Stalker of Dreams

Chapter One

Peacemaker sighed happily, stretching his glittering wings and lifting them to feel the currents of air.

Trees and leaves and so, so, much green flooded by in a rainforest rainbow of colors. The dragonet dove into the canopy again - it was nearly like plunging into water, but warmer and more beautiful and with less fear of drowning.

He spotted a branch and, uncomfortably, remembered earlier today in Jambu's tree gliding class how he'd been no better than any of the NightWings, who didn't have the "right type of tails" for swinging on branches. 

Jambu had explained to Peacemaker that he didn't have to be perfect at everything, but secretly Peacemaker thought that wasn't true. The only other RainWing-NightWing he knew, four year-old Princess Firefly, was an amazing tree glider. Mastermind (who had made up for his past mistakes with how hard he worked and how eager to please he was) had said that "a prehensile tail were the prominent genes, in her case. Don't worry about it too much, Peacemaker." But Peacemaker worried about it anyways.

He veered to his right and up, curling his tail forwards in a position that would catch the branch. In one swift movement, he hit the branch, opened up his wings, neatly did a flip, and then didn't get his timing right and was sent crashing into the forest floor. 

"Oww," the dragonet moaned, flopping his wings out on either side of him. "Might have misjudged that... a little bit... ow..."

He somehow managed to get himself onto his back, and stared up at the cascading colors of green and red and blue and orange and yellow and purple - basically the whole rainbow - around him. 

"Peacemaker! Are you alright?" The five year-old NightWing hybrid turned his head towards the sound of his friend's voice. 

"Firefly," he said, smiling, then winced as he tried to sit up. 

"What happened to you?" Firefly asked, a few whorls of displeased and worried greens shifting through her wings and ruff. 

"Tree gliding practice," he laughed bitterly.

She folded and unfolded her neck frill for a few moments, colors Peacemaker either had never heard of or never seen very much of shifting through it, before finally saying; "You don't have to, you know. I know that you're not built for tree gliding, and that isn't your fault. Besides, I like you just the way you are - it doesn't matter that you can't hang from a tree like a stupid RainWing." She made a mock angry face and added a layer to her voice on that last bit, however Peacemaker didn't know which NightWing she was imitating. 

"Some NightWings can tree glide," Peacemaker argued. "If they can do it, certainly I can. I mean, I'm more RainWing than they are."

Firefly made a thoughtful noise but didn't verbally reply. 

"I actually didn't come looking for you to save you from tree gliding practice," she said finally, slowly beginning to spread her yellow-orange wings. "I found something super-spooky. And I was wondering whether you wanted to come see it with me or not."

"Sure," the other dragonet shrugged. "Hey, where's your dad? Does he know you're doing this?" Normally Princess Firefly was followed around by two NightWings and two RainWings at all times for protection. But today Peacemaker saw none of that - only a delighted little dragonet. 

"Oh, yeah, he's going with mom to make more negotiations with Queen Snowfall, or something," she waved a claw dismissively. "Something about how much she's grown as a queen since the whole... you know... Pantala thing, and to see if we can finally get the light globes Glacier said we could have.

"But don't worry. I have, like, six RainWing guards following me around all the time. Well, five. One went to go eat a banana. Dad doesn't trust the NightWings to do their job right when he's not around." A sigh whooshed out of her snout, and a few more colors rippled through her wings.