The Book of Forbidden Spells: Come to Light

MEETING

The dragons at school liked to tease that Whimsical was made to be nocturnal, which Whimsical rejected.

"Night's just better!" He'd say.

This defense would only secure their allegations. The thing was, they all had a schedule to respect. The four knew when it was night or day because of the routine they'd been obeying for 11 years. Over those years, with an extra five for Whimsical, the feeling of the Sun and Moons were lost. Warm golden rays enwrapping scales. Moons' silver beams striking passion into the soul. All forgotten.

Even being underground without the sky, he stuck to being nocturnal. So maybe they were right.

Flunking every class was the consequence. The only one he was ever awake for was Self Defense with Seahorse, since his ass was being beat throughout. But Seahorse wouldn't give him good grades if he was unconscious or not.

Insight was the only other Nightwing aside from Northstar. Their Nightwing teacher had a "normal" schedule down. Insight was a different story.

Whimsy wasn't certain of the exact grades the Nightwing had, but knew they weren't atrocious. Though he was a freak, he was pretty smart. But on the same schedule as Whimsy.

Except Insight was awake during class. Religiously awake. Everyone at school theorized Insight lived without ever sleeping. Looking and acting the way he did made it very credible.

A dark shape drifted past Whimsy's room. Ducking under his desk was his immediate response, to avoid getting nagged at for still being up. Then he remembered he was 21 years old, and stood up firmly.

Hushed steps headed for his room's entryway. Whimsy pressed his (still aching) side into the wall and narrowly poked his snout out to investigate. Seeing Insight pursuing his room nearly got a shriek out of Whimsy. Maybe Insight had heard Whimsical thinking about him - or manifestation was real and their counselor was right all along.

Except, Insight passed his door to stop at the end of the hallway, and turn back. The path began repeating. Whimsy watched, not caring that his entire head was visible now, because Insight hadn't noticed him once.

Until Insight lifted his head from its wilt, and rotated his body to face Whimsical. It was all slow motion, and then a snap.

Insight's face twisting into that look right before screaming. Whimsical right in front of Insight, fingers locked around his snout only moments before he could release the noise.

A muffled whimper was all that drawled.

"Sssshhut up. Shut. Shut up. Quiet," Whimsical brought his free talon up to press a finger into his own lips.

Long silence followed, gawking into the others' gaze. Ghost blue, bulging eyes broke the stare-down and caused Whimsy to cringe and glance away. Those things were so forcefully placed into his skull they looked like they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Either Insight only then registered what happened, or read Whimsy's mind about his demon eyes. Possibly both, because he yanked from Whimsical's grasp.

"Why were you staring at me?! You CREEP!" Insight's tail lashed and his spines were again standing upright.

"They were right!" Whimsy threw his wings out. "You're being weird. Suspiciously weird. More than normal weird."

The snarl curling Insight's face rested for him to frown.

"You're literally pacing outside of your room. Outside? You never do that! You're always in your room so you don't annoy me. And everyone else," Whimsy sneered.