Night Fury's Wrath

Chapter 58: Twisted Lies

-Hello, all. Again, I apologize for the extended wait. I know some of you will say that health comes first, but these stories have been important to me for several years now, and missing updates always make me feel guilty. 

As for my situation, everything is still up in the air. We're trying to figure out how to treat my condition, but there are so many risks to everything. I don't think I've ever been as stressed and as low as I am now. This story helps take my mind off things, but it's hard to avoid writer's block with everything weighing on me lately. So, this chapter is a little short. Hopefully, things will pick up soon.

-NFD

~~~

"Trouble in paradise?"

I jolted out of my thoughts and quickly spotted a lighthearted smirk to my left. "Huh?"

"You've been frowning at that wall for a while," Stormfly chuffed. "Keep it up, and your face will get stuck like that."

I rolled my eyes. "Ha, ha," I droned sarcastically. "Very funny." Apparently, Stormfly decided that now was a good time for a playful cheer-me-up routine. I suspected that she borrowed that from Toothless, who used to distract me with his usual teasing attitude, but I never expected her to copy that. 

"So, what's up?" She asked curiously. "Moon's working her voodoo—"

"For the last time, it's not voodoo," Moon grumbled, currently doing... something with her magic at the base of the glowing stone. 'Voodoo' was the best description for whatever she was doing, seeing as how it didn't fit with any method of magic I knew about. Mom tried to assist Moon with preparing for whatever our deity had planned, though she was obviously confused.

"—so that's nothing to frown about," Stormfly continued, intentionally ignoring Moon's correction. "Apparently, Toothless is keeping the newbie and Vaskr from starting a little war, so no problem there. Also, we're all alive here, except for Stoney over there."

"Lumen," Moon corrected again, this time with a growl.

"Lumen, Stoney, glow-stick—it all sounds the same," Stormfly dismissed casually, much to Moon's annoyance. "Anyway, what's nipping at your tail now? And don't tell me it's nothing; I know that's dragon dung."

"I think Aurora is mad at me," I answered with a resigned sigh. It was pointless to beat around the bush, what with Stormfly's natural persistence. "She hasn't come to me even once, and I can't find her anywhere. She wasn't at her den the last two times I went there. Now... I don't know. I'm worried that she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you," she hummed breezily. "She's probably on her cycle or something. It is still the cold-season. Technically."

I cocked a brow at how quickly she dismissed that. "You know females stop having cycles while they're with egg. You are a female."

She blinked innocently. "Sure, sure, but what if being pregnant is actually one very long cycle? It felt like it to me." 

I opened my mouth to deny it but couldn't. Obviously, I wasn't a female, so I didn't know for sure, but it did make a lot of sense... "Maybe you have a point," I conceded. "But I think there's more to it than that." Mom snorted softly from where she crouched by Moon, but she didn't voice her opinion.

"Exactly, there's always more than you think," Stormfly hummed. "Which is why she doesn't hate you. If that's all there is to it, she'd make it obvious."

I stared, and she stared back. "I see what you did there..." Her reply was a smug smirk. "But that only makes this harder to resolve!" Not to mention, Aurora was more driven by her emotions than that; dislike could easily turn into hate in her mind, something that Stormfly knew. She must be intentionally simplifying it.