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The Haunted Volcano
"I can't believe you talked me into this," Winter huffed, doing his best not to melt under the oppressive heat radiating out of the very rock around him, "This place is miserable and unsettling. And why did you have to pick today of all days?"
Beside him, Moonwatcher rolled her eyes. "Relax," she assured him, "The volcano is nowhere close to erupting anymore. And as for today…I've told you this before, Winter. Halloween is no different than any other day. I thought I told you last year—none of those legends are actually true."
Erupting volcanoes and old legends aren't what I'm worried about, Winter thought to himself, looking around at the empty halls around him. It was just so…eerie. From the moment that the pair of them had stepped through the tunnel and onto the island, Winter had felt a shiver go down his spine, and as an Icewing that was not exactly normal. And it had only grown worse once they stepped into the ruins of the Nightwings' old home.
Empty rooms full of dust and ash. Suffocating corridors devoid of light and life. Cobwebs hanging in every corner. Here was a dragonet's toy discarded on the ground, there a shattered mirror. All around were echoes of life now vacant. The rooms and hallways bore all the signs of the dragons that had deserted this once bustling kingdom, yet all looked like at any moment life might return and overtake the death and neglect it was left in.
And there was something deeply unsettling to Winter about all that. He couldn't quite put a talon on why, but the sound of every clawstep's dim echo put his body on high alert. Every odd shadow made him nearly jump in alarm. And only the flickering of Moon's torch illuminated the dark and dreary place, keeping away the darkness that would trap them in this unfamiliar labyrinth—despite both Icewing and Nightwing night vision, neither could see in the true absence of light should the torch go out.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Winter asked, "I can't help but be reminded that you didn't exactly grow up here."
"I'm pretty sure, but I have the map that my mom drew for us at any rate," she motioned down to the pouch around her neck. "…Just like I told you the last few times you asked. Seriously, Winter. You can relax. The library isn't too far from here."
Winter hoped that she was right. He hadn't been sold on the idea of exploring the ruined volcano to begin with, let alone searching for a room full of scrolls. They were in a volcano that had erupted, for the Three Moons' sake. Anything even remotely made of parchment would have likely been burned to a crisp. But Moon had insisted on going to look and see, and Winter wasn't about to let his mate go wondering around an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous ruin of a city alone.
"For the record, I'm pretty optimistic that the scrolls could have survived," Moon said, no doubt reading his mind and seeing those doubts. "I mean, look around you. Most of this stuff looks to be in pretty good condition. There's a decent chance that the hot ash and lava completely avoided the library."
"I guess so…" Winter said noncommittally. He really didn't know enough about volcanoes to say more. He did know that they were plenty hot, though. So he was eager to find the library, locate some scrolls, and get out of the desolate ash heap and back to the rainforest well before the Halloween party started back in the Rainforest. "So…are there any scrolls in particular you're looking for?"
"Mom wanted me to look for The Tale of Seven Wings if it survived, but other than that, not really. Anything would be neat, though, just to bring back and add to the new library they're building at the Nightwing village. It would be like returning a lost piece of history. I mean, look at us!" She glanced back at him and grinned, a teasing gleam in her eyes. "We're like a pair of archaeologists!"
"I guess recent history is still history," he shrugged his wings but matched her smile. "Although you have to admit that this place feels like it was abandoned a thousand years ago, not five."
"It really does," she agreed, "I just hope that we don't stumble upon anything…unpleasant while we're here."
"Unpleasant?" Winter asked, suddenly growing worried—a feeling that was exasperated by his surroundings. "What do you mean?"
He saw her falter a little and grimace. "I mean like…the remains of dragons that didn't make it out."
Winter paused, "Wait. I thought that all the Nightwings evacuated before the eruption."
Moon shook her head grimly. "That was the official story to the other tribes, more or less. But you can't expect an entire tribe to just get up and leave orderly with only minutes warning. Between the chaos of the evacuation and eruption and the number of Nightwings who chose to fly to the mainland over sea instead of taking the tunnel and bowing to Queen Glory, no one really knows how many dragons didn't make it out."
"So what you're saying," Winter began, feeling unsettled, "Is that not only is this place a deserted ruin, but it's likely also a tomb?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
He brought a talon to his face. "And you tell me not to worry?"
Moon giggled, prompting him to glare at her indignantly. "Oh, don't be such a scaredy-sloth," she told him, stealing the Raingwing lingo, "If there's anything down here, it's long dead. We have nothing to worry about aside from maybe an unsettling moment or two. But it's nothing we haven't had to go through before."
"I guess…" he trailed off. While it's true that in the war and in their little Darkstalker adventure he'd seen his share of death, Winter still just felt off about it all. The place around him radiated a feeling that Winter had seldom experienced before, one of lurking danger and echoes of pain. All that, mixed with this being the day that spirits were supposed to rise and lurk for bodies to steal, made him thoroughly uncomfortable.
"Winter, no ghost is going to steal your body," Moon told him, once more reading his mind, "I told you, not even Nightwings believe that anymore. Ghosts aren't real."
"I know, I know," Winter shook his head. He hated this feeling, too. Of being scared at nothing. He was an Icewing, and Icewings were supposed to be made of stronger stuff than that. "Let's just get this over with and get back before the party starts. I know Foeslayer is waiting on us to dragonetsit Peacemaker again—I'm still surprised she trusts us after how we lost him last year."
"You're the one who lost him, for the record," Moon corrected with a knowing look, "But regardless, I think he knows better than to run off this time. You're right, though. There's no use in lingering here," she picked up her pace a little bit, "If the directions are correct, the library should be just down this next corridor to the left."
Winter nodded and followed as she led the way, a silence falling as they focused on making it to their destination. Winter's eyes shifted to the walls, observing some of the dust-covered paintings illuminated by torchlight. He noticed that many of them were portraits of queens. He wondered how many had already been forgotten by time.
Ka-Clunk!
Winter jumped in alarm as a loud clunking sound echoed behind them. He whipped his head around and spread his wings, putting himself firmly between whatever was behind them and Moonwatcher. Eyes alert, teeth bared, he stared at…at…
Nothing.
The hallway was empty, save for one of the portraits that was laying broken on the ground, a small cloud of dust and ash rising up from where it had fallen.
"One of us must have bumped it," Moon said, looking at the scene from behind him, "Or maybe after all this time the vibrations of our clawsteps was enough to make it fall."
Winter's eyes continued to scan the scene, but he saw nothing more. "Yeah," he finally said, still staring, "That was probably it."
Shaking his head, they continued. None of the other portraits fell, of course. Nor did they even seem to shake as they passed. Winter noticed this small detail, but he didn't say anything. But he did kind of wish he was a mindreader like his mate so he could see if she found it as unnerving as he did.
Ah well, Winter thought to himself, trying to put the concern out of his mind, At least the temperature is more pleasant.
He paused at that revelation. He hadn't even noticed it until now, but as they went deeper into the volcano they should be getting closer to the lava and thus be getting hotter. But where he was standing now felt as cold as the Ice Kingdom. It would have been comfortable if it wasn't so unusual.
"Hey Moon," he asked, "Are you cold?"
She glanced back at him. "Of course I'm not. It's roasting in here, even for a Nightwing."
"Oh."
She stared at him for a moment, then frowned. She turned around and stepped towards him, but as she did the spot of cold just…vanished. The heat returned, as hot as it had been before. Winter wasn't sure if he should be happy or disappointed about that.
Moon looked him over. "Okay, that is odd."
"It was cold," Winter insisted.
"I know, I believe you," Moon said, "I spend enough time in your mind to know that you legitimately felt something. I'm not sure what it is, though. Probably something perfectly natural, if I had to guess."
"There's nothing perfectly natural about this place," Winter huffed. "Corridors don't just shift temperature."
"Well…" Moon shrugged her wings, "There's a lot we don't know about volcanoes. Maybe some cold air got trapped here somehow and is working its way out of the caves."
Winter just grunted. "I guess that's possible…"
He shook his head as they soldiered on. But at this point he was now on an even higher alert. His body in a sense of fight or flight. He felt now certain that something wasn't right here, and he wasn't going to let it harm himself or Moonwatcher.
Winter could picture in his mind a dark monster slithering through the dark, striking at them and sinking its teeth into their scales. Or maybe it was a host of undead dragons, flesh horribly burned, stalking them until they seized them and dragged them to the base of the volcano to drown them in lava. He steeled himself against whatever horror that hopefully was not waiting for them in this miserable forsaken place.
What he wasn't quite ready for was the giggling sound of a young dragonet sounding in the hallway. Faint and barely audible, as though only the echo of an echo. Yet it was enough to make the spines on his back stick straight up.
"D—did you hear that?" He asked Moon, the sound beginning to push him from fight to flight. Monsters were one thing, giggling spirits were another.
"No," she answered flatly, "Winter, please. This place is bad enough without you hearing things. Please just try to relax. We're almos—see, here we are!"
She'd stopped in front of a large pair of doors that were halfway open. Her torch half-illuminated the interior, and Winter could see rows and rows of shelves inside. Moon leaned back on her haunches and lifted a claw to wipe away the dust on a sign above the door. It read The Starlight Library.
"Funny that they would name it that when it's buried under a mountain where the stars don't shine," Moon joked. Winter didn't feel like laughing.
They stepped inside, brushing away a particularly large cobweb that was stretched across nearly the entire entranceway. Winter glanced around, expecting to see nothing but charred remains of wood and parchment. But to his surprise, it looked like Moon was right. There were the scroll racks, and there were the scrolls. They were all dusty, but intact. The library had survived the eruption.
"I knew it," Moon said, grinning from ear to ear, "Look at all these scrolls! It's more than a dragon could ever hope to read!"
Her enthusiasm was enough to make Winter crack a smile. "Anything you want me to look for? I imagine we can carry out quite a few between the two of us." And maybe a few less, so I can keep a claw ready to fight…
"Start by looking for the history scrolls," Moon told him, rushing over to one of the shelves and raising the torch to look over the titles and labels. "That's the kind of stuff that will be the most important to recover, I'd imagine. I'll look for the story mom asked for, and anything else that looks good. We might have to come back here again to get more, too!"
With a nod, Winter got to work. He really didn't like the idea of having to come back later, but that wasn't at the forefront of his mind right now. He was still paranoid from the atmosphere of the place, but he decided to try to take his mind off of it with his search.
History scrolls….history scrolls, He searched through the shelves, trying to make out what was there. It didn't help that it was Moon that held the torch, giving only the briefest flickers of light to aid in his night vision. It looked like he was at a group of scrolls that were all memoirs of previous queens. Which hopefully meant that he was close.
He moved to his right. The types of scrolls changed—they were all now on mathematics and engineering and other calculative theories. There were lots of these, and Winter noticed that many of them looked newer than the others despite being dust-covered. He picked one of the newer looking scrolls up and read the title: The Nine Theories on Engineering Design and Principle. It was by a dragon named Mastermind.
"Leave."
Winter jumped and dropped the scroll with a clatter as a voice as loud as a whisper screamed in his ears. He whipped his head back and forth, looking for the source. It had been an effeminate voice, but it was not Moonwatcher's.
"Leave. Now."
Eyes wide with growing fear, he turned to Moon. She was searching the shelves behind him, looking at the top row without any air of concern at all.
"Did you hear that?" he asked, unable to keep a tremble from his voice.
"You mean the scroll you dropped? Yes, I heard it."
"No, a voice," he said, meeting her eyes. "It just told me to leave."
She stared back at him. "Winter…" she began, then frowned.
"You don't belong here. Bad dragons shouldn't be here."
The voice was louder now, pounding as though its source was inched from his ears. He raised his claws and covered them as he winced. "Moon! You must hear that."
"I don't, Winter," she shook her head. "But…I…wait…I don't know."
"What is it?" he pressed, "Moon, something isn't right here."
"Leave! Go away! Shoo!"
The voice was growing shriller. But despite its volume it almost sounded like it was lacking a confident authority, as though it was pleading for him to follow the command and confused why he wasn't. It sounded like a young dragonet imitating a parent without the means to enforce their demand.
"It kind of feels like there's another mind here," Moon admitted. "Or it did there for a second. I can't explain it. It's like I could read a mind of a dragon, but so faintly I'm not sure it was even there. Like text on a parchment bleached by years under the sun." She shook her head. "But it's probably nothing…just nerves, or a visitor to the island outside of the caves. Winter, I agree this place is spooky. I don't find it pleasant, either. But for the last time, Halloween or not, there are no spirits or ghosts haunting this volcano!"
And it was as she made that statement—as the word "volcano" was still on her tongue—that a scroll was launched from the shelf across from Winter, flew through the air, and smacked him on the side of the head without either of them lifting a talon.
Both Icewing and Nightwing looked down at the scroll where it landed on the ground, half-unraveled. Winter raised a claw to his head and rubbed where it had hit before lifting his eyes to look at Moon again. "You were saying."
Moonwatcher faltered. "I'm sure there's a perfectly logica—"
Another scroll flew across the room and hit him. Then another, and another. Winter covered his face with a claw as they began flying at him from all directions striking him at odd angles.
"Go away! Go away!" the loud and childish voice echoed, "Bad dragon! Go away!"
In desperation he began to rush back towards the library entrance to get away from the scrolls, even as one unraveled in flight and landed on his face, impairing his vision. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be thrown very hard. Even a few thicker scrolls barely hit him with enough force to bruise.
"Go away! Bad Icewing!"
"Stop!" he cried as he neared the entrance, then tripped before he could reach it. He threw his wings over his head for protection. "Stop it!"
"Go away!"
Then he heard Moon's voice crying out: "Whoever you are, please stop! We're not here to hurt you. Winter isn't going to hurt you!"
The scrolls stopped.
There was silence for a moment, the only sound their breathing and some of the scrolls rolling on the ground. Winter slowly lowered his wings and looked at Moon. She was standing right where she had been before—none of the scrolls had been aimed at her.
"He's…not?" the voice asked. It was quieter and sounded confused.
Moon's eyes widened. "O—okay," she said, and she gave Winter an apologetic look, "I heard it that time."
"He's not?" the voice asked again.
"Umm…no," Moon said, her eyes shifting around as she tried to ascertain where the voice came from. "Neither of us are. We just came to get some scrolls."
"Oh." There was a pause. "But he's an Icewing, isn't he?"
"Yes?" Moon answered, although it was more of a question back to the voice.
"But…Icewings are bad."
Moon gave a small smile. She strode over to where Winter was just climbing back to all fours. "Not this Icewing," she said, giving him a kiss on his cheek as she helped him steady himself, "Winter is a very, very good Icewing."
The voice was silent for a few moments. "But mommy said that Icewings were bad dragons."
Winter kept his claws bared, preparing for another attack as he eyed the scrolls around him warily. Moon just shifted on her claws, eyes still searching for the source of the voice. "I'm sure that she just meant that Nightwings and Icewings don't get along," she tried to explain, "Which we didn't for a long time. But things are getting better now. We're able to recognize that just having white or black scales doesn't make a dragon good or bad. Does that make sense?"
"I…I guess so."
"Good," Moon smiled. "Now, why don't you come out of wherever you're hiding. You've been scaring Winter, and I'm sure that we'd both be relieved to get a look at you."
"Moon!" Winter whispered harshly, although the act seemed foolish to him considering the spirit seemed to basically be next to him at times without being seen, "What are you doing?"
"It's a dragonet!" Moon hissed back, "She's probably trapped down here. We need to take her back to the Rainforest."
Winter stared at her. After all this time…after what she'd seen with the scrolls, was she still thinking that this whole situation was natural. "Moon, think about it, what is a dragonet doing down here? How could one survive? There is nothing alive down here."
"But…but…" Moon stammered. Her wings slumped, "I don't know, Winter. But—"
"I don't know if I can show myself," the voice answered, "Not here. But maybe if you follow me…Oh! Yes! Follow the leader."
One of the scroll racks shook and a few of the scrolls fell to the floor. The commotion began to move away from them, deeper into the library.
Moon looked at Winter and hesitantly stepped in that direction. Winter shook his head. "No. No way, Moon. I am not about to follow some ghost dragonet down a dark pathway into the unknown."
"Yes you are."
"No. I am most certainly not."
"You definitely are. And do you know why?"
"Why?" Winter snorted.
"Because I am."
With that she turned and followed the voice that was singing a little "Tra-la-la-la-la," song that echoed in the emptiness of the room. Winter growled and pursued her—he knew he couldn't stop her but also wouldn't let her go alone. It was one of the worst things about having a mindreader for a mate—she always knew exactly what to do to get him to do something.
And that was how Winter found himself in the library of a blazing hot tomb, surrounded by dust and ash, following the ghostly voice of a female dragonet that had moments ago been pelting him with scrolls.
Halloween had officially become his least favorite holiday.
Moon suddenly paused in front of him, almost causing him to run into her. He opened his mouth to chastise her for it, but words died in his throat when he noticed that her attention was focused firmly downward. He followed her gaze, and his stomach fell just a little bit more.
There were a few clawsteps there, faintly showing against the dust and ash. Ahead, they appeared deeper and clearer, as though a heavier dragon had made the same imprints. But behind them—and Winter looked back with discomfort to double and triple check—there were no clawsteps at all. It was as if they had materialized from nothing. Which was no surprise at this point to Winter, but to Moon…
"Three Moons," she whispered, "I think this is a ghost."
Despite himself, Winter couldn't help but give a small chuckle. "Took you long enough." He put a protective wing around her for both of their security, and the pair continued on.
"Hurry up! Almost there," the voice said, "I don't really like it here, though. It's…painful. But I feel more here here."
Moon looked at Winter uncertainly at that, but despite his own desire to flee he guided her forward. She had been the one to insist on this course of action, after all. And if he was honest, there was some amount of terrified curiosity that pushed him forward as well.
And then they stopped at the end of the room, nowhere else to go. Moon raised the torch, and Winter saw that this end of the library looked noticeably worse than at the entrance. Many of the shelves had been toppled, and debris was everywhere. There was a very large pile of rubble there, too, from a section of the wall and ceiling that had fallen when the volcano had erupted. Moon stepped closer to that pile, and Winter saw bits of broken wood and scrolls under it. And there, amidst them, just poking out of the rock and stone, was the broken skeletal claw of a dragon.
"Mommy and I were both here when the ground started shaking," the voice suddenly said, making both Moon and Winter jump in alarm. "One moment we were having fun. She was reading me a fun story, and we were going to go play on the beach later. Then the loud rumble happened. I heard screaming. Then a crushing weight fell on mommy and me."
As the voice spoke, a change began to happen in front of them. Dust seemed to raise from the ground as though from clawsteps, swirling in the air. Above it, there was a shimmer in the air. A wink and a twitch barely illuminated by the torch. But then it began to take some semblance of a form, like a Rainwing uncamouflaging itself. Soon, it looked like an outline of a dragon, then more specifically of a Nightwing. As the seconds passed, the features became clearer, although the form never solidified—Winter could still see the wall and debris that was behind the specter through the specter.
And she was, as both Moon and him had deduced, just a young dragonet—no more than two years old. Or at least that's how she appeared. Her translucent scales were vaguely purplish, as were her eyes, and the spines on her back were still little more than harmless nubs. There was a swirling scale pattern throughout her body like the shifting of starts in the night sky, which Winter couldn't tell was an illusion of the light with the floating ash or her natural appearance.
"That—that's horrible," Moon offered in reference to her words, "I'm so sorry that it happened to you…you…I'm sorry, but what's your name."
"Destinymaker, but I go by Destiny." The dragonet told her, "Mommy always said I'd have a great one."
Winter couldn't help but wince at that. Back when the Icewings had heard about the volcano and the Nightwings losing their home and bowing to Queen Glory, many of them had cheered. They had thought that the Nightwings had gotten what they deserved. But having come to know Nightwings and even mate one, now he just couldn't help but wonder how many other innocent dragons had seen their lives cut short due to the terror of the volcano's fury. It hurt to think about.
"It's nice to meet you, Destiny. I'm Moonwatcher, but you can call me Moon. And this is Winter." Moon set a claw on him as she introduced them, surprisingly calm despite the situation, then paused. "So why are you here now, Destiny?" she asked hesitantly. Winter was content to let her ask the questions—he was never as good with dragonets. He was sure that was even more true for ghost dragonets.
"I…I…" Destiny stuttered, "I don't know what you mean."
"It's just that…well…" Moon hesitated, "Are you the only one here?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then why are you here when the others aren't? Shouldn't you have moved on?"
The ghost was silent for a long time. She stared at them with wide, confused eyes. Winter noticed that she slowly drifted upwards where she stood, her claws not touching the floor, as if she were being lifted by a slight breeze.
"I don't know."
Moon looked at Winter helplessly. "I can't really read her mind," she told him, "Not like I can a living dragon. I'm not sure how it's possible for me to read her at all. But…I think she really doesn't know."
"But is she…" Winter looked at the small dragonet, who looked back at him curiously, "Okay?"
"I can't sense any maliciousness," Moon told him, easily catching his meaning.
Yes, well, she was content to beam me with scrolls just minutes ago, Winter huffed internally. But now she seemed harmless. But appearances could also be deceiving. This was a ghost, for the Three Moons' sake! Winter was still trying to come to terms with the fact this was real, let alone trying to converse with one like Moon was.
"Am I not supposed to be here?" Destiny asked, concern in her wide violet eyes, "I don't want to be here. It's lonely here. I miss mommy."
Winter swallowed nervously, the legends Moon had told him of Nightwing spirits stealing bodies coming to his mind. He didn't want to be taken over by a long-dead specter. He rather liked his body, and the life that he had with his mate and friends. He didn't want to lose all that. Yet something else came to his mind as her words sunk in.
"We Icewings have stories," Winter found himself saying, "That if a dragon dies with unfinished business, their soul may linger until their task is done. They have to have that satisfaction before they can move on."
Moon gave him a questioning look. "I thought you said that Icewings souls stay peacefully frozen in the snow until the end of days?"
"Mostly, yes," he nodded, "But we have our legends, too. All tribes have their own ghost stories…Darkstalker was and still is one." He turned back to the small spirit. "Do you have anything that's keeping you here? Something that you left undone?"
Destiny cocked her little head at him. "I don't think so…oh!" she suddenly began to bounce on her claws without ever touching the ground. "The scroll! The story!"
"What scroll?" Moon asked, looking genuinely interested.
"There was a really really really good story! Mommy was reading it to me when the ground began to shake and things went dark. She never finished it. I always wondered how it was going to end."
Winter blinked. It couldn't be that simple, could it? He looked at Moon, who shrugged her wings.
"Do you know where the scroll is?" she asked the ghost.
"Right there!" Destiny cried, pointing down at the base of the rubble that her body—and probably that of her mother as well—were buried under. And indeed, on the floor and just avoiding being crushed by the debris was a rugged looking half unraveled scroll. It must have been dropped or thrown in the chaos and bounced or rolled away during the eruption.
Moon gave the torch to Winter and picked up the scroll. He held the light up high to illuminate it as Moon dusted it off and unraveled it fully, her eyes scanning the parchment. Winter scanned it as well, intrigued by what had kept the dragonet's spirit in such a desolate place.
By all accounts, it appeared to be a normal scroll written for a dragonet. The words were written in large letters with simple sentences. The story, too, was rather simplistic, as one would expect from a story written for young dragonets. It looked to be about a Nightwing prince in the Old Night Kingdom who was on a quest to save a small village from a terrible troll that had been terrorizing them. Nothing more than a simple tale of bravery and heroism to teach those lessons to hatchlings.
"If this scroll was right here," Winter felt the need to ask once his eyes had looked it over, "Why didn't you read it yourself"
The ghost looked at him abashedly. "I can't read," she admitted, "Mommy was going to teach me, but the darkness came first." She paused, then looked at them pleadingly. "Can you read it to me? I wanna know how it ends. Please?"
Winter instinctively opened his mouth to refuse, but before he could say anything Moon smiled at the dragonet. "Sure. I'll read it to you."
"Yay!" the ghost cheered happily. Winter was less enthused.
"Moon!" he hissed warningly. Sure, the ghost was behaving, but they shouldn't be interacting with it like that. For all they knew it could be a trap, or the scroll could be cursed, or…
"Relax," Moon told him, wrapping her tail around his and squeezing him comfortingly. "She doesn't mean us any harm. And besides, this was your idea."
My idea was to find out if something was keeping her here, not read her a story, Winter thought. But he didn't fight his mate. No, Moon was the kind of dragoness that was always going to try to help others if she could, even little ghost dragonets.
It was one of the many reasons why he loved her.
Moon nestled herself down and patted the ground next to her invitingly. Winter sat down and put his wing around her as he raised the torch to illuminate the text below. He almost felt like laughing as he did so. Here they were getting comfortable, about to read a story to a ghost, in the middle of an abandoned city. If any dragon had asked him this morning, he'd have told them that helping defeat a mad animus bent on conquering Pyrrhia would be the craziest thing to ever happen in his life—that was no longer the case.
"Once there was a Nightwing Prince names Braveheart," Moon began the story, "He was a great warrior and—oh!"
She startled as Destiny stepped towards them and suddenly launched herself at them. Winter instinctively bared his claws, but he stopped as he saw that the launch fell short of her actually reaching them. Instead, she wriggled on the ground up to Moon, who watched her cautiously. But all the ghost dragonet did was curl herself up cozily on the floor and rest her weightless head on Moon's leg, below where she held the scroll. Like a dragonet resting on its mother.
Winter felt a sudden cold at the end of his tail (which actually felt a little good) as she did so, and he looked to see that her positioning of her body had actually put the end of his tail inside of her translucent body. He could see it through her scales, and he felt the same chilly feeling as he had in the hallway outside the library. But Destiny didn't seem to mind, and against his better judgement, Winter left his tail where it was.
"Go on," the dragonet urged, a smile on her face.
Moon returned it and started over. "Once there was a Nightwing Prince…"
Winter's eyes flickered between Moonwatcher and Destiny as his mate read the scroll. The dragonet looked completely comfortable and at peace as she listened to the story that she had waited so long to hear. The little smile never left her face, except for when she giggled or gasped in suspense at the story. She was completely enraptured by Moon's reading. And for her part, Moon read the story with as much character and energy as if it were a real dragonet she was reading to. She perfectly conveyed the thrill of the prince narrowly escaping a trap set by the troll, and she used a snarling and odious voice when conveying the trolls demands for him to abandon the village and the dragoness named Starcatcher that he'd fallen in love with along the way. And despite the simplicity of the story, Winter also found himself nearly as enraptured with Moon as Destiny was with the story.
If Moon treats our dragonets half as good as this ghost, she'll make a perfect mother, he thought to himself as he watched her make the spirit giggle as she described how the prince tricked the troll into getting stung by a thousand bees by slathering its head in honey. Secretkeeper had always been asking them when they planned to have dragonets of their own…maybe it was time that they actually consider it.
Which was kind of crazy thought to have with the current situation. But at the moment, it was almost easy to imagine Destiny as anything but a ghost. She could easily be any other dragonet, even a future one of their own.
"And so the troll was chased away, never to return. The prince threw his wings around the fair dragoness Starcatcher in celebration, and the whole town cheered when he took her back to his castle to be his mate," Moonwatcher read the final bit of the scroll, "They lived together in joy, forever and always. The end."
"Oh, good!" Destiny said as Moon finished, although there was less energy in her voice than before. She sounded tired, and her eyes were closed. "It had a happy ending. I like happy endings."
"So do I," Moon said. She raised a claw to stroke the dragonet's head, but her claw went right through her when she tried.
Winter cleared his throat as Moon instead began rolling up the scroll. "Well…she's still here," he pointed out, nodding to Destiny.
Moon shrugged. "It was worth a try."
But despite not needing oxygen, Destiny gave a loud yawn. "I'm sleepy," she said, "I'm going to take a little nap. Good night and—what did you say?"
Winter blinked. "Neither of us said anything."
"Not you." She was quiet for a second and then, "Mommy? There you are! I missed you!"
Winter looked around in alarm, afraid to see a second ghost, but there was nothing there. Destiny rose to her claws and smiled, looking upward into the darkness of the library. And then, just as she had appeared, she began to slowly fade away. Her well-defined scales became more of a silhouette, which then became more of a shimmer in the air as her features disappeared. Soon, she was gone altogether, the only sign that she had ever been there was a few small clawprints left in the dust.
Winter just stared at the now empty spot for a long while. The ghost was gone, and a part of him wanted to deny that the whole thing had happened. Certainly, that couldn't have been real. But he knew that it was. And he would be fooling himself if he tried to pretend otherwise. Yet, aside from a few scrolls getting thrown at him, meeting a spirit had not been bad. It…hadn't been unpleasant at all, aside from the eeriness.
"She's gone," Moon said from beside him, "I can't sense her anymore."
"Did she move on, then?" Winter asked, "Did she find her peace?"
"I think so," she answered, "I mean, she must have."
There was a moment of empty silence, then Moon began to chuckle, softly. She shook her head and smiled.
"What is it?" Winter asked her, not sure what she suddenly found so funny.
"Just…the power of story," Moon said, standing back up and stretching herself out, "To be so enthralled by one that it keeps a dragon here even after death, yearning to see the ending. I wish all problems and unfinished business in life and death were so simple and innocent, but all the same I can't help but feel like that's what I'd end up as a ghost for, too."
Winter snorted in amusement, standing up as well and following Moon back towards the front of the library, away from the pile of debris that marked the resting place of dragons. "That would be you," he said, "Staying after death just to read one last good scroll. At least you'd be able to read it, though."
"What about you?" Moon asked, "What would keep you around?"
Winter smiled. "Moon, I have a perfect mate and good friends. If I died today, I don't think anything would take that peace away from me enough to keep me here."
She returned his smile. "I think you're right about that. But perhaps it's not as bad as you'd think. After all, I think we both learned that not all spirits are bad, and not all ghosts are ghouls."
"But they are real," Winter pointed out. "At least for today."
"And they can be as sweet and innocent as any dragon," Moon said, "Regardless, I'm glad we were able to help her."
Winter definitely hadn't wanted to run into a ghost or interact with one at all. And if he were to do today over again, he would have forcibly carried Moon out of the volcano the second something felt off. But all the same…
"I am too."
The two walked on, side by side. They still had some scrolls to find and bring back and a Halloween party to attend. But Winter's heart was lighter than before, and the very atmosphere felt less dark and gloomy. The volcano was no longer haunted and the spirits inside, like Winter, had found their peace.