Nightfall

VI

"What do you mean?" Stormhawk demanded. "I didn't do anything, Mr. Let's Accuse The New Dragon." Raze snorted from beside her, then winced as Feon tugged a bit hard on the bandage he was wrapping around the dragonet's wrist.

Midnight got up, and stood in between them, shifting his gaze from one to the other. "Grove, what are you accusing Stormhawk of, and why? If you make an accusation, then you should probably back it up."

Grove growled at him, his wings flaring, a sign of his agitation. "You heard her," he stated harshly. "She knew it was dragon hunters. You don't just know that sort of thing. I want to know how and why she led them here."

Seal sprang over, ignoring the glare he received from Current, and stepped up beside Stormhawk. "Are you saying Storm's a spy?" He demanded. Midnight noticed the use of a nickname, which made him think they could be friends, not just fellow messengers.

"Yes, I am," the forest-green dragon in front of them replied. "And you could be too, for all we know."

Glaciar stood next to the other two, shooting a pointed look at Midnight, as though telling him to fix this. The black dragon rolled his eyes, wishing this wasn't his job. For a minute, there was thick tension in the air, from the two arguing dragons, and from the others around them, who didn't have all the context.

Finally, it was Lagoon who broke the silence, bringing up a surprisingly neutral idea. "Will you, if we ask you questions, answer honestly?" she questioned, turning to Seal, who was still furious at the accusation Grove had made.

"Yes," he growled, "we will, so this talon-pointing will stop." Glaciar and Stormhawk nodded as well, agreeing to this questioning. Lagoon looked over at Midnight, who realized what she meant.

"You want to interrogate them," he mused. Lagoon nodded, and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jade and Eagle nodding at him as well. It was the best solution they could come up with, and the only one, save kicking the three messengers off the island. "Fine. Are you three okay with this?"

"We just said yes," Glaciar snapped. "Let's get on with it."

The five council members sat together in a row, across from the three disgruntled messengers. Jade, the dragon sitting at the leftmost side of the line, asked the first question, but it wasn't one that was part of the interrogation.

"With the stars as your witness, do you swear to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth?" She asked, speaking in an entirely different language, one that every dragon knew, but never used, because strange things happened to those who lied or broke promises. Jade was taking a risk, but, from what Midnight could remember, this was sometimes how official questionings among dragons went.

"Yes," all three swore in unison. "May the stars punish us if we do any less."

That they will, Midnight thought, and asked, "Did you purposefully lead dragon hunters to this island?"

"No," Glaciar replied, "I didn't." The other two simply reinstated what he said, looking quite calm. Seal's eyes still burned slightly, like he had pushed all his anger into a small fire in his eyes, but didn't let his tone reveal that fact.

"Are any of you here to gather information on our settlement, or anything about us?" This time, the question was from Eagle.

"Moss told us to tell them if you all were in trouble, if we return before you," Seal admitted. "But we believe they wanted to help you if you did. We are simply here to do that, and to deliver the message they sent."

"Stormhawk," Grove finally asked, his voice tinged with triumph, "did you know that there were dragon hunters coming?"

The dragon in question paused, trying to figure out how to word her answer. Midnight knew that Grove would take this as a sign of her lying beforehand, from the way the green dragon smiled slightly beside him.

"I saw a ship on our way here, but I saw it heading the other way," she finally replied. "I checked again repeatedly throughout our flight, but didn't see anything. I'm sorry that I didn't mention it before, but it wasn't my intention to lead them here."

"Wait, if they saw us, why didn't they just shoot us down?" Seal murmured, switching back every dragon's normal language. "They know it was risky letting us go-"

"What do you mean, 'let you go?'" Midnight demanded. "What aren't you all telling us?"

Glaciar glared at his gray and blue comrade, lashing his tail along the dirt. Several moments passed, and the three messengers exchanged quiet yet furious whispers. The dragons gathered around the trial waited in uncomfortable silence, until Stormhawk rolled her eyes, and replied to Midnight's question.

"We aren't telling you a lot, by Moss' orders," she admitted, "but they did say it was okay if this came up. Moss didn't write the entire problem we have in the tribe on that message. We have, over the past few months, been fighting with both ourselves and the dragon hunters you just fought."

"How are you all not dead?" Jade questioned bluntly, frowning. "Two attacks at the same time should have overwhelmed you in weeks, not months."

Glaciar shook his head. "The tribe is thousands of dragons strong. The attacks we've had are just as strong as the one you just experienced, so we haven't had much trouble fighting them off. The actual worrying problems we've been having are those from the inside. Dragons attacking other dragons, causing everything and everywhere to be unsafe... it's horrible, so Moss reached out to you all, both to check and to discreetly ask for assistance."

Lagoon snorted, "Sure. We'll help the dragons who haven't talked to us since the Great Wars, and we won't even debate it. If Moss expects us to actually do that, they're as crazy as Midnight is!"

Eagle growled, "Midnight's not crazy." Grove rolled his eyes, about to say something, probably a snide comment of some sort, but Midnight interrupted.

"Please don't argue until we've sorted this out," he ordered. Eagle sighed, and nodded her head at him. Grove simply shut his mouth and glared at Midnight. "Back to you three," he said, turning to the three messengers, "what did Moss say to you exactly?"

Stormhawk was the one who replied, apparently because she remembered their exact words before her friends. "They said, 'Deliver this message to the dragons on the island just South of South America. If they need help, tell me when you get back. If they get suspicious, tell them about our dilemma and ask for their help.' Moss was Moss. They didn't say much else. Sorry."

"Not your fault," Midnight muttered. That sounded like Moss. They valued secrecy and not telling things to others if they could help it. If it wasn't relevant to the topic, then Moss wouldn't tell others about it. That was just how they worked.

On one talon, it was pretty easy to see that the messengers were innocent. They hadn't been told everything, apparently, and Moss clearly was trying just to get them across the ocean. It wouldn't be hard to do that, honestly, because it was clear that they needed as much help as the tribe needed.

On the other talon, the lack of original truth was making others suspicious. It may be dangerous for the messengers if they stayed, risking some dragon attacking them out of fear or something along those lines. Midnight specifically worried about what Grove or Lagoon would do, because they were the types of dragons to do whatever it took to get what they wanted. It was a worrying idea, that dragons with conflicting opinions might take it out on others.

This must be what happened within the tribe, Midnight realized. There must have been some sort of political decision that caused dragons to split up.

Once again, Grove brought up an annoying topic, one no one wanted to discuss, because it would be a lot more complicated than a simple vote of opinions.

"Should we delay the migration?" the green dragon asked. "Or should we risk everything to go to the tribe?"