I hung onto Grace as best I could. The rain made everything slippery, though I found a good purchase in her scales.
I couldn't look ahead. I wish I had gotten those tanker goggles when I had the opportunity, all of ten bucks, though I wouldn't have a purpose for it for four months. And they'd be extra weight, because we all know how much soldiers liked to steal things.
The rain kept flying into my eyes, even squinting wouldn't help. It was only once we started patrolling, I could somewhat see. Finally taking out my glasses and letting them take the brunt of the rain, I scanned the forest as best I could. Nothing. Nothing of notice. Just animals. Birds nesting in trees, owls and squirrels in their little tree knot caves, various other creatures taking shelter in the rain. It didn't help that the rain also blurred my vision, causing wavy and almost indecipherable images. Just the sight made me queasy, but I swallowed hard and kept searching. Searching for that poor IceWing.
"M-m-maybe we should go back." Turtle began with his concerns. I knew all too well of his doubts and discomfort. And to be honest, that clearing again, we passed it for the fourth time now. But I kept scanning. "Maybe he's halfway to the Ice Kingdom already." I silently shook my head.
"I don't think so," Qibli made my argument for me. "Not with Bandit. He wouldn't fly too far with that cage - scavengers don't handle this kind of weather as well as we do."
"Says the Sandwing." Who can't even survive a little drop in temperature. I'm sitting pretty. This is my element, I'm cool to be effective right here.
I had always liked the rain. It brought down the temperature, and made the air more humid. I like cooler and wetter weather, I felt more alert, and it was easier to deal with than say... hot and dry weather that plagued us in the summer. Especially when the wind kicks up dust, and covers the whole Central Valley in haze. With my trench coat on, and the rest of my uniform, they protected the majority of me from the rain and being completely drenched. The inside lining keeping me somewhat warm to avoid shivering. Out of everyone here, I was probably the most comfortable.
Then I heard a noise, other than Grace or Moon or the fuzzy buzzing of Skyfire.
"Wait!" Moon cried, grabbing Kinkajou's tail just ahead of her. "I heard him! This way!"
Grace swooped down to follow her down into the trees. Moon also seemed to be blinded by the rain. Before I could even register that we were a little low, Moon suddenly rammed into a tree, disappearing from sight. I followed her with my glasses and saw that she had righted herself, dropped down, and was advancing on foot. Grace banked around and we came to as gentle of a landing as we could. Following her on foot, and under the cover of the trees, I could be more effective with my glasses.
Suddenly, I felt a familiar presence pass by my mind. I instantly triangulated it, swinging my head and glasses to the sound. There, clear as a dim white amidst the navy and forest green.
"Contact. 40 yards, dead ahead, Icewing." I whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. I felt like punching myself for not detecting him sooner. I put away my glasses and traded it for my MKB, just in case he tried to pull any of Icicle's business. I heard him talking.
"Go on, get out of here. I know it's raining, but it's better than the Ice Kingdom, trust me."
"Winter!" Kinkajou suddenly yelped. "That's him!"
Moon breathed a small plume of fire that lit up the surrounding area. While I already had the white silhouette of Winter, now it was enhanced with depth and his surrounding environment in the light. Grace surprised me, surging forward and nearly causing me to tumble back.
"By all the snow monsters, what are you doing here?" Winter demanded while flapping his wings, spraying rain sideways towards us.
"And we found you!" Kinkajou focused on our triumph. "We're amazing!"
Winter looked back at his gold cage. I knew he could see Bandit from where he was. He was mainly trying to avoid the other dragons.
"I'm not going back to Jade Mountain." He sad. Well that makes things easier. "I'm going to look for my brother."
"I thought so," Moon said before I could even think. "We want to help you."
That. Right there. I was onboard in an instant.
"We do?" Turtle began, alarmed at the group think rapidly engulfing everyone here.
"Yes." Grace plainly said, nudging him with her wing.
"Yes!" Kinkajou blurted out again, further solidifying the intent of our group. "I diddnt know we did, but now I totally do!"
Aye that young dragon. While shaking my head, I noticed Bandit's cage again. Dropping down, I ran over to it.
"Psst! Hey kid?"
He appeared out from behind his bed of blankets. Obviously cowering, and drenched to the bone. A wave of pity fell upon me looking at his figure. The door was open, but he stayed in his cage, only looking towards me. "It's me, kid. Marvin." Now he recognized me, making his way over. "Hey kid, how-are-you doing?"
"I'm... c-c-cold."
"Yeah, that's the rain." I undid my jacket, passing it to him. I was instantly met with the frigid waters, but I just grit my teeth. The wet met me, and I just crossed my arms.
"T-thank you."
"No problem."
"You can't come with me," Winter said. "I'm going to Queen Glacier. I need to explain it all to her and get her to help me find Hailstorm."
I looked back to Bandit, remembering the Kingdom of Ice, Bastogne in the wintertime.
"Hey kid. That white dragon, Winter, you know him? He's going somewhere, somewhere you can't follow. You follow. You die. Hey, kid!" He dropped to his knees and crumpled. "Hey man. Get up. Stay strong."
"What is there to stay strong too?" I saw the terrible longing. This kid was about broken. I felt his headache in my own chest. Longing for his family, longing for his parents. He just wanted to go home, same as me.
"Hey, kid. I'm the same. I got lost, now I'm here. I don't know how, I don't know why. I want to go home as much as you do." His eyes widened. I offered my hand through the bars, motioning him forward. He hesitated for a moment, then got up and took my hand. I took the sharp pang of uncomfortableness I gained from him. That longing increased to the point of me shedding a tear, but it was lost to the rain. Damnit. I'm not a councilor. Momma is though. I shook my head clear. "Listen up and listen close." I grabbed the small sheet of paper that I hastily scribbled a map. A square with a triangle sat atop it marked the campsite. A rocky drawn semi-circle with the initials J.M.A. were written underneath for Jade Mountain Academy. I hastily scribbled an X with a pencil in the quickly dampening paper, I leaned over it to shield it as much as I could. "It's not to scale, but it's a map of the area. This," I pointed to the 1st grade shapes which were supposed to be a house. "That's my campsite. There's food, water, and shelter there." I passed the paper to him. "Where did you use to live son?"
"I... I don't know. S-somewhere cold, snowy. Not here."
Ice Kingdom. I started scribbling on the other side in the best dragon I could manage. The claws and other symbols I mymiced as best I could. "Any landmarks, places you remember?"
"Um." The poor guy shook. "A cliff? A big cliff. And... the ocean?"
"Good, good, that's good. Anything else you remember?" I wrote down his interpretation as best I could.
"Far away from the dragons. At least three day's ride away from them."
Three days.... On foot. I signed it in my own initials in dragon. I passed the paper to him. "Go to the camp and collect yourself."
I drew out my compass, getting my bearing. Finding north, and pointing.
"That way's north. That lines up with this." I showed him how to read my map. "This is north, so if you keep going this way, you'll end up at the camp." He nodded. "Remember, if you loose your way, the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west." I followed it up with the illustrations I quickly drew for him. "Find the camp. There's plenty of supplies for you."
Suddenly, a huge migraine buckled down on me. I groaned in pain alongside Grace and Moon.
"Marvin!" I heard the boy cry. I looked back, Moon was being held up by Kinkajou, Grace was nearly on the ground, I was up against the bars. I felt my wet jacket come over me again, while Bandit left for something.
"Grace," I started weakly, stumbling to my feet. "Are you- ARGH!"
Pain rocketed through my body. I fell into the mud. While I quickly supported myself by my shaking arms, something took hold of my voice. Eerie sounds, and a voice that was not my own. It was deeper, older, worn.
"Beware the darkness of dragons, Beware the stalker of dreams,
Beware the talons of power and fire, Beware one who is not what she seems.
Something is coming to shake the earth, Something is coming to scorch the ground. Jade Mountain will fall beneath thunder and ice Unless the lost city of night can be found."
I came back too, control over myself again. I breathed quickly, my jacket draped over me while I sat up against the bars of the cage. Grace and Moon were all floor. I got up, slipping in the mud.
"What was that?" The frightened kid now returned, draped in a blanket.
"Nrgh, nothing good." I groaned, but I still had a job to do. "Listen here kid, go to the camp. Once you find your strength, go to the other place I marked down. It's a place called Jade Mountain Academy, there are dragons there that can help you."
"DRAGONS? THE SAME PLACE WHERE I WAS?" The boy shouted in genuine fear.
"Shh. Shh-shh-shh, it'll be okay."
"No! It won't!"
"Trust me. Look for a yellow dragon. Yellow like the sunrise. Without a tail barb, you'll know her when you see her. Give her this note, her name is Sunny, she'll get you back home and where you need to go."
"No! It's too far, and in the rain. I'll freeze!"
"You'll starve here if you don't go. Listen kid: do you want to die here in a cage like the pet you are, or do you want a real chance of seeing your family again!" I didn't really mean to use my drill sergeant voice, but I needed to get my point across.
"O-okay."
Then a rapidly approaching pain crawled up my neck again. I braced myself for the vision.
I saw Jade Mountain Academy, but somehow it was different, but at the same time, familiar in ways. Sunlight trickled through a few windows as I navigated through the corridors. Dragonets passed by me, each of them a different color, played a game of chase in the sky. Like how It was in my time. It was peaceful in my time.
Then I appeared in the library. Starflight, behind his desk, raised his head, listening. He looked... older, wiser, more experienced, but radiating his familiar happiness and peace I used to know. This wasn't the Starflight now, who was still tortured by Queen Scarlet. Suddenly, a small black dragonet raced into the cave, leaped onto the desk, kissed the side of his head, took one of the scrolls, and flew off down another tunnel, calling, "Thank you, Father!" behind him
"No flying in the tunnels!" Starflight called after him, but he smiled.
It must be his son or something.
Now Clay - an older, bigger Clay, with a few more scars to him - poked his head in through another entrance and said, "My class is asking for more scrolls about the War of SandWing Succession. I thought maybe you could come talk and talk and talk at them instead, and then maybe they'll go to sleep and stop asking me questions."
"Ha ha, hilarious," Starflight commented sarcastically, sliding out from behind the desk. "Firefly, just put that back when you're done, all right?"
Over in a little window bubble like you'd find in a passenger observation car, a dark purple dragonet answered, "Sure," absentmindedly. She was set up with two other dragons, one blue and one the other a deep orange-brown I could not recognize. They had a scroll spread out in front of them and were studying it between them, like how I'd find students in the Gonzales Library.
"Can you imagine?" the blue one said. "The tribes hated each other so much back then."
"It's a good thing we're so much smarter than all the dragons who lived before us," said the purple like how an APUSH student would say now. "We'd never make their mistakes."
"I'm glad we're here, though," said the third dragonet, peacefully. "At the Jade Mountain Academy. I'm glad it exists."
"Me too," the others said in unison.
Only now did I realize the grand and peaceful smile on my face. That familiar warm and gooy feeling all throughout me. I thought of my family, my friends. I thought of Grace.
Then vision faded quietly away.
That's what we're fighting for, Moon thought. Thank you, Darkstalker.
I can help you make it real, he said. Remember that when you can't hear me anymore.
I was too at peace to argue with him for once. I took a deep breath, listening to the rain pour down around us. I thought of home. I remembered what exactly it was I was fighting for.
God. Family. Love. Peace.
Moonwatcher looked around at her friends, all of their minds now humming that quiet fuzzy noise of Skyfire. Closed off, safe, secure. She traded looks with Grace, then met eyes with me. Something in Moon changed. She felt more familiar, stronger, more an independent individual. She was not just a dragonett anymore.
I found the kid looking back at me, his eyes full of wonder, of hope. But he was scared. I wish I could've given him something, something of mine. But I packed light. Everything I desperately needed was on me. My crucifix, the first thing I would give if I could; my rank pins, enchanted so I could fight Darkstalker and Goldman: my helmet?
"My helmet."
I ran round to the door and stepped inside. It was honestly a pretty comfy place, if it weren't a pet cage. I walked up to the kid, barely a third of my size, young young young.
"Here kid. This will protect you a bit. It's protected me for over four years, it'll serve you just as well."
I wish I could've seen the light pour into his eyes. I gave him a smile. He suddenly ran up to me and hugged me.
"Thank you Captain Marvin of the Airborne. I will never forget you."
I was surprised, but I patted him on his back. Rubbing his wet fur shirt compared to my rough uniform, dotted with pouches. But then suddenly a commotion broke out in front of me. I looked up.
"Winter," Moon said. I instantly saw her intentions, but I looked over at her and my friends. This was the time, better now then never. "There are a few things you need to know about me."
"I'm listening," Winter responded. "Not that I have a choice, apparently."
"It's true what you've heard about the NightWings," she continued. "They really have lost their powers. There hasn't been a NightWing who could read minds or see the future in ... well, a very long time." She took a deep breath. "Until me."
"And me." Grace's voice made me flinch.
NO! STAY SECRET STAY SAFE! Screamed in my head, but I stopped myself. This was her life, this was her choice. I took a breath.
Winter's tail twitched. His heart felt like the rock in his talons, small and hard.
"Because I hatched in the rainforest," she went on, "under two full moons, I can do both."
"Both what?" He forced out past claws that felt like closing around his throat. This was something personal, but something ingrained in him I saw, even with Skyfire.
"See visions of the future," Moon said.
Then hesitantly, Grace finished. "And ... read minds."