Chapter Text
Sleep came easy to Crescent. She slipped into dark slumber. When she awoke the next morning, she stretched her talons out, feeling well rested throughout her entire body. Golden light poured into the room. It was later than Crescent typically awoke. She yawned lazily and rolled over off her blankets. She grabbed hold of them and folded them and put them back in their spot in the corner of the room. Crescent could begin to feel the creeping heat of summer, despite the early hours of the day. Today would be a good sunny day.
Crescent smiled and exited the hut, decided it would be nice to catch some fish. When she returned she rapped lightly on Winter’s door. He opened it. Crescent noticed how he was already awake.
“I caught breakfast.” Crescent hummed softly. Winter nodded. Crescent tried not to pay too much attention to the lavender bags gathered under his eyes. She sat down at the table, Winter across from her. They ate in silence. Once finished, Winter cleared his throat into his fist.
“How do you feel about… The events of the previous night?”
“Oh,” Crescent looked away from Winter, the shelf suddenly taking on her interest. She rubbed her burning cheeks. “I feel—fine. You know how it is.” She shrugged. Winter looked at her concernedly, his eyebrows pinched together.
“Did Lucid say anything further after I left?”
“He didn’t say much. He just apologized, is all.” Crescent continued to avoid Winter’s piercing blue gaze. She could feel it prying into her.
“I just want to say, I don’t trust him for one second.”
“I know you don’t.” Crescent said. She looked down and continued eating. Winter continued to look at her, but finally he seemed to give up on prying. After a few moments of silence he decided best to change the topic. Crescent was thankful for the break. After they both finished, they made their way to the scavenger sanctuary. When they got there, Winter had guided her into one of the buildings.
“I have a new project I’ve been planning.” Winter said, his voice full of excitement, a rare smile tugged on the corners of his mouth.
“What is it?” Crescent co*cked her head.
“Well you see, I’ve had this idea for a while, but I had no idea how to do it. Now that I have an apprentice, I feel ready to start it: we’re going to create a way to translate scavenger speak to Dragon.”
“Wait—shouldn’t that be impossible? What if it's too different? How will we even go about doing it?” Winter’s eyes shimmered, the purple under his eyes seemed to shrink and his scales seemed to glow with new found luster.
“You see, that’s what I’ve been doing late all these nights—coming up with a plan. We’re going to cross reference different scavenger’s words for things until we have a dictionary, and then we can dissect their language further.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought this out. When do we start?” Crescent tapped her chin with her talon.
“Why not now?” Winter said, smiling as he gazed out the window of the hut staring at the sanctuary beyond.
After a long day of standing around cross referencing different scavengers jarble, Crescent found herself having learned five different words. She felt a little disappointed when she saw Winter and somehow found fifty-five vocabulary words and was also beginning to ‘crack down on their word order’ whatever that meant. Winter excused her and started on his way home. Crescent was about to follow him, when Lucid materialized from the shadows. Crescent jumped back in surprise. Lucid chuckled.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Three moons, Lucid. What were you doing?” Crescent said, her talon resting over her heart beat which was now beating so rapidly.
Lucid approached her, grinning. He opened his wings to her.
“I thought we could go out today.”
“That doesn’t explain what you were doing—hiding behind the office like that.” Lucid shrugged, his smile remained intact. His eyes drifted towards the sky.
“I wanted to cheer you up a bit—you know, from last night.”
“Thank you, Lucid. Scaring the scales off of me sure helped.” Crescent pressed her face into her talon and shook her head, it did little to muffle her laughter.
“See, I knew it would work! Call that my incredible foresight.” Lucid said, twisting his tail with hers. Crescent smiled at him affectionately.
“What did you have in mind today?” Crescent asked. Lucid grinned even wider, the corners of his eyes wrinkled.
“I have a gift for you.”
“A gift?” Crescent asked. Lucid nodded his head. “What is it?”
“I can’t tell you, you’ll have to see. Come on!” Lucid shifted his weight from each side of his feet anxiously. Crescent giggled and followed after Lucid in the sky.
***
When Crescent arrived at Lucid’s apartment building, she was surprised to notice how full it was. Dragons from all different tribes bustled around, murmuring in the entry room.
“What’s that all about?” Crescent whispered into Lucid’s ear. His brow furrowed and he narrowed his gaze at the half a dozen dragons gathered at the reception desk.
“I didn't think that would be going on today… I think it’s some sort of meeting. Anyways! Follow me!” Lucid grabbed hold of Crescent’s talon and rushed her up the winding wooden stairs that led up the apartment building. He made his way to his door and fumbled for the key under the mat. When he found it, he excitedly opened the door. His apartment was deserted, none of his family was in sight.
“Where are they?” Crescent said as she stepped inside. It was odd to stand in Lucid’s apartment without Lucid’s family. It seemed so quiet, yet the remains of an active family living there still remained. Tight furniture crowded the walkways, and dragonet toys littering the ground further covered the floor.
“Deftclaw is still at work and my sister probably dragged my mom out somewhere.” Lucid said, flicking his talons. “Sorry about the mess… I promise my room isn’t nearly as bad. Oh wait, you’ve never even seen my room before!” Lucid’s bright smile was so infectious it made Crescent smile along. Lucid, still clasping Crescent’s talons in his, ran to a door Crescent assumed led to his room. He opened the door slowly and let Crescent step inside.
His room was neat, as he had promised. His room was square, the walls were washed with white plaster. In the center of the ceiling, there was a circular skylight that let in the light of the afternoon. In one corner of his room, he had a warm blue mattress and blankets. He had a sturdy, beautifully crafted wooden desk adjacent to the bed. It was made of shining mahogany. Each of its legs were carved with intricate floral designs.
Above it, he had a wooden shelf with a few small items arranged atop it. On one of the walls, was a large wooden shelf with smooth hexagonal cubbies carved into it. About two-thirds of the cubbies were filled with about three scrolls each. A chest rested atop the shelf. On either side of the shelf were two paintings. The one on the left was tall and seemed to be an artist’s rendition of the old night kingdom. It was painted in dark blues and purples, except for the dash of white flowers that crept around the foreground. The one on the right was square and depicted Quickthought, Deftclaw, a younger Lucid, and a hatchling—Nightfall.
“You can sit down, I’ll go grab it.” Lucid said. Crescent sat down on Lucid’s bed and watched as he riffled through one of the drawers at his desk. He found what he was looking for and quickly snatched it behind his back so Crescent couldn’t see.
“Close your eyes and stick out one of your arms.” Lucid said. Crescent did so and felt something click around her out-stretched wrist. “Open them” Lucid whispered. Crescent blinked open her eyes and looked at the bracelet on her wrist. The front of it was made of polished mahogany wood, and had tiny flowers carved into it. Each flower metal was meticulously painted a pale shimmering white. The back of the bracelet was made of a tiny coppery chain and clasp so that Crescent could remove the bracelet.
“Wow, Lucid. This is beautiful.” Crescent said, twisting her wrist to let the light catch each shining white flower.
“I made it myself. For you. I’ve been working on it since I started getting visions about you.” Crescent looked up at Lucid, who was smiling—more bashfully than he normally did. Crescent thought she saw his cheeks burning. She smiled.
“I love it, Lucid.” She leaned forward and planted a small kiss on Lucid’s cheek. He looked at her with his eyes wide and then smirked.
“I’m glad you like it then.” He opened his wings and Crescent leaned into them. She tucked her snout in the crook of his neck and breathed in the scent of cloves he wore.
“I really do, Lucid. Thank you. It’s very sweet.” she said, smiling.
“Where do you want to go next?” Lucid asked.
“Why don’t we go to our normal spot at the valley.” Crescent said.
“Sounds good to me.” Lucid said, his smile growing. He nudged her with his wing. “Let’s get out of here before my family gets back. I don’t want them to bug me about the bracelet…” Lucid scratched his neck and looked away.
“Aww, you don’t want them to tease you?” Crescent said, poking him in the chest.
“Maybe.” Lucid shrugged bashfully.
***
Lucid and Crescent hung out in the valley until the sun began to fall, they chatted idly about whatever came to their mind as they lay on their backs staring at the sky. Crescent felt guilty for not bringing up what happened earlier, but since Lucid had yet to prompt her, she cowardly decided not to mention it. The vision Lucid had continued to plagued her mind. She wanted to stop Rose being murdered but she didn’t quite know how. She wasn’t even sure how to bring it back up to Lucid. When the sun began to set, Crescent had thought she had lost her opportunity to ask Lucid, but while they were flying back to the hut, Lucid broke the silence.
“Do you want to talk about what happened at all?” He asked.
“Three moons, I thought you would never bring it up.” Crescent said, a shaking talon resting her on chest, “Yes, we need to talk about it.”
“Well, what do you suppose we do?” Lucid said, co*cking his head.
“Do you have any insight into the future?” Crescent asked. Lucid shook his head.
“All I have is that one vision of her death. No visions before it.”
“Shoot.” Crescent tapped her temple. Lucid clenched his jaw as he flew, he looked very deep into thought, however Crescent could scarcely read into his head. It was the same with everyone after all, it felt like a barrier prevented her from fully ‘exiting’ her own head, it didn’t help that the fuzzy thoughts Crescent was able to process, were all buzzing by too quickly to read them. What use was it being a mind reader when she had to be the worst one ever? “Do you have an idea, Lucid?”
“I think I might.” he said.
“You might?”
“I might.” He continued to stare off into the dusk.
“What do you even mean, you might?” Crescent raised an eyebrow. Lucid smirked,
“Impatient, are you?”
“Lucid, we’re dealing with a future murder!” Crescent exclaimed.
“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking, I’m not sure how much you’ll like it… We’re going to do nothing to stop it—”
“Lucid!”
“No, listen—We have to keep watch and see suspicious behavior, but as we do not know time, location or anything like that, we just have to watch out for anything odd.”
“And then what? What if we get nothing the entire time and just realize she was murdered one day? Don’t you want to save dragons?” Lucid set his jaw.
“Of course I want to save dragons—but we have nothing more to go off. I don’t suppose you have something better? It’s not that we'd do nothing. After the murder we’d have more information and could track down the killer.”
“Give me a few days to come up with something better, and then you’re going to help me, Alright?”
“Alright then.” Lucid said. Crescent neared Winter’s hut began to duck down.
“I’ll see you see you tomorrow, Lucid.”
“Ahhhh, actually I don’t think I can make it to the sanctuary tomorrow.”
“Oh that’s a bummer, I’ll see you around then.”
“Goodbye, Crescent.” Lucid smiled and flew away, Crescent landed in front of Winter’s hut.
***
The next day continued rather the same. Crescent was disappointed that she wouldn’t be seeing Lucid at work or after, and it brought down her spirits. She kept glancing at the wooden bracelet he had made for her. The petals were so delicate and beautiful. Whenever she looked at it she was reminded of Lucid and it made her smile slightly. She and Winter continued with their project deciphering the scavenger language to rapid success. Crescent had gotten the hang of things and was pleased that they were slowly filling out a sizable lexicon. It was almost time to leave, her and Winter were finishing tucking their scrolls back in place.
“New bracelet?” Winter commented. Crescent ducked her head. “From Lucid?” Winter asked. Crescent nodded, her throat suddenly dry.
“He made it for me.”
“It looks—nice.” Winter said, turning away to continue tucking scrolls away.
“Thank you, it’s nice having treasure.” Winter raised an eyebrow by didn’t turn to look back at her.
“You have no other treasure?”
“No, I don’t. Well, the scroll you got me would count as well.” Winter snorted.
“Hardly does. We should get you something nice sometime.”
“What, no. I’m very contended, you don’t have to.” Crescent said, her ears burning.
“No, I'd like to.” He flicked his talons, “I have a lot of money and anyways, I was never able to get you any hatching day gifts while you were growing up.” Winter coughed into his fist.
“Oh, Winter.” Crescent smiled.
“Anyways, how ready are you for your first lesson?”
“A lesson?” Crescent asked, co*cking her head.
“Yes, a lesson. I believe I’m ready, I’m only now just waiting on you.”
“Sure, yeah, I can do it today.” Crescent beamed and shifted her weight from each of her feet; the excited tic she often found Lucid performing.
“Good then, let’s wrap up and get ready.”
***
“Are you ready?” Winter asked, his voice raising slightly at the end. Crescent nervously gulped. She felt her palms begin to stick with sweat. This was what she had been waiting for. A chance to improve her telepathic abilities, a chance to see where her true potential lay, a chance to maybe even see the dark, shadowy corners of Winter's mind. She took a deep breath and planted her feet into the bare ground of Winter’s hut.
“I’m ready.”
“Then let’s begin.” Winter reached for the pouch wrapped around his neck. He very slowly, almost painfully, began to pull it off his neck. Crescent felt the Skyfire’s power diminish as he removed the pouch. Winter exhaled, and dropped the Skyfire pouch to the ground. It sounded with a dull thud.
“Try to read my mind.” He said. Crescent nodded. She realized immediately the task was going to be very difficult. The same barrier that seemed to cloud everyone's mind from her was there, preventing her from looking too deep.
“There’s a barrier there.” Crescent said.
“Well of course there is, I put a mental shield up for a reason.”
“No it’s not in your mind.” Crescent said.
“Do you mean that you have a mental shield? Just dismiss it,” Crescent was taken aback by the simplicity of Winter’s statement. All this time, and she had very thought to rid the wall, she had only thought about trying to see through it. She took a deep breath, and at the same time, she took down the wall inside her mind. She stumbled backwards. A sharp pain resonated through her head.
“Crescent, are you okay?” Winter rushed to her.
“Yes, I’m succeeding in something.” She smiled shakily, and continued to push the shield inside her mind down. Everything felt so clear, it was as if she removed a thick layer of film from her eyes, or scraped ice off a frozen pond. She re-positioned herself, swallowing her spit, she focused on the task of reading Winter’s mind.
She took a deep breath and entered Winter’s mind. She felt like she was faced with a wall. It was different from the one inside her own head, but similar enough. She tried to scope it out, to feel for an end of the mental barrier, but it seemed like it stretched in infinity.
“I can't,” Crescent said. Winter spoke slowly and gently,
“Try to look around. Maybe you’ll find an opening.” Crescent shut her eyes tight, she tried more to prod around the wall. Although she wasn’t met with the silent buzz as she did when she was faced with Skyfire, she still felt like all her prodding was somehow being reflected back at her. It was as if she was standing in front of an impregnable mirror. She thought more on Winter’s words. An opening. All she needed was an opening. She tried to reach under the wall., whatever that meant, but she could only feel more wall. It was as if the wallexisted on a different dimension or plane. She bit her lip.
An opening. That was all she needed. One nick in the wall of impenetrable strength and grandeur. One flake missing, something big enough to stick her claws in so she could rip it apart. She tried to pull apart the wall with her mind, but it was stronger. It felt like the wall was something older than herself, something that would outlive her. She tried to thrust open the wall, but it didn’t budge.If brute force wouldn't work on opening the wall, what could she use instead?
An opening.
A light bulb went off in Crescent’s head. She beamed. She materialized a door in the thick mental shield, and reached her talon to open it. It somehow worked, and for a moment she heard Winter’s internal monologue inside of his head. It was deep and echoed off the walls inside his mind.
Suddenly, it was cut off from her. Crescent was ejected from Winter’s mind. She slowly peeled open her eyes. She saw Winter had dove down to grab the Skyfire, and was now clasping it tight to his chest.
“Did I do something wrong?” Crescent asked, her brow furrowing. Winter shook his head.
“You did… Spectacular…”
“Then why are you so desperately hanging onto that Skyfire?”
“I didn’t expect you to get through it that quickly.” Winter said slowly, collecting his cool.
“Should we continue?” Crescent asked. Winter shook his head.
“You did great, you made good progress getting through your own head and being able to get through the outer shield of mine. I just need some time out so I can work on it further, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Right—see you, Winter.” Before Crescent could even finish her sentence, Winter was flying out the door. She was disappointed with the length of her first lesson, but was ecstatic with her new found power to see through her own mental shield. She hadn’t even realized there was a subconscious mental shield blocking her from reading minds, but now that she had figured it out it felt like she had a weight lifted off of her, physically and metaphorically. She felt lighter, less weighed down by rue.
As she sat there, she realized her mental shield began to collect itself again, slowly shutting her out to the external world once more, relegating her to inside her head. It further became apparent that although she dispersed the mental shield, it wasn’t completely gone. It would continue to block her out again and again, and all she could do was continue to disperse it until it disappeared completely some day.
Crescent’s pleasure with herself was interrupted by a creeping thought that began to press itself into her head. What could have caused the mental shield to form? It seemed all other dragons either consciously decided to form a mental shield, or didn’t have one. How unusual it was—to have a mental shield develop without her expressed consent.
Hours passed while Crescent contemplated various things like the future murder, Lucid, her mental shield, and Winter. She noticed the sun had set and that it was dark, it was then that she became fearful. Where was Winter? He would never stay out past dark, that was when he liked to work and he needed to sleep at some point. A part of Crescent began to fret: what if he was off drinking? A part of her wanted to believe in the best in him, but another part continued to circle around the thought. What if she had somehow angered him or reminded him of something bad, and now he was all alone on a street corner drinking himself into a stupor.
Crescent began to pace around the hut. What was she supposed to do? Should she continue to wait while he could potentially be out getting himself in trouble, or worse, danger? Crescent then decided she would go out and look for him. If it turned out she was fine, the worst that would happen was that he’d chide her for following him; if he wasn’t, then Crescent would bring him home. She flew out the door towards the town.
The endless inky sky threatened to swallow her whole, it's cold chill enveloped her body, a shiver tickled its way down her spine. Something bad was going to happen, and she needed to get there before it did. She flapped her black wings with all her strength, arriving at the town in record time. She ducked down into the plaza and looked around, but no Icewings were to be found and she definitely didn’t see any Winter-Icewings. She swirled her head all about, wondering what to do next.
“Hey dear, what’s the matter?” An old elderly Skywing working at a tapestry stall asked.
“I can’t find someone.” She said, panic rising in her voice.
“What does this ‘someone’ look like?” she asked.
“Um. He’s big. And an Icewing. He’s kind of grumpy sometimes but he’s sweet.”
“Hmm… That doesn’t really narrow it down much, love.” Crescent giggled anxiously. “Do you have a name to work with?”
“Winter?” The Skywing’s face dropped into a tight pursed frown, for a moment she resembled a prune with all the wrinkles that formed. Crescent could clearly read—thanks to pulling up the mental shield—how the Skywing found Winter to be an intolerable drunk, not that that was any useful information.
“He was just sauntering around here, I believe he turned down there.” She pointed a shaking talon down one of the narrow allies. “He looked mighty paranoid for some reason.” She shrugged. Crescent was taken aback. Paranoid? What could have made him paranoid?
“Thank you for your help. What’s your name?”
“Crimson. No problem, deary. I hope you find your grumpy Icewing.” Crescent nodded her snout to the old dragon and ran down the alley she had pointed to. Her talons scraped on the rough cobble stones as she weaved her way through short rugged buildings, calling out Winter’s name. She hoped she wasn’t waking too many dragons up with her kerfuffle, but that wasn’t exactly her top priority at the moment. She was about to turn down another alley, when she noticed something shiny catch her eye. Winter! She ran forward.
“Winter!” She exclaimed. A sober Winter turned her head to face her, fear alight in his eyes.
“Crescent?” He called, panic rising in his voice. Crescent noticed with her night vision a figure emerging from behind Winter.
“Winter!” Crescent screamed, running towards Winter. He snapped his head and readied his frost breath, the cold air beginning to turn to fractals of ice. The masked dragon brought a cobblestone down on Winter’s temple and he slumped to the ground with a thud. The figure tried to grab Winter’s ankles but Crescent rushed forward, readying her fire breath. She could read that the figure wanted to take Winter, what they wanted to do to him, they didn’t clarify.
Crescent blew a plume of fire in the hooded figures direction, but the figure ducked sharply, by co*cking their head. While their head was co*cked, Crescent realized only then they were eye-level. Crescent gulped, she didn’t realize how big the figure was.
“What do you want?” she said, her voice loud enough to wake up any dragons sleeping nearby. The figure tried one last attempt to grab hold of Winter, clasping hold of his wrists with black gloves. Three moons, every scale on the dragon was covered! Crescent stomped her foot down on the mysterious figures' talons. They screamed in pain and tumbled backwards. Crescent grimaced, Winter would feel that when he woke up. Crescent moved forward, preparing fire that burned hot in her throat.
“You asked for this.” She said. With one sudden fluid motion, the figure reached into its pockets and pulled out three throwing knives. Crescent had barely any time to react, she managed to stumble backwards, and bring her talons to cover her face. She tripped on Winter’s body and fell backwards onto him. The knives were sent flying,
Thunk, thunk, tink.
Crescent removed her talons from her face, and immediately felt the sharp searing pain of the knives. The figure backed away and rushed down the alley, Crescent thought about chasing them, but noticed Winter had been injured. He had one of the small projectiles lodged into his side, and was beginning to bleed excessively.
“No, no, no…” Crescent said. She felt woozy at the sight of blood, her head began to feel fuzzy. She looked down, a knife was lodged into her thigh. She felt bile begin to rise in her throat. The worst part was that the spot the knife hit her was directly above Winter’s heart. If she had not fallen, he would have potentially died. The third knife was lodged into the bracelet Lucid had given her. She pulled it out, carefully. It left a divot in one of the delicate pale flowers, but other than that, it was unharmed.
Crescent sighed a breath of relief, it seemed they were all okay, but she needed to get out of there in case back up came. She tried to pick up Winter so she could fly to his hut, but realized how impossible that would be. She could hardly drag him, it would be impossible to fly with him, and she did not want to wait around for him to wake up. She grabbed him under his armpits and began to drag him to the only place she could think of:
Lucid’s apartment…
