Chapter Text
“Kinkajou!”
“Hm? Oh! Queen Glory! Hello!” Kinkajou did a small bow from her carved stump stool while the dragonets around her, the ones who’d been listening to her reading hour, either happily jumped toward their queen, or, if they were older dragonets, pressed themselves to the sturdy wooden platforms that surrounded the library, dropping into much deeper bows than was strictly necessary.
Glory smiled at them all, scanning her eyes around the group, even giving a few of the youngest dragonets head pats or hugs. Though her gaze, sharp and cunning as ever, came back unerringly to Kinkajou. “Someone is here to see you.”
“Me?” A parent maybe? She hoped they weren’t coming to complain about some old scroll their dragonet had checked out from her library again. She could steer the young ones, but she wasn’t about to tell any dragonet that they couldn’t read something. Every scroll or book was a magical world all its own, and she wasn’t about to rob a young dragon of those experiences. Even if some of their subject matter could get a bit… gruesome.
Glory just nodded and smiled, which suggested this wasn’t some sort of complaint or disciplinary issue. Of course, that became immensely more apparent the moment Glory stepped aside and revealed who was perched on the branch behind her. A Nightwing. One that Kinkajou hadn’t seen in the rainforest in years. In fact, she was so used to seeing those teardrop scales in the dusty-brown backdrop of sandstone, that it took a full second for recognition to bonk against her head like a coconut falling from the highest boughs of a palm tree.
“Moon! What?!” Kinkajou leapt up from her seat. “You didn’t tell me you were coming in to visit in your last letter! Is Qibli with you? Is there anyone else? Winter? Turtle? Maybe Cricket or Blue? Why are you even… I mean I’m glad you're here, but this is so sudden!”
Moon didn’t say anything with her mouth, but her whole face was a fascinating map of contradictions. She was smiling, but it almost failed to reach her eyes. Something sad was in them, something wistful and melancholy. Something… defeated. Oh Moon . Kinkajou could feel her own face dropping in response. This wasn’t just a friendly visit, was it?
Kinkajou turned to Glory, who’d been watching this whole exchange with rapt interest. At Kinkajou’s glance though, her keen eyes flicked back to the dragonets. “Alright everyone,” her voice was commanding, regal, but still full of friendly warmth, “Our favorite librarian hasn’t seen this friend in a long time and has some catching up to do. That means storytime is over for today.”
A collective groan rose up from the small crowd of dragonets, and Kinkajou was quick to intercept the disappointment. “Next week I’ll be sure to double our time to make up for this, okay?” That was all it took for the whining to shift into a cheer, and for smiling dragonets to wave enthusiastically at her as they were led off to their homes or back to the wingery. She waved back, smiling as genuinely as she could as she watched them go, but as soon as the last dragonet was out of earshot, her face dropped and she was rushing to Moonwatcher, arms and wings outstretched.
Moon gracefully glided down, landing on the wooden platform without a sound. Well, until she grunted when Kinkajou crushed her into a hug. She kept a hold of sharp, jet black talons as they separated. “Oh Moon, I…” she had so many questions, but the years had given her some restraint. There would be time to ask all those. She needed to take care of her friend first. “Come inside, come inside. I’ll make us some tea. You can see how much the library has expanded! And then we can talk, okay?”
Moon still didn’t say anything, but her smile grew more grateful, more fragile too, before she nodded emphatically.
Kinkajou kept a hold of her talon as they stepped forward and through the interlocking fronds that made up the library’s doorway. Moon’s eyes got wide as soon as they did. Her gaze flicked to and fro, taking in every detail as she broke her silence with one softly gasped word, “Woah…”
She had seen the first and second iteration, but Sundew had visited more than once since then, and they were on version six or seven now. The central tree that held up the roof was supernaturally thick and stable. The leaves and vines interlocked so seamlessly, that only intended holes were present, and those of course, had been filled with glass, crafted with the help of flame silks like Luna and Blue. The whole thing had transformed steadily into a marvel of dragon engineering and cooperation. It even had a whole second floor now! Which had become Kinkajou’s living space by default.
Moon couldn’t stop staring, and Kinkajou was ecstatic to see some of the broken haze in her eyes lift. “Pretty cool, right?” She couldn’t help but preen a bit. Of course, the actual labor had mostly been other dragons, but the idea and design had been all her.
“Kinkajou… this is amazing! I didn’t even know. I mean I knew but wow!” She was smiling again, and now it was a bright, uncompromised thing. The sight made Kinkajou’s heart soar, and then skip in a familiar, if long forgotten way. She tossed the feeling aside, as she’d done so many times before. “If you want to keep looking around, you’re free to. I’m gonna make that tea. Just meet me upstairs when you’re ready, alright?”
Moon nodded slowly and Kinkajou managed to not let her smile drop as the fog crept back into her friend’s eyes. For a moment anyway. When she turned away from Moon and began climbing stairs, the plastered expression crumbled, and her thoughts began racing. Why was she here with no warning? Why wasn’t Qibli with her? Did something happen to him? Why did she look… ugh, Kinkajou didn’t even know what to call it! If something really bad had happened, Moon would be inconsolably, wretchedly sad. Instead she looked, resigned? Like something unpleasant happened, but it had ultimately been for the best.
Kinkajou could ask all the mental questions she wanted, but unless she wanted to start actually talking without the tea she promised, she’d have to take off the golden bangle that held her skyfire to get any answers. She did briefly touch the strip of gold and black inlaid rock midway up the stairs, but quickly recognized that would likely just overwhelm her friend. It might even lead to said answers coming out, not as coherent words, but as sobs. And moons above she did not want to make that beautiful dragon cry.
So she held onto her restraint like a tree trunk in a summer storm, going through the slow motions of boiling the water, grabbing cups, measuring out the jasmine and white peony tea stored in her fancy Pantalan jars (a gift from Luna), steeping the tea in her beautiful Mudwing clay pot (another gift, from Turtle this time), and setting the table with the entire, elaborate arrangement. Complete with sugar and coconut milk.
Then, with the last of her patience, she poured herself a mug, and waited. And waited. And waited. And then ran out of said limited patience and went to sneakily peer down the stairs to see what Moon was up to. Only to find her standing before the first step, staring up vacantly at the second floor landing. Her gaze didn’t even change when Kinkajou appeared. She just kept staring, totally dazed. Kinkajou’s eyes narrowed. It was almost like she was somewhere else entirely.
“Moon? Are you having a vision?”
The words, or maybe it was just the noise, yanked her back into reality with a shiver. “Huh? What?”
“Were you seeing the future just now?”
Moon squinted, giving her a look that made it seem like suggesting any dragon could see the future was a ridiculous, nonsensical act. “No? I…” Then her face settled into something that wasn’t so incredulous. “I was kind of just spacing out. And… stalling,” she admitted with a sigh, “I think my visions only come when something really bad is about to happen anyway, and apparently this conversation, no matter how awkward and difficult it’s going to be, doesn’t qualify.”
Kinkajou frowned, her tail flicked. She wanted to glide down there, shake her best friend, and demand she spill, immediately! But. She could have patience. She had made tea . “Start with coming up here? Then we get you to sit down, and have a cup of tea. There’s no…” ugh, “no rush, okay?”
Moonwatcher gave her that fragile smile again and three moons Kinkajou just wanted to give her an unending, perfect hug. Or tell her jokes. Or anything to stop her from looking so… so… desperately, hastily, messily tied together. But Moon nodded, and started making her way up, so Kinkajou would try the tea first.
It wasn’t really hot anymore when Kinkajou handed Moonwatcher her first cup. Warm, but not exactly hot.
“I could get it back to boiling if you want?”
Moon shook her head. “No, no. This is lovely. Thank you, Kinkajou.” The cracked smile again.
Kinkajou smiled back. She thought (hoped) there was a flicker of something brighter in Moon’s eyes when she did, but it was such a brief, faded thing she couldn’t be sure.
Kinkajou had worked a lot on restraint, patience, tact and several other conventions of polite company since Jade mountain. But as Moon sat across from her, silently drinking her tea while still looking so despondent and vague, Kinkajou could really feel all that work fraying.
Just talk to me, Moon. Please. The skyfire was still firmly on her wrist, so there was no reaction. Her talon came up to the band again, and this time she spun it in slow circles along her wrist. She could just. Yank it off. Let all her questions flood out. Get some damn answers!
No. No, yelling into her mind would just make things worse. But she had to say something at this point. Or else she was going to crawl out of her own scales. Kinkajou opened her mouth—
“Qibli and I broke up,” Moon said it between sips of tea, eyes not even on Kinkajou when she did.
Kinkajou’s mouth snapped shut. Opened again. Snapped shut again.
Moonwatcher put her tea cup down into her saucer. “Before you ask, it was a mutual thing. It just…” The heaviest sigh Kinkajou had ever heard. “it wasn’t working. No matter what we tried.” Moon’s eyes went distant again, staring down some memory that Kinkajou couldn’t see.
Whatever it was, whatever specific moment was haunting her best friend, it helped Kinkajou find her voice again. “Moon…” She reached her front talons across the table, and was relieved to see Moon follow the motion. She wasn’t shying away from help at least. If anything, the fact that she’d come here was a great sign, a sign that she wasn’t about to try to shoulder all this alone. “If there’s anything I can do. Anything you need. I’m here, okay?” The words spilled out without her really thinking them through, but she found that she meant every single one of them. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say or do to ease Moon’s burdens, but whatever it ended up being, she’d do it.
Moon nodded, a quick, little thing, and then her gaze sank into her tea, and back to depths unknown.
Kinkajou really wished she could tell for certain what was a vision and what wasn’t. Really Kinkajou had a million different questions for the dragon in front of her, but how did she ask them in a way that was encouraging, friendly, and comforting instead of nosy, desperate, or three moons, celebratory . Because she couldn’t completely smother the small part of her heart that hadn’t stopped shouting since Moon had turned the world upside down with those four tiny words.
Moon’s eyes snapped up from their distant daze, and for a moment Kinkajou was sure she‘d heard those horrible, traitorous thoughts. Her scales, which had been a steady mix of blues and pinks, all flashed green for a moment. She willed her eyes to stay locked on Moon’s, not daring to let them drift to the skyfire that was surely still securely inlaid into the gold of her bangle.
There was no accusation though. If anything, Moonwatcher looked just as nervous as she was, wings quivering and face getting ever darker with a deepening flush. She opened her mouth, and when nothing came out she closed it, swallowed down her first attempt, and tried again, “Could I… it wouldn’t be too much of a bother if I stayed here for a couple days, would it?”
Gold and pink swam through Kinkajou’s scales, nearly bright and vibrant enough to change the lighting of the room.
“Of course you can stay, Moon! You can stay as long as you want!” You can stay forever.
Moon was already waving those words off. “I don’t think it’ll be more than a couple days, a week at most. I just. I know I need to tell other dragons. I’ll probably end up staying in the rainforest more permanently, and that’ll require talking to at least Queen Glory again, and probably my mother, but I need time before I explain it all in full. I… just saying those words out loud made them more real and I’m still trying to figure out how to respond to that, y’know? How to feel about… all of it.”
Her gaze started to drift again, and before Kinkajou could really agonize over the consequences, her curiosity finally sliced through the last frayed strings of her patience. “Didn’t you say it was mutual?”
Moon honed back onto their conversation before she could fully fade from it, the silver scales next to her eyes flashing with how quickly she flicked her gaze back to Kinkajou.
Whoops. Did that mean she was upset? Kinkajou gave her an apologetic smile, pockets of deep violet blooming along her snout scales.
No, she was smiling back, just a little, even if her green eyes looked as dark and turbulent as ever. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she spoke, and each word seemed to oh so carefully unfurl from her mouth, “It was… but we did spend the last five years together and. It isn’t like we hate each other now or anything. Qibli is—“ her brow furrowed, and now she frowned, not sad or angry, but perfectly confused, “Do you ever grab a scroll from the shelves, or a book I suppose, and you grab it because the title looks like something you’ve always wanted to read, but then you open it, and you start reading, and it’s not… quite what you expected it to be?”
Now Kinkajou’s brow was creasing, shades of orange dancing across the pink and gold. “Like… the title was misleading?” Had Qibli lied about something? Kinkajou hoped not or else she’d have to go hunt him down.
“Maybe? It’s more like. You had this idea in your mind of what the story would be like, and there’s parts of it that are similar to what you imagined. But it just doesn’t. Feel right.”
More shades of orange floated onto Kinkajou’s scales. “Um…”
“I think.” Moon lowered her head slowly onto the sturdy wooden surface of Kinkajou’s table. “I think we always thought it would be like it was in Possibility. That week we spent there. We were both worrying about you, and exploring this new place, and Darkstalker was looming in the background. All we had… All we could do was lean on each other. So we’d tell stories and share silly facts about our childhoods. We’d try to make each other laugh even if it was stupid, punny jokes. It was stressful, but Qibli… Qibli dulled the edge of that anxiety. Then after all that we were helping the Pantalan dragons, flying across the sea to a continent we’d never even seen before! And that was fun! Qibli’s so quick-witted and funny and makes adventures like that seem even more exciting than they already are. He amplifies it all, and has a way of distracting you from the looming, scary parts of saving other dragons. Or maybe it’s just… he has a way of making those parts seem less scary. Regardless, I think when all that was over…” She shrugged. “I was the dragon that led him, us toward the adventure. He was the one that motivated me, that kept me from totally flying off the handle. And between his incisive intellect and my literal mind reading we always knew what other dragons were thinking, feeling. We always had some idea that could help. We still make an amazing team… when we’re surrounded by other dragons, when we’re helping someone else. We’re unstoppable.” She clenched her talons together, and Kinkajou could see how fiercely she meant every word. She could also clearly see that confidence falter, then break.
“When we’re alone though? When I can only look into his mind and when he can only analyze me, endlessly? It’s like a mirror reflecting another mirror. Everything gets… muddled and distorted eventually. I end up– I start– We start?” She sighed, shook her head. “When nothing world shattering is happening, when there’s no one to save from a crisis, it feels like the only thing we really have in common is reading each other. Especially when we don’t really talk about anything. Neither of us… we had no clue what we were doing, Kinkajou, and eventually it just… fell apart.” At this point Moon’s eyes were shining. She never shed a tear, but Kinkajou could see them dancing along the green forests in her irises.
Now Kinkajou’s understanding was so sharp and clear that it hurt. “Moon… I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t stay sitting after that, and leapt up to pull her best friend in the biggest hug she could manage. It was then that Moon cried. No wracking sobs, no noise at all actually, but Kinkajou could feel each tiny splash of tears on her shoulder. She held Moon until she could feel them no longer.