Chapter Text
“Get up, Moonwatcher! Get up, Moonwatcher! It’s your hatching day! Hatching day! Hatching day! HATCH—squawwkk! It’s time to get eeexxciteeed!”
Moon blinked open tired eyes, crusty and swollen from a restless, disquieting night of sleep and impending doom, and groaned as Saffron continued his morning alarm bell.
“Get up, Moonwatcher! Get up, Moonwatcher! It’s time to—”
Moon slammed a claw down onto her bedrest, a loud whammm ringing out, which sent Saffron squawking and cawing in his cage.
Morning light peeked through the blinds, and Moon rolled over in her sandbed to escape it, dragging her rich, fur blanket with her. She tried to shrug it off, but it got caught on her wings, and she lightly cursed. She hit the floor with an agitated thump.
The hanging cloth on the ceiling, embroidered with “Happy Hatching Day Moonwatcher!”, fell from the ceiling and beaned Moon in the head.
“Oopsie! Oopsie! Get up, Moonwatcher! Get up, Moon—”
Moon tuned Saffron out and pulled herself to her claws, the Happy Hatching Day cloth slipping down onto the sandbed. Half-stumbling to her vanity chest, she picked out her scale picker and a variety of perfumes that she had no real love for. She could feel the invisible gold coins and wealth spilling out beneath her sleepy claws and quickly got to work, applying Dune Mirage generously—whatever Dune Mirage was—and using her scale picker to pick through and reorient her twisted scales.
She finally shrugged off the fur blanket, tossing it down onto the floor. She winced as it picked up bits of food and mud—how did that get in here?—and then spent a minute urgently picking the blanket back up and shaking it off.
It had gotten smaller, or she had gotten bigger. Again.
When she finally thought she was okay and presentable, she reached for the hand mirror and then began dressing herself in jewelry. The small collection of baubles went up and on. A large silver necklace with gold gems that matched Qibli’s necklace. Two subtle silver-studded rings for her neck. And, of course, she double-checked that her earring hadn’t fallen off in the middle of the night. After that, she tugged on a nice fur coat, smoothing it down over her shoulders and trying not to snag it on her wings.
Finally presentable for the party, Moon stepped into the side room, the kitchen in her elaborate setup of a bedroom, and—there was nothing there.
“Right,” she murmured. “Everything will be downstairs.”
“Squawwkk! Have a good day, Moonwatcher!” called out Saffron as Moon left the kitchen for the main door.
Moon, still feeling very tired and being very careful to avoid all the celebration posters, muttered, “Um… Thank you, Saffron.”
She opened the door, giving off a soft, “Good morning, Talonfire.” The royal guard gave her a small, friendly nod, his thoughts comfortably slow and calm, which was almost enough to suppress the pervading sense of doom that she had woken up with.
So, of course, that was when the vision hit.
Hollowed out after her vision, Moon walked into the throne room, an explosion of confetti raining down from above her, and tried to act surprised by putting on her best “OH MY GOSH” face.
“Happy hatching day!!!” a multitude of voices cried out and cheered.
“Three Moons!” Moon gasped in fake shock. “Thank you, everybody!”
“Moon! Oh my gosh! You’re sssoooo big! Look at you! And the jewelry! You’re so pretty! Happy hatching day! Did we surprise you? Did we? Did we?” Kinkajou was there up in Moon’s snout, bouncing as her colors flittered rapidly in a yellow-pinkish rainbow.
“Um… a lot,” Moon replied, trying to push away the hyperactive RainWing gently.
“Well, I brought the fruits! Alllll your favorites from when you were running around the Rain Forest being a spooky, spooky dragonet! Mangos! Pears! Grapes! Pineapples! Dragonfruit! Weird name, don’t you think? Kiwis! Strawberries!”
“Unenchanted ones this time?” Moon asked with a light, joking tone.
Kinkajou reached up to hug Moon, her smaller size making her awkwardly wrap around one of Moon’s forelegs. The RainWing opened her mouth to continue talking, pushing Moon’s headache to new extremes, when thankfully, Qibli finally stepped forward, seeing her pain.
“Happy hatching day, Moon,” he said. Moon squeezed him harder, and Qibli squeaked. “Alright. Alright. Alright! I’m really feeling the squeeze. Ah, Ahh—” Moon let him go, dropping him to the floor with a small sigh. He lightly checked his embroidered bag, making sure their item of interest was still neatly tucked inside. Satisfied it was there: “Alright, pbbbbt, so I asked around, and Turtle and Peril couldn’t make it; they’re definitely schnoodling somewhere. Anemone is doing princess things. So it’s just Kinkajou, the former Outclaws, and her fruit collection.”
“Moon! You’ve gotten so big!” Secretkeeper called out as she tackled her daughter. Moon braced herself just fine for the impact.
“Go get ’em, Moon,” Qibli said.
Moon did not “go get ’em” as Qibli wanted. With the ballroom under repair due to an accident involving a trio of dragonets stealing fireworks, the best place, or rather the most elaborate place, to host her hatching day party was the throne room. The Ivory Throne sat like a looming guillotine at the far end of the room. Comprised of pure, enchanted bone, it dwarfed the room, looming over the space with its cold shadow. It had been bedazzled in colorful trinkets, and there was a small table propped up next to it with a picture frame of Queen Thorn’s family, but still, it made Moon uncomfortable. A grotesque chair pretending to be friendly.
Queen Thorn was on the floor mingling, Smolder next to her, alongside a gaggle of former Outclaws. Moon saw Armadillo and heard Capybara’s creepy thoughts nearby as the spymaster lurked in the shadows. Not someone Moon would’ve invited to her party if she had the choice.
After catching up with her mom, Moon joined Queen Thorn and mingled with her, trying to shrug off her vision. A fluke. A daydream. It was hard to tell the difference between random daydreams and visions, after all. She talked to Secretkeeper, catching up with her mother, and, when asked how she had been, carefully did not mention her killer headache, her vision from earlier, or the pervading sense that something was terribly wrong. Instead, she chatted with strangers, cheating with careful uses of her mind-reading powers to remember their names, and tried again to talk to Kinkajou, who, after consuming a pineapple, was basically bouncing off the ceiling. She chatted with Queen Thorn, who insisted on just being Thorn today. The Queen was nice enough, but Moon found it was like trying to make small talk with her boss.
She licked her lips and felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room.
What was wrong with her? What could inspire her to have such a messed-up daydream? It was immoral.
“Moon! Look who came to visit!” Qibli called out from across the room.
Moon set out for her mate. The hallway seemed to stretch long and distant as she trotted, exposing her to a variety of strangers—all of whom were thinking about her, gawking at her jewelry that felt like a collar, at her baggy eyes from a night of discomforting dreams that she couldn’t even remember. Finally, her new visitor came into view.
“Sundew?” she asked even before she saw the LeafWing.
“Hi, Moon. Happy hatching day,” the usually angry LeafWing said. Her permanent snarl had lightened since the last time Moon had seen Sundew. “I was just dropping by. I wanted to hand this over before I went back to Sanctuary.” Sundew passed over a wrapped box, which Qibli quickly took. Moon’s first thought was: How’s Winter doing? Her next was: That’s a terrible thing to ask right now.
“You should stay,” Qibli said. “We have cake.”
Moon shot her mate a look, and he grinned with a troublesome smile. He knew what he was doing! Moon’s headache intensified. “I don’t think that’s necess—”
“It totally is,” Qibli said, grinning ear to ear with rakish, impish attitude.
“I…” Sundew paused, looking between them, glancing at their elaborate mock-ups, necklaces glittering between them for the stuffy, boring high-class event—then flicking her eyes down at her own plain scales, feeling like she’d walked into the wrong party. “Fine! Just don’t be boring.”
“Just you wait for Moon’s surprise,” Qibli said.
Moon tried not think about the future where Sundew tried to kill all of them, and instead thought about how much she loved her mate. Her heart filled with warmth thinking of him, like sickly sweets filling up her gullet. She was in love, and it was intoxicating.
She wanted to barf.
Qibli led Sundew into the throne room, closing the heavy iron doors behind them, and introducing the LeafWing to the guests. Moon followed, sticking to Qibli's side. It made her feel better to watch him be smart and kind with the guests.
She closed her eyes and imagined Winter. His beautiful scales and IceWing mane. His nobility, straight-laced as ever. His bravery. She remembered him being brave. She wanted—
“Excuse me. You’re in the way to the bathrooms,” said a stuffy voice.
Moon gave off an undignified yelp. Standing next to her was some unknown minor nobility that Moon technically outranked, but the SandWing, somehow wearing more elaborate jewelry than Moon, glowered at her with that masterful scornful look that only the true nobility could master. It made Moon feel small.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Here,” Moon said softly, stepping aside, as her dumb body, which had undergone multiple growth spurts recently, was blocking the way to the bathrooms.
The SandWing noble snorted in contempt, but didn’t say another word as she walked past Moon to use the loo. Moon internally remarked that she was one of the nobles that she and Qibli were targeting, but now their plan felt sour on her tongue.
“Look what I got! I’ve got a DURIAN!” Kinkajou screamed, standing up on the main dining table while holding up a strange fruit to a gawking crowd.
Moon bit her lip, watching her friend, feeling that this was going terribly wrong. She shook off her traitorous thoughts. Everything was going to be fine.
She spent the next hour lurking beside Qibli, nervously fretting with her jewelry and earring, adjusting her coat, feeling like a fashion-show disaster as dragons endlessly talked. Large lanterns hung from the high ceiling, warm winds causing them to swing slightly as if she were in a giant, haunted house. Large banners, similar to the one that hit her in the head earlier, were strung up high and wide over the throne room.
Moon’s eyes kept drifting to the Ivory Throne, empty and cold—its usual familiar presence now unfamiliar to her. It was like it was the first time she had ever seen it. The ugly bones, polished like a wet gravestone, stretched up and out like a living organ until they reached the ceiling, melding into the wall. Moon imagined it was the bones of some great monster, fashioned into a creepy chair; the seat a flat, hollow thing—a bone tree.
Moon could now understand why Queen Thorn used the Ivory Throne so rarely.
Eventually, Qibli left her side, Moon standing alone in the middle of what she imagined was her tomb. She chatted with a hundred dragons, none of them her friends: former Outclaws, minor nobility. Kinkajou was… somewhere. Moon felt sick, strung tight, air light in her lungs. She wasn’t meant to be here. Everything was just too big.
“Moon! Look at the cake! It’s AMAZING!” Kinkajou cried, appearing next to her from thin air as she dropped her camouflage.
Moon nodded.
Queen Thorn wheeled the cake in on its platform. The heavy, drooping cloth over the table dragged lightly on the floor until she carefully parked the giant confectionery monster in the middle of the room. Thorn quickly evacuated the space as the crowd began cooing and awwing over the cake.
The three massive layers of vanilla-mango sponge, soaked in mango syrup, towered over the room. Covered in silky mango buttercream and mango glaze with a crown of mango roses, coconut flakes, and passionfruit seeds. Moon felt her heart lurch. It was beautiful, and it was going to be…
“Let the hatching girl get close! She’s got to blow out her candles,” someone said, stepping forward to peer at the cake.
“Party! Party!”
“Moon! Look at your cake! It’s amazing!”
“Step on up, Moon!”
“Where’s her mate?”
Six-Claws knocked against her flank, Moon matching his large size. “You should step on up. We’ll find Qibli before you blow out any candles.”
“Um… that’s not really necessary,” Moon said, remembering distantly that Six-Claws didn’t know what was about to happen. She opened her mouth to say something, but then she looked at Six-Claws and saw Winter.
Moon’s breath hitched.
“Are you alright?” Six-Claws asked.
Moon opened her mouth to say: No, I’m not okay. I had a terrible vision, and I think I’m still—
Qibli exploded out of the cake wearing a mango costume.
“Happy hatching day, Moon!” he roared as hatchingday cake rained down on the audience. “Get caked, everyone!”
Dragons screamed, nobility panicking and crying as mango cream splattered everywhere and on everything: rich dresses, jewelry, horns, wings, pillows, the Ivory Throne. Dragons stumbled over each other, trying to get away from some invisible threat, chaos erupting as dragons spilled out toward the bathrooms. Their thoughts erupted and flash-fried Moon’s mind.
Mango chunks from the filling and coconut flakes hit Moon in the head. A chunk of unidentifiable mango sludge hit her back, ruining her fur coat instantly, as dragons tried to take cover behind the largest dragons in the room, which were conveniently Six-Claws and herself.
Thorn, Kinkajou and Qibli were laughing, but Moon’s laughter died. All of a sudden, for some reason, the results of their prank weren’t as funny as they were a week ago.
Qibli laughed and stumbled toward her, a giant mango cake monster, and Moon couldn’t breathe. She tried to suck in a breath, hyperventilating, but it wasn’t enough. She barely felt the cake sludge sliding off her neck and onto the floor.
She wasn’t there, distant from everything. She was stuck. She was stuck as a cheater and unfaithful and losing her mind.
“Moon!” Qibli’s worried face lurched toward her, splattering more cake onto her, and finally, Moon stumbled back.
“I… I… I need space,” Moon said, feeling numb and breathless.
Before Qibli could say anything more, Moon turned and ran. She stumbled over a dress left on the floor, and then booked it for the bathrooms on the other side of the palace. She smashed through a flimsy wooden door and then charged blindly through twisting hallways.
She felt Qibli pursuing, but soon she lost him. Her eyes felt wet from tears and cake, and now she wished she hadn’t agreed to prank those stuffy, stupid nobles.
She pushed into the communal latrine, mercifully empty, and then began to hyperventilate on the floor. Something was terribly wrong. She felt wrong, as if she were missing something about herself.
She sucked in air and then remembered.
Moon is sitting in a small wooden house. Everything, well, almost everything, is homemade. She sits on knitted quilts piled on a low couch, a sheepskin rug under her talons, and a stack of books that leans like it’s always one bad idea away from collapsing. A little candle sits next to her as a reading light, and she’s reading a book aloud while a kettle steams on a little iron stove, filling the air with cinnamon and something sweet.
“She said, ‘Dawn, I’m sorry. I can’t keep my promise, because I am you. You know that, right? That’s what we Guardians sign up for. There is no me without you. We’re together until the end of the line.’
Exhausted Dawn peered at Shade, suspicion across what remained of her snout. ‘Shade,’ she said, ‘what are you doing?’
‘The meanest thing anyone has ever done to you,” said Shade. ‘You know what to do, and if you don’t do it, what I’m about to do won’t be of use to anyone.’”
“This is ridiculous,” Winter says, interrupting the story. “What is the point of this story?”
Moon kisses Winter on the cheek as he grumbles. “Oh, shush. This is the narrative climax! Let me finish.”
Winter drags his head toward the ceiling in fond exasperation before giving off a reluctant sigh. “Very well. As long as this book ends on a satisfactory note.”
Moon chortles lightly to herself and wraps Winter in a hug as she continues reading: “Shade turned and squinted, measured the angle. She saw the distance. If she turned back to look, she couldn’t do it, so she did not.
Shade mentally found herself back at home. She smelled the forest and pine. The soft wood and candlelight that kept the world warm. It was a compact world, full of life, love, and good friends. She held those things close to her scales, and all the fear went away. She had her friends. Her loves. The good food. The adventure and excitement. Every day with the love of her life. The fear was gone. She was Shade, and her claws were not shaking anymore.
A great explosion ripped through the wall beside them. The ceiling shook and bowed. Chunks of metal were falling. Shade felt movement behind her, but she was faster.
“For Kelpstack!” said Shade.
Then the SeaWing threw herself onto the spear wall.”
“WHAT?” Winter roars. He grabs the book from Moon’s claws as she laughs. “That can’t be how it ends,” he mutters.
Moon takes a sip from her hot chocolate. Good food. She looks at the love of her life and smiles as he palms the next page and discovers there’s another chapter—multiple chapters.
Winter turns to look at her, confused. “You said this was the climax, but I see a decent number of chapters left. The Nameless has not even been defeated yet.”
“I think there are two chapters left,” she says. “And I said it’s the narrative climax, not the ending of the story.”
“Those are the same thing,” Winter says.
“Are they?” Moon asks. She remembers the comforting silence. There’s the gentle creak of the fireplace and the light squish of the cushions. The silence of quiet life and love. The walls of the house are tidy and clean, the opposite of gaudy. “I don’t think they’re the same thing at all.”
Winter sighs and then hands the book back to her. He kisses her on the cheek. “Prove it then.”
Qibli found her on the floor in a mess.
“Woohhh,” he called out, rushing to her side, still in his custom mango costume, covered in cake. He patted her side, whispering calm nothings into her ear as she regained control of her body. “You’re going to be okay, you hear me? Everything is going to be fine. Focus on my handsome snout. I’m sorry, Moon. I’m sorry.”
Moon nodded, imagining raindrops and centered her mind on Qibli. She breathed, and then Qibli began to clean her face of cake, using the washcloths and the local water bins. He dabbed at the front of her fur coat too, grimacing at the mango sludge clinging to it. Finally, once they were cleaned up, Qibli looked up and around, sniffing the disgusting, stuffy air of the latrine, and said, “We should get you out of here for some fresh air.”
“Yeah,” Moon said weakly.
She limped next to Qibli, leaning on his shoulder as he led her out of the latrine. They crossed the hallway, heading for an open, outdoor stairwell nearby.
A locked door blocked their way; this portion of the stronghold was absent of staff, all of them at the party, or running away from the party. Qibli growled, pulling out his lockpicking kit, but Moon was sick of it and pushed with a foreclaw.
The door snapped under her claws, and she shouldered through.
“That works too,” Qibli said with a light chirp, following his mate through the door and onto the clay stairwell. The large clay slabs stretched out long and wide. Massive stones for a small back entrance to the SandWing Stronghold.
The sun shone down, and Moon finally collapsed onto the ground under the hot sun.
“Right, well, first things first,” Qibli said as he sat down next to her, his wing over her back, and began undressing himself from his costume and then from his jewelry underneath. “Let’s get you out of this stuffy jewelry. Hate these things, but formal occasions are a must. We got those nobility good, though, right Moon?”
Moon groaned as Qibli began to pull necklaces and rings off of her, but let him work mostly without resistance. “Something is wrong, Qibli. Something is wrong with me.” I had a vision of myself with Winter. I would never abandon you.
The last necklace came off, rattling onto the stairwell, and Qibli finally took a look at Moon. He peered at her, and Moon knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Don’t even think about it, Qibli,” she said with a snarl.
“Have you ever taken off that earring?” he asked.
“Qibli, please do not rip off my earring and ruin my ear,” Moon hissed. “I can see you thinking about it.”
“How about you take it off for a second?” he asked again.
Moon shook her head, and Qibli reached forward to grab her ear, following his dumb intuition. He was trying to be clever.
Moon responded by slamming his foreclaw to the ground.
“Ouch! Moon!” Qibli cried.
“I told you not to!” Moon cried back. “Don’t touch my earring! Three Moons! This has been the worst hatching day ever!”
Qibli kissed her straight on the lips, working his tongue into her mouth. Moon melted into it, her heart fluttering—which was probably why she completely missed him reaching around and ripping her earring from her ear.