Chapter Text
Prologue
It was a beautiful night. The skies were perfectly clear, showing off the stars, so after Darkstalker finished another round of distributing magical gifts to his subjects he went for a flight to relax, soon landing in the ruins of the royal garden, by a huge oak tree. Then he heard something. Wait, not heard, for it wasn’t sound, but the mental fuzz surrounding those with skyfire, coming from above. He tilted his head, scanning the branches until he noticed one was shaking. He focused in on it, and noticed a dragonet perched on the branch. Even by the horrible standards of modern nightwings, she was small, and he estimated she was two years old at the most. Her scales were the blackest black he had ever seen, and her huge amethyst eyes stared back at him as she shivered.
“Calm down, I’m not going to bite you. Where are your parents?” he asked, smiling at the dragonet.
“Dead. They have been for a long time. But shouldn't you know that already?” The dragonet whispered.
Well, that was unexpectedly depressing, but he decided to answer the dragonet’s question before asking his own. “No, I can’t read your mind. I assume you have some skyfire somewhere?”
At that, she shifted her wings to reveal a small bronze and skyfire bracelet.
“Oh, I forgot about it. Should I take it off?”
“No, I like the mystery. What’s your name?”
“Eclipse.”
Eclipse. That name felt oddly familiar for some reason- and then he remembered.
“I think Eclipse will love it, and she’ll need it the most.”
Eclipse. The name of the dragonet he was supposed to have with Clearsight and never did, and yet she was here. To hell with the mystery, he had to know where this went! He opened his mind to the futures, and saw a thousand new timelines unfold, each of them more beautiful than any other one he had seen since he woke up, and all of them with Eclipse. Her as the beloved princess of the nightwings, him crowning her as queen when he was ready to retire, him making her a fellow animus, her loyal to him in every timeline, no spells necessary. He knew what he had to do.
“Well, Eclipse, how would you like to come with me?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we’re better off together.”
She flapped down from her branch, landed on his head, curled up between his horns, and whispered in his ear.
“Thank you.”
Chapter 1
It was a beautiful day outside. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and all the Icewings were going to die. As the army of night approached their chosen battleground, Jade Mountain, Princess Eclipse was perched upon her father’s head, fantasizing about how she would kill all those horrible icicle-horned (censored) by ripping out their throats with her bare teeth and-
“We’re almost there, Eclipse. Ready to fight?” Her father interrupted.
“Ready!” She exclaimed. As she looked down, Eclipse could finally see all the cold hearted killers below. She took a deep breath as they began, readying her claws and fire, and the war erupted, just as the volcano that killed her first parents had.
The battle had raged for hours, but now they were no longer fighting. Instead, she watched her father talk with the Jade Winglet. The Rainwing offered him a strawberry. And for the third time, Eclipse watched the only dragon who cared about her die.
All Eclipse could hear were the screams. The screams of dying Icewings. The screams of pain and hatred her father let out as he died. Her own screams of loss, panic, and hopelessness. Then the Rainwing’s screams as Eclipse blasted her with fire. Then a sharp pain in the back of her head, and nothing.