FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

5017

Her heart slowed to a crawl, each beat long and heavy. The walls and ceiling felt like they were closing around her, intangible and yet inescapable, like a prison too small. Too small to move, too small to breathe, her lungs barely able to hold onto the precious air that kept her alive.

Her head turned towards the exit, she saw Queen Glory holding a talon out but she couldn't reach it, the exit was moving further and further away by the second, each beat of her heart making it shrink with flash of colors. She couldn't escape. She would be trapped here forever with her parents. She could feel their talons crawling towards her, closing around her and not letting go. Ever. She tried to pull her wings over her body protectively, but they wouldn't obey her. She closed her eyes. A thick and warm liquid trailed down her cheeks. Her whole body was shaking madly, her head grew dizzy, she was stuck.

Like a giant beast looming over her, a warm shadow spread suddenly, pulling her tightly against them. One by one, her muscles relaxed and gave up under her weight, her heart slowed down to beat normally again.

Then everything faded as if she was falling asleep under the softest of canopy.

***

"She's about to wake up, Your Majesty." Was the first thing she heard.

_ How long have I been out? Where am I? Was it all a dream?_

She blinked a couple times, she could sense it was the middle of the day again. Same day? She heard dragons approaching as she tried to get up. A firm but gentle talon held her down.

"Take your time, little one, it's been quite a shock for you"

It was Queen Glory's voice.

"What... How...", so many questions rushed to her mind, she wasn't sure which one to ask first, "Is it... true?" was the question that eventually came out.

She feared the answer but she had to know, deep inside she had a small hope that it was just a nightmare, that she just fell, hurt herself and that she had been dreaming all along and she woke up in the healer's pavilion -because she had recognized it, the sounds and the smells were unmistakable-.

"I'm afraid it is, dear", said Glory in what seem to be the softest voice she could muster without breaking. The Queen seemed quite affected by the loss too.

Moonlight stood up and put her head in her talons, she felt dizzy again but not to the point of losing consciousness. She could sense a couple Rainwings next to her ready to act if she eventually did. Thoughts and questions raced in her mind so fast she barely could make any sense of them or even concentrate on a single one. What am I to do now? Should I go and avenge my parents? But who killed them and could I kill in retaliation? Do I really want to? Who is going to take care of me now? Can I ask to be emancipated at 3? What was that purple glow in the house? Why did I leave for the Seawing festival? Why couldn't have I said "I love you" to my parents one last time? Is the murderer nearby? Why can't I read minds like all normal mindreaders? Can my power help me?

"UUUUGH!" she cried out loud which made Glory jump in surprise and bend over her.

"Are you OK?" she asked concerned.

"Nooo...", she said with a lump in her throat, "No, I'm not OK, I have so many questions in my head and I cannot answer any of them, and why me? Why my parents? What did they do?", she trailed off and sighed loudly before smashing her head into the pillow and groaned.

She felt Queen Glory's wings wrapping around her gently as she did when she fell unconscious.

"I will help... I mean, we will all help you understand what happens if you want." She softly advanced.

Moonlight rose from the pillow and sighed desperately.

"Thank you, My Queen. I think I may be a little young for all that and help is really appreciated... But first, I erm... sorry to ask...", she flustered.

"Yes please, don't hesitate to ask, I will do whatever I can to help." offered Glory.

"I... I am awfully hungry, can I ... have something to eat, please?"

Glory cocked her head in sudden surprise and then burst out laughing for a good minute before she replied.

"Well, I didn't expect this demand... Of course, you can!", she pointed at a Rainwing nearby and ordered him to bring food to the pavilion. "Or rather, I should have expected this demand. You've been out for a good week after all."

"THAT LONG?!" Moonlight cried.

"I'm afraid so." Glory sat next to her, "Which unfortunately means we had to take actions and... do the burial without you, I'm sorry"

"Oh." The small Nightwing said. "I guess I will be able to survive that."

The sound of wings outside the pavilion made her turn her head towards the entrance.

"Let me bring it to her." A soft voice said which she immediately recognized.

"Tamarin!" Moonlight cried.

The curtain pulled opened and revealed that unique Rainwing's aura. It seemed that no matter what she could never lose her calm.

"Moonlight, you are finally awake!"

"And I didn't cross the border." She observed, which was the way the Nightwings mentioned that they didn't die as they considered the passage between life and death like a one-way border to cross that under some conditions they could sometimes adjourn.

Tamarin put her forehead against Moonlight's and stayed there for a few seconds.

"I was really afraid to lose you too, you know." She whispered.

"I am sorry to have caused you trouble, Tamarin..."

Tamarin pulled away from Moonlight and put a talon on her shoulder.

"Don't ever be sorry to be alive, little one." She softly said.

Tamarin's voice had that soothing je-ne-sais-quoi that Moonlight found both reassuring and confounding. Something like she knew life would just find a way even in the direst situations.

Moonlight lowered her head a bit and smelled the fruits that her Rainwing friend brought and bit into one of them eagerly. She could feel the acid of the agrume tingling on her tongue. Its sweet juice tasted so good, she could just drink it all day. She quickly grabbed a second one then a third, mixing and matching different fruits until she felt satiated.

She sat down and stared up as if she was looking at something in the sky. Her thoughts started racing again in her head. There was something peculiar that kept coming at her. Something unique that she had to find. Something she just couldn't quite make up. She had a deep feeling that she had to go back and revisit her house somehow.

"My Queen", she said while still staring up, "have anything been moved in my house?"

Glory turned her head toward her for a short moment.

"No, I mean... Nothing apart from the bodies and the... blood, why?"

"I think there is something there that's the key to the murder."

"Mur... murder?!" Glory asked surprised.

"Yes." Moonlight said blankly, "I am convinced somehow this is one and not an accident."

"I see." Glory said without objecting, and continued with a serious tone, "I think you may be right, a few knowledgeable Nightwings told me it had been a strong explosion and the last one that I remember was in the school library with Carnelian, Bigtail...", her voice trailed off as she turned towards Tamarin.

"I'm... sorry, Tamarin." Said Glory apologetically, "I didn't mean to remind you of that, I would understand if you didn't want to come with us."

Tamarin barely moved.

"I will be fine." Said the blind Rainwing blankly.

Moonlight heart beat fast as they approached her house. She felt like she could never live there anymore again. She looked at Glory but the Queen didn't want to say anything. She turned her head away again and breathed slowly as she stepped inside. The place smelled much nicer than she remembered, she could tell it had been cleaned thoroughly, the floor under her talon was cold and firm and no more slimy. She took a few steps inside. The familiar resonance she could perceive in each reassured her somewhat. She would have to get used to a new place though and leave all of this behind. Her life had taken a path she couldn't return from.

There was an unsurprising amount of nothing to find there. No abnormal scent, no unusual sound, and not even a single aura to see. Well, yes, there were auras of little grass blades coming from the ground and from a crack on the wall but nothing really out of the ordinary, even that purple glow didn't feel out of place under the cupboard.

"Wait, purple glow?", she realized.

She approached it slowly. It was in the kitchen corner of the main room, where her parents would usually prepare food. Her mother enjoyed making fancy dinner for everyone, dicing meat and seasoning it before serving. She found it nicer and more fun than just biting into the raw leg of an animal.

As she inched closer to it, another dragon stepped in front of her as if he hadn't seen her. He looked like he was staring at the ground with his nose almost touching it, holding something in his talon that he had positioned right in front of his right eye. Was it a magnifier? Like the one Starflight used to read scrolls with very small characters?

He moved as if he was licking the floor and kept repeating "Hmm, yep, yepyep..." all the time. The aura on his head was blocked by something that appeared to be a cap with two bills, at least from her point of view, one in front which seemed normal when it was sunny outside and one on the back.

"Why does he need to protect his neck from the sun?" Moonlight thought to herself.

The dragon didn't notice Moonlight staring at him and promptly bumped into her. He quickly took a step back and looked up at her.

"Oh, hi, I didn't see you there. Are you a relative to the deceased? Well, of course you are. You wouldn't be there if you weren't. Oh, yes, you're their daughter, aren't you? hmm yes, really sad. My condolences then. I'm sure there's a good reason for this murder.", he continued speaking in a single breath as he appeared to study Moonlight from horn to claws, "Jealousy it seems, they, your parents, had something they, the murderer, couldn't have. And it has to do with you."

Moonlight was too subjugated to interrupt him, as he advanced and forced her to step back until she was stuck against a wall.

The dragon turned around for a second then turned back.

"But what!?" he taunted, looking straight in her eyes.

He stopped, petrified, with his gaze not able to leave Moonlight's as he stumbled backward, falling on his tail.

"I... I'm sorry, I... er, I did... didn't know you erm... were...", he paused for a second, and just as fast, his shocked look was replaced by one of strange confidence, "Hi, I'm Sheerluck, bound to solved mysteries in Pyrrhia! I'm the greatest detective there is since... well, since my father...", he continued in a whisper with a talon between his muzzle and Moonlight's ear, "and my mother, but she cheats: she can read minds!"

The dragon stood there proudly and Moonlight wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. He looked quite different than a Nightwing, much smaller actually, and although most of his features were reminiscent of a Sandwing such as his dorsal crest that still stopped midway through his tail where the poison barb was missing, his facial expression, his long horns and his general posture were more akin to one of her own tribe.

"Nice to meet you... I guess?" she eventually offered.

"Ahah yes yes! Nice to meet me, I mean, erm.. you too! Say... are you... blind?", he crouched in front of her while asking quietly as if he couldn't hold his curiosity but still tried to hide it.

"That's correct", she answered politely.

He blinked once and grinned.

"Oh but you can still see, can't you? Hmm, yes, you have the mind-reader's marks, so that means when you were born blind, the magic evolved into a unique power that lets you see living things, so I'd say you can see the auras of living things, am I correct?"

"In...deed you are but... how?", Moonlight replied, confused.

"Well, it's not like I'd say something like _Elementary my dear 'n whatnots but when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. So." He paused as to create a dramatic moment, "You clearly didn't notice your parents bodies according to the witness reports I got but you do react to me right in front of you and you seem to able to tell what I'm doing judging by your reactions. Thus, and unless there's any Animus magic involved in there, the only reason for you to be able to do that is to be able to see auras or something similar."

Moonlight thought for a short moment and took a proud stand too.

"But despite your power of deduction, you couldn't notice the glowing purple paper under the cupboard, could you?"

"The what now?", he asked taken aback.

Moonlight walked past him and to the cupboard, she opened the drawer and pulled a knife that she slid carefully on the ground under it and very carefully felt the piece of scroll with the tip of the knife until she could pull it from under the piece of furniture and then held it in the air.

Sheerluck stood there with his jaw on the ground.

"How did you know it was there?", he asked.

"As you said, I can see auras, and this scroll has one.", she replied.

She stared at it in her talon for a bit, "A very shiny piece of scroll..." She thought.

Tamarin, who has stayed quiet until now, stepped closer and sniffed it.

"I do not smell anything special on it but the usual burnt scent... If I remember what we discussed with StarFlight, only living beings have auras, is that correct?"

Moonlight nodded some.

"Yes, it is correct, however, this one is unique. Normally the auras are all the same color: white, what differentiate them is the way each one vibrates. So each dragon has a unique vibration, same for each tree or sloth...", she explained.

"So, what's so special about this one?" asked Tamarin.

"It's purple."

Glory looked at her then at Tamarin and back at her.

"What does that mean?", she inquired.

"I don't know, I don't think I ever saw such an aura bef...", she abruptly stopped, her figure frozen as her brain started running at ludicrous speed.

For a long moment, she was lost in her thoughts, it was like she could see flashes of all the events and interactions she ever had as if she was trying to find a single detail in each one that would be the answer to this puzzle.

Then it hit her, the image zoomed in right in front of her. She could see each moment of it in slow-motion with very minute details. That purple flash when she bumped into her. Then when she pulled her away to the separate room, and then when she danced with her. It was there all along, it was surrounding her permanently.

It was Tidal.

Something touched her shoulder and she jumped in surprise.

"Moonlight? Are you OK?", asked Queen Glory.

"I... I think... I may know who did this.", she said somberly.

"Oh! That's great then!"

"No. No, it's not.", she said closing her eyes.

Moonlight rolled the scroll and walked out of the house, followed by Queen Glory and Tamarin. She didn't look back at them and she didn't even say a word. She just took off immediately. Queen Glory and Tamarin might have objected or said something but she hadn't heard anything among the loudness of her thoughts.

The Rainwings didn't seem to have followed her in the sky, they probably thought she was going to need to be alone for a while. But when she took a peek a few moments later, she noticed couple sets of wings far away. Queen Glory probably wouldn't want to let her go do stupid things on her own and she had sent camouflaged Rainwing after her. "She knows I can still see them, right?"

Moonlight wasn't sure if it was Tamarin along with a guard Rainwing behind her but she didn't want to stop to check, she'd rather try to keep as much distance from them as she could._

Her thoughts had kept her so busy, she only noticed when the cold of the night engulfed her that she had been flying all day. In front of her, she could see the incoming blindness of the sea and at the same distance behind her she could see the two dragons auras. She wondered how long they were going to follow her, she certainly didn't want them to go where she was going. She wanted to be alone.

Soon she would be above the sea, would they still follow?

But for now, she had to rest, although she knew the Summer Palace was straight forward, she couldn't even see its black shape cutting through the horizon. She wouldn't be able to go there in one go and her only option was to stop before the sea. She was in the middle of the Mud Kingdom and too far from the forest after Safe Harbor. She knew that if she stopped, the Rainwings would catch up to her and she'd have to explain herself, which she didn't want to do -hell, she didn't even want to explain her actions to herself-.

"I need to confront her myself. Alone. I can't let anyone else find out. I need to know first. I need to ask why. Why did she do it? What did I... they do to her? That makes no sense at all, she's just a dragonet like me. What if she turned mad? What could have happened to her?" her mind kept churning hard with non-stopping questions, which barely made any sense. She shook her head and dipped a wing as she had noticed a small group of trees that seemed dense enough to maybe hide her for the night.

"But what if they still can see me? What does the trees look like to them? Can they see me through them or will they hide me enough? Can they see my scales through the trees?"

She remembered the scrolls she read about how Nightwings were near invisible at night especially when they stayed still, but that was just the theory, what if she stood out like a sore claw.

She was getting tired and hungry. They were still a good distance from her so if she moved quickly, they may lost her sight long enough. She dove suddenly in circles to approach the grove from its other side in the hope to confuse them.

As she touched the ground, she folded her wings and crouched as best as she could listening for a good while. The trees auras blocked her view but she could recognize the sound of a wing for certain and so a few minutes later she heard dragons approaching and flying above for a couple minutes before leaving. She stayed still until way after the heat from the sun had been replaced by the cool nocturnal wind wondering if they would come back. Eventually she concluded that they had stopped looking for her for the night.

"They might be waiting for me when I leave in the morning. I will have to be careful."

Meanwhile, her hunger had grown unbearable and she had to hunt. It didn't take her long to find a rabbit that thought it would be safe to roam around at night. She ate slowly, trying to make as few noise as possible and also to not think. Part of her wanted to calm down and go back to the Nightwing village as this was certainly foolish and there could be no way that Tidal was responsible for this but the biggest part of her was curious. Curious to know why. Curious to know if it was true. Even if the risks were high.

She fell asleep in the middle of her thoughts with her head resting on a small bush, her wings sore from flying all day.

The sun rays felt like a soft and warm caress on her scales when she woke up. The Mud Kingdom could be as harsh as the Sand Kingdom some days but the grove she hid in provided enough shade to feel comfortable. Moonlight stretched and looked around. On the outskirt of the grove, there was a rivulet going directly to the sea. She approached it carefully, checking around to make sure no other dragon noticed her and slowly drank from it.

She stretched her wings some, the soreness had passed and she felt like she could go flying for the day.

She sighed.

On one talon, it was a really stupid idea, but on the other, if she really did it, she would have to explain herself really well!

"But what if she didn't do it? Ugh!"

She looked back towards the Nightwing Village, it would be so easy to just give up, fly back and just forget about it.

_ No!_

She stomped her talon on the ground.

"Take it into your talon, Moonlight! No one is going to do it for you! Find the truth even if it's going to take you a lifetime."

And with that, she spread her wings wide and took off over the sea. She turned her head after a while but she could see no one following her.

A dragon shadow was breezing above the clouds.