppled over. An orange and green shape emerged from a small cave nearby and came over to him. He couldn’t focus his eyes enough to figure out what it was.

The shape then hurried away from him before returning a brief time later, trailed by a much larger brown shape. A MudWing? Yeah, it looked like a MudWing.

The MudWing helped Starhunter to his feet and led him down to a spacious cavern where he collapsed on a soft green surface. Leaves?

It took Starhunter a moment to realize the MudWing was talking to him. He couldn’t make out the words.

“Need… Frostwalker…” He mumbled, unsure of how coherent he sounded.

The MudWing and the smaller creature (Freedom?) briefly spoke to each other, after which the latter hurried off. Starhunter felt as his head was lifted up and a cool liquid was poured into his mouth. Water.

Another dragon entered the cave. Black and pale blue. Frostwalker. She would know what he saw. Only she could possibly understand it. He tried to remember, directing his thoughts at her to the best of his ability.

He heard something. Maybe a gasp? He heard a single word, a command, clear in his mind. Sleep .

He closed his eyes and tried to rest. His head hurt too much. And then the pain was gone. He looked up. Everything was clear again.

“What just happened.”

“I’m not sure,” Frostwalker said, “Freedom found you on the ground in the hallway and got Mire to bring you here. You were acting like you had a serious concussion, but that stuff you showed me indicates otherwise. My foresight indicated that you could sleep off whatever it was that happened, but then Freedom suggested having the Gift of Utility try to heal you and it seems to have worked. So what caused all that? The memories you showed me were too jumbled to make any sense of the actual cause.”

“It was…” Starhunter blinked. “Not here.”

He looked at Freedom and pulled the four of them, Mire included, into the mindspace.

“It was the moonglobe. The one on Shard’s desk. I picked it up and I think it amplified my foresight powers. I can’t make any sense of the visions. They were brief flashes of things I had no context for. But I could see way ahead… Farther than Clearsight could, I think. Foresight like that would have been really helpful if I didn’t break the stupid thing!”

He practically shouted that last sentence. He was mad at himself for destroying such a powerful artifact. He realized he shouldn’t be, but he still was. It wasn’t his fault the thing had bombarded his mind with so much information he lost his sense of direction.

“Wait, Freedom, how long ago did you say that moonglobe was picked from the tree?”

“Umm, six months ago, right? Yup, the bracelet confirmed it.”

“Mire, didn’t Shard get a concussion about six months ago?”

The MudWing looked thoughtful, then nodded.

“And then he recovered surprisingly quickly, right? Like, all the symptoms were gone the next day?”

“...Yes?”

Freedom looked over at Mire, startled.

“I don’t think I’ve heard you speak before?”

“I… don’t talk much,” Mire replied slowly.

“Wait, Starhunter,” Frostwalker interjected, “You’re suggesting that Shard used that sphere the same way you did? That would mean that it grants people NightWing powers instead of just amplifying them.”

“Indeed. Assuming that’s all it could do. But it seems likely. You said that I would recover in a similar manner and time frame without magic intervention, so unless multiple things tied to that sphere cause the same side effects, it was probably the same type of incident.” 

“So what exactly did you see?”

“I’m… not exactly sure. Most of it was too jumbled to make sense of. Probably the most noteworthy thing was the fact that I saw eight dragons who I could have sworn were the sapphire winglet, Shard included, in a scene that I could have sworn was somewhere in the distant future. Like, hundreds of years from now. I’m not sure what to make of that. And I have no idea how likely that particular future is. But more immediately relevant is the fact that I saw Orca wearing a necklace with a fancy pendant made from dark red coral and gold. That thing felt important. I think it was animus touched. And there was a SandWing with stone claws that I believe were also animus touched. I think she’s involved in all this somehow.”

Starhunter blinked.

“I don’t know who that SandWing was. I only saw her talons. But I know she’s a she and she’s connected to all this somehow. Not directly, I don’t think. Maybe not yet, even, but she will be involved.”

* * *

Starhunter, back in his cave, watched through Freedom’s eyes as she tested each of the ideas they’d come up with in the meeting. Beyond what they’d already discovered, they found no new abilities that the Gift of Utility had. The incident before, however, had apparently shown that telling the bracelet to “Heal Starhunter” did in fact work as a remedy for the mental backlash that the moonglobe foresight had caused.

“Starhunter?” Sunny’s voice came from the hallway.

“Yes?” He answered.

“I have a favor to ask of the sapphire winglet. Without the dreamvisitors, we have been struggling to communicate with other parts of the continent. We don’t have enough dragons to carry messages. And since some of your clawmates have expressed that they appreciated having the time away from the academy during your trip up north, I thought you guys might want a chance to do something like that again.”

“Where to?” Starhunter asked. He was pretty sure that he had been the one to inform the JMA staff how beneficial that trip had been for them mentally. The entire winglet had been feeling pretty miserable most of the time due to the constant reminder of their late clawmate's absence. Travelling had proven to be an effective method of mitigating this.

“Tsunami has been worrying about her sister Anemone in the Rainforest Kingdom. We asked Glory to check on her in our last letter, but she wasn’t mentioned in the reply. I was probably just an oversight, but Tsunami is worried and we don’t have any messengers to spare. I was thinking that maybe you guys would be interested in making such a trip?”

Starhunter nodded, “Sounds good. Where do we go? I don’t know where Princess Anemone lives.”

“Tsunami has a letter to Queen Glory that needs to be delivered. Glory should be able to help you get to Anemone, so you should visit her first. I’m sure you know how to get to the RainWing- err- royal treehouse? It’s not exactly a palace,” Sunny giggled, “I’m not actually sure what to call it.”

“So when should we go?”

“I don’t think Tsunami’s letter is ready yet and it’s getting late anyway. Probably tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good. I’ll make sure the others are on board and get back to you.”

Chapter Text

Quartz touched down on the tree-top platform made from interwoven woody vines and branches. The humidity was oppressive, though it couldn’t have been as bad for him as it was for Shard the first time the sapphire winglet had visited the rainforest, back during their first year at JMA. The prince had so much condensation dripping from his scales that he looked to be sweating like a human who’d just finished a marathon. At least Quartz didn’t have to worry about soaking everything he touched.

Noticing that the others had walked ahead of him, Quartz shook himself out of his thoughts and caught up with them. They stood before an enclosed structure, from which then emerged a tall RainWing with an armed NightWing following close behind to her left.

“The seven of you are from Jade Mountain?” Queen Glory asked.

Starhunter nodded, “Tsunami asked us to check on Anemone and make sure that Orca hasn’t gone after her.”

“Oh, right, she asked me to do that and update her in my last letter, but with everything going on it slipped my mind. I assume you’re going to need a map?”

“That would be greatly beneficial.”

Glory nodded and went back into the building, returning a moment later holding a scroll. She unfurled it and Quartz didn’t really pay attention as she explained to Starhunter how to find the place where Shard’s aunt lived.

Shortly thereafter, Quartz followed along as Starhunter led the rest of the sapphire winglet around beneath the rainforest canopy which shielded them from the downpour above. They flew for some time before the trees started to get a bit smaller and rain no longer streamed down through breaks in the canopy. Eventually they exited the edge of the forest and found themselves flying over a gargantuan beach, the soil gradually turning to rocks and then sand with the azure ocean visible just before the horizon.

They turned and flew parallel to the edge of the rainforest for a while, before Freedom announced that she saw a dragon-made structure far off in the distance. To Quartz, the thing she was pointing to looked like a tiny speck. The others seemed to be similarly puzzled, but Starhunter nodded and the winget adjusted their trajectory toward the thing in the distance.

As they neared their destination, it became apparent that Freedom’s judgment was indeed correct. The thing they were heading towards appeared to be a small hut, and there was a pale SeaWing standing outside and looking up at them.

Princess Anemone greeted the seven of them as they landed.

“You’re the sapphire winglet, I assume?”

“Yup.” Freedom piped up.

“Is Tsunami ok?”

“Physically, yes,” Starhunter said, “But she’s freaking out about the whole Orca situation. I’m guessing based on the statue over there that your previously dead sister has reached out to you as well?”

Quartz hadn’t even noticed the Orca statue until Starhunter gestured to it.

“Indeed. She sent that thing here and it told me in what I assume was her voice that Tsunami, Auklet, and I were all safe as long as we didn’t ‘do anything stupid,’ which I assume means challenging her for the throne.”

Starhunter nodded, “Tsunami was told the same thing, but didn’t fully believe her, so she sent us to check on you.”

“I was worried about her myself. Normally she contacts me fairly regularly with the dreamvisitor, but she hasn’t done so since the statue arrived.”

“Orca confiscated the dreamvisitors. We know for a fact that the ones at JMA and the rainforest were taken, and we haven’t heard from Jewel or LeafSilk, so it’s probably safe to assume that theirs was as well.”

Just then a RainWing stepped out of the hut.

“Sounds like we have vi-” She let out a surprised yelp, her scales turning bright green.

She shook her head back and forth, then blinked a few times.

“Tamarin, what’s wrong?” Anemone asked, sounding worried.

“There’s. There’s something over there. These two… things. But they’re only there when my eyes are open.” 

Everyone looked at her, puzzled, before Starhunter practically yelled, “The glasses!”

The others turned to face him.

“Freedom’s glasses. They’re animus touched. I thought all they did was let their wearer see farther than should be possible, but this makes so much sense! Tamarin, I peeked at your mind to see what those things you saw were, and they’re Freedom’s eyes! It seems like anyone can see through the glasses, regardless of whether or not they’re wearing them or can see normally!”

Everyone stared at him except Tamarin, who was glancing back and forth between Freedom’s eyes and various random points around her.

“This is really weird and it’s starting to give me a headache,” Tamarin said.

“Maybe you should try putting the glasses on,” Starhunter suggested, “The headache could be caused by only being able to see two small points.”

“I don’t think they’d fit,” Anemone interjected.

“Whatever enchantment they have allows them to change size to fit the wearer. At least I think that’s how they work, as they shrunk when Freedom first picked them up.”

Freedom trotted over to Tamarin, took off the glasses, and held them out to her. “Here,” she said.

“I don’t need those.”

“Umm… Ok…”

“Would you be ok with putting them on to help us figure out how they work? I honestly don’t think it would be a good idea for you to keep them. I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel that you probably won’t want to, and we might need them. I should mention that I likely have extremely weak prophecy powers, and the fact that they seem to be telling me this probably means that this is important. In spite of that, I think we need to learn as much as we can about every animus enchantment at our disposal.”

“Okaaay,” Tamarin said, hesitantly taking the glasses from Freedom. 

As Freedom let go of them, they began to grow, morphing to fit an adult RainWing instead of Freedom. Tamarin closed her eyes and slowly put the glasses on, hooking the long temples of the pair around her horns to keep them in place.

She opened her eyes and gasped, her scales flashing with rapidly shifting patterns of emerald and pale green. She squeezed her eyes shut again a moment later, wincing as bits of white appeared amongst the shades of green. She put a talon to her head and stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. 

“I definitely do not want to do that again,” Tamarin said, carefully taking the glasses off, “Ow.”

Cautiously, Starhunter spoke, “May I look into your mind and see what happened? Sorry, I really should have asked before, when you first saw Freedom with them, but in the moment I wanted to know what was going on and didn’t think. I really should be more careful not to use my powers without permission.”

“Yeah. That’s fine. But it won’t be pleasant. That brief moment I used them gave me the worst headache I’ve ever had.”

“Hmm,” Starhunter said before taking on a pained expression akin to Tamarin’s, “Ok then. I think it’s more the visual stimulus itself than the relative position of the lenses. That headache feels like it was caused by a combination of severe eye strain and something else. Like trying to read a book from across the room a short time after getting hit on the head with an acorn. I find that odd, because Freedom actually can read books from across a room with those glasses, and it doesn’t hurt her eyes at all. And I mean human sized books. The kind that we can’t read easily without specialized optics.”

Tamarin seemed distracted as Starhunter spoke. Of course, he didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular. The RainWing began to smile a little bit, her scales fading to black. 

“What color am I?” She asked.

“Black,” Mandarin answered.

“That’s what I thought. Let’s see here.”

Tamarin turned green.

“Let me guess, I’m green now?”

“Yup.”

“Wait, how are you doing that?” Starhunter asked, “How do you know which color is which?”

“That one glimpse I got through the glasses seems to be seared into my memory. I could see the Rainforest in the distance and tried to match the color of the canopy.”

“Interesting. And while I assume you figured out black based on my scales, how did you know which one was me?”

“Well, I had a pretty good idea of where you were relative to me, and you’re the only dragon here with flecks of another color on your wings. Since you’re the only NightWing here, and NightWings have black scales, I figured that your scales must be an example of the color black that I could use as the basis for becoming that color.”

Starhunter looked impressed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Quartz saw Manillae nudge Sphinx, who then looked briefly puzzled, frowned, and hesitantly spoke.

“Yesterday, as we were walking to Frostwalker’s ‘meditation’ class, I, err… saw Freedom’s eyes when I blinked. The glasses obviously have something to do with that, so maybe you could figure out why, Starhunter?”

“She was behind him when it happened,” Manillae added.

Starhunter looked baffled, thinking for a moment.

“I don’t see a way they could possibly do that without knowing the wording of the ench- Wait! I think I might have an idea. Tamarin, could I have the glasses for a moment?”

Tamarin, who had been carefully holding the enchanted spectacles below where they could mess with her, closed her eyes and passed the pair to Starhunter. He took them and turned to Sphynx.

“Try to keep your eyes open for the moment and spread your wings. Try not to blink.” 

Sphinx looked confused, but followed his clawmate's instructions. Starhunter donned the glasses and walked up to Sphinx’s left wing, inspecting it closely.

“Now close your eyes.”

Sphinx did so briefly and yelped in surprise.

“Don’t scare me like that!” The SilkWing half growled.

“Sorry. But I think I figured it out! It’s the eye spots on your wings! I don’t know why it would only recognise them as ‘eyes’ when your actual eyes are closed, but that seems to be what’s going on.”

“Huh. Odd.”

Quartz suddenly heard heavy footsteps approaching, and he along with the other dragons present turned to face the statue that was now walking toward them. It stopped a few paces away from the group, most of whom backed away slightly. Then it spoke, in a voice that had an unnatural sounding hum to it.

“Queen Orca of the SeaWings requests the presence of the dragonet named Freedom at the Summer Palace immediately.”

Chapter Text

“This automaton will provide a means of high speed transit for you to reach the Summer Palace. Please make any necessary preparations for this trip and report back to this automaton or the nearest SRILN unit as soon as possible to begin the trip.”

Freedom, terrified, gazed into the statue’s cold, sapphire eyes. It was looking directly at her, staring down as though waiting. 

“Umm… What is SRILN?” Freedom hesitantly squeaked.

The statue spoke and silver text appeared before her, as both of the enchanted artifacts responded to her question.

“The SeaWing Royal Information and Logistics Network, also known as SRILN, is a network of animus enchantments created by Queen Orca of the SeaWings for the purpose of managing logistics, communications, and intelligence operations for the Sea Kingdom.”

SRILN is an acronym for the SeaWing Royal Information and Logistics Network, which collectively refers to at least three distinct animus enchantments cast by Queen Orca of the SeaWings upon a statue of Queen Orca of the SeaWings.  

“Uhh. Could I bring my friends with me?”

“Requesting authorization… Affirmative.”

The Gift of Utility did not answer this time.

She turned to Starhunter, “What should we do?”

“I… Don’t know. I don’t think anything bad will happen. In fact, I fear that going may be our best option. If we avoid Orca, she may think we’re trying to hide something. I think… I think I would know if something was likely to go seriously wrong.”

“Ok. Umm, hey statue- err, SRILN, how long will this meeting take?”

“Processing query… This meeting is not intended to take an extended period of time. Queen Orca wishes to have a discussion with you, after which you and your companions may leave and will be provided with transportation to any location of your choosing on Pyrrhia or Pantala if desired.”

“Wow.”

“Queen Orca requests that, if there are no additional preparations that need to be made, you depart immediately.”

Freedom looked around at her clawmates. None of them seemed particularly certain of what to do, except maybe Starhunter whose face was unreadable.

“We should go,” the NightWing said.

“Now?”

“Yes. Orca doesn’t want to wait. I’m quite certain of that. She’s afraid of something.”

How does he know that , Freedom wondered. Perhaps his foresight powers were stronger that he’d let on.

“I’m ready to go,” she said to the statue, “How do I designate who to bring? Not everyone here is coming.”

This question was answered immediately by the statue. 

“This automaton will lead you to your destination. All who follow it will be transported.”

Then, without further warning, the statue appeared to spread a second set of wings that weren’t there before, which it then thrust downward, launching itself into the air. It took Freedom a moment to process what she just saw. The statue was still standing on the ground, immobile, in front of her, while an identical one was hovering in place above, rapidly flapping its wings to stay aloft and gazing down at Freedom expectantly. It was like the statue in the air had flown out of the one on the ground.

Starhunter took off next and began circling the statue, prompting Freedom to follow and then the rest of the sapphire winglet. When the seven of them were all in the air, a cloud of mist coalesced around the statue’s front talons and formed into a long, thin shape. The shape then solidified into a rod of dark red coral tipped with a golden, paper thin, teardrop shaped blade. The spear dripped with condensation as the statue pointed it northward, before beginning to glide in that direction. The sapphire winglet chased after it, and as they moved the wind began to pick up, pushing them forward. The air around Freedom began to feel warm as the dragons shot through the sky, the ground below them zipping by in a blur. They were moving far faster than should have been physically possible. In mere minutes they had crossed over the inland edge of the rainforest and were continuing on toward the northern coast. Before long they began to slow down, a tall, cylindrical island topped with vegetation now visible in the distance.

As they approached, they could see small platforms seemingly floating in midair, atop each of which a statue stood. The platforms formed circles around the mountainous structure.

They were now traveling at a more natural speed, and the statue they were following led them to a section of the green surface of the structure where the vegetation abruptly parted, leaves moving aside to allow Freedom and the others to enter into the spacious chamber within.

They touched down on a stone platform where twelve pools of water formed a circle on the ground. On the far side of the circle, in the largest of the pools, sat a green SeaWing dragonet, probably about seven years old.

“You are Freedom, I assume?” The SeaWing asked.

Freedom nodded.

“I have called you here because a matter of great severity has come to my attention. I believe the two of us are in grave danger, and I wish to discuss the nature of this threat. Alone,” she paused, “Follow me.”

With that, the SeaWing stood and walked to the edge of the platform, before looking back to see if Freedom was following.

Freedom hesitantly took a single step forward before speaking, “Can my friends come?”

“No. Until we better understand what is going on, this information must be kept a tightly guarded secret. No one can know unless absolutely necessary. Even with all the precautions I’ve taken I fear that whoever is behind this is multiple steps ahead of me. Now come with me, we must keep this meeting brief.”

Freedom very cautiously stepped forward, then slowly came up to the SeaWing’s side. As she passed the pool her host had been sitting in, she noticed that the word “Queen” was spelled out in tiny emeralds in front of it. 

As Freedom reached the edge of the platform, Orca pointed to a nearby statue of herself and commanded it, “Bring this dragonet to the meeting chamber.”

Before Freedom could figure out how to respond, the statue had rushed over and picked her up, prompting a surprised squeak. Its grip was surprisingly gentle as it lifted her in one talon, then leapt off the platform and followed Orca, who dove down toward the water below. As the statue neared the water, it summoned a spear like the other had and pointed it down to the water. Just before they made contact, the water parted, encapsulating Freedom and the statue in a bubble of air as they flew down into underwater caves.

They navigated a number of twists and turns before reaching a cavern where Orca stood, her scales blinking in various patterns that Freedom assumed must have been instructions for the statue in Aquatic. Suddenly, the bubble Freedom was in collapsed, or rather stopped being held in place by magic, which allowed water to submerge the statue and, by extension, Freedom, who was still held firmly in its talons. She gasped, belatedly expecting to have filled her lungs with water before realizing that she could somehow breathe just fine.

The statue set her down and she stepped forward. For some reason she felt like she was on dry land, despite the fact that there was very clearly water all around her. Orca laughed.

“It’s a strange sensation, isn’t it. I was perhaps a bit reckless with my magic when repairing this place. The water here in this cave behaves like air for the purpose of breathing, walking, and talking, but if you try to swim it will seem like normal water.”

“Wait, really?” Freedom asked, then jumped up and reached her talons out. She suddenly felt weightless, suspended in the strange magical water and only very slowly sinking toward the cavern floor. It was only then that she realized that she’d never swam before in her life. Being fully under water felt so bizarre. More so than flying for the first time. That had at least felt natural. She wiggled around, trying to move forward. After struggling for a short time she found that she’d made virtually no progress. Orca watched her with an amused expression.

“Perhaps you should stick to walking for now.”

Freedom blinked, “How do I get down?”

“Just think about walking. I’d try to sp-”

Freedom fell and landed on the floor with a yelp.

“-read your wings so you can land.”

“Oops.”

“Ok, now we need to discuss important matters. As far as I am aware, you and I are the only dragons in history to ever be brought back from the dead. What concerns me is why we were brought back. It was obviously done by an animus dragon, and whoever it is they have used magic to hide their identity from me. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they wanted to use my magic instead of theirs to protect their soul. But what I can’t figure out is why they resurrected you . If they wanted a dragon with leafspeak, they would have just picked Sundew. Then they’d have had a pawn with leafspeak who wouldn’t be so obviously connected to them. So I have to ask, what about you would make you important enough that a mad animus dragon would bring you back from the dead so they could use you.”

“Umm…” Freedom was somewhat taken aback by Orca’s change in demeanor. She sounded so certain of what she was saying. Could there actually be an animus dragon bringing people back from the dead so they could use them to achieve their own goals? If so, what would they want with her?

Orca’s eyes went wide.

“Three moons. It’s so obvious. You were used by that scavenger for four thousand years to control a hive mind. I realized first hand while experimenting with SRILN that controlling a large number of bodies at once, even artificial ones with limited sensory inputs, is extremely difficult. But you were doing exactly that for millennia. So that would mean that whoever is behind this is trying to rebuild the Othermind.”

Freedom blinked. If Orca was right. Well even the thought of that was terrifying.

“But what about the prophecy?”

Freedom realized that was the wrong thing to say the moment she said it. She had no idea how Orca would react if she found out that whatever force gave NightWings their powers was painting her as the bad guy.

“What prophecy?”

“Th- th- the…”

“SRILN, what prophecy is she talking about?”

“Unknown.”

“What is the most recent prophecy delivered by a NightWing seer?”

“When the ocean is ruled by the living dead, 

When the queen has fallen, a dark mage in her stead,

When a being of old holds a gift newly made,

Beware the promise that has been betrayed.

Bring a swift end to a dawning age,

or the world will fall to the mad queen’s rage.”

Orca’s eyes were wide with fear when the statue finished speaking. Her voice was shaking when she spoke.

“They’re going to replace me?!?!”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear it? It literally just said ‘When the queen has fallen, a dark mage in her stead.’ That means that whoever is behind all this, they’re going to take over the Sea Kingdom.”

Orca shivered.

“And I doubt they’d just kill me. Not after sacrificing part of their soul to bring me back. Which means they’ll probably do something worse. Cast a mind control spell on me or something.”

“Are you sure that’s what it’s supposed to mean?”

Again Freedom realized too late that she’d said the wrong thing.

“Of course! What else would it mean? Wait a minute, what’s that on your wrist?”

“This? It’s my friend’s bracelet. He… He died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Wait a minute, SRILN, is that bracelet animus touched?”

“Unknown.”

“How odd. Does that thing have the ability to perform resurrection?”

“Unknown.”

“Three moons, they’re farther ahead of me than I thought! SRILN, I enchant you to erase everything that has happened in this room from Freedom’s memory and teleport her to Jade Mountain Academy.”

The instant Orca was done speaking, Freedom suddenly found herself atop the cliff where the main entrance to JMA was located. She could still remember everything that had just happened, which she was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to be the case. 

As she pondered what had just happened, silver text appeared in the air in front of her.

Hostile animus spell detected. Enable emergency countermeasures?

Chapter Text

Mandarin’s scales went green with surprise as the statue came to life and grabbed Freedom in its talons before leaping off the platform. She was about to call out when she heard the click of talons on stone as a dragon landed behind her and the rest of the sapphire winglet.

“She’ll be fine,” A voice said from the direction of the sound, though it was tinged with worry. 

Mandarin spun around and looked at the newcomer, an IceWing who she took a moment to recognize as Princess Mink; Shard’s mother. She’d only met Shard’s parents a couple of times, but Mink was easy to recognize. Mandarin wasn’t sure why.

“Orca is afraid of something. She won’t tell me what. She thinks there might be some kind of conspiracy against her or something. And she seems to think Freedom may also be a target. Something to do with the resurrections I think.”

“Mink!” Starhunter called, hurrying over, “Why are you here? I thought Coral, umm, I guess that doesn’t matter now.”

“Coral not liking that her daughter-in-law is an IceWing princess? I think she finally stopped caring about that about a year ago. And I’m not sure that Orca exactly likes me either, but as for why I’m here, well, my son is reportedly dead and she’s the only dragon I know of who has the power to bring him back.”

“That… makes a lot of sense. We- that is, Freedom, Quartz, and I- Tried to bring him back with the Gift of Utility. It… well… it didn’t exactly work.”

“What is the Gift of Utility, anyway? Snowfall mentioned it, but didn’t tell me what it actually was.”

“Shard’s bracelet. When he died, the bracelet transferred itself to Freedom’s wrist. It seems to have a very complicated animus enchantment. Far more sophisticated than any animus spell I’ve heard of in history.”

Mink looked like she’d been hit in the face.

“Shard’s bracelet is animus touched?! "

“Yeah, and the weirdest part is that he didn’t seem to know.”

“Wait, what? I’ve had a suspicion that he might be an animus for years, but how could he have made a Gift and not known?”

“Well, in the time leading up to… you know, he began to think the bracelet might be animus touched. He thought he may have used it to resurrect Freedom and then tampered with his own memory for some reason. I’m not quite convinced that he was right about that, but it would explain why he couldn’t remember how he got the bracelet to begin with. I’m more concerned that there’s another animus involved in all this. One who may have been working with Shard in secret, then erased his memory for some reason.”

Mink looked troubled by this.

“If there is actually another animus dragon out there, it lends credibility to Orca’s belief that whoever brought her back is trying to manipulate her.”

Starhunter looked troubled by this. “That’s true,” he said, “though I don’t see any way that she could be completely right. Considering what the Gift of Utility can do, I don’t see why whatever dragon made it would try to resurrect and manipulate another animus instead of making something like Darkstalker’s scroll. That’s not to say they don’t want Orca for another purpose, of course.”

“That’s a fair point. I hadn’t thought of that. Three moons you sound just like Shard. It’s no wonder you get along so well. Wait, speaking of Shard, didn’t you say you tried to use the Gift of Utility to… you know….”

“Yeah. About that. It repaired all of the obvious physical damage to his body, but then just stopped. It said something to the effect of ‘Permission denied,’ so I suspect that it’s capable of finishing the job and just won’t let us for some reason. Also, it did a bit more than what I said before. Shard’s body looks pretty dead still, but he seems to be more comatose. His mind is visible to my telepathy, though I can’t sense any coherent thoughts from him, and I was able to bring him into Freedom’s mindspace where we had a… ‘conversation’ with him. He didn’t seem to be able to remember any new information for more than a few seconds, and he spoke as if severely intoxicated.”

“Wait wait wait, back up. You said something about a mindspace? What is that?”

Starhunter began explaining the mindspace to Mink and Mandarin’s attention drifted elsewhere. She hadn’t seen any dragons besides Orca, Mink, the statues, and her friends, since arriving at the palace. It felt strangely… deserted. Of course, she probably shouldn’t be surprised, considering that this place had been destroyed during the War of SandWing Succession and left abandoned until apparently very recently.

The fact that this structure had originally been made by an animus dragon didn’t take away from the sheer, awe-inspiring beauty of it. Even if that animus went mad and murdered a bunch of his relatives; A fact that Mandarin had picked up while researching SeaWing history for her project.

Chapter Text

“Yes!” Freedom yelped.

The question faded away and was replaced by, Emergency countermeasures enabled.  

Then that too vanished, leaving Freedom to process everything that had happened in the last few seconds. She decided that she needed to get to Frostwalker, since the telepath was the only dragon at JMA she could safely talk to without a risk of Orca eavesdropping. 

She ran from the entry cliff where she’d been teleported to down into the academy proper. She wove through the winding caverns, descending deeper into the mountain in search of Frostwalker’s classroom. 

As she rounded a corner, she ran head first into the leg of another dragon, making her squeak from the impact and the large dragon yelp in surprise. She looked up to see who she’d collided with, and met the horrified, blue-eyed gaze of Peril.

Peril’s expression quickly turned to confusion as both dragons took a moment to process what had just happened. Freedom felt fine and very much not burned to a crisp, despite having just slammed into the leg of a firescales. Peril evidently realized that Freedom was unharmed by her touch, and was now trying to figure out why . 

“Don’t tell anyone what just happened!” Freedom blurted, before weaving around Peril and continuing her sprint to find Frostwalker and leaving the baffled SkyWing behind.

She passed at least two Orca statues on the way, but neither seemed to acknowledge her presence. She kept on running as fast as her tiny legs could carry her.

Eventually she reached Frostwalker’s classroom, only to find it empty. Heart racing, her panicked mind thought through different places the hybrid might be. Then it hit her.

Frostwalker, I’m in your classroom and I need you here now it’s an emergency!  

The next moment she was suddenly in the mindspace, the telepath teacher standing beside her.

“What happened? Aren’t you supposed to be in the rainforest?”

“Yes but Orca found us and made us go to the Summer Palace which she repaired and she brought me to this weird magic cave and we talked about magic and resurrection and stuff and then she thought I was working for some evil animus dragon she thinks resurrected her and she sent me back here and tried to erase my memories but it didn’t work!”

“Woah woah woah, slow down. What happened?”

Freedom took a moment to catch her breath, which didn’t make any sense since there was no need for her to breathe in the mindspace.

“We went to the rainforest and met with Glory and then Anemone. Orca had a statue guarding Anemone, and while we were there it told us that Orca wanted to meet with me. It, like, split into two statues, or something? And then one of them flew with us to the Summer Palace and used magic to make us fly really quickly. Anyway, Orca brought me to this weird magic cave where the water was like air, and told me that she thinks someone brought her back from the dead so that she could cast spells for them or something. And then she thought the Gift of Utility had something to do with the resurrection, and that maybe I was working for whoever this hypothetical animus is? Anyway, she teleported me back here and tried to erase my memories of everything that happened in the cave, but it didn’t work. I think the Gift of Utility blocked it, maybe? It asked me to ‘enable emergency countermeasures’ or something, and I said ‘yes.’”

“Well then. That’s a lot to take in. Wait, what did it say after you told it to enable the countermeasures?”

“It said they were enabled, I guess?”

“Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Nope. Well, I ran into Peril on the way down here and didn’t get burned, so maybe it made me fireproof?”

“That… could be it, though that seems kind of oddly specific. Do you have any idea why it prompted you when it did?”

“Umm… It said something about a hostile animus spell or something like that.”

“So maybe these countermeasures are meant to work against an animus dragon? That was one of the ideas we came up with while brainstorming, was it not?”

It was, Freedom realized. The meeting in the mindspace felt like an eternity ago now. Had it really only been a matter of days? She nodded.

“So if that is indeed what it’s meant for, and you presumably have now gained access to functionality it has exclusively for that purpose, then maybe it will be a little more forthcoming about what it does?”

Freedom looked up. That was a good idea actually. 

“Gift of Utility, why were you created?”

The first portion of the bracelet’s reply was it’s typical form of unhelpful:

TODO: Add a description of the GoU’s purpose  

But then a second block of text appeared in the air:

EMERGENCY COUNTERMEASURES ACCESS ADDENDUM:

Dear reader,

If you are seeing this, I am almost certainly dead. More concerningly, I died while a functioning prototype of my Gift was still in existence, and that prototype has determined that a being armed with animus magic now poses a significant enough threat to the sapient races of Pyrrhia and Pantala that the Gift has enabled its emergency countermeasures. As such, I must tell you of the Gift’s true primary function. The Gift of Utility was created to be a last line of defense against a malicious animus dragon. Had it been completed, which your reading this message means it likely was not, it would likely be safe for general use. In its current state, however, the Gift of Utility is too unstable to be used unless absolutely necessary. I hope that I will have had time to properly document the capabilities of the Gift’s countermeasures by the time you read this, though I fear it is not likely. I probably will have spent the time I could have done so working on the next iteration of this Gift, which I almost certainly never got the chance to complete as this item would have been deactivated as soon as I’d done so. Whatever the case, dear reader, you are the last line of defense that dragons and humans have against whatever threat currently looms over our world.

Sincerely and with great concern,

Prince Shard of the IceWIngs and SeaWings

Chapter Text

Shard could hardly believe he was doing this. If this somehow actually worked, he was certain that his friends would trace it back to him. He wasn’t exactly good at playing dumb. He hid behind a fairly sizable boulder and quickly scratched a crude circle into the rock with his serrated claws. His plan was to wait to actually cast the spell until after he left the academy, and this was the easiest way to anchor it.

With that done, he stepped up to the edge of the cliff in front of the academy’s main entrance. He spread his wings and took to the air. He flew until the mountain looked tiny on the horizon before finally speaking.

“Gift of Utility, transport the remains of the dragon Freedom to the circle I have drawn at the entrance of Jade Mountain Academy, then heal her of all ailments up to and including death itself.”

If his predictions were right, the spell should work. The Gift of Utility was programmed to exclude itself from Jasper’s Resurrection Ban of 1562 AS, a spell that was likely unknown to any dragon alive besides him, as he had only learned of it through supernatural means. He still didn’t understand why literally no other animus dragon in recorded history had thought to ask why animus magic couldn’t bring back the dead. Or rather, if they did, they didn’t think to use their powers to find an answer.

Whatever the case, he was pretty sure his exemption would work. Using word games to create and exploit loopholes in animus spells was his specialty.

He’d originally planned to wait until he returned to JMA to see if the spell worked, but the anticipation proved to be too much to bear. He conjured an illusory projection of JMA’s entrance, and sure enough, there was a tiny orange and green dragonet with a confused expression wandering across its surface.

Just then, Mandarin landed near her and the two started talking. Shard’s illusion replicated their voices, allowing him to hear their conversation as they tried to figure out what was going on. Shard desperately wanted to turn back, or simply teleport there, and tell them what he did. But he didn’t want to reveal his powers. He wanted to just live a normal life for a while; one that wouldn’t involve massive numbers of dragons asking for help that only he could give. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help them. That’s what the Gift of Utility was ultimately for, after all, but he didn’t want to be under that kind of pressure all the time.

Anyway, enough of those thoughts. He’d just brought Freedom back from the dead! He’d just done the one thing that animus dragons weren’t supposed to be able to do! Well, aside from creating paradoxes, of course. That one actually was impossible, as far as he could tell.

Not only was this an incredible accomplishment from a magic perspective (Jasper’s spell was quite thorough), but Freedom herself would be an invaluable primary source regarding the events of the Scorching. And on top of that, she of all dragonets most certainly deserved a chance to have a somewhat normal life. Perhaps more than Shard did.

Now he just had to figure out how to hide his role in all this from his friends. He was a terrible liar for starters. He could try to hide it, but his friends would almost certainly get suspicious of his feigned or lack of surprise at Freedom’s return. Mind control was off the table for obvious reasons. Or was it. He obviously couldn’t do such a thing to anyone else; the very thought of doing so terrified him. But what about himself? He knew full-well what he was doing, and thus, he reasoned, he should be able to consent to a spell that would keep him from slipping.

He contemplated it for a while as he flew. Eventually, he decided on the wording he would use.

“Gift of Utility, I want you to suppress any and all memories I have of being an animus dragon, using my own animus magic, and casting spells either directly or through you, as well as my knowledge of your enchantments and supernatural functionality, while I am in the presence of any other sapient being. I shall be unable to consciously recall the above information while this suppression is in effect. This suppression should be suspended while I am alone, and resume when I am in another sapient being’s presence.”

He sighed as he finished. He sure hoped the spell would work as intended, and if it didn’t, his failsafes better work at the very least. Now all that was left to do was get to Pantala so he could test it.

Chapter Text

“Umm, Freedom, I’m going to have to drop out of the mindspace in a moment. Come meet me up in the history cave. We have a- some visitors who I’d like you to meet.”

The dragonet didn’t respond for a moment, then looked up from the silvery message in the air before her. “Umm, ok,” she said. Then she was suddenly back in Frostwalker’s classroom. She turned towards the exit to the cave, and only then realized that she could see just fine despite the pitch blackness around her. She hurried out and up to the history cave, which was, unsurprisingly, where a SeaWing named Webs normally taught most of JMA’s history classes.

Webs wasn’t there when she arrived, however, but rather Frostwalker and Dustraiser were conversing with a pale orange SkyWing wearing an intricate silver locket on a chain around her neck. All three of them turned to face Freedom as she entered.

“Hello,” the SkyWing said, “you’re Freedom, I presume?”

Freedom nodded.

“I’m Pyrite, and this is my br- Wait,” she turned to Frostwalker, “does she know about us?”

“I don’t believe so,” the NightWing hybrid replied.

Pyrite turned back to Freedom. “Ok, this is a little weird, but I’m going to introduce you to my, uh, ‘brother,’ Hailstorm. Please don’t be alarmed.”

Suddenly Pyrite’s scales began shifting. Spikes extended from the back of her head and along her spine, and her scales went from pale orange to silvery blue-white. After all the strange things Freedom had seen of late, the SkyWing’s sudden transformation was hardly shocking.

“Hello, Freedom. I’m Prince Hailstorm, cousin of Queen Snowfall.”

“Hi there,” Freedom said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. 

Hailstorm looked confused by this. “You aren’t even a little startled by that? Most dragons freak out the first time they see us transform.”

“Eh, I just got abducted by a magic statue and then had a chat with an animus dragon in a cave where the air was actually water. And then I got teleported to the other side of the continent faster than I could blink. So yeah. Not much is gonna surprise me today.”

Hailstorm just stared at her, clearly unsure what to make of that. Freedom decided to change the subject.

“So that necklace you’re wearing is animus touched, I’m guessing?”

Hailstorm nodded. “It was made using a fragment of Darkstalker’s scroll. Queen Scarlet tried to imprison me by turning me into a SkyWing who was loyal to her, and even after my brother broke the spell, it left behind some unintended side effects. At first, we were one very confused IceWing, but eventually we sorted things out and kinda figured out who was who, and we basically became two separate dragons again, but stuck in the same body. After living like that for a while, we eventually decided to rewrite the spell that had done this to us in the first place, and use it to allow us to transform our body at will between our two forms.”

Freedom listened intently. When Hailstorm was finished speaking, though, something occurred to her.

“Wait, if that locket you’re wearing contains part of Darkstalker’s scroll, couldn’t we use it to defeat Orca?”

“We thought of that, but… Well, shortly after we made the thing, Queen Ruby convinced us that we should lock down the spell so that it can’t be modified or abused. The scroll fragment is now indestructible and can’t be written on. At the time it seemed like a really good idea, but now, well, you see the issue.”

“I see,” Freedom said, “Hmm… Gift of Utility, can you negate the part of the enchantment that prevents the scroll fragment from being modified?”

That information is not currently available.

EMERGENCY COUNTERMEASURES ACCESS ADDENDUM:

For safety reasons, the Gift of Utility is prohibited from providing information that could allow a dragon to gain the ability to cast arbitrary animus spells.

“Stupid bracelet. We need animus magic to defeat Orca!”

The bracelet gave no response.

The two NightWing hybrids exchanged a look. Then Frostwalker looked at Freedom, who suddenly found herself in the mindspace version of the room they were in. In front of her were four dragons: Frostwalker, Dustraiser, and a very confused looking Pyrite and Hailstorm, who were both staring at one another in bewilderment.

“I was not expecting that to happen,” Dustraiser said, looking at the puzzled dragons.

“Why did you pull us into the mindspace?” Freedom asked Frostwalker.

“Dustraiser pointed out that it would be best not to have that particular conversation out loud.”

That was a good point, Freedom realized.

“Can anyone tell us what just happened?!” Pyrite half yelled.

“We’re in Freedom’s mindspace,” Frostwalker explained, “It’s the simulated pseudo-reality created by the Othermind. Apparently your separate identities manifest separately here.”

“Well that’s new,” Hailstorm said, “Uh, why are we here, exactly?”

“Long story short, Orca can’t see or hear anything that goes on in here, even with animus magic. Freedom’s bracelet blocks her surveillance.”

Chapter Text

A few days after returning from Pantala and meeting Freedom for the first time, Shard found himself scanning through and cross referencing numerous historical documents about various animus dragons. It seemed that most of them never attempted to resurrect anyone, or at least didn’t make such an attempt public knowledge. Of the few that did, there was frustratingly little information available about the kind of spells they used. The one thing that was abundantly clear, however, was that all accounts seemed to agree that it didn’t work. Shard couldn’t help but notice, however, that nobody seemed to have thought to investigate why that was.

As much as Shard wanted to keep going with his research, he was already up far too late. Starhunter was already sleeping on the other side of the cave, and he’d been that way for some time. Reluctantly, Shard set his books aside, lay down, and drifted off to sleep.

He floated in the Deep Palace. His grandmother, Queen Coral, lay on her deathbed, and there was nothing he could do to save her. His spells wouldn’t work for some reason, and what’s more, none of her six potential heirs seemed to have any interest in replacing her. To make things worse, Coral was one of the last queens who hadn’t delegated most of her powers to an elected body of some sort.

This meant that when she died, which was seemingly inevitable, no one would replace her. And if no one took her place, there was no telling what might happen to the Sea Kingdom. Shard had to find a way to fix this.

He thought for a moment, and it came to him.

“Gift of Utility,” he whispered, “select the deceased daughter of Queen Coral who is most likely to be willing to take her place as queen when she comes of age to do so, and heal her of all ailments up to and including death itself.”

Shard awoke to a ray of sunshine on his face. It was much earlier than he’d wanted to get up. Whatever. He had stuff to do anyway.

As he got up and started getting ready for the day, he couldn’t help thinking about the bizarre dream he’d had. In it, Coral was dying of… something, and apparently only had three granddaughters for some reason? And then he tried to find a way to resolve the resulting succession crisis. He couldn’t remember what happened next, but after that Orca showed up and took the throne. Why Orca? He had no idea. He knew plenty about her, even though she died nearly two decades before he hatched.