Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 5

Wings of Night

Starflight watched the moons above, blinking slowly amid the starlight. Life was easier at night, and not only because of those moons. Other dragons especially made him... almost scared. It was the type of thing that could only be solved with distance. And so he stayed as far away from others as he could manage.

And when he couldn't do that, he made sure to only be awake when they weren't, dreams were a far more sedate background noise, thoughts that tumbled into his mind still weren't his own, but that only mattered when the nightmares came.

Like tonight.

There'd been war at noon. A battle as bloody as anyone could think. A battle that made sure everyone had scars to remember it, physical or not. Starflight had slept through it, but he lived it now as the dragons of base 4 screamed in their sleep.

He winced as a particularly bloody dream reared its head. A rainwing who'd seen her father die out there, ripped to shreds beneath the claws of her sister, controlled by the eye. It was the type of trauma that Starflight didn't want to understand. Didn't try to. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to stay calm as her memories battled against his own.

Eventually it got bad enough that Starflight slowly descended his perch and sought out the source of the nightmare. She wasn't close, several hallways down and behind a 'hidden' door. But Starflight found her, feeling tears fall down his cheeks at her pain. He closed his eyes, trying oh so hard to block it out in one last-ditch attempt, but it didn't work.

And so Starflight carefully stretched forth a hand and shook her white form awake, bracing himself as the mind that called for help woke up. It was sudden as the thoughts grew clearer and the pain lanced into his mind like a sandwings tail. She gasped awake as tears streamed down her face.

Looking at him as if ready to kill.

Starflight backed away, readying his regular explanation. 'That was a nightmare. I'm here because it was a really bad one. You can go back to sleep.' but the words died in his throat as she didn't try to attack him. She only curled up into a ball and cried.

Have I woken her before like this? Sarflight frowned, trying to remember, there were usually a few wakings a night, but he felt like he would have remembered her scales white with pain and green with fear.

His sense of the future tried to help him with that but it was the future. It said that he might wake her again like this but he shoved it away as nothing more came up.

But well... all the rainwings looked like that after a nightmare, or so his mind stated. The truth was he had no idea, but she wasn't attacking him, so he nodded at her and left, leaving her to recover on her own.

Most nights were worse than this one though. Sometimes it left him curled up in a ball like that rainwing, unable to wake anyone to ease the pain. But mornings were worse, so he was determined to do what he could to keep the tatters of his sanity in place. Scarlet had tried numerous times to make use of Starflight's abilities, but the truth was, he was useless as any could be.

He'd never been taught the secrets to retaining sanity, Soulseer had been trying him as an experiment. See if a nightwing really does go insane with no training. But the resistance had snatched him before she could go anywhere with that. The futures prodded at him once more, easier to ignore than the shrieks behind him, telling him of times when he might well and truly go insane.

Starflight refused to think about that, pushing the futures away again as thoughts that were bright and cheerful as daylight popped into his mind. She was awake. Starflight perked up as he finally was able to let the dreams fade into the background with focus on that singular mind.

He hesitated, not sure if he should go straight to her or wait to be sure she wasn't busy. But well... she would tell him if she was busy, right?

Starflight walked toward her hesitantly, mind picking up speed as he tried to go over their previous interactions. The key word being tried. It didn't quite work with all the memories that weren't his slamming against his conciousness. The nightmares and terrible worries that consumed those around him and therefore himself.

He found Sunny outside, near the river. She was sitting calmly, breathing evenly as she looked out at the water. Starflight tried to check her mind, see what was happening there, but it was hard to tell with much louder minds nearby.

He gave up after one try, sitting beside her silently as she turned, noting his presance. "Is it bad tonight?"

Starflight shrugged. "I had to wake up a rainwing. But not as bad as last week."

Sunny nodded, "that's good. Have you been trying other things?"

"Yeah."

She smiled and patted him on the head. "Good job, we'll figure out what works."

Starflight felt strengthened by her touch, and not just because her thoughts grew louder with it, finally drowning out the din of dreams. When her hand left, the pain came back, but he couldn't deal with that right now. Starflight twined his tail around hers, wary of the barb on all sandwing tails but still keeping her warm thoughts in his mind.

Sunny always knew why he did that, and let him. She was the best at things like that. Helping from the outside even if she wasn't quite sure what was happening in there. 

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From the author: 

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