Timeline: a Wings of Fire fanfiction (COMPLETED)

33.

Clearsight

Shadowhunter is crying. Again.

I sigh, continuing to gently rock her back and forth. "Ssshh," I whisper. "It's gonna be okay. You're safe. I'm not going anywhere."

She lets out another wail. Mother once said that when dragonets cry, it means they're either hungry, thirsty, hurt, or want attention, and that all you have to do is figure out which one of those it is.

She made it sound so easy. But it's not. I feel like I'm lost in the middle of nowhere, just trying to find my direction without even a compass to guide me.

Darkstalker has it so much easier than I do. At least he can read her mind.

For a long time, I just sit there, cooing and rocking my daughter back and forth. I do know things--she's not hurt. She had a snack and some water an hour ago. So therefore, the only option left is, well... the kind of hurt that you can't see on the outside.

I start to sing softly.

Twinkle twinkle

Little star

How I wonder

What you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky

Twinkle twinkle

Little star...

I trail off. That's all I remember of the song. Shadowhunter smiles a little, and I smile back at her, giving her talon a squeeze of reassurance before setting her back down in her little blanket nest in my office. She likes curling up under my wing as I work, watching curiously and occaisionally knocking things over, and honestly, I don't mind the company.

Shadowhunter looks up at me uncertainly, wrapping one of her claws around mine.

A grin spreads across my snout.

I dash out of my office door, throwing open the cupboard, grabbing all the blankets I can fit in my arms. "Darkstalker!" I shout. He's in the kitchen, making coffee, bleary and tired and probably bitter. "C'mere! I wanna make a blanket fort!"

He smiles. I wasn't expecting that. A real, wide smile.

We turn the blankets into a kind of tent in the living room, moving the dining table in so Darkstalker and I can work. We pile up pillows and Shadowhunter's stuffed animals and more blankets all along the floor. He scrunches up his face, and my jaw drops as little specks of light flicker into being around us.

"There! Fireflies!" He beams.

I laugh, a little nervously. "They're not, real, right? I mean, Shadowhunter's not going to eat them? I feel like--"

He rolls his eyes. "No. They're not real bugs. Just floating lights. Relax, Clearsight. Things will be all right."

We might be going to war. The queen is losing her mind. How could anyone say it's going to be"all right"?

Shadowhunter slips in through the "door" letting out a little gasp at the lights. Darkstalker screws up his face again, mutters something tentatively under his breath, and the blankets turn a soft, blueish purple colour. It takes me a moment to recognize it as the night sky, dotted with a billion stars.

Shadowhunter swats at a "firefly." It flits serenely out of her grasp. I giggle as she lets out a growl of frustration.

"Guess we should probably be getting some work done," I sigh. "I can go grab you some of your sketching paper and your scroll if you want?"