Work Text:
As Whiteout landed on the mountain slopes, she wondered if she was making a huge mistake. She continued to wonder that as she shoved and rolled the stones away, as she dug her way deeper into the mountain. She was still wondering as she sensed him behind just one more layer of rocks.
She stopped, her claws resting on the boulder. She closed her eyes and leaned her face against the cool stone.
I have to know, she thought. I have to know why he turned dark. Why he became so hard and sharp all the time.
She often wondered if she had done the right thing, leading Darkstalker to Agate Mountain, though she determinedly hid those thoughts from the remaining mind readers. She knew that she had been the linchpin to Clearsight's desperate plan to stop Darkstalker.
He killed Father, she told herself.
She was ready. She knew what she had to do. She knew exactly how to move the rocks so that he would be exposed but could not escape.
She dug her claws into the boulder and wrestled it away.
Whiteout stared at Darkstalker. She had known the years that had passed, but in her mind she had still pictured him as the six-year-old dragonet he had been when she sent him into Clearsight's trap. The same age as Glassreader was now, she realized. But he was still the same age as her. His horns had grown longer, and he was larger than he had been. His claws rested on the ground under his chin, and the silver teardrop scales behind his eyes glittered in the fading sunlight from outside. He looked so peaceful, so untroubled, when he was asleep. Whiteout could barely reconcile this peaceful image with the things she knew he had done.
She reached out and grabbed his left hand, gently tugging it out from under his head. There, on his wrist, was the bracelet he had given Clearsight. The bracelet Fathom had enchanted. The bracelet that had shown up in her dreams again and again sixteen years ago.
She reached out with her free claw and slid the bracelet onto her own arm, keeping a tight grip on Darkstalker's hand.
"Magic brother," she said. "Sleeper. Wake up."
Darkstalker's eyelids fluttered. He raised his head, shaking off the fog of sleep. "Whiteout?" he croaked, black eyes focusing slowly on her. "You're here?"
Whiteout nodded. "Here."
"You came..." His mind seemed to be taking longer to wake up than his body had. "You came... To let me go?"
Whiteout shook her head. "Cascade of Dreams. Thoughtful. I came to understand."
"'Cascade of Dreams?'" Darkstalker blinked hard and shook his head. "You understood that fine. And you and Thoughtful can understand each other fine. Why do you need my help?"
"I don't need help. I came to understand why. Why did you snow? You had your scroll. Why did you snow?"
"Snow?" Darkstalker looked baffled. Whiteout wondered why he seemed to be having so much trouble understanding her. Had she changed that much?
Then she remembered the bracelet she wore. Darkstalker had enchanted it to protect Clearsight's mind from being read.
She tried to go about it another way. "Why did you do... What led you here?"
Darkstalker's mind seemed to clear as he looked around the small tunnel she had made. "Clearsight... She.... The bracelet..."
"She's not as azure anymore," Whiteout told him. "She's a darker blue. Not as dark as you. But she still knits, though."
Darkstalker's head shot up. He didn't seem to notice when he cracked his skull on the cave roof. "You have to let me go," he said.
Whiteout had known he would say this, but it still tore her heart when she answered.
"No. I can't."
"Just get rid of the bracelet," he said. "I'll do the rest. I'll say it just broke when I get back. If you want, then we can tell them the truth once I've sorted everything out."
"Your sorting doesn't work," Whiteout said sadly. "It only makes a bigger mess. And you already left a mess that's plenty big."
"What?" he said. "No, I fixed things. Queen Diamond probably doesn't have a reason to attack the tribe anymore. I already kept her from getting information she could use to kill us all. Granted, there are still problems left, but—"
"Tearing her son," Whiteout interrupted. "Killing our father. It wasn't for you to decide."
"Wasn't– Whiteout, Arctic would have betrayed our tribe. He would have let Diamond kill us all. He kidnapped you and was going to make you marry an IceWing. I saved us."
"He wanted Mother back from Grandma," Whiteout said. "You wanted Mother back too. Why didn't you fit together with him to get her back? Double magic. Grandma had one magic. You might have gotten Mom back."
Darkstalker shook his head violently. "Not with him. He wouldn't use his magic to get Foeslayer back, but it was just fine for him to use it to kidnap you."
"Try to get Mother back," Whiteout said again. "Mother imprisoned in ice. But not me. I could have flown after she and Father did. Besides, he didn't have to use magic on me. An ant in a trail. I would have gone with him anyway. Four pieces of a broken plate put back together."
"Not with Arctic," Darkstalker snarled. "It's his fault Foeslayer got captured by Diamond. Anything she suffered there was his fault." He tried to get to his feet, but was held down by the rocks on his back.
"Mother left behind her shield," Whiteout said. "You can't blame Father for that."
"It's because of him she took off her earring!" Darkstalker yelled. "You didn't see it in his mind. I did. He fought with her and made her angry with him. She took off the earring because she didn't want anything of his. I wouldn't be surprised if he planned it all."
Whiteout bowed her head. "All your gifts. Yet you see so little. Father was cracked inside. Broken shards tearing his heart. Hated himself afterwards."
"Even he knows it was his fault," Darkstalker said.
Whiteout shook her head, unable to hold back tears. "Gone. Dead. Evil. I didn't want this family."
"Whiteout," Darkstalker said, his voice suddenly calm. "I'm sorry you suffered. I'm sorry Arctic turned evil, and I'm sorry Mother is dead. But I don't have to be gone. If you can't dig me out, then just take off the bracelet." He shook the hand Whiteout was holding. "In time, I'll free myself and we can be together again. We can still be a family."
"I have a family," Whiteout said. "But Mother is not dead. She is gone. Alive. You lost the future, so you'll see her again. Father is dead. Desperate, but not evil."
She saw Darkstalker's eyes harden as he realized which category that left open for him. "I am not evil, Whiteout," he pleaded. "I saved our tribe. I tried to make Fathom and Clearsight happy. I wanted to lead the tribe into happiness and a bright future. I made a magic wall around our kingdom to protect us from the IceWings."
"Any IceWing that crossed turned to bones," Whiteout retorted. "Crippled Clearsight's senses. Might as well have taken out an eye. Stole from the water prince his love. Good thing he got her back. They're happy. You made our tribe bleed. No one is hatched with moons anymore. So afraid of you. New home of smoke and liquid fire."
"Whiteout," Darkstalker pleaded. "I can fix all this. I can bring us back. I can stop another war. I can make every dragon understand that I was only trying to help."
Whiteout slammed her tail into the side of the tunnel. "Stop! You did enough." She glared at him. "Blue blood spilled for treason. By you. But it wasn't your place to decide." She jabbed her free claw at his face. "Tried to kill the watcher who led us. Take her place. Worse than Arctic. By your choice, you should be him. Killed with cruelty. Brutality. He wouldn't have been able to knife our backs, even if he wanted to." She jabbed him in the snout. "That was saving us. Not right, but saved us. All you had to do if you wanted to save us. But you still killed him." She jabbed him in the snout with each word. "Because you could. You wanted the fear you gave us. You loved the power you had over him. Loved watching his suicide. Congratulations. What you wanted is yours. Ripped our paper forever. Can't join it back again."
"He deserved it," Darkstalker begged. "Why don't you see that?"
"Father torn apart," Whiteout spat. "You trapped here. Indigo dragon in the statue. Me not hatching under the moons. None of us had a choice. It wasn't for you to choose what would happen to Father. Should have gifted it to the scales of true justice."
Darkstalker gaped. "You... You know about that?"
"That you chose to leave me in my shell until nights were darker? Yes. Father was right. You stalk through the dark. Villain."
"No!" Darkstalker roared. "I stopped the dark. I hunted it. Foeslayer was right."
"Fed the dark," Whiteout retorted. "Nurtured it. Hid in it. Made it your ally and guardian. Why?"
"I only wanted to help our tribe," Darkstalker pleaded. "Make us the strongest tribe on Pyrrhia. Guide us to the best future."
"Why did you think you were the only one who could choose the best route, or the best destination? Why didn't you ask others what they wanted?"
"Because I can see all the futures," Darkstalker said impatiently. "Every possibility, cause and effect, what's going to happen and why. No one else can see so clearly."
"Clearsight can. She can see better than you. She can knit the threads; you just threw them together and didn't wait to see how the final work looked. Or how many dragons you strangled in the yarn. Clearsight sees what's best for everybody, or at least as many as possible. She wanted to find a way for Father's ending to be like a scroll, you know. But you just looked at what was gold for yourself."
Darkstalker looked at the wall. "I wanted you and Foeslayer to be happy. I had planned to make things better for everyone. Yes, I wanted to be king and make myself immortal. But I just wanted to lead the tribe for good. I didn't have any bad intentions for them."
Whiteout looked at him sadly. "The one who watches the moons will give you the chance to prove it. The dangerous one with talons of fire will set you free, if anyone does. Don't drop your second chance."
Darkstalker's eyes widened as Whiteout flicked her wrist, and the bracelet slid from her arm to his. He scrabbled at it as she stepped back, but his grabs were clumsy. His dark eyes closed, and his head fell to the floor.
Whiteout lifted his head and looked at his sleeping face. "Rest, darkness of dragons," she told him. "Rest, and wait for your chance to shake the earth again. But next time, be a guiding torch, not a scorching fire."
She laid his head gently on his forearms, hoping he'd be comfortable. She rolled the rocks back into place, hiding him again from the world. No one would find him. Only she and Clearsight knew where he was hidden, and she knew that neither of them would ever release him.
The world had two thousand years to prepare for his return. She hoped against hope that the right dragons would come.