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Chapter Text

A GUIDE TO THE
DRAGONS OF PYRRHIA AND PANTALA
UPDATED AND EDITED BY SUNNY OF THE SANDWINGS
FOUNDER OF JADE MOUNTAIN ACADEMY

WELCOME TO THE JADE MOUNTAIN ACADEMY!

We are pleased to welcome so many new promising dragonets to the Jade Mountain Academy! At this school, you will be leaning side-by-side with dragons from all around the world. We wanted to give you some basic information that may be useful as you get to know one another.

You have been assigned to a winglet with nine other dragons—one from each tribe. These are the dragons whom you will study alongside throughout your time at Jade Mountain. The dragons in your winglet, the Sapphire Winglet, are listed further down this scroll.

Thank you for being a part of this school. You are the hope of Pyrrhia and Pantala's future. You are the dragons who can bring lasting peace to this world.

WE WISH YOU ALL THE POWER OF WINGS OF FIRE!

SAPPHIRE WINGLET

STARFALL OF THE NIGHTWINGS
Female, 2 years

ASTER OF THE RAINWINGS
Female, 2 years

ROSE QUARTZ OF THE SKYWINGS
Female, 3 years

AURORA OF THE ICEWINGS
Female, 2 years

OTTER OF THE MUDWINGS
Male, 3 years

HYAENA OF THE SANDWINGS
Female, 6 years

BLUESHARK OF THE SEAWINGS
Male, 5 years

EMERALD OF THE HIVEWINGS
Female, 2 years

ATLAS OF THE SILKWINGS
Male, 6 years

SPRIG OF THE LEAFWINGS
Male, 4 years

NIGHTWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Black or dark-coloured scales. Silver scales like stars on the undersides of their wings.
Abilities: Can breathe fire and see in the dark. Those who are exposed to the light of one or more full moons shortly before hatching, known as the moonborn, can read minds or see the future.
Kingdom: Rainforest Kingdom in Pyrrhia's rainforest (see scrolls about the NightWing Exodus of 5,011)
Queen: Queen Glory

RAINWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Scales that constantly change colour; usually bright like birds-of-paradise. Prehensile tails.
Abilities: Can camouflage into their surroundings. Can shoot a sticky and highly caustic black venom from their fangs.
Kingdom: Rainforest Kingdom in Pyrrhia's rainforest
Queen: Queen Glory

SKYWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Red, orange, or gold scales. Enormous, powerful wings.
Abilities: Can breathe fire. Can fly at unrivalled speeds and perform complex aerial maneuvers. Some SkyWings born from twin eggs develop extraordinarily hot fire that erupts from their skin, a condition known as firescales.
Kingdom: Sky Kingdom in Pyrrhia's Claws of the Clouds
Queen: Queen Tourmaline, ruling under the name Queen Ruby (see scrolls about Tourmaline's royal challenge of 5,012)

ICEWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. White or off-white scales. Many horns and spines. Tails narrow to a whip-thin tip. Sharp, serrated claws.
Abilities: Can survive freezing temperatures. Can exhale a spray of liquefied air, known as frostbreath, from their lungs that freezes anything it touches.
Kingdom: Ice Kingdom in Pyrrhia's tundra
Queen: Queen Snowfall

MUDWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Armoured brown or amber scales. Strong and thickset.
Abilities: Can breathe fire if the temperature is warm enough. Can hold their breath for up to an hour. Those born from blood-red eggs have scales that are immune to fire.
Kingdom: Mud Kingdom in Pyrrhia's marshes
Queen: Queen Moorhen

SANDWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Brown, yellow, or sand-coloured scales. Feathery or bristly frills that run from the snout to the tailtip.
Abilities: Can breathe fire. Emit warmth from their scales. Possess stingers on their tailtips that inject a neurotoxic venom.
Kingdom: Kingdom of Sand in Pyrrhia's desert
Queen: Queen Thorn

SEAWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Green, blue, or purple scales. Webbed talons. Bioluminescent lightscales that can be turned on and off at will.
Abilities: Can see in the dark. Can breathe underwater through their gills. Thick, powerful tails can exert enough force to break bones.
Kingdom: Kingdom of the Sea in Pyrrhia's Bay of a Thousand Scales
Queen: Queen Coral

HIVEWINGS

Description: Pantalan, descended from ancient SilkWings and NightWings. Scales can be yellow, red, or orange, but all HiveWings have some black scales.
Abilities: Some HiveWings have natural weapons, such as venom in their fangs or stingers that extend from their talons or tails.
Kingdom: The Hives scattered across Pantala are autonomous and are each ruled by HiveWing princesses known as ladies, though the queen has the ultimate authority. The Hives are collectively known as the Kingdom of Clearsight or simply the Hive Kingdom.
Queen: Queen Jewel

SILKWINGS

Description: Pantalan. SilkWings hatch wingless and metamorphose at the age of six, growing four huge wings that shine in any colour except black.
Abilities: After Metamorphosis, can spin silk from glands on their wrists. Can sense faraway vibrations with their antennae. Those born with flamesilk can spin silk that ignites anything it touches.
Kingdom: Silk Kingdom in the southern half of Pantala. Many LeafWings also reside in this kingdom.
Queen: The SilkWings are the only nonmonarchical tribe, electing the SilkWing Assembly to govern them.

LEAFWINGS

Description: Pyrrhian. Green or brown scales. Two long, curved wings shaped like leaves.
Abilities: Can absorb sunlight and use it for energy. Those born with leafspeak can communicate with and control plants.
Kingdom: Kingdom of the Trees in Pyrrhia's forests east of the Claws of the Clouds. LeafWings used to live primarily in Pantala until a majority of the tribe moved and settled in Pyrrhia (see scrolls about the LeafWing Migration of 5,013)
Queen: Queen Hazel

Chapter Text

Two years ago...

Two moons hung in the air, thin claw slashes of silver against the dying grey as they set towards the horizon.

Two dragons sat on a woven platform hung between the trees at the top of the rainforest canopy, where they could see the whole dusk sky above them.

A pink RainWing wearing a crown of flowers wrapped her tail around a single ebony-black egg that was lined with a spiral of pastel colours. Princess Zinnia clasped her talons around the egg and felt the faint heartbeat of the dragonet inside. Her dragonet. It was due to hatch tonight.

Zinnia looked over towards her husband. Yoru was staring stoically at the two moons, but Zinnia knew the NightWing was filled to the brim with excitement.

She had so many ideas of what she would name the dragonet, a hybrid of the two tribes. Starfruit? No, that wouldn't be regal enough. Shining? Splendent? Splendiferous? Yes, one of these would be befitting of RainWing royalty.

Yoru tilted his head towards Zinnia. "You know, usually other dragons are supposed to come watch the hatching, and this is the first NightWing-RainWing hatching in... well, ever. Are you sure no one wanted to come and, er, witness an 'historic event' or something?"

"Yoru, I guarantee you that there are hundreds of RainWings camouflaged around us right now. But I wanted this to be a romantic moment for just the two of us."

"I don't feel very romantic any more now that you said that..." Yoru looked around nervously, as if expecting to spot a pair of eyes watching him from a tree.

Zinnia looked over her shoulder. Behind them, as the sky faded all the way to black and stars started twinkling in the distance, the third and largest moon was beginning to rise—full and tinted a shade of dark red like venal blood. She shuffled her talons to turn around. The moonlight filtered through the leaves and fell on the two dragons and their egg.

"A lunar eclipse," Yoru said with a small gasp.

"Most of us just call it a 'blood moon,' you NightWing," Zinnia said, cuffing him gently on the ear. "Didn't one of your astrophysical calculations or something predict a blood moon tonight?"

"Mmm," Yoru said, nodding his head slightly, his full attention devoted to the eclipse.

And then the egg started glowing.

Zinnia jumped back from it. The egg had turned from black to glowing red. The colour seemed to swirl through the shell like ink in water. She could now see the faint silhouette of the dragonet inside, waiting to burst out.

"YORU! WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHAT DO I DO?!" Yoru was still fixated on the crimson moon. Zinnia tried to catch his attention and frantically gestured towards the egg.

Yoru tried to suppress a laugh when he saw the shining egg and Zinnia's outburst. "Oh. Yes. I meant to tell you. The full moons cause NightWing eggs to glow, apparently. I was at one such hatching a few months ago. Though it was silver... not red..." Realization dawned in his eyes. He grabbed one of Zinnia's talons with both of his. "Zin, we're having a moonborn dragonet! Our child will have powers! Our child will be special! Isn't that amazing?"

Zinnia took some deep breaths to calm herself down. "I'd rather not have a tiny dragonet constantly reading my mind," she snorted, only half joking.

"Or constantly foretelling your death," Yoru said.

At that moment, something caught the edge of Zinnia's vision: a falling star, bigger and brighter and closer to the earth than she had ever seen before. The meteor shot across the entire sky, burning a wide flaming arc through the night all the way to the horizon.

"A shooting star! Yoru, make a wish!"

Zinnia crouched down towards the egg, closed her eyes, and rested her snout right above it.

I wish for our dragonet to be brave. I wish for our dragonet to be kind. I wish for our dragonet to be the most wonderful dragon Pyrrhia has ever known.

She opened her eyes with a jolt as something split the air, shaking the platform as it punched a small hole straight through the vines and making Yoru squeak in surprise. Zinnia instinctively grabbed the glowing egg more tightly and hugged it close to her body to protect it with every last inch of herself.

And then the egg cracked, and Zinnia felt something touch her scales.

A dragonet as black as the night had poked its head through the shell and was touching its snout to hers. It then reached out with its talons and fell forward out of the shell, latching its tiny claws into Zinnia's neck. The dragonet splayed its wings as it looked around, showing the silver scales dotting them.

"Starfall," Yoru whispered.

"I was hoping we would do a RainWing name," Zinnia replied as she took the little hatchling and set it gently on the ground, "but right now I'm too amazed to be mad at you."

"You're always mad at me." Yoru nudged Zinnia affectionately with his snout.

She smiled. "Fine, we'll go with Starfall. That shooting star was too good to ignore."

"Awrk?" Starfall squeaked.

"Well, aren't you quite the handsome dragon," Zinnia said, loosely coiling her tail around Starfall and noticing the deep, dark RainWing colours of blue and pinkish red around Starfall's eyes and spines.

The dragonet clambered over her tail with its little talons over to Yoru, and stared at the silver scales on its father's half-unfurled wings. "Grrawr!" came Starfall's tiny dragonet roar.

"I think Starfall likes stars," said Yoru, folding his wing in to let Starfall gaze at the open sky of stars and the eclipsed moon.

"Oahh," Starfall said, eyes wide.

"I sure do wonder which parent that came from. Let me guess, our little stargazer will be obsessed with scrolls, too?" Zinnia glared at the huge glasses on Yoru's snout that made his eyes look comically large. "And don't tell me farsightedness is genetic, too."

"All NightWings are farsighted, Zinnia," Yoru laughed. His gaze shifted to the hole in the woven vines. "... Should I go grab that rock that almost killed you?"

"Later," Zinnia said, putting her talon on top of Yoru's. "Stay with me for right now."

Zinnia stared into Yoru's dark green eyes, as he stared back into her own of bright red.

"I love you, Yoru."

"I love you, too."

The two dragons twined their tails together and kissed.

"Look at us." Zinnia raised her arm in a sweeping gesture across the rainforest around them. "This is a brand new chapter in the history of our kingdom. Of our tribes. And it starts with us."

"Here's to new beginnings," Yoru agreed.

"Awrk!" came the call of Starfall, a little more urgently this time.

Zinnia sat up and picked up Starfall, who squawked indignantly as she did so. She stared into those eyes of deep, brilliant blue of the dragonet who stared back at her.

"Welcome to the world, Starfall."

Chapter Text

PART ONE
SHINING STARS

"Starfall! Starfall!" a voice called in the distance.

She ran her talon over the words one more time.

Wings of rain and wings of night
under bloodborne selenic light
bring disaster where she trods;
you cannot win against the odds.

She had found the verse in an old scroll of NightWing prophecies and had been poring over it ever since. Princess Starfall tapped her claws frustratedly on the wooden floor of the library as she racked her brain for answers.

Bloodborne selenic light. Bloodborne, of blood. Selenic, of the moons. She guessed that that was supposed to mean a blood moon. Starfall had hatched under a blood moon—and blood moons were always full moons, which meant she was moonborn, which meant she should've gotten cool NightWing powers like foresight or mindreading. But she had waited, and she had waited, but not once did she ever hear other voices in her head or get visions of the future. And she was perfectly fine with that.

So why did this prophecy fit her so well?

And why did it say she would bring disaster?

A RainWing of bright lavender poked her head over Starfall's shoulder.

"There you are... ugh, you're reading prophecies? You're so boring."

The NightWing whipped her head around to stare at the other dragon. The light fell through the translucent leaf windows onto her scales: light black with an almost purplish shine, with a deep pink on her underscales and a dark azure around her eyes and on the spines that ran from her forehead to her tailtip. Her form was sleek and lithe like a RainWing's. She had a ring of silver scales almost like a bracelet on her left arm, and her eyes were a startling sapphire blue.

Starfall's dark colours contrasted with those of the RainWing opposite her—Aster's scales were usually a pale indigo, freckled with bright yellow here and there to give her the appearance of the flower she was named after. Her heavy eyelids seemed to lock her scarlet-orange eyes into either of two expressions: perpetually exasperated, or perpetually smug. (Starfall had once suggested that Aster go see an ophthalmologist so that she could have more than two expressions. Aster didn't think that was funny, apparently.)

"Actually, Aster, prophecies are AMAZINGLY FASCINATING and you just have horrible taste in literature."

"That's because I have zero taste in literature, you scrollworm."

Starfall flicked Aster's snout with a claw. "I don't understand dragons like you. How can you not like reading?"

"Are you sure you're part RainWing? Because I think that's just about the most NightWing thing I've ever heard you say," Aster retorted.

Starfall rolled her eyes. She had been born to a NightWing father and a royal RainWing mother. Being a hybrid, she was tired of everyone having so many conflicting expectations of her. She knew Aster was joking, but it seemed like everyone thought she had to be entirely NightWing or entirely RainWing. Mostly the RainWing part, to be honest, with her being part of the RainWing royal family (even though NightWing was clearly her dominant half). Why couldn't she be both? Why couldn't she just be Starfall?

At least everyone accepted that she was a dragoness.

"Your entire personality is a cliché, you know," Aster said. "A NightWing who loves scrolls."

"Hey!" Starfall said. "I'm still a RainWing, and I don't know about any RainWings who love scrolls as much as me, so there."

Aster narrowed her eyes at the scroll. "What even does 'see-len-nick' mean? That can't be a real word."

"Selenic means 'of the moons.' It's a cooler way to say 'lunar.'"

Aster wrinkled her snout. "Let me guess. Like the lunar eclipse you were born under."

"Like the lunar eclipse I was born under," Starfall went on at the exact same time as Aster. She shoved the scroll in Aster's face. "But wait till you hear this."

Blood will spill across the sky.
Blood will rain from heavens high.
The stars will fall, bring pain to all,
unless you care to heed the call.

"None of that even makes any sense." Aster rolled her eyes. "Prophecies in general just make no sense."

"You're just jealous because your non-NightWing brain can't handle them." Starfall repeatedly tapped her claw on the scroll. "Look at this. 'Wings of rain, wings of night.' 'The stars will fall.' There's no way that's a coincidence. Someone wrote a prophecy about me."

"The last time someone 'wrote a prophecy about someone,' five children got stolen from their families," Aster observed. "And this prophecy sounds like it involves a lot of blood, so do you really want to be part of it?"

Starfall held the scroll close to herself as her voice dropped. "I just... I think it would be cool to be part of an ancient prophecy, you know?"

Aster lightly hit Starfall on the side. "You are a hybrid, and you are a princess. I think that's special enough for one lifetime." She turned towards the entrance of the library. "Now stop daydreaming about being the chosen one and follow me. Mother said something about having something to tell us."

Starfall sighed, rolled the scroll up, and put it back on the shelf with the others.

Starfall and Aster took off into the sky as they left the library. Soon, they were joined by a vibrant orange RainWing who Starfall knew was Aster's brother, Clawmentine. (Clawmentines were one of Starfall's favourite fruits to eat, but she wasn't about to say that to Clawmentine.)

"So what do you reckon this whole thing's about?" Starfall asked Aster.

"She rarely ever calls all three of us like this. It's probably that school you made me and Claw apply to with you a couple weeks ago," Aster replied. "Jade Mountain or whatever it's called."

Starfall brightened when she heard that. Jade Mountain Academy! Of course that's what it was! If they admitted her this year, she'd be going to an actual school! Well, okay, she HAD been to "school" before, but that was just where all the RainWing and NightWing dragonets learned to read and write when they were less than a year old. No, she'd be, like, learning stuff at Jade Mountain! There'd be science classes, there'd be art classes, there'd be scrolls... so, so many scrolls...

"Are you seriously thinking about scrolls right now?!" Aster had turned her head around, seeing Starfall's expression.

Starfall narrowed her eyes and stuck out her forked black tongue at Aster.

Clawmentine barked a laugh. "That's Starfall for you! Don't worry, Star," he added in a stage whisper. "I like a good scroll now and then, too."

Starfall nodded as she glanced at Clawmentine, briefly touching her wingtip to his as they flew through the air.

Finally, Starfall saw the shape of a pink dragon in the distance start to come into focus. She recognized the dragon as her own mother as she pitched downwards to touch down on the ground, followed closely by Aster and Clawmentine.

This was her. Princess Zinnia, the sister of the RainWing queen. She was one of the most grumpy RainWings in the whole kingdom, second only to the queen herself. She had attracted attention after she married a NightWing astronomer named Yoru and became one of the first dragons in the kingdom to have a dragonet who was a hybrid of the two tribes. That dragonet was, of course, Starfall. She knew there was a hybrid in the kingdom who was a little older than her, but his origins were shrouded in mystery.

Also gathered here was her father, with his huge glasses (Starfall had already noticed the words on scrolls starting to blur a little when she held them close; she could blame Yoru for that), and so was a bright orange RainWing called Mango, who was Aster and Clawmentine's mother and a member of the queen's royal guard.

Zinnia held three scrolls in her talon, and began passing them out to the dragonets. Starfall already knew what they would say; sure enough, she rolled her scroll open to find the words WELCOME TO THE JADE MOUNTAIN ACADEMY! staring back at her.

Okay, those letters were definitely the tiniest bit blurry. She needed to get herself measured for glasses at some point.

Zinnia cleared her throat. "All three of your applications to Jade Mountain Academy were accepted. Jade Mountain is a wonderful school, and we're sure you're all going to do great."

"We're so happy for you!" Mango said, opening her wings to give each dragonet a hug. "All three of us attended there ourselves a couple years ago. This is a wonderful opportunity for young dragonets like yourselves. You'll be able to see the world and study alongside dragons from all the different tribes. You'll meet so many new dragons!"

"I think Starfall's more excited about reading new scrolls than meeting new dragons," Aster said, glancing at Starfall and earning herself a tail-whip to the face. She was excited about meeting new dragons, too, ASTER. Although... she was planning to run straight to Jade Mountain's library the moment she got there...

"When do we start there?" Clawmentine asked, his eyes shining and his scales seeming yellower than usual. "A few weeks?"

"Two days from now," came a new voice from behind them. Starfall whipped her head around and saw a green-and-blue dragon with orange colours like a sunset on her wings, whom she immediately recognized as her aunt. Clawmentine instinctively dropped into a tiny bow as Queen Glory of the RainWings strode into the clearing, at the same time that Aster said, "Two days?"

"Cut that out, Claw." Glory sat down next to Zinnia and curled her tail over her talons. "Yes, Aster, two days. You were supposed to have already gotten your letters of admission, but Sunny told me there was a slight delay with the IceWings' applications, so they couldn't get the winglets figured out until yesterday. The opening ceremony is early in the morning, so we leave tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night?!" Aster wailed. Clawmentine giggled as he watched the whole exchange.

"I suggest you stop complaining and get packing. Go on, then," Glory said, looking down her snout at Aster and impatiently flicking her tail at the three dragonets.

* * *

"Three moons," Aster said as she and Starfall walked through the rainforest in the general direction of the capital city. Clawmentine had flown off by himself earlier. "They expect us to be ready to fly all the way to Jade Mountain by tomorrow night?"

"How much stuff do you need to pack?" Starfall laughed. "It'll be fine, don't worry."

"Fine." Aster sighed. "What do you think she meant, they needed to get the 'winglets' ready?"

"I bet I could figure that out!" Starfall stopped and unrolled her letter of admission. "Ohhh. A winglet is the group of ten dragons that we have our classes with." She ran her talon down the list of names. "Oh—we're in the same winglet! I'm the NightWing and you're the RainWing."

Aster tilted her head. "Clawmentine isn't with us? Or... it must be a 'one from each tribe' thing, isn't it?"

Starfall nodded. A second sheet of paper rolled out from inside the scroll, and she caught it as it floated to the ground and read it. "They said they liked my short story portfolio, too! They're suggesting I should take the creative writing class they're offering. But... they said I might want to tone it down with some of my subject matters..." Starfall shrugged as she rolled the scroll back up.

"Moons, Star, what kind of stuff are you writing about?" Aster unrolled her own scroll as well. "Oh, look, they're suggesting I join the herbs and healing class!" she said, actually showing a bit of excitement.

"Oh—I mean—I base some of my stories on my daymares. So they're a little scary sometimes," Starfall said.

"One, they're called nightmares, you NightWing. Two, you have nightmares?" Aster asked, a flash of green concern appearing near her ears.

"Sometimes. I mean, more than other dragons, I think? Maybe, like, once a week? Sometimes they even seem like they come true, which is crazy. Like when I dreamed about being trapped in a fire, and then I woke up and accidentally lit my nest on fire! But it's fine, I swear. You don't have to worry about me." Starfall grinned.

"You're awfully chill about this," Aster said hesitantly. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about it? Have you told your parents? The queen?"

"What does Aunt Glory have to do with this?" Starfall started walking again, and Aster followed. "Of course I've told Mother and Father, but why does anyone else need to know? They're just daymares."

Starfall wanted to wipe that skeptical look off of Aster's face as the two finally lifted into the sky and started flying towards the capital. Why was Aster getting so worked up about this? Starfall thought this all was perfectly normal and probably happened to many dragons, not just her.

But that wasn't what should be on her mind right now, anyway! Starfall separated from Aster as they reached the capital, and flew to the palace. The Rainforest Palace was a beautiful structure, with open walls to let in the tropical sun, the whole palace built around the trees so that it coexisted with the rainforest around it. It seemed like every year there were new construction plans to expand the palace; Starfall was sure that within a couple decades, it would be the size of a small city in its own right.

She spotted the small pavilion where she lived on one of the upper levels of the palace and banked towards it, touching down on the wooden walkway and stretching out to sun herself. She knew she wouldn't be able to see the twin-peaked mountain well from this far away (not to mention all the trees), but as she felt the warmth of the sunlight soak into her scales, she turned to look west, and started to think about everything her new life at Jade Mountain would hold.

Everything was about to change.

Chapter Text

"Hey, I was just w—three moons, Starfall, what are you doing?"

Starfall turned towards the source of the voice, seemingly decorated with an entire palace's worth of jewellery. "Aster! Perfect timing! Tell me, do you think the sapphires would look best on me? Or should I ditch them and go with rubies?"

Aster blinked her eyes, dazzled by the sunlight reflecting off of all the silver. "I think you look like a walking chandelier. Three moons, Starfall, why could you possibly need so much jewellery?"

Starfall huffed. "RainWing royalty business. Aunt Gl—I mean, Queen Glory said that since I'm 'representing the RainWing royal family' at Jade Mountain or something, I have to dress nice to make a good impression on my future schoolmates. So. I'm extra shiny now, and you have to deal with it."

"Okay, but, like, gemstones and gold? Why can't you just wear flowers like a normal RainWing?"

"Because this is traditional NightWing dress, and I'm half NightWing, and the school says that I'm being admitted as a NightWing student, so there."

"But if you're representing the RainWing—" Aster took a deep breath. "You know what? Never mind. You're weird."

Starfall started taking off some of her jewellery as Aster left her pavilion. Okay, maybe she was overdoing it with the accessories, but she had a point! She didn't care that she had been raised as a RainWing. School meant a chance to reinvent herself, a chance to become her own Starfall. Sure, she loved the RainWing tribe. But it was time for everyone to admit that the firebreathing starrywings who couldn't camouflage might fit in better if she just embraced the NightWing part of herself. ... Maybe she could wear one garland? Or a single flower? NO. She was a NIGHTWING. ROARGH.

Starfall cast a glance at the open box of jewellery that she usually kept locked in her pavilion. She had a few valuable pieces with rubies, sapphires, silver, and gold stashed in here, but it really wasn't a lot. Most of her treasure was more inexpensive items that she'd bought from NightWing artisans in the capital. Her eyes fell on two pairs of hoop earrings. One pair was copper with crystals of glass, while the other was plated gold with amber teardrops. She liked the mismatched look of wearing one earring from each pair.

But she couldn't wear those right now. She had to look like a princess. A NightWing princess. She took her pouch that lay on the floor, full of scrolls and trinkets, and dropped the two pairs of earrings into it for later.

She stared into the mirror in her jewellery box, adjusting the silver-and-sapphire tiara on her head and threading a pair of sapphire earrings through her piercings. Around her neck sat a thin aluminium chain, from which hung a smooth dark stone dotted with a rainbow of metallic freckles, cut to resemble a small eight-pointed star. Yes, it broke the silver-sapphire theme, but she didn't care. She rarely went anywhere without this necklace. According to Mother and Father, it was a piece of the meteorite that fell to the earth just before she hatched. A rare stone known to dragons as skyfire. This pendant had been cut from a shard of the very starfall that had given her her name.

She nodded. This would do.

Starfall grabbed her pouch and strapped it to her shoulders, then stepped outside and leaped into the sky.

* * *

The wing of seven dragons took off after dusk and flew through the night on their way to the mountain.

"I'm so tired," Aster complained. "Why did we have to leave so late?"

"I'm not." Starfall flexed her talons, refreshed by the cool night air.

"No one asked you, NightWing." Aster playfully jabbed Starfall's side with her tail.

"Because we want to get you there on time," Queen Glory sighed. Glory was flying to Jade Mountain so she could catch up with her own friends in person. "The opening ceremony is early tomorrow morning, and Jade Mountain is still several hours away."

Aster cursed under her breath and rubbed her talons against her tired eyes.

Glory eyed the trees below them. "We're nearing the NightWing village," she told the rest of the wing. "We should have enough time to stop there and rest for an hour or two. But after that, we leave."

As the dragons started their descent, Zinnia looked over towards Glory. "I should keep watch while we sleep. To make sure you're safe."

Glory laughed. "It is very hard to assassinate me, Zin, even when I'm asleep. Have you ever tried? Even then, I guarantee you that my 'top bodyguard' has secretly been following us this entire time even though I explicitly told you not to, DEATHBRINGER." She dove into the trees and came out a moment later, carrying a pitch-black NightWing a little smaller than her.

Deathbringer opened his mouth to speak but was immediately shushed by Glory. "I can take care of myself perfectly fine and I do not need you constantly following me around like you HAVE BEEN FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS."

"But—"

"No buts. Off with you. Go." Glory hit him lightly with her tail. "I should behead you for even thinking about talking back to your queen. All in favour of beheading Deathbringer?"

Deathbringer sighed defeatedly and wordlessly turned around to fly in the opposite direction.

"When are you going to marry him already?" Zinnia looked back towards the shape of Deathbringer in the sky, steadily growing smaller.

"When I want to," Glory said, "because I'm patient, unlike you, and Deathbringer knows how to keep it in his vent, unlike Yoru, so I didn't end up married and pregnant at the age of seven, ahem."

"I don't even..." Yoru began, but his voice was drowned out as Zinnia said, "'I'm patient,' says the dragon who challenged an entire oligarchy for the throne when she was six."

"That was different." Glory rolled her eyes.

"What the heck are they even talking about?" Aster said, flying close to Starfall.

"I barely even know half the time," Starfall replied, as all seven dragons finally landed on the ground.

Two NightWings, one much taller than the other, sat near where they landed. Starfall recognized the larger dragon as her grandmother, Nightstalker. The NightWings soon noticed the group and walked over, waving their greetings with their tails.

"Fancy seeing you two here," Nightstalker rasped, nodding to Yoru and Starfall. "And you've brought the in-laws. Such a rare treat."

"Mother, we visit all the time. You can always move to the capital if you want to see us more often," Yoru sighed.

Nightstalker snorted. "Big city life isn't for me. I'm perfectly fine right here."

The second NightWing raised her head to look at the dragons gathered around her. "Greetings, Your Majesty."

"Ah, Hope," Glory said. "You've got your own dragonet to send to Jade Mountain, haven't you?"

Hope nodded. "I figured that's what this whole group was about. I'm just about to take my son there. He's so excited for it."

"Peacemaker." Nightstalker snorted again. "Your little hybrid. And you still won't tell anyone who the father is. Or, as a matter of fact, where you came from, because I lived on the volcano for sixty years and no NightWing I know had ever heard of a dragon named Hope until four years ago. You're really quite odd for a NightWing."

"I know more about being a NightWing than anyone in this tribe could ever dream to," Hope snapped. "Even if I did tell you where I came from, you would never believe me. And I don't believe it's your business to know who my son's father is, anyway. Even I don't know."

"Right." Nightstalker rolled her eyes. "Because you've gotten laid by so many RainWings, have you?"

Hope glared at Nightstalker and whacked her with her tail. "Might I remind you of a certain NightWing who hid her egg in the Mud Kingdom?"

Nightstalker immediately tensed up. "Don't you dare say anything bad about Stardust," she growled. Starfall recognized that name; Father had taken her to the Mud Kingdom to visit her aunt Stardust earlier that year.

Yoru leaned over to Starfall. "You know, they argue all the time, but Mother and Hope are actually pretty good friends," he said.

"Shut up, Yoru," Nightstalker and Hope said at the same time.

As the two went on bickering, Starfall's attention was caught by a NightWing in the distance who had a large hoop earring in her right ear. The NightWing's gaze focused on Glory, and she bared her teeth in a snarl. Glory locked her eyes with the strange NightWing and gave a slight frown.

"What's her deal?" Starfall whispered to Glory.

Glory sighed. "That's Fierceteeth," she whispered back. "I don't know what she's doing back in the rainforest... She hates me with every inch of herself because I'm a RainWing and I rule over the NightWings. Even though I've been trying my best to start treating the NightWings as equals these past couple years, I guess some of them still think it's unfair."

Starfall nodded slowly, looking back over towards Fierceteeth, who was now walking away. She hadn't thought about it much before, but now... wasn't it kind of weird that the queen of the NightWings was a RainWing? Wasn't it weird that the NightWings had no queen of their own? ... No. Glory was a good queen. She had to be. Right?

The NightWings were equals with the RainWings, weren't they? Her whole life, she'd seen nothing but cooperation between the two tribes. Hell, her very existence as a hybrid proved it! She'd heard some stories about the Rainforest Kingdom when the NightWings first came—how they were all kept in a remote part of the rainforest (nowadays the NightWing village) constantly under the watchful eyes of Queen Glory, always fearing the possibility that they might be exiled away sooner or later. But everything was different now! Glory was a fair queen to both tribes. Starfall was sure of it.

One day... one day, when she was a lot older, Starfall would challenge Queen Glory. She did want to be queen, she was pretty sure. Starfall thought she would be the perfect candidate for a single queen of both tribes: one half NightWing, one half RainWing. No one would ever doubt her right to rule over the two tribes of the Rainforest Kingdom.

Unless... what if they... what if they said...

No. She had every right to be a queen, no matter what anyone else thought.

Starfall jumped as she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Uh, Starfall?" Aster said. Starfall turned and saw the rest of the group starting to walk away. "We're setting up camp. Get out of your head and come with."

* * *

Starfall hung upside-down from a tree, her talons latched around a branch.

"How is that even comfortable?" Aster laid her head down on her talons.

"It's a NightWing thing. I barely ever hang from my tail because it starts to hurt after a while. I don't feel a thing when I hang from my talons."

"And you can sleep like that?"

Starfall did the best upside-down shrug she could. "When I need to. It's more comfortable than sleeping on the ground, at least. Not that I'm even tired right now."

Aster stared as wide-eyed as her groggy eyes would allow at Starfall. "When do you even sleep? Two and a half years, and I've never seen you sleep except during sun time."

Starfall tilted her head. "When else am I supposed to sleep?"

Aster blinked. "So you do sun time and that's your sleep for the whole day?"

"If I'm really exhausted, I'll sleep whenever, but usually sun time is enough. I'm sure there's some biological explanation for it, but I haven't read about it."

"You NightWing-RainWing hybrids are weird..."

"Shut up so the rest of us can sleep," Glory growled from under her wing.

"Good night, Starfall," Aster said, before curling up into herself and closing her eyes. She was snoring within a couple minutes.

Starfall yawned and closed her eyes. Even Yoru, who had adjusted to a nocturnal sleep schedule, was asleep by now, so there wasn't anyone to keep her company any more. She might as well try to get as much rest as she could before the big day tomorrow.

Chapter Text

The sun had only just finished climbing over the horizon as Starfall touched down on the rocky surface of Jade Mountain. She'd never seen the twin-peaked mountain up close before, but as she got closer during the flight, she could see structures built around many of the mountain's other outcroppings that must have been part of the school. Starfall was amazed at how the school managed to fit so seamlessly into the mountain, just like Glory's palace back in the rainforest.

"Hey!" called a blue SeaWing standing in front of the entrance to the mountain. Tsunami, Starfall knew from all the legends she'd read about the dragonets of destiny.

"I'm Tsunami," the SeaWing confirmed as she bounded up towards Starfall, Aster, and Clawmentine. "It's so great to have you here at Jade Mountain! I'm excited to get to know all three of you."

"Don't you get tired of doing this same thing every year?" Glory asked, the tip of her tail lightly brushing Tsunami's.

"Nah," Tsunami said. "'Cause I get to see you every time."

"I have a boyfriend, Tsunami." Glory wrinkled her snout slightly.

"Th-that's not what I meant!" Tsunami stammered, though it was obvious by her slight blush that that may have been at least twenty per cent of what she meant.

"We're going to miss you so much," Yoru said, leaning down to kiss Starfall on the forehead.

"I'm gonna miss you, too," Starfall said, wrapping her arms and wings around Yoru and Zinnia for a group hug. She did the same for Mango, and brushed Glory's wingtip with hers so that she wouldn't be interrupting her conversation with Tsunami.

"You can go on ahead," Mango said, flicking her tail at Starfall. "I just want to have a word with Aster and Clawmentine first."

Starfall nodded and started half walking, half leaping towards the school entrance.

As soon as she walked in and her eyes adjusted to the low light, she saw a purplish NightWing standing near the entrance. The NightWing held a scroll in one talon and waved to Starfall with the other. "Hi! Welcome to Jade Mountain! I'm Fatespeaker, and I'm the one helping our new students get situated." Her voice was so fast that it was almost hard to keep up. She pointed a claw at Starfall. "Now, I know I've heard a lot about you, and, I mean, I've heard a lot about a lot of the students, really, so my job could be a lot faster, but ugh, they make me do this for every student, just to 'make sure,' so all you need to tell me is what your name and tribe are, and we'll get you checked in."

"Uh." Starfall's mind whirled, trying to process everything Fatespeaker had just said. "Starfall. Of the NightWings."

"All right!" Fatespeaker said. "Let's see... Starfall, Starfall, Starfall of the NightWings..." Starfall was going to have to get used to hearing Starfall of the NightWings from new dragons; she'd been calling herself a NightWing, of course, and Aster had been calling her one as well, but as a princess of the Rainforest Kingdom, she'd usually been Starfall of the RainWings in formal situations. "There you are." Fatespeaker made a mark in the scroll with her claw. "You're in the Sapphire Winglet; you'll see the winglet lists around the school and in your welcome letter. You'll be in the first cave from the left, then the fourth cave to your right; that's dorm seven-alpha. You're in the group of three, so you'll be sharing a room with Aster and Rose Quartz."

I'm roommates with Aster?! Starfall thought excitedly. And Rose Quartz... She tried to remember if she had seen a Rose Quartz in her admission letter. Right. Rose Quartz is our SkyWing.

Starfall wasn't too sure about sharing her dorm with a SkyWing; she'd always heard that they were the grumpiest of all dragons. But she'd met that pink SkyWing who lived in the rainforest: Mother's friend, Ametrine. She seemed nice enough. Rose Quartz sounded like a pink name, so maybe she'd be nice, too?

Fatespeaker wrinkled her snout. "Not sure about a SkyWing roomie, are ya?" she said, as though she had read Starfall's mind. "Well, I had a VISION, and it said that you'll be BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, so there."

"Well, I'm having a vision that it'll be a complete disaster," Starfall shot back, and the two of them laughed.

Fatespeaker eye caught something on Starfall's leg. "Oh, look, I never noticed you have the same silver-scale bracelet that I do!" She lifted her own left arm to reveal a ring of silver scales encircling it, almost identical to Starfall's.

Starfall's eyes widened in amazement. She'd never met any NightWing with the same oddity as her. "Whoa. Do you think it means anything?"

Fatespeaker held out her talon in a grand fashion. "MY theory is that it's the sign for seers. Just like silver teardrop scales for mindreaders." It was only then that Starfall noticed the silver scales under Fatespeaker's eyes, though they were thinner and duller than those of other mindreaders Starfall had met—did that mean Fatespeaker was only half a mindreader? "I mean, I get visions ALL THE TIME. Even though no other seer I've met has it... Are you a seer, too?"

Starfall still had trouble processing the rapid speech of the other NightWing. "N-no. I'm moonborn, but I didn't get any powers. Are you really a seer? I haven't met many myself..."

"She's a bumbling idiot who thinks every daydream she has is a prophecy," said a copper-orange SkyWing draped with blankets who gave Fatespeaker a friendly shove with her shoulder. The dragon had eyes as blue as the sky, and it seemed as if there was smoke actually coming out from under her scales.

Firescales.

Fatespeaker laughed until she recognized the dragon. "Wait, Peril? What are you doing all the way down here? How are those blankets not burning?" She touched her own shoulder. "How am I not burning?!"

Peril smiled as she seemed to shift uncomfortably under an enormous weight. "Several layers of tungsten mail. Starflight's idea. It's the one metal my scales can't melt. With the downside of it being almost as dense as Clay, three moons."

Fatespeaker laughed again as Starfall sat and puzzled over what the joke was for a moment, since she knew that clay was a relatively light material.

"Come on, Starfall, go out there and meet some dragons," Fatespeaker said, lightly nudging her with her tail towards the center of the hall.

Starfall took a few breaths and started walking towards the center area, but she was stopped by yet another dragon—a SandWing with unusually golden-orange scales, as well as black scales lining her neck and around her grey-green eyes. Sunny, it must be. (Had she really always had the black scales? The scrolls never mentioned them.)

"Hi!" Sunny worried at one of her claws. "I was looking for... for some, uh, treasure of mine that I lost, and I was wondering if you'd seen it anywhere? It's a small blue gem shaped kind of like a star..."

Starfall raked through her memory, then looked backwards. Surely she would have remembered seeing a loose piece of treasure.

"No... I'm sorry. I just got here."

"It's fine!" Sunny felt the empty pouch around her neck. "I must have left it somewhere. It's just so weird. I always carry it with me..."

Okay. Now that Sunny was leaving, Starfall was actually going to go meet dragons. As she walked into the great hall, she saw a banner spelling out Welcome, students! in purple-and-white flowers. And as she scanned the hall, she saw what must have been at least thirty other dragons.

Starfall stared in wonder at all the dragonets around her. There were so many dragons from every single tribe! Mango was right—Starfall could tell she would make so many new friends during her time here.

She'd never seen such a diversity of dragons in one room—and they were all getting along, too. A deep, dark blue SeaWing and a strawberry-red RainWing approaching each other with shy looks on their faces. A striped SandWing excitedly showing off her venomous stinger to a captivated MudWing. A green SeaWing with elaborate jewellery and a sleek gold SkyWing with an assortment of piercings showing off their accessories to each other. Two NightWings and an IceWing, of all tribes, telling each other stories and laughing heartily.

Or a NightWing and two IceWings?

One of the dragons had the distinct body shape of an IceWing, but her scales were an almost black shade, similar to Starfall's scales. She must have been an IceWing-NightWing hybrid, but then... on her underscales was a pale rainbow?

"You're an IceWing with black scales!" the white IceWing laughed. "And you're telling me you're not under a curse from the Darkstalker?"

"I thought we had finally gotten rid of Darkstalker," the NightWing said.

"I don't have to do black if you don't want," the black IceWing replied. "Light grey also looks cool. But I like black." Her scales shifted colour in response to her words.

Oh, she's IceWing-RainWing!

She realized she recognized the NightWing, too. He was lean and sleek, his fangs were long, he had rainbow scales under his wings, and he had a star-spangled ruff behind his ears just like Starfall's own. Peacemaker. He's the hybrid who came before me. She remembered that Hope had mentioned him the night before.

Starfall had barely taken a few steps towards him when Peacemaker turned around and spotted her, letting out a small eep of surprise as she slinked up next to him. "Y-Your Highness?" he squeaked.

"Peacemaker!" Starfall exclaimed.

"Uh. Yeah. Uh. Starfall...!" Peacemaker shrugged awkwardly.

"This is so great! Now we can, like, actually get to know each other better! Us NightWing-RainWing hybrids ought to stick together, you know. And also..." Starfall pointed a wavering claw at the black-and-rainbow IceWing.

"Prism," the IceWing-RainWing said calmly. "I'm not from the Rainforest Kingdom. That's why you've never seen me."

"Ooh, pretty name. Anyway. It's so great to see other hybrids here!" Starfall grinned. See? She was already making friends! Already! Take that, Aster!

She jumped as she felt a tail brush her shoulder, and turned to find Aster staring at her in surprise.

"Are you actually talking to dragons?"

The two IceWings has gone back to conversing among themselves, but not Peacemaker. He tilted his head in confusion at Aster. "Is talking not something she normally does?"

"No, she usually just speaks telepathically with her mind," Aster snapped.

"That's not even a thing," Starfall protested, as Peacemaker exclaimed, "She can DO THAT?!"

It dawned on them both at the same time that this was sarcasm.

"Let's go to our cave," Aster said. Starfall waved a little "bye" to Peacemaker with her talon as she followed Aster.

"You really need to get your sarcasm detector checked," Aster observed as they walked into the corridor Fatespeaker had pointed out to Starfall.

"You need to stop being so sarcastic so I can actually tell what you mean half the time," Starfall retorted. "Where's Claw?"

"Who knows?" Aster shrugged. "Meeting new dragons, probably. I looked away for one second and he was gone."

As they approached their cave, Starfall jumped again when she heard a muffled yell that sounded like it came from one of the further hallways.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE MOONS ARE YOU DOING?"

Starfall shuddered. She prayed she wouldn't have to share a cave with that dragon. Who, by the sound of it, was probably a SkyWing.

"I AM GOING TO SET FIRE TO YOU!"

Definitely a SkyWing.

Hopefully not my SkyWing.

They finally reached their dormitory cave, which had little indication of it being theirs except for an ornate 7A etched above the doorway. Aster led the way into the dormitory with Starfall following, and as the entryway turned abruptly to the right, they made their way down a sort of ramp, eventually emerging into the wide open cave.

Starfall's focus immediately darted to the rack of scrolls by the entrance, which had a small sign that read free reading! hope you like them! She flipped through the scrolls. A history of the Sky Kingdom, from the Scorching to Queen Ruby. A large-print field guide to various medicinal herbs found in the rainforest.

A complete, unabridged copy of The Legends of Darkstalker.

Starfall instinctively grabbed the heavy scroll from the rack. It was no secret that this was one of her favourite novels—she owned a copy with an ornate leather casing, the nicest scroll in her pavilion, and she'd read and reread it multiple times. Once, she had been so invested that she sat in a reading nook in the library from before the sun rose to after it set, not moving once, finishing the whole thing in one sitting. (That specific nook had been unofficially dedicated to Starfall after that incident.)

"Put that back, Starfall," Aster sighed. "We can go check out the library next if you want."

Starfall reluctantly obeyed, and walked over to the sleeping area. A stone ledge jutted out from one side, a leaf hammock hung from the other, and in the middle lay a nest made from twigs and moss, just like the one she'd woven in her pavilion.

As Starfall unstrapped her pouch and lay down in the nest, she heard the sound of talons coming from the entrance.

"They're coming," Aster whispered.

The talonsteps descended down the walkway, growing louder and clearer.

A few moments later, a tall SkyWing with scales of not red, not orange, but a beautiful pale pink, walked into the dormitory. Her bright yellow eyes scanned the cave. She looked to be about three, not much older than Starfall. Starfall and Aster held their breaths.

"I'm sorry, are you two my clawmates? I might have gotten a little lost..." the SkyWing said in the softest, warmest voice Starfall had ever heard.

Starfall's heart leaped. Thank the moons we didn't get a grumpy one! She jumped out of her nest. "Are you Rose Quartz?"

The SkyWing's eyes shone as she nodded. "Please, you can just call me Rose." Rose smiled so sweetly that Starfall almost caught herself getting lost in her warm golden gaze, an infectious smile that almost convinced Starfall that she'd known the pink SkyWing her whole life and that they were already the best of friends.

"Well, hi, Rose!" Starfall grinned, and not-so-subtly shook her head to snap herself back to the present as she ran to greet Rose up close. "I'm Starfall, and this is Aster! It's so great to meet you!"

Aster gave Starfall a funny look as she walked up. "Who are you and what have you done with Princess Starfall of the NightWings?"

"Princess?" Rose repeated. She swung around to point at Starfall, noticing her sapphire tiara and earrings. "Oh! You're—you're the Princess Starfall, aren't you? Queen Glory's niece?"

"You know about me?" Starfall asked.

"Of course! I've read all about you in scrolls."

"There are scrolls about me?" Okay, now Starfall was genuinely shocked. Surely, if there was a scroll all about her, she'd have already found it and read it.

"You're in some of the ones about recent RainWing history. I think your kingdom's history is so cool! It's exciting to see NightWing blood in the royal family, with dragons like you. It's a testament to the cooperation between the two tribes and their newly unified kingdom."

"Oh, three moons," Aster lamented in a whisper to Starfall. "She's a history nerd."

"Well, it was great to stop by and meet you," Rose said, "but I'm trying to find my friend Carnelian, so I have to go. See you again later today!" She jumped up to her stone ledge, set down the bags she was carrying, and leaped over to the walkway leading out.

"See ya," Aster said.

"Bye!" Starfall called, though her heart screamed But we only just met! Can't you stay a little longer?

"Well," Aster said as Rose left. "Library?"

"YES!" Starfall chirped as if there were no such thing as too much enthusiasm.

"Do you think we're actually doing anything today?" Aster asked as they left the dormitory. "Like, in terms of classes and stuff."

"That chalkboard probably has an answer," Starfall said, gesturing with her tail before spinning around to read it.

WELCOME TO JADE MOUNTAIN!

WE'D LIKE OUR NEW STUDENTS TO GET TO KNOW THIS PLACE ON THE FIRST DAY, SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EXPLORE THE CAMPUS TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT! IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COME TALK TO ONE OF US. WE'LL EITHER BE IN THE FACULTY OFFICES OR ROAMING AROUND THE SCHOOL!

KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THESE BOARDS, WHERE WE'LL POST ALL IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM NOW ON.

SMALL-GROUP DISCUSSION CLASSES WITH YOUR WINGLET BEGIN TOMORROW MORNING AFTER SUNRISE.

HAVE AN AMAZING DAY!

"I guess that means our schedule for today is a whole lot of nothing," Starfall said cheerfully.

Starfall and Aster made their way through the labyrinthine system of hallways, using the small school maps on every other wall to figure out how to get to the library. The library just started to come into view as Starfall was startled yet again by what she could only assume was the same probably-SkyWing who was shouting earlier.

"I. WILL SET FIRE. TO ALL OF YOU!"

"Please don't set any fires in here," came a call from further inside the library that Starfall could barely hear.

Starfall could envision it now. Her giving that angry SkyWing what for with a nice slap in the face. She could just see them walking away, tail between their legs, muttering and complaining about her... Of course, she would never actually hit anyone. Maybe. No, she seriously wouldn't.

Starfall closed her eyes and extended her wings to take a big stretch, when suddenly her left wing collided with something solid.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a big, scarlet dragon with curly horns who looked at least two or three years older than her. He had his talon over his nose as he hissed.

"Three moons, I didn't mean to—I'm so sorry—I..." Starfall tried to grasp the right words as the SkyWing stormed off in rage.

"Stupid prissy princess... bet she thinks she's better than everyone... typical NightWing..."

Starfall stared at the SkyWing in shock until he slipped out of eyesight. She was at a complete loss for words. She hung her head in disbelief.

"If only you had powers," Aster mused. "Then you could have foreseen that and not given us a sworn enemy on day one." She playfully pushed Starfall's side.

"Sorry! Sorry! I—" called another dragon running out of the library. "Is he already gone? Shoot." The SkyWing, red as ruby and about the same age as Starfall, shot a sympathetic look at her and Aster. "Sorry about my brother. He's, uh, not really the best with other dragons."

"I-it's fine. I'm the stupid prissy princess. But I prefer Starfall," Starfall said in attempt at humour.

The SkyWing barked a laugh. "Oh, that's a pretty name. I'm Carnelian. And that was Tiercel," she said, grimacing as she tried to look down the corridor.

Aster gave Carnelian an odd look. "... I'm Aster. Nice to meet you."

Two nice SkyWings in one day! I wonder how true the whole "grumpy SkyWing" thing is after all. "You're Carnelian? Rose said she was looking for you. She's my clawmate," Starfall added, immediately noticing how she'd accidentally emphasized the "my." Was it really jealousy, of all emotions, that she was feeling right now?

"Oh, you two got put with Rose?" Carnelian did a little jump with her front talons. "Yeah, she's amazing. I ought to go find her later! Maybe all four of us could hang out at some point?"

Aster shrugged and mumbled, "Sure," as Starfall, still trying to process how she'd somehow instantly made a friend for the third time today, silently gave a thumbs-up with her talon.

"... Um... great! I—I better go," Carnelian said, starting to run down the hallway. "See you later!" She disappeared behind a corner.

"Mother said something about Carnelian being dead," Aster said as soon as Carnelian was out of earshot.

Starfall swung her head to look at Aster with utter bewilderment.

"Yeah," Aster continued. "She said the year before she went, there was an explosion that killed two of the students."

"Oh, come on." Starfall rolled her eyes. "It's not like there can't be two dragons with the same name." She decided to keep her newfound fear of suddenly exploding while at school to herself as the two finally walked into the cave where Starfall was sure she'd be spending most of her time from now on.

As soon as she walked into the library, her tail started wagging excitedly and she started rhythmically arpeggioing her claws on the floor. The library was spacious, with room above for reading nooks lit by the sky outside, while the lower level had neatly organized shelves packed with scrolls. Scrolls! So many of them! Would she end up reading most of them? Probably not, but for whatever reason, the very feeling of being surrounded by scrolls made her inexplicably happy.

"Starfall," came the voice of the NightWing behind the librarian's desk.

She held her breath and forced her body to stop moving.

"You're the only dragon who does that when you enter a library," Starflight observed. "I heard a second set of talonsteps, too. Is Aster with you?"

"You're really good at that, Starflight," Starfall commented. The librarian had been blinded by the volcanic eruption that destroyed the old Night Kingdom, before the NightWings lived in the rainforest. That had happened five years ago, and it appeared as though by now Starflight had become accustomed to a world without sight.

"One second. I'll need to get you two your library stamps." Starflight searched through a drawer, running his claws along small ridges on the tops of scores of tiny boxes. Finally, he picked one and gave it to Starfall—a very small stamp, just a few inches wide. It looked like he had just picked randomly—when she turned it over in her palm, though, she was surprised to see the name Starfall in backward letters on the bottom.

"Oh, no, I don't need one, thanks," said Aster as Starflight handed her a stamp that said Aster.

"Oh, yes, you do," Starflight said, pressing it into her talon. "The library isn't just for casual reading. It's where you'll find all the scrolls you'll need for your classes. Your stamp is your key to borrowing a scroll from the library. You'll also see stamps on the end caps of all the scrolls here. That's how we keep track of who has what scroll."

Starfall ran her claw along the raised wooden ridges on the top of the stamp. It felt oddly calming. "Is this the system you and Tamarin made so you two can read scrolls?"

Starflight nodded. "You'll find that many of the scrolls in here have also been translated. And she's actually right over there," he said, pointing his snout at one of the bookshelves where the scarred indigo-and-gold RainWing was standing, browsing through the scrolls alongside a blue-and-pink SeaWing whom Starfall knew she should recognize but didn't.

"Thank you so much, Starflight!" Starfall said, flipping her library stamp over in her palm several times as Starflight gave her and Aster pouches to hold them. Starfall dropped hers in and tied the pouch to one of her hind ankles before taking off into the shelves, almost forgetting Aster was there.

Nonfiction. History. SkyWing history, SeaWing history... ooh, what about NightWing history? NightWing powers... Prophecies...

She knew she'd been subconsciously searching for that title, but she didn't try to stop herself.

NightWing Prophecies Through the Ages.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. Don't you dare," warned Aster as she saw Starfall walk towards the scroll.

"I just have to see," Starfall said.

It was clearly a newer copy than the one in the rainforest library. The edges of the paper were clean and intact; small illustrations dotted the pages alongside the text; it had a lot more information, she realized as she rolled and rolled through it; and there, under all the words, were small bumps pressed into the paper, just like on her stamp.

She rolled and rolled the scroll until she encountered the name that she recognized from the earlier scroll.

Cloudy-eyes (2,990–3,001 A.S.) was a twice-moonborn NightWing mindreader and prophet known for her many unusual prophecies, supposedly detailing random events centuries or millennia away with no ability to see the immediate future. Rumour has it that her powers eventually drove her to madness, to the point where she took her life with her own claws at the age of 11.

Starfall grimaced as she read the last part. Suddenly she was extra sure that she was fine being powerless, if that was what having powers did to dragons. She rolled through a few pages until she found what she had been looking for.

The Falling Stars Prophecy.

Spoken by Cloudy-eyes of the NightWings in 2,999.

Wings of rain and wings of night
under bloodborne selenic light
bring disaster where she trods;
you cannot win against the odds.

Blood will spill across the sky.
Blood will rain from heavens high.
The stars will fall, bring pain to all,
unless you care to heed the call.

Starfall rolled the scroll to the next page.

Cloudy-eyes reportedly had many vivid visions of one dragon after speaking this prophecy. Shown below is one of her paintings of this prophesied dragon.

Staring back at her with blank, sapphire-blue eyes, under a falling star and a full moon glowing a deep red, was a dragon whose black scales were contrasted with dark reds and azures.

A dragon who looked just like her.

Starfall nearly fainted, dropping the scroll onto the ground with a loud clank and falling onto her back with a thud.

She'd had her suspicions before, but that was just a fun theory of hers. She was sure it was just a coincidence. But now... now she was beginning to doubt that. Now she finally realized this prophecy might have some truth to it after all.

Starflight immediately scrambled over his desk towards the direction of the sound, wings spread wide to stop himself from running into anything. "What happened?"

"Starfall's just really interested in this one prophecy in this scroll," Aster said as he came rushing over. "She thinks it's about her," she added in a stage whisper that made Starfall want to scream I CAN STILL HEAR YOU.

"That can't be the Falling Stars Prophecy..." Starflight hissed under his breath.

"That's... me... looks... just like me... it's talking about... me..." Starfall closed her eyes, dazed.

Starflight placed his talon gently on her shoulder. "It can't be. No seer has ever been able to foretell anything two thousand years into the future. Chances are, this prophecy was already fulfilled way back then." He smiled. "Strange coincidences can happen. Don't worry about it, Starfall."

"But... it's all fitting together..." Starfall frantically reached for the scroll to look at it again.

"I think we're done with that scroll for today." Starflight hurriedly took the scroll from Starfall's talons, rolled it back up, and felt around for its place on the shelf.

"Yeah. Come on, Starfall. Let's just go back to our cave and relax for a bit." Aster helped her to her feet.

Her time at the library cut short, Starfall begrudgingly followed Aster out and back into their dormitory. She sighed, resting her head on her talons as she lay down in her nest.

She couldn't get this whole thing out of her head. Starflight had told her that no seer could prophesy anything millennia into the future. Yet the scroll said that one dragon had that ability—and that dragon had written the Falling Stars Prophecy. The prophecy that she was sure was about her. Surely Starflight could figure it out. A six-month-old dragonet could, for moons' sake.

Starflight was lying. He was lying right to her face. Why? What was he trying to hide?

Chapter Text

Starfall reached into the small lockable chest beside her nest that had been provided to her (each student received one along with a personal scroll rack, which Starfall had already filled) and pulled out her tiara and earrings, putting them on despite the lack of a mirror and standing up to stretch.

"Really? Jewellery? Again?" Aster mumbled from her hammock.

"Relax, Aster. We're meeting the rest of our winglet this morning. I still have first impressions to make," Starfall said, brushing dust off of her bracelet scales so that they gleamed like silver.

"I think it looks very nice," Rose said, leaping down from her sleeping ledge. "You really do look like a princess."

Starfall tried not to blush at the compliment. Moons, she was hopeless. What was so special about Rose?

BONG! BONG! BONG! came the sound of a gong from the direction of the great hall.

"That's the warning bell," Starfall said. "We should head to class."

Last night, Starfall had studied both the school map and the blackboards that showed the classroom assignments for each winglet, and confidently led the other two dragons throughout the maze of the school towards their classroom with no need for a map. They eventually emerged into the infirmary.

BONG! BONG! went the gong again as Starfall looked wildly around, confused, and the school nurse gave the three students a weird look.

"I think it's this way," Aster pointed, eventually leading them in the correct direction as they stepped into a cave marked Classroom with Peril.

Starfall looked around the cave, noting how everything flammable was hung on the walls, away from the floor where a firescales dragon might accidentally step on things. On one of the walls hung the blankets Peril was wearing yesterday, along with sheets of grey metal rings which must be tungsten; another had a large tapestry depicting a beautiful Sky Kingdom landscape; and a third was open to the sky. The last wall had several encouraging notes for Peril, mostly from Clay—this must be Peril's first year as a teacher, Starfall realized—and there was a piece of paper with neat talonwriting that was probably Clay's as well:

PERIL'S CLASSROOM RULES!
1. RAISE YOUR TALON BEFORE SPEAKING.
2. NO FIRE, FROSTBREATH, OR VENOM.
3. RESPECT YOUR CLASSMATES AND TEACHERS.
4. DO NOT TOUCH PERIL UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE A PAINFUL, FIERY DEATH.
5. HAVE FUN!

"Welcome," came a voice from behind them, and Starfall turned around to see the lean figure of the copper-orange dragon sliding into the room, taking care to give the students a wide berth. As Peril sat down in front of the three students, she looked at Starfall, and Starfall looked at Peril, and for a brief flash of a moment there was mutual understanding between them as they recognized their similarities.

"Aster, Rose Quartz, and Starfall?" Peril asked. "Tell me I'm right. It is tough to remember all these names, even just ten at a time. I'm Peril. Though I'm sure you know that."

"Hi, Peril," all three of them said.

The rest of the students started filing in by twos or threes. First came a spotted SandWing and a greyish, tired-looking SeaWing, both quite tall; then came a brown-and-white SilkWing and a pale green, excited LeafWing; and finally came a purplish IceWing, a bright brown-and-amber MudWing, and a HiveWing whose scales faded from a chartreuse yellow to a ruby red, the three of whom looked around Starfall's age.

BONG! went the gong a final time.

Starfall noticed that a few of the students were either glaring at Peril or looking at her with fear, but they calmed down after noticing the majority of the class not freaking out—or perhaps they noticed the look of friendly recognition in their SkyWing classmate's eyes. Starfall felt a twinge of empathy for the firescales dragon, remembering the one in a thousand dragons who would give her glares like that sometimes as she was minding her own business in the rainforest.

"Welcome, Sapphire Winglet," Peril said, grinning, once everyone had settled in. "I'm your teacher for your first small-group class. My name is Peril. In case you don't already know me, it's simple: don't touch me, or you will die."

The small HiveWing tried to suppress a laugh, and Peril whipped her head to look at her. "That was not a joke, Emerald," she said in a tone that was stern, but not quite unfriendly.

She turned back towards the rest of the class. "Let's begin with introductions. You all need to get to know each other before anything." Peril stepped closer to the circle of students, and they shuffled aside, away from her burning scales, enough to make a space for her. She flicked her tail and looked at Starfall. "Our NightWing can start us off."

Nine other pairs of eyes shifted their gazes to stare straight at her.

"I... um..." Starfall's voice caught in her throat. She knew it was going to happen eventually. She wanted to meet new dragons, she really did, but... so many new faces... all watching her... it was too overwhelming...

Rose brushed her wingtip encouragingly against Starfall's. She sat up straight, taking a deep breath.

"... I'm Starfall," she said at last.

"... And?" Peril said after a few seconds. "What else? Hobbies? Favourite colour?"

"Hobbies. Um. Reading. That's a hobby, right? And... my favourite colour is indigo. And... um... I'm a princess." So much for good first impressions, Princess, she observed as she nearly melted into a puddle of awkwardness. The other seven students had an assortment of looks on their faces, from disappointed to genuinely concerned.

"Well, we're all happy to meet you, Starfall," Peril said, then thought for a moment and added, "You're very brave for going first," clearly noticing Starfall's nerves and trying to cheer her up. The SeaWing rolled his eyes, to which the SandWing responded by elbowing him in the chest (knocking him off balance dangerously close to Peril) and giving Starfall two thumbs up with her talons.

Those two dragons would eventually go on to introduce themselves as Blueshark and Hyaena, and the other students turned out to be Aurora the IceWing, Otter the MudWing, Emerald the HiveWing, Sprig the LeafWing, and Atlas the SilkWing. Starfall had seen most of the tribes before, during diplomatic visits to the other kingdoms, but she'd only ever seen HiveWings and SilkWings in scrolls or, rarely, the books from Pantala or from the LeafWings. (Seriously, though, what sort of self-respecting tribe would use books? Each small page always felt awkward in Starfall's claws. Scrolls were much more sensible.)

"Normally, when you have these small-group discussion classes, we'll have a topic for all ten of you to, well, discuss," Peril explained. "But I wanted to do something a little different for your first class. I'll pair you all up so that you can have one-on-one conversations with your classmates. Your goal for this class is to share as much knowledge about your tribe as you can."

Peril walked around the circle, putting her talons perilously close to the students but just barely not touching them. (Starfall guessed she was trying to build trust with the dragonets, but she wondered if almost burning them was really the best way to do that.) As Starfall felt the warm air brush her shoulder, Peril, to her utmost delight, paired her up with Rose.

Rose smiled sweetly as the two found themselves a spot on the cave floor and lay down. "So. Your tribe," Rose said. "You're a hybrid, huh? Are all the hybrids you know this beautiful?"

Starfall blinked.

"You are, you know," Rose continued. "Beautiful, I mean."

It took a good five seconds for it to hit her. "Are you seriously flirting with me?" Starfall said incredulously.

"Am I?" Rose batted her eyelashes innocently. "Or am I just taking advantage of the fact that you have a crush on me?"

"I don't—" Starfall blurted, flustered. "I don't have a crush on you. What?"

"Then it's odd that you keep acting so weird around me," Rose said, grinning. "I think you have a crush."

"I just..." Starfall looked down at her talons. "I think you're really cool and I want to be friends, you know?"

"Aha!" Rose said, tapping Starfall on the nose. "A friend crush."

Starfall blushed furiously and knew she had to change the topic. "So, tell me about the Sky Kingdom. What's it like?"

Rose went on to explain her life in the Sky Kingdom: how it wasn't all mountains, and how her village was in a small temperate rainforest near the Diamond Spray River; she talked about how her mother worked for Queen Ruby, who actually preferred Tourmaline but ruled the kingdom under the name Ruby; at that point, she just started spiralling into a long-winded infodump about the whole history of the SkyWings, which Starfall didn't complain about.

During her turn, Starfall tried to focus on her experiences in the NightWing village, since she was supposed to talk about the NightWings; she didn't have much to share, though, and most of her monologue was about her life as a hybrid and what it was like to grow up in a mixture of the NightWing and RainWing cultures. She also made sure to talk about all the recent NightWing influence in the rainforest, like the capital city's library that she spent so much time in. One could not just forget about libraries, after all.

Unfortunately, Starfall's time with Rose had to come to an end, and Starfall was now paired up with Blueshark, the big SeaWing who seemed like he didn't want to be here. She did learn a lot about his tribe, though, as she did with all the rest of the students once she had turns with them.

It turned out that most of the winglet was really friendly, and, most importantly, really cool. Starfall talked and laughed with Otter and Emerald and gave Hyaena's wingtip a friendly bump with hers as they all left the classroom. Those three were already her favourites (other than Aster and Rose, of course) from the little time she'd spent with them, and she'd be sure to catch them after class someday to hang out and get to know them better.

Right now, though, she was still feeling a bit groggy and exhausted. She'd been tired yesterday and had slept through the night, which was strange for a nocturnal dragon who only needed to sleep for a few hours in the afternoon sun, and her body was still trying to adjust. After about an hour of walking aimlessly through the school, she decided she couldn't take it anymore and broke away from Aster and Rose, heading for their sleeping cave so she could lie down and maybe catch a really quick nap.

As Starfall flopped down on her nest, wondering if she should have gone to the suntime ledge instead, she felt a piece of paper crunch under her weight. She pulled it out from under her, seeing that some of the edges had been singed, and realized that it was a letter. The words on the paper were a weird brownish colour, as if they had been written by burning the paper with a candle rather than using a claw and ink.

HEY STARFALL. WROTE YOU A LETTER SO I WOULDN'T BE EMBARRASSING YOU IN FRONT OF THE WINGLET. WRITING IS HARD BY THE WAY. NOTICED YOU WERE TRANS TOO. IF YOU NEED ANYONE TO TALK TO I'LL ALWAYS BE HERE. ONLY IF YOU WANT TO OF COURSE. SEE YOU IN CLASS. PERIL

Starfall smiled as she rolled the letter up and tucked it between the scrolls in her scroll rack. First, her classmates turned out to be awesome once she got to know them, and now even her teachers were offering her support if she needed it?

Starfall was sure of one thing, and that was that she was going to absolutely love her time at Jade Mountain.

Chapter Text

One month later...

Starfall sat in the art cave, dipping her paintbrush into a pot of milky white paint and brushing it in circles onto her canvas. She'd been in the art cave quite a few times to make drawings with pencil and paper, but today, she had decided to try painting, and she was really enjoying it! Clawmentine was here, too—Starfall poked her head over her canvas to see him, with his forked tongue stuck out, moulding a piece of clay between his talons.

Another RainWing was in here, her scales the colour of fresh strawberries. She was quiet and focused on her painting, making little marks with a pencil here and brushing on colour there. Starfall knew her name to be Resplendent, from the Ruby Winglet, and knew that the shy RainWing wasn't furious at everything all the time; red was just her favourite colour, and what her scales defaulted to. Starfall suspected she'd learned emotion-shielding techniques like Aster to keep her scales red all the time.

Clawmentine, on the other talon, definitely had learned no such techniques. His usually clawmentine-orange scales were currently a bright purplish-pink and yellow that reminded Starfall of Kinkajou (she had gotten to know the RainWing from the Jade Winglet, and even at seven years old she was so full of energy that it sometimes gave Starfall a headache). They shifted to sunset orange and red as a piece of his clay sculpture fell off, and faded back as he put it back upright.

Starfall chose a smaller brush and dipped it into a sparkly silver-white pot of paint, making tiny strokes in precise locations on the canvas. This was fun. Maybe not quite as therapeutic to her as something like writing, but she was still enjoying herself.

She realized she had lost track of time as Clawmentine finally stood up. He set his art piece, which appeared to be a sculpture of a vase filled with flowers, on a desk in the corner to dry, and waved goodbye to Starfall and Resplendent. Starfall smiled as she waved back. She really did think of the orange RainWing sort of like a brother, much like her relationship with Aster, and it was really nice to have him here at Jade Mountain, too.

Starfall returned to her painting, but then looked back over towards Resplendent. She hadn't noticed it before—she'd never really talked to Resplendent, and thought it must have been markings on her scales—but the RainWing was covered in jewellery. Fine jewellery. She had two large sapphire studs in each ear, and two ornate necklaces around her neck were bejewelled with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. A few gold rings also glittered on her claws. Starfall had never known of any RainWing who wore so much treasure, except for herself, which didn't really count. The RainWing idea of "jewellery" was usually garlands of flowers that one wore on their head or neck.

Well... there was Chameleon. He was, ironically, the one RainWing in the rainforest who couldn't camouflage his scales, and he made up for it by wearing a mountain of treasure wherever he went. Could he and Resplendent be related?

She shook her head and shrugged. Even Starfall had mostly ditched her silver and sapphires at this point, and today she was instead wearing her mismatched glass and amber earrings along with the skyfire necklace and a smaller copper-and-glass tiara.

Finally, Starfall set her paintbrush down, regarding her painting. She'd slightly messed up some of the proportions, and her backgrounds definitely still needed some work, but, for her standards, it was good enough.

She looked hopefully towards Resplendent, but the red RainWing said nothing as she put the finishing touches on her painting.

Starfall cleared her throat, breaking the silence. "So," she finally said, "what're you drawing?"

Resplendent jumped a little, but calmed down as she slowly shifted her gaze towards Starfall. "... Self-portrait," she said in a small, soft voice.

"Oh! Me too!" Starfall grinned. SEE, ASTER? Starfall DID want to make friends, and she was TOTALLY GOING TO BE RESPLENDENT'S FRIEND NOW. "Want to show each other?" She grabbed her own canvas and shoved it in Resplendent's face before Resplendent could protest. It was a painting of Starfall sitting on a woven platform at the top of the rainforest canopy, much like the one Zinnia and Yoru often used, and she was staring up at three full moons on a brightest night.

"Wow," Resplendent said. "That's, um, that's a cool painting. Um, here's mine." She picked the canvas up off of her easel and turned it so Starfall could see. It was Resplendent, except the version of her in the painting had a staggering amount of treasure that Starfall had never seen one dragon wear in her life. Chains of gemstones were wound around her horns, elaborate earrings hung from her ears, a crown much bigger and more bejewelled than any of the tiaras Starfall wore sat atop her head, and diamonds were embedded in the scales above her eyes. In one talon, whose claws all shone with several gold rings each, she held a pile of gold coins, and she had gemstones in the other, most prominently a large sapphire cut like a star.

"Oh," Starfall said, not quite sure what else to say. "You, um, really like treasure, huh?" Starfall immediately regretted saying that as Resplendent lowered her head and started fidgeting with the silver bracelet on her wrist. Did that sound too accusatory? Should I have complimented her painting instead? Aaargh, why does making friends have to be so hard?

Wait... she likes treasure... Starfall looked into Resplendent's sapphire-blue eyes, a colour that reminded her of her own. That's it! Treasure!

Starfall went over to another corner of the cave, turning her back and half-unfurling her wings so that Resplendent couldn't see what she was doing. She took a copper wire, and searched through a basket until she found a small glass bead—dark red to complement Resplendent's scales. She then picked out an opaque black one with the letter R carved into it. Then, she added a blue one, the same colour as Resplendent's deep eyes. She alternated this pattern; red, blue, red, blue; and finally twisted the copper band into a loop.

Starfall turned around, and Resplendent's eyes lit up when she saw the bracelet and the beads spelling out RESPLENDENT in glittery silver letters. Bright pink and yellow started spreading across her scales as Starfall placed the bracelet in her talon.

"Th-thank you," Resplendent said, blinking away the tears in her eyes as she slid the bracelet onto her arm. "... Oh, oh three moons. It's beautiful. Thank you so, so much."

Starfall's heart swelled as Resplendent started pacing around the art cave, admiring the bracelet. Resplendent started wagging her tail in joy, and as she stepped close to the desk with Clawmentine's sculpture on it, she swiped her tail across it and accidentally knocked the sculpture to the floor.

"Oh, fuck!" Resplendent yelped as the flowers broke apart from their vase and split the sculpture in two. Starfall flinched a little as Resplendent swore; she had to admit that she wasn't expecting the quiet RainWing to use the type of language that she usually heard coming out of Aster's mouth instead. She rushed over and did the best she could to mend the still-drying clay, putting it back on the table as Resplendent hung her head in shock.

"I'll tell Claw what happened," Starfall said. "I'll just say it accidentally fell off."

"No," Resplendent declared. "It was my fault. I'll tell him."

"Are you sure?" Starfall asked. "I can just—"

"I'll tell him," Resplendent repeated. "I'll... tell Clawmentine. He's a nice dragon. He's a great dragon. He'll understand."

Starfall arced her brow slightly. What was that all about?

No. She had to stay here, in the present with Resplendent. She shook her head vigorously, her ritual to try to snap herself back to the conversation at talon. "Yeah," she said. "I guess so."

Resplendent turned to leave, this time being careful not to let her tail knock any more clay sculptures off of any more tables, and looked back towards Starfall. "Thanks for the bracelet," she said, smiling. "I really mean it."

Starfall smiled back as she waved goodbye with her tail. "No problem at all! See you in class!"

Once Resplendent had left the cave, Starfall walked back around to look at her painting. Would Resplendent really have this much treasure one day? Starfall was caught between wanting a future like this for Resplendent, where she could be happy with all of her beautiful treasure, and wondering what a dragon would even do with so much treasure without putting it to waste.

But she shouldn't think about future Resplendent. She should think about present Resplendent, who was her newest friend and a pretty cool dragon under that shy exterior. Starfall was sure she'd be hanging out with Resplendent more in the coming weeks.

But, despite all that, as she left the art cave herself, she still couldn't shake off the weird feeling that she had gotten when Resplendent had said Clawmentine's name.

Why had she sounded so... guilty? Why did it feel like there was something more between her and Clawmentine that Resplendent wasn't letting on to Starfall?

Chapter Text

The Sapphire and Ruby Winglets filed into the laboratory classroom as the final warning bell rang, the dragonets all getting ready for their class in biology and chemistry. Sunny, the teacher for today's lesson, sat near the open window, the sunlight reflecting off of two scales under her eyes.

She has silver teardrop scales, Starfall suddenly realized. She'd never actually noticed the small scales under Sunny's eyes in all the classes she'd had with her. Sunny's were thin and dull like Fatespeaker's, and she hadn't given off any mindreader vibes during the month or so that Starfall had been at Jade Mountain, so she quickly dismissed the thought as she settled in among the other students.

On the blackboard behind Sunny was a diagram of a RainWing's fangs, as well as a complex molecular structure that Starfall didn't understand quite yet.

Sunny clapped her talons together cheerfully to get the attention of all twenty students. "Welcome to biology and chemistry class, everyone! Let's get right into our lesson." She rolled open a scroll on her desk and read it briefly. "Looks like you started the unit on dragon defence mechanisms last class. Today's topic will be venom. Open your scrolls to unit IV, chapter 2."

Starfall immediately grabbed her biology scroll from the ground to place it on the table in front of her as Sunny continued, "So, RainWing venom. It's quite different from other venoms that we've studied, including SandWings'. Can anyone tell me how so? Oh, yes, Starfall?"

"RainWing venom is caustic, while most other venoms are toxic," she said, lowering her talon from where she had immediately shot it up.

Aster rolled her eyes and shot Starfall a glare that said stop being such a nerd.

"That's right!" Sunny smiled. "Extra points to Starfall for knowing the word caustic, too. What she's trying to say is that RainWing venom can burn and corrode organic matter that it comes into contact with. Almost like an acid—though in the past few years, venom studies have shown that it's not an acid, but rather it contains a complex and very powerful enzyme."

"I totally knew what caustic meant," Aster whispered. "I want extra points, too."

"It's a metaphor," Starfall said, trying not to roll her eyes. "Seriously, I thought I was supposed to be the one who doesn't understand metaphors."

"I know most of you have probably never seen venom in action," Sunny went on. "In fact, the knowledge that RainWings have venom was lost to history for most of Pyrrhia until around 5,011. It's a good thing, then, that we have two—three—no, four RainWings here this morning, so we can have a live demonstration! Would any of our RainWings like to volunteer?"

The third RainWing... she's talking about me, Starfall thought. Me, Aster, and... She looked over to see Resplendent on the other side of the classroom, picking at the holes in her fangs. She was Starfall's newest friend, of course, but Starfall still couldn't shake the strange feeling she got when she looked at her. The fourth RainWing, Starfall remembered, would be Peacemaker, who Starfall was surprised even had venom since he looked even more NightWing-dominant than her.

Aster shoved Starfall with her shoulder, and she stumbled forward slightly.

"Starfall again? Yes, come up here!" Sunny said. Starfall snarled at Aster as she walked to the front of the class. She didn't mind giving a demonstration, but Aster certainly could have asked her if she wanted to.

Sunny smiled and held a fresh leaf near Starfall's snout. "All right, Starfall. Show us what you've got."

Starfall obediently opened her jaws. Like Aster and Clawmentine, she'd been taken out for some venom training lessons before, mostly to get her familiar with the very basics before she was whisked away to Jade Mountain around the age that other RainWings would be moving on to advanced venom shooting techniques.

So she'd seen venom doing its work from a distance, and never really focused on it much—and nothing could have prepared her for what she saw as a small amount of the black venom streamed from her fangs onto the leaf directly below her snout.

"Ooh," went the non-RainWing dragonets as they watched the venom eat away at the thin, frail thing. Starfall stared at it in shock. She didn't know why she was so shocked; she knew that RainWing venom was supposed to be able to melt away anything. But LOOK AT IT. THE LEAF WAS—WAS MELTING RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER.

What would happen if I used it on another dragon?

THAT thought was a mistake, and Starfall had the feeling her daymares would be full of melting dragon skulls for the rest of her life.

So as the rest of the class stared in amazement at the wicked acid (wicked enzyme, sorry), Starfall silently swore an oath to herself.

By the three moons, I will never, ever use my venom on another dragon. No dragon could possibly deserve anything like this.

She had closed her eyes and started rubbing her forehead when she realized that Sunny was in the middle of taking questions from the class. It was Hyaena, the SandWing from her winglet, who had raised her talon. "Can you do fire and venom at the same time?"

"That's a great question!" Sunny said. "A great observation, considering that Starfall is a hybrid between a NightWing and a RainWing. Well, can you, Starfall?"

Starfall continued rubbing her forehead as she nodded slightly. She turned towards the cave wall, away from the other dragonets but trying to angle herself so they could all see. She gathered up the fire from her lungs, and just as she started breathing it out, she spat venom into the stream of fire. The flames turned black.

"Whoa," came the collective reaction from the class again.

Venomfire. One of the most dangerous weapons in all of Pyrrhia. If this power falls into the wrong talons... I don't even want to think about that.

Starfall didn't bother to wait for Sunny's permission to walk back over to her desk. She pressed her talons against her temples and dropped her gaze to the scroll in front of her. She could sense a headache coming, and she had a feeling it wasn't just the blurry letters on the scroll that were causing it. She took deep breaths, in, out, in, out, as she finally lifted her head and tried to focus on the lesson.

* * *

Starfall felt a tap on her shoulder as she lay on the suntime ledge. As she opened her eyes, she realized that the last light of dusk was fading, and she could see plenty of stars already twinkling in the sky. Had she really slept in that late? She'd been getting tired around midday, but had been caught up with things and forgot to go to the ledge to sleep until the sun was already getting ready to set.

"Good morning," Rose said jokingly.

"For us, that means 'I'm going to sleep, see you tomorrow,'" Starfall said. "'Good evening' is the NightWing 'good morning.'"

"Well, good evening, then," Rose said, caught between wanting to tease Starfall and being fascinated from learning something new about Starfall's culture. "Although it isn't really evening any more, either."

"Couldn't you have let me sleep just a little bit longer?" Starfall sighed.

"No," Rose said, grabbing Starfall's arm. "We're going flying."

"Wait—" Starfall said as Rose shot into the air, and Starfall flapped her wings to keep her balance. "Right now? There's not, like, a curfew or something?"

"Not that I know of. But who cares? No one has to know." Rose shot Starfall a grin.

Damn, Starfall thought. Rose has a rebellious side? I never would have guessed.

"What was all that during class today?" Rose asked as they took off into the night. "Or, yesterday for you, I guess."

"What?" Starfall tilted her head in confusion.

"During your demonstration in bio-chem," Rose said. "You looked like you had seen a ghost or something."

"Oh. Um, it's nothing." Starfall waved dismissively with her talon.

Rose narrowed her eyes as though she had seen right through that lie, but decided not to press Starfall further. It wasn't an I'm disappointed in you look, but rather more of a you know you can tell me anything look, or at least Starfall thought.

They had finally left the school completely and were slowly gliding through the air around the mountain.

"If only SkyWings had night vision," Starfall said, looking at the scene all around her. "The landscape is beautiful at night."

"Is it really?" Rose asked. "I can barely see anything other than you and the mountain."

"It's almost like everything below us is glittering with moonlight," Starfall explained. "I can't see colour in the dark, but everything is still so bright and wonderful."

"Wow," Rose breathed. "That sounds absolutely amazing."

Rose took a few deep breaths.

Finally, Rose stopped in the air and hovered. "You know, I had never met a dragon like you before I came to Jade Mountain. That's what I really wanted to talk about. What's it like?" Starfall was confused about what she meant, until Rose gestured to her vent with her tail.

Starfall righted herself vertically, looked down at herself, realized with a jolt what Rose was staring at, and coiled her tail close to her body while she blushed so violently she thought her cheeks would fall off.

Rose giggled. "No need to be so embarrassed about it." That earned her a glare from Starfall.

"It's... not really that different, to be honest." Starfall began. "Not in the Rainforest Kingdom, at least. I don't know what it's like in the other tribes. All it really meant was that I was raised as a prince for the first year and a half of my life.

"But I realized at some point that being male just felt... so, so wrong. I don't know what came over me, but it was like my entire world had been turned upside down. I would see all of the female dragonets in the tribe, and I could only think, that's supposed to be me. I knew deep in my heart that I was supposed to be a dragoness... So I told everyone I wanted to be Princess Starfall instead, and everyone just accepted me. Well, pretty much everyone. Like it was nothing."

She sighed and relaxed her tail, exposing herself once more. "It's just... weird when you stare at it, you know?"

Rose snorted another laugh and raised her head to look up at the stars.

A short while passed before Rose spoke again.

"So how does that work, with you being royalty? Can you still challenge Glory? Or...?"

Starfall shrugged as she turned her gaze towards the stars as well, talons outstretched in an "I don't know" gesture. "Maybe? I think so? I mean, I want to be queen someday. ... I think. I don't think anyone would mind? It is the Rainforest Kingdom, after all."

Rose nodded. "Yeah. That makes sense, I guess."

Starfall angled her wings to catch a higher current and started flying again, with Rose in pursuit.

They flew around the mountain for several minutes in silence.

"Hey, Star..." Rose finally said. "Do you think... do you think, at some point, you'd like to... um... go out somewhere again? Just the two of us? Like this?"

Starfall landed on the branch of a tree growing on a rocky outcropping of the mountain, locking her talons around it the NightWing way and swinging around it to face Rose upside-down as she landed as well. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"No! I mean... yes? I mean... aaargh, I don't even know!"

"Well, as long as it doesn't mean we're dating, because I've never understood you dragons with all your lovey-dovey romance." Starfall held out one talon for Rose to grab, and unlatched herself from the tree so she could fall back to the ground. "But tonight was nice. I wouldn't mind another date."

Rose nodded, her eyes shining. "Okay. Yeah." She reached her other talon towards Starfall's and interlocked her claws around that one as well.

Starfall and Rose sat there in silence for several heartbeats, sapphire eyes gazing into amber ones, a thousand unspoken words going back and forth between them.

At last, Starfall closed her eyes, stretched her neck forward, and slowly but surely let Rose touch her snout to hers.

She let out a shaky breath as she felt Rose's warm, cinnamon-scented breath on her scales. Rose put both of her talons around the back of Starfall's head, and Starfall responded by placing hers on Rose's shoulders. The two dragons tilted their heads downwards until their foreheads were touching.

They held themselves there for several seconds. Maybe minutes. To Starfall, it felt like eternities.

Rose finally pulled herself away. Starfall let go of Rose's shoulders, her breath still shaking.

"... Does that count as a kiss?" Rose asked at length.

Starfall still couldn't speak. She had never been so intimate, so physically close with another dragon before.

Starfall stretched her wings out, still dazed, and took off back towards Jade Mountain Academy. "I need some sleep," she said as Rose followed.

"You already slept," Rose tried to protest, but Starfall ignored her as she shot through the air and finally landed back on the suntime ledge.

The night was still young, and Jade Mountain was still bustling with activity as Starfall trudged through the halls towards her dorm. Somewhere along the way, she passed Aster, who wrinkled her snout in confusion upon seeing Starfall so tired at a time that was comparable to late morning for non-NightWings.

Starfall finally arrived at her sleeping cave and lay down. She tried vainly to fall asleep, but her brain was doing its utmost to keep her awake; partially because of how early in the night it was, but mostly because her mind kept pounding with something in between confusion and exhilaration.

What... just... happened?

Starfall wasn't sure that she'd figure out the answer to that anytime soon.

Chapter Text

Starfall and Aster lay in a pair of hammocks, overlooking a section of the southern region of the rainforest.

"Here's where I'm going to have my palace built," Starfall said, sweeping her arm across the line of trees. "All into and around the rainforest, just like Aunt Glory's."

"And you don't think a whole palace for just one princess is overdoing it a bit?" Aster asked.

"Oh, hush," Starfall said, before her eyes were caught by something hanging on Aster's neck—a grey something with long arms and a cute little face. "Ohhh my moons, I never knew you had a sloth! It's so cute!"

Aster smiled as she pet the sloth. It burbled cheerfully and snuggled up to Aster's neck. "Isn't she just the best?"

Starfall grinned and reached her talon over. She blinked, and her claws touched the cool underscales on Aster's neck. The sloth was gone.

Starfall and Aster looked around frantically, utterly confused. Finally, Aster noticed and pointed at the shape of the sloth swinging through the branches, away from the two dragons. They immediately jumped up and flew after it.

How could a sloth possibly be that fast?

Starfall's thought was interrupted as she noticed something strange happening to the trees around her. All the leaves were suddenly gone, and the branches, their tips as sharp as dragon claws, were starting to grow at an alarming rate.

She flapped her wings in front of her to jerk to a halt and hovered in the air. "Aster," she called. "Come back. I don't think it's safe."

Aster ignored her as she kept winging through the air. Starfall's breath caught in her throat as the trees seemed to lean inwards towards Aster, and then the sharp branches pierced straight through Aster's wing membranes and caught her in midair.

Starfall's stomach dropped as she without hesitation started to fly again, as fast as she could. "Aster!"

Aster tried to free herself from the trees' clutches, but only ended up ripping her wings even more. She began plummeting to the ground. She frantically flapped her shredded wings, but to no avail, as she fell, and fell...

Starfall heard a sickening crunch as Aster hit the ground.

"NO!" she shrieked, tears welling in her eyes. "ASTER—"

Starfall immediately jolted awake as she felt someone wrap big, warm wings around her.

Rose ran her tail down Starfall's spine—odd, as few dragons knew that that was the one thing that calmed her down—as Starfall clutched Rose tightly and buried her head into her shoulder.

"Oh. Three. Moons," said Aster as she leaped down from her hammock and stared at Starfall and Rose.

Starfall glanced at Aster, confused.

"Is that what you two were out doing last night?" Aster managed to look exasperated and amused at the same time. "Keep your dick in your vent, Starfall. You've known her for, what, a month?"

"I—" Starfall sighed frustratedly. "We're not dating."

Aster looked at her sidelong, disbelieving. "Then why are your tails twined together so closely?"

Starfall blushed as she quickly unwound her tail and coiled it up away from Rose's. Rose, on the other talon, stood up and quite firmly declared, "Leave her alone, Aster. She just had a nightmare. We're just friends."

Starfall had certain thoughts about the phrase "just friends" that she did not dare to speak aloud.

Aster sighed. "All right, I get it." She turned to leave, but looked back at the other two. "Just don't, like, get freaky or anything while I'm in the room, okay?"

"ASTER!" Starfall and Rose growled at the same time. They turned to face each other. Rose tilted her head, and Starfall shrugged in response. They both looked away in embarrassment.

"Come on, you two," Aster called, waiting in the doorway. "We have to meet up with our winglet soon."

"Why?" Starfall asked.

"Oh, you and your horrible memory. Didn't you remember that today is our field trip to the rainforest?"

Starfall froze. The rainforest. Any other time, she would be glad to spend a day back in her home, but after the daymare she had had, that was currently the last place she wanted to be.

"That," Rose said. "That is the face I am talking about, What's wrong, Starfall?"

"It's nothing," she said. Rose did the same narrowing-her-eyes thing, to which Starfall responded by giving Rose a significant look and jerking her head towards Aster. "You can go ahead, Aster. We'll catch up."

Rose sighed as Aster walked out of earshot. "You're willing to tell me this, but not your best friend?"

"You're my best friend," Starfall blurted. "I—I'm trying to say that I really like you, too, Rose."

Rose was briefly surprised, but she was unwavering. "So tell me what's wrong."

"... I had a daymare about the rainforest," she confessed at last. "It—I saw Aster die in my dream."

Rose's eyes widened. "Are... are you afraid it'll come true?" she said, worry coating every word. "Can't some of your tribe see the future?"

"No," Starfall said. "I mean, yes, some NightWings are seers, but I'm not. It's just... I don't know. That dream felt so real, and it'll be really weird going back to the rainforest today."

"Well, I really hope you feel better once we get there," Rose said. She stared off into the distance for a few moments, thinking, then finally said, "You really like me back?"

"Yes!" Starfall chirped. "Yes. I—I don't know how to explain it. I still don't understand romance, but I want to be something more than friends, you know?"

Rose nodded. "I think I do, yeah." A wide grin spread across her face. "I told you you had a crush on me!"

"H-hey!" Starfall stammered. "If I remember correctly, it was you who confessed your feelings last night, was it not?"

"I know." Rose kept grinning. "But that doesn't change anything. I'm still right."

Starfall buried her face in her talons. "You can be the most insufferable dragon sometimes, you know that?"

"Even more insufferable than Aster?" Rose said. "I'm honoured."

"I'm going to have you executed one day," Starfall said.

Rose simply stuck her tongue out at Starfall as they finally left their cave and started walking towards Peril's classroom to meet up with their winglet.

* * *

Peril, who was technically supposed to be the Sapphire Winglet's head, had decided to stay at Jade Mountain for the time being, citing how the rainforest would completely explode if she stepped one talon into it. Clay was accompanying the ten dragonets instead, and definitely wasn't complaining as he flew while digging through a pouch of tropical fruits he had gathered during one of their stops.

By the time they arrived at their destination, an area a little ways away from the capital city, the sun had already passed its midpoint and was beginning to ever-so-slowly float towards the horizon. Starfall thought that this was a pretty long flight for a school lesson, and her wings ached horribly, but she had to admit that she liked the concept of flying to all the different kingdoms in Pyrrhia to study them up close.

"As Peril explained to you last class, your task during these special classes is to take notes on whatever you think is interesting about the region we're studying, with today being the rainforest," Clay explained. "You could write about the environment as you walk around and take in the sights and sounds of the rainforest, or write about the culture as you talk to all the different dragons here—there's so many possibilities. Afterwards, we'll all gather to discuss what we learned.

"Now, Peril and I have decided that it'll be best if you do this in pairs. We think you'll probably get more out of this if you're working together with someone else. So, please feel free to choose your own partners."

Aster immediately moved to Starfall's side. Starfall shot a quick glance at Rose, who looked the tiniest bit wounded, and mouthed a "sorry" to her.

Once all the dragonets had sorted themselves into their groups, Clay smiled and clapped his talons together. "All right, you're all ready! Remember to meet me back here at sunset. Class dismissed!"

The five groups split off into different directions. Starfall and Aster walked with Rose and Emerald for a little while; neither of them would admit that both of them just wanted to hang out with Rose a little longer, with the bond that the three clawmates had formed over the past month at Jade Mountain (not to mention the whole "Starfall and Rose confessing their complicated feelings for each other" thing earlier).

"You've got to spill the tea to me," Aster said to Starfall once they had split from the other group. "How far did you get with Rose last night?"

"How far did I—oh. Can you seriously stop being so horny all the time?" Starfall sighed. "We're two, for moons' sake. I thought those hormones weren't supposed to kick in for a couple years yet."

Aster shrugged. "Mine must have come early, I guess."

"We touched snouts, okay?" Starfall said. "We didn't even kiss. And we definitely didn't 'get freaky' or whatever you call it."

Aster snorted a laugh. "Well, soon enough, you'll—"

"Please don't finish that sentence," Starfall said, cutting Aster off. She unrolled the notescroll she had brought with her. "If you'll excuse me, we are in school and I need to take notes."

Aster rolled her eyes and opened her scroll as well.

The two of them spent a few hours studying the rainforest and writing in their scrolls. Aster was documenting some of the many different types of flora around them, while Starfall had taken to drawing and writing about the fauna: many birds, a couple noteworthy insects, and even a panther that had stalked close, looking for prey, but immediately bolted in fright upon spotting the two dragons. Starfall smiled and wondered if it still hadn't figured out that RainWings were vegetarians (except for Starfall, of course, but she didn't eat as much meat as other NightWings—she was perfectly fine with bananas and mangoes most days, thank you very much).

"Is this enough?" Aster asked, showing the contents of her scroll to Starfall.

"Peril said she wanted to see two feet of notes, not counting the sketches," Starfall said.

"Yeah, and she said I needed three because my talonwriting sucks. So, how long is a foot again?"

"Like, a meter and half, I think?" Starfall fully unrolled her own scroll, which she guessed had at least three feet of notes on it.

"Wow. Very helpful." Aster rolled her eyes. Again. The amount of times Aster rolled her eyes each day was starting to get on Starfall's nerves a little, if she was being honest.

Starfall sighed. "Your scroll looks long enough, okay? Don't stress it. Just measure it when we get back to the mountain."

Aster nodded, rolling up her scroll and stuffing it back into her pouch. "We still have a couple hours left," she said. "Should we find somewhere for suntime?"

"That sounds like a great idea," Starfall said.

They continued walking through the rainforest.

Everything was quiet.

Quiet and serene.

Until Starfall's head was split open by a massive headache unlike anything she had ever known.

Blood. Blood. Blood.

It seemed like every last tree in the rainforest had been painted with dragon blood. Her sight was stained with blood, her talons were sticky with blood, her mouth was filled with the salty, metallic taste of blood, blood, blood.

She looked around the clearing.

An enormous branch had fallen from a tree.

And underneath it was the broken, lifeless body of Aster.

Out of Starfall's mouth whispered words that were not her own.

You cannot stop what you've been shown
For if you try, her fate will become your own.

She was immediately snapped back to reality as she looked at the ground, hyperventilating.

"Stop being weird, Starfall," Aster said, stopping several feet away from Starfall under the shade of a large tree.

It was then that everything clicked in Starfall's subconscious.

She hadn't realized how everything was fitting together yet. She didn't know why she was doing what she was. It felt like her talons were moving of their own volition.

But somehow, deep down, Starfall knew exactly what she had to do.

Starfall let out a screech as she ran straight towards Aster and, with all her might, shoved her as hard as she could, just before a huge crack echoed throughout the clearing. Aster skidded to a halt, yelping, as Starfall slipped and fell on the forest floor.

Time seemed to slow down to a stop.

This was it.

This was the end.

She braced herself for the impact.

Starfall knew, with absolute certainty, that she was about to die.