Qibli x reader: Chasing Stars

Chapter 12

(this song is freaking awesome! Don't play it till I tell you! Also, I know, no lyrics, but I couldn't find one that was female, and the singer has a deep voice, so yeah. Lyrics will be at the bottom)

"I can't set you free." I whispered to the wall, in my cave while everyone was asleep.

'Do I really seem evil to you, Star?'

I buried my nose in a pile of moss, but I knew I couldn't hide the answer from him. 'No.'

'We don't know what really happened back then, after Clearsight and Fathom tricked me. We can't be sure the tribe ran and hid and gave up on their powers because of me. I mean... Nothing I did was awful enough for that.'

I rolled onto my back and gazed up at the ceiling. 'What about the things they knew you might do in the future?'

Darkstalker let out a growl. 'Is it fair to judge me for possibly dreadful deeds I never even did? We all might do terrible things. Your friend Turtle might kill his sister. This SkyWing in your cave might smother Kinkajou in her sleep to shut her up. The IceWings might conspire to murder Peril, or you might let a killer escape, or you might send a friend to certain death.'

'What are you talking about?' I asked in a panic. 'Do you know what's going to happen? Have you had visions of all these things? Do you already know if I'm going to free you or not?'

He sighed. 'Star, I told you. With a prophecy gift as advanced as mine, I can see all possibilities. I see futures where you free me, and futures where I live like this, trapped in the dark, alone, for thousands more years. All of your choices spiral off into different futures. The visions you've had are only brief glimpses of the most likely outcomes. You see them about as clearly as you'd see a dark cave with a small blaze of flame, and they could all still change.'

'So you could manipulate me into freeing you, because you can see exactly what you need to say to make me say yes. And you're probably doing just that right now.' I pointed out, my words met by a stony silence.

'That's not fair, Star. What can I say to that? Anything will sound like a trick to you. But it's not manipulating you if I tell you that what I'm going through now is torture. That's just the truth. This is not what the tribe planned for me... Clearsight would not have wanted this. How can I not tell you these things, if they might convince you? However, I can't make you do anything, and you must make your own choices. That, unfortunately, is the essential problem with prophecy. Every dragon has the power to choose their own future.' He let out a slow, sad chuckle, and I whimpered. I felt bad for him. 'Except, of course, me, which is kind of cruelly ironic, don't you think?'

'You're going to haunt me for the rest of my life if I don't free you, aren't you?' I asked.

'I'd argue that this is not so much 'haunting' as it is 'clinging desperately to my only conversational companion.'

I fell asleep quickly, and straight into another night of dreams about Jade Mountain falling, and all of my friends dying around me. But now, Darkstalker's face seemed to be spreading a darkness across my dream.

Was the fall of Jade Mountain something that would be triggered by freeing Darkstalker? Or was it something that would happen if I didn't?

The next afternoon, the Jade Winglet met in the music cave with Anemone's group, the Silver Winglet. I could hear the warbling sounds of didgeridoos as I climbed up the steps beside Kinkajou.

It was like being inside a singing bowl; the music catapulted around the high smooth walls like thread winding around and around all of the music dragonets. I recognized Ostrich, Anemone's clawmate, holding a wing shaped harp. Umber was trying to keep up with her on a hollow stringed instrument as tall as a dragon.