Chapter Text
From somewhere in the distance, beyond the safe and warm walls she was enclosed within, talons clacked rhythmically against a hard rocky surface and echoed down into yawning chasms below. A grumble and a snort could be heard, followed by the sharp whip of a tail swinging side to side in agitation.
“Urgh… are you sure it's going to be soon?” a voice said sharply from outside, the sudden pounding of talons on the ground shaking her slightly within her confines. Sharp and dangerous, the sound of the voice assaulted her sensitive ears, like icy spines stabbing into her skin. “How can you be certain?”
“I just know. NightWing mothers always know,” another voice responded. This one was different, radiating warmth in a colour she couldn’t name, with her eyes that have never seen before. But it provided a much kinder sensation, enveloping her in a sense of safety that once again returned to her that itching urge to escape. “The brightest night is tomorrow, and Foreseer told us it’d be sometime around then. She knows what she’s talking about. Oh, quit pacing, would you? Nothing is going to go wrong.”
The words they said meant nothing to her, but the emotions that poured from their minds was enough. A protective and loving presence hovered over her somewhere nearby, one that she instantly recognized as Mother . And just a little further was an angry, cruel presence that felt colder than anything she’d ever felt before, having only ever known the warm comfort of the walls around her.
“Don’t tell me what to do. Some NightWing superstitions aren’t going to convince me of anything,” barked the icy voice, the scraping talons suddenly coming closer. Mother said nothing in response, instead shifting closer to her, and she suddenly felt herself being moved, the solid surface beneath her dropping away as she came into someone’s grasp.
“What are you doing now? Why are you moving them?” the angry voice demanded as Mother carried her away.
“They have to hatch under the sky,” Mother responded tersely, spikes of annoyance bubbling up deep within her. She was then settled down upon another surface, sturdy yet soft, keeping her steady so as to not roll away. “We’ve been doing it this way for centuries, and it’s perfectly safe.”
Suddenly, another pulse of life appeared in the peripherals of her mind. Innately she knew this to be her sibling, for the connection she felt between herself and the quiet mind next to her seemed good enough a reason to believe so. Yet he seemed in no rush to meet their mother, quiet and curled up within his own walls, waiting patiently for his own time to come.
“How can you know they’ll be coming out anytime soon? They might not come out for another few days , for all we know!”
“I already told you, I know when my dragonets are going to hatch!”
Something dangerous boiled inside of the angry voice, flashes of red hot frustration and something much more violent appearing in his mind. She couldn’t conceive what the shapes and pictures that appeared in his head meant, but it just felt wrong, and the already urgent feeling to escape grew stronger, begging her to protect the kind warmth that was Mother.
She wriggled, but the walls around her didn’t quite break. Yet it was enough movement to draw attention back to her and push away the dangerous feelings that came from the cold presence nearby.
“It’s soon,” Mother said in a low voice. Yes, yes, her mind called, not so much in words but in feelings, wanting to reach out and touch Mother, to crawl into her talons where she was safe from the cold and angry thing nearby.
“Why are they both black? Aren’t they supposed to be at least part IceWing?” the bad voice interrupted with hints of suspicion, drawing Mother’s attention away again. No, no, look at me, I’m almost there, she thought wordlessly, trying to use whatever strength she had to break free.
“That’s got nothing to do with anything. The only thing it means is that there’s no full moons over them tonight. Otherwise they’d turn silver.” Mother’s focus suddenly turned from her to her silent brother next to her. “Though this one has yet to move… maybe it won’t hatch until tomorrow. Could you imagine that? A thrice moonborne dragonet? We haven’t had one in centuries.”
Mother suddenly seemed much more intently focused on Brother rather than her. She paused for a moment in her squirming motions, confused. Mother…didn’t want Brother to come out yet? But why? All she wanted was to escape to Mother as soon as she could, to go from one warm place to another, and to be there to protect the dragon she hadn’t even seen yet but still loved more than anything. Why would she want Brother to wait?
Suddenly, as she pushed again at the walls, something occurred to her. With every shudder of her movements, with every attempt she made to break free, the flashes and sensations that poured from the world around her seemed to dampen. It was as though the closer she got to that tantalizing outside world, something was being chipped away at her, as if the light outside she wanted to see was instead something that would hurt her.
Something suddenly flashed before her, the darkness being replaced with vague shapes and distorted sounds, fuzzy visions of what seemed to be her breaking free only moments from now—and in those visions a thousand paths unfolded like blooming flowers, futures where all the love Mother had to give to her was only a fraction of what could be. In those worlds, she felt Mother’s warmth slip out of her talons, instead giving it all to Brother, all because he’d wait for another day to see the world, because he was patient and because she was not. These worlds frightened her, making her abruptly stop in her movements to escape.
But as she did so, there was something else, something beyond those thousand worlds—because then came from nowhere another thousand where she stayed. Where she remained, and waited for the moons to spill their silver light on her instead. Where the powers she had now would increase a hundredfold, where Mother would shower her with all her love, where she had everything she could ever dream of and more.
If she left now, all that power would disappear, those futures dissipating into nothingness. If she broke free, the Mother who she yearned to see and protect would never return that love as much as she wanted her to. Well, in truth, this was not what she understood from these visions. It was only feelings of different shapes and sizes dancing around her and urging her one way or another. And the feelings now pleaded with her to stop moving, to stay, and to wait another day. And only then would she get Mother’s love.
But Brother was still in the way.
Her small talons flexed, something electric dancing under her scales. She could change that. She could force him out, force him to meet Mother before her no matter how much she wanted to see her first. She could already see those enticing futures playing out in her head, and she wanted them so badly that with all the might in her world she called out to her sleeping Brother, sparks tingling in her talons.
Wake up! Wake up now! Mother wants to see you! You have to come out now!
Something shifted. Something changed. A million and one futures of loneliness and powerlessness—of a black dragon sat upon a stolen throne, a white dragon dead in a puddle of blue, a spinning hourglass full of coloured sand—dropped dead. A sharp crack came from beside her, and Brother’s mind came alight, his previously silent thoughts jumping awake like an ember into a flame, as he wriggled with a newfound passion out of his walls.
Mother gasped, surprise rushing over her as her focus snapped to Brother. Even the angry voice, despite its cold and rotten nature, managed to take a moment to gaze with something almost akin to fondness at the emerging dragonet—though it was a fleeting moment, as apprehension quickly returned as soon as it left.
“He doesn’t even look like an IceWing! He barely even looks like…”
But his voice dropped away. Everything did, in fact. Mother’s warmth, Brother’s thoughts, the call of the world outside her—all of it gone in an instant. In the blink of an eye, she returned to the silence, curling up tight as everything faded out of existence. It was almost calming as she allowed herself to sink back into the comfort of her shell, ignoring everything that surrounded her, even as much as she wanted to escape it just moments ago.
The world was hers, now. For the first time, but hardly the last, she’d bent it to her will. The universe gave her what she wanted, and now she had nothing else to worry about—Brother was here, and while she knew he was soaking up Mother’s love for the moment, she also knew it would not last forever. She let herself fall back into the darkness from before, but deep in her mind she knew that in that very moment, everything had changed.
Now, all she had to do was wait.