Snowstorm looked around but didn't see anything, his head flicked from side to side. Moondrift frowned, grabbed his head with one talon and turned it to face her.
"Listen to me," she hissed quietly. "You have to get into the water NOW. We don't know what's out there and it could be dangerous; you never know, Snowstorm."
Her eyes gleamed sincerely and fiercely as she slowly let go of Snowstorm's arm. He hesitated, as if he didn't know whether to trust her or not.
But it wouldn't make a difference if she tricked me when I go into the water...right? Moondrift heard from his mind, making her feel very impatient and hurt at the same time.
"Come on," she pressed, tipping her head towards the lake. "I'm just being careful."
The IceWing pursed his lips and sighed. "Alright."
He backed away from Moondrift and silently dived into the depths of the lake, where moons-know-what lurks in there.
Moondrift heard more rustling in the bushes and leapt into a shadow from a tall, thick tree and covered herself except for her head and her wings, and glared at what was coming. She knew Snowstorm couldn't hold his breath underwater for that long, so he had to take a breath; but she hoped that he wouldn't be seen.
Come out, whatever you are, she thought bravely. I know there's someone— or something there.
The bushes stood completely still. A single light pink flower from the crowd of gathered leaves intricately fell from it and, like a feather, landed in the ground with utter peace.
Then, a misty, transparent, dark purple talon squashed the flower mercilessly as the innocent plant was crumpled to bits. Moondrift gasped in her mind. She could sense dark, evil thoughts from whatever had destroyed the flower.
The hybrid squinted her eyes at the shadowy figure in the form of a dragon, who wore a smug, eerie face. It didn't look like a normal dragon, it appeared to look more similar to a shadow that wasn't stuck to a surface.
Suddenly, a blue dragon with dim lights emerged from the water. Moondrift shivered. That was the lake Snowstorm was hiding in. Did that dragon notice him, or was the IceWing just well hidden?
"Speak," the blue dragon said. He had malicious dark blue eyes that glinted pure evil, the sort of evil that didn't contain any controlling demon like Snowstorm. His scales perfectly matched his eyes; dark as the abyss of the deepest oceans, with dim, creepy flickering lights pasted messily on his snout, side and tail.
His grim face plastered a serious look as the shadow dragon's eyes glowered at him. But Moondrift had a jolt of familiarity spark up in her. She felt as if she'd seen that dragon during one of her missions. The hybrid let a low, silent growl as the shadow dragon walked towards what Moondrift saw was a SeaWing.
"I saw her trapped in the SkyWing Palace," the shadow dragon reported. "I thought the firescale dragon would've killed her, but she tricked her instead and escaped."
The SeaWing growled angrily and dug his claws into the ground with tension. "Do you know where she is now? Or at least saw her with any other dragon?"
The shadow dragon shrugged. "There was only one dragon with her that she helped escape: an IceWing. But I don't know if they're together still or if they went their separate ways."
Oh no, Moondrift thought. Are they talking about me and Snowstorm? This is bad.
"How did you find all this information?" The SeaWing asked suspiciously.
"I shapeshifted, obviously," the other dragon rolled his eyes. "I was the announcer." He said the last sentence proudly. His form started shifting; his dark purple mist quickly materialised into red-orange, and within seconds, he looked exactly like the quivering announcer from the SkyWing arena.
Whoa, Moondrift thought. How is that possible? A shadow-like dragon that can shape shift and take the form of any dragon one pleases? This is worse than I thought.
"So what else did you find out?" the SeaWing demanded, scratching the dirt on the ground with his claws but had his eyes fixed on the other dragon...thing. "Anything that's actually new?"
The shadow dragon transformed back into his original form and grinned. "Oh yes, I've learned a lot more about her and the IceWing as they fought in the arena."
"Like?"
"The IceWing's name," he answered like it was totally nothing important. "And how, oh I don't know, that my evil twin is living inside of him and trying to control him?"
The SeaWing's ears twitched up with excitement. "That's perfect, we could use that to our advantage. What else do we have to our benefit?"
The shadow dragon grinned. "Me,"
He twirled gracefully around, and when he faced back to the SeaWing, he was disguised as a beautiful, recognizable dragon. Her scales were dazzling in the moonlight and her eyes were just absolutely beautiful.
That's me, Moondrift thought. She realised that the other Moondrift even had the exact same dagger she had. Which made her furious because her personal weapon was one of a kind, not to mention fireproof. He could just storm into any kingdom and pretend to be me, acting ridiculous and ludicrous; it could get me in big trouble BIG TIME.
"You're missing something from that," the SeaWing said, pointing at the fake Moondrift. "She never smiles like that, she always looks so serious and grumpy and just wants things over and done with."
I'm not grumpy! She huffed.
The other Moondrift nodded. "Right," Even the voice sounds exactly like hers, yet had a small hint of evilness in it. The dragon made a sneer that looked like what the real Moondrift would do.
The fake Moondrift transformed back into the shadow dragon, whose face was even more smug now than it was before. The SeaWing wore an accomplished look as he nodded approvingly.
"I'll have my revenge on her," he vowed. "She will lay for what she did to my family, and she'll get her torment very, very soon."
The shadow dragon laughed. "You'd try to hurt a pretty face like hers?" He chuckled with amusement. "Ha, before she killed your family, I saw you as a little fluff ball that was so shy and scared of everything."
The SeaWing growled ferociously at him. "And that little fluff ball was a huge mistake—"
"Considering he was you,"
"What I'm saying is that I'll have my revenge on her, and the rest of the world for being so unfair. She wasn't the one dragon who hurt me."
"So then what's your great plan?" The shadow dragon asked skeptically with a yawn. "I bet it's so awesome and smart that no one will see it coming."
"I want to change the world," the SeaWing snapped. "I'm going to make it different, make it filled with more power."
"And how do you plan to do that?"
A smile spread across the blue dragon's face. "Magic. I'm going to use magic."
And that was the end of their conversation. The SeaWing turned around and dismissed the shadow dragon, who rolled his eyes and walked back into the darkness. The SeaWing went into the lake and soon enough, there was no sight of him.
Snowstorm suddenly popped his head out of the water with a wheeze. He looked over at Moondrift, though he couldn't exactly see her, but he was sure she was there.
He swam up to the shore as Moondrift stepped out of a shadow, feeling quite traumatised and disturbed. She stared blankly at the nothingness ahead and flicked her tail.
"So," Snowstorm said, drying himself. "What happened? Anything bad or something?"
He tilted his head innocently at her.
"I think," Moondrift sighed, "we may have an enemy."
-1310 Words
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A Beautiful Nightmare {Book1-}
Fanfic"PATHETIC," is all Moondrift has been called her whole life. She never wanted this...she never wanted to be an assassin, she just wanted to prove herself that she was strong. She was tired of following orders and killing more dragons than she would...
