The Book of Forbidden Spells: Come to Light

RULES

The prophecy lay below them on the sheet, staring back with unvoiced ferocity. Each line was more dire than the last. Wavering handwriting secured it.

"What?" Spongy broke the silence.

Insight bashed the paper down as he groaned a brief, frustrated roar.

"I KNEW it. They were always hiding something from us!" He choked the paper so hard he nearly split it.

Sheep slowly, carefully reached jumpy talons over to grab and read it over again.

"This is... not... promising," he croaked.

"Do I have to ask again? Will I just never know or...?" Spongy flicked her gaze between the dragons.

"The TEACHERS were hiding an entire prophecy from us!" Insight whirled around to shriek in Spongy's face.

She blinked once.

"Oh."

Insight spun away to pace her room, spines on end and tail thrashing.

"I KNEW they were shady. I knew there was ALWAYS something else going on," spit shot with his voice.

"Okay wait," Sheep held a palm up, "so you have very intense seer powers and visions. Yet you didn't see this coming."

Insight twisted again, this time to Sheep.

"Some of them make SENSE now," the veins in his eyes cracked red against blue. They turned vacant as he looked away. "They're so hard to track. I-I-I- half the time I don't know what to TRY and focus on because there's so many. And-and they're out of order. And all over. And MILLIONS OF THEM."

As Insight sputtered, Spongy hauled a blanket over to hoist over his back. With the sudden weight, he stopped spitting. The Nightwing's body was trembling, spines so rigid they could pierce the thick fabric.

"Ooh so you can't track life changing news, but you can cheat at board games by looking into future moves," Whimsy scorned.

Insight squinted, still trying to catch his breath.

"Smaller, closer events are... easier," he chuffed.

"You could TRY putting the energy into useful foresight," Whimsy snapped.

Insight's jaw dropped.

"Oh," he rumbled. "You're one to talk."

Whimsy's frills fanned and he stood straight, stomach knotting. Another jab at his powers.

"Hey! Hey!" Sheep stepped in between them to hold out the paper. Authority trying to push through his puny voice almost made Whimsy laugh. "We have more important things to yell about. I think."

Insight and Whimsy stopped to look at Sheep.

A tiny "hmph" puffed from Insight before he took the paper with shaky hands.

"Okay," he breathed, sitting to rub his front talons together. "Prophecies aren't definite. It-It's rare that they don't come true. But we can change them," he tapped the prophecy with a claw. "We can shift the future."

Sheep wound his fingers together.

"So like Pinkie said? Except uh, less targeted and/or offensive."

"Yeah," Whimsy's eyebrows furrowed slightly, snout screwed. "No, that was weird, right?" He looked at Insight, who nodded. The counselor always seemed so off towards Nightwings, but would never directly say anything to the students. Directly was the key.

"It felt uncomfortable to me, and I'm not a Nightwing," Sheep set a palm on his chest.

Spongy leaned over the prophecy, head tilted.

"Can you really just change an entire prophecy?" She asked.

"I think," Insight's eyes narrowed at nothing. "If we take the right steps."

Sheep's ears perked.

"Oh- so like, we have to make rules? To follow? So that... we aren't, you know, led to eternal pain?" Sheep pointed to the last words, voice too excited.

"Rules?!" Whimsy blurted.

Insight focused his eyes elsewhere.

"That... might... work, actually," he sighed, and Sheep beamed.

"Please don't make me follow another stupid-ass rule book," Whimsy begged.

"I can follow rules," Spongy sat, glancing between all of them.

Whimsy scowled at her with a slacked jaw.

"Uh, yeah," he sneered. "We know you can."

Spongy never did anything except lay around and draw. Of course she didn't have to change anything to follow the rules.

"A tome is a book," Sheep pointed to the first part of the prophecy. "'Beneath ancient stones' sounds like where we all are now. Maybe that means we shouldn't go sneaking around in hidden caves and triggering a prophecy," he offered slowly, like he wasn't fully sure if he was allowed to speak.

"What?!" Whimsy cried.

A number one was already being written, courtesy of Insight.

"Are you kidding me? Exploring is my reason for living. What else am I supposed to do in this maze of... of... of lies?!" Whimsical hollered again.

Spongy smiled at him.

"Board games?"

Whimsy grimaced.

Without permission, Insight continued writing next to a number two.

"'Pages' is also probably about books. No reading new things. Unless we can't avoid it," Insight said, implying class-assigned-only books.

Sheep's face fell with a mini gasp.

"HAH!" Whimsy leapt to point at him.

Spongy had her head cocked at the page for a few minutes before she looked up.

"'Status and spells?' Does that mean we should like... avoid spell casting?" She proposed.

This time, none of the boys looked thrilled.

Nonetheless, Insight sighed and briefly shut his eyes.

"You're right," he admitted.

The last rule down, next to a three.

1. No sneaking.
2. No books.                                                  
3. No spells.

The last rule ripped into Whimsy's gut.

Insight wiped his inky claw off onto an empty spot on the paper with a few long drags.

"I'm not letting a prophecy decide my fate."