Fire and Ice (WinterxQibli) - DISCONTINUED

4

Qibli POV

Kinkajou upended her pouch and poured a tiny pile of scraps of paper onto the ground in front of her.

My mouth dropped open.

The last pieces of Darkstalker's scroll. The ones Chameleon used to transform himself into different dragons.

I could see the dark jagged scrawl of Peril's father's handwriting on them — and then, as Kinkajou carefully flipped them over, I recognized her own awkward lettering on the other side, and I remembered the hours and hours she'd spent practicing so she could be the first Rainwing in a century to learn to write.

She used his own magic against him.

"What?" Darkstalker said, choking. "But how — I didn't see —"

"I know," Kinkajou said proudly. "Never saw me coming! Taken down by a ball of fluff! Who's insignificant NOW, frogface!"

Darkstalker collapsed forward — no, he was shrinking, I realized.

"You knew," he gasped to his mother. "You helped her."

"Of course I did," she said. "What else could I do? Send you to your room? Extra chores for a week? Somehow neither of those seemed particularly apt for this situation." She patted his shoulder — he was now about the same size as her. "It was this or leave forever and never see you again. I decided we'd both be happier this way."

"But my powers!" he cried. His voice was higher, less cavernous and booming now, as his lungs shrank. "All my magic... can't I keep any of it? The mind reading? Wait —" Darkstalker held up his front talons, watching the claws get smaller.

"Sorry, Darkstalker," I said. "You had more than one chance to use them wisely and well, and you chose not to."

"I really thought he was going to choose this for himself," Moon said, tipping her head at the shrinking dragon.

"Oh, I knew he wouldn't," Kinkajou said. "But I couldn't tell you my awesome plan, obviously."

"You told her, though. Why didn't he see it in your mind?" Moon asked Foeslayer.

"You don't raise a mind-reading son without learning a few tricks about how to hide your thoughts," Foeslayer said calmly.

"Didn't I help you?" Darkstalker said in a lost, small voice, looking up at Moon. "Didn't I save dragons, too? I'm not evil... I'm not..."

"Not anymore," Kinkajou said as a shimmer spread across his scales. Darkstalker was a dragonet now, younger than Anemone... and then younger still, until he appeared to be about one year old. He lifted his wings awkwardly and I noticed that the line of white Icewing scales was gone from under his wings.

But he wasn't entirely black either; underneath his wings, in place of the usual Nightwing silver star scales, he had a constellation of rainbow-colored scales — one emerald green here, one parrot blue there, sunrise golds and oranges scattered throughout the black scales, like shining beetles dropped on a dark velvet cloth.

"What in the world?" Moon asked.

"Oh, yeah, I made him half Rainwing," Kinkajou said, fighting back a giggle. "I thought that would be good for him. And it turned out so pretty!"

"I'll work it into my backstory," Foeslayer said to Moon. "If the other Nightwings ever wonder where I came from."

"You're going to join the tribe?" I asked her. "And live with them?"

"The ones in the rainforest," she said. "It's beautiful there, and I hear good things about our new queen." She smiled at Moon. "I don't know what the others are going to do when Darkstalker never comes back. But I couldn't live in the old Night Kingdom anyway. Too many memories."

The dragonet at her feet had been examining his talons closely for the last few minutes. Now his head popped up and he bonked her leg with it. "Hungry!" he chirped.

"What are your new names going to be?" I asked.

"Oh — I'm not sure," she said.

"You should be Awesomeness," Kinkajou suggested.

"Salvation?" said Moon.

Foeslayer laughed. "That's a little grandiose for me." She picked up the tiny dragonet that used to be Darkstalker. He didn't look like a young Darkstalker; his face was too round and his eyes set too wide, but more than all that, there was a serenity in his expression that I had never glimpsed on Darkstalker's face. Being bombarded by dragon thoughts all day long from the moment you hatch probably isn't the most peaceful existence, I guessed.

The dragonet wrapped his arms and legs around his mother's neck and nudged her ear with his snout. "HUNGRY," he said in a loud whisper.

"Here," she said, delving into the patch of leaves next to her again. "Have some strawberries."

He seized them with enormous delight and stuffed two in his mouth at once, dripping berry juice down his neck.

"I think I'll call him Peacemaker," she said. "I wonder if history would have been different if I'd chosen a name like that from the beginning."

Peacemaker. I couldn't help but find the name a bit ironic — but then, this wasn't Darkstalker anymore. He was an entirely new dragon. And the spell wasn't in a piece of jewelry that could be removed; it was inside him once he'd eaten that first, enchanted strawberry, changing him permanently and forever. He'd never remember being Darkstalker. He was Peacemaker now, and for always.

"I have a name for you," I said to Foeslayer. "If you're interested."

"Let's hear it," she said.

I smiled at the little dragon stuffing his face with strawberries. "I was thinking maybe... Hope?"

"Hope," she said thoughtfully. "I like that."

To lazy for outro. The usual. Ciao.