They returned to the village where Peregrine insisted on Shadowscale going to the healer's hut. The prince was reluctant, for it wasn't really a migraine, but he owed it to his friend to go so he did. A sweet NightWing named Hope checked him. She seemed to be subconsciously block his mind reading abilities, odd, but not uncommon. Though her eyes did linger a bit on the scales by his eyes, but that too could have been his imagination. After a short while, she declared that he was okay and showed him and Peregrine out.

Before he crossed the threshold, however, Dr. Hope held him back. "Are you sure you have nothing else to tell me?" She asked, staring at him like she knew something he didn't.

"N-no?" He replied, not knowing what she was getting on about.

She just frowned with disappointment, then leaned near his ear and whispered gently. "Remember hatchling, the longer you keep a secret, the worse the consequences shall be."

Her words had taken him by surprise. "What do you-"

"Come on Shadow! It's that Suntime thing your mother told you to be back by, right?"

Shadowscale glanced around and saw as all the RainWings migrated towards the platforms and hammocks.

"Oh, you're right." Shadowscale said. "I'll join in a little bit, I-"

He turned around to see that Hope had vanished, frowning, he turned back to his friend and shrugged. "Never mind, let's go."

He launched into the air again with Peregrine at his side.

"So... what is this 'Suntime?'" The SkyWing asked. 

"Well... for RainWings, it helps with their moods and camouflage scales. Also makes their scales more vibrant and gives energy. For me? I don't know really. Sure, it makes me energized, but just as much as any nap. I don't know about my scales, I never really saw a difference when I skip, and I just feel the same afterwards. It helps my sister though, me? Not so much. I just rather sleep during the day though. I think I take more from my NightWing side than RainWing when it comes to stuff like this..."

"Oh." Peregrine replied. "So, it's like a photosynthesis?"

"Photo- what?"

"Photosynthesis. The process by which plants use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water. In other words, sunlight helps produce energy for plants. From what you stated about energy, it just sounded a bit like it."

"Where did you learn about that?"

"A science scroll I read once. Obviously made by NightWings. They did a ton of experiments on how plants need sunlight, some by seeing what happens when they cover a plant all day, put a potted plant in the desert while also making sure it had plenty of water, things like that. It showed that some plants did really well in the desert, some died due to the heat but most survived. All the plants with no sunlight died though. It was boring but also interesting at the same time."

"Weird. About how similar plants are to RainWings that is."

Peregrine grinned. "I know right!?"

They landed on the royal platform nearest to the top of the Rainforest. Queen Glory turned elegantly in their direction and smiled.

"Ah, right on time. Now was that so hard?"

"My glorious and exquisite queen, don't be so hard on our son." Deathbringer said with his flirtatious smirk. Glory rolled her eyes playfully then smiled down at Peregrine. 

"Your parents are in the guest tree house across from our home. They are planning on staying a few days, you can join us if you'd like, but I'm assuming you rather return to them than nap with a whole bunch of RainWings." She joked.

"I actually think I would like a short nap. I am pretty tired..." Peregrine replied with a small yawn. Worrying about Shadowscale took much energy, I'm glad he's alright.

The prince winced slightly at that thought as guilt rushed through him. He didn't know why he kept his mouth closed, despite how everything screamed at him to tell him what really happened. But it was like an invisible presence was whispering for him to wait, that this wasn't the right time. But then... when?

Soon....sooooon, The presence seemed to say, though it was all a part of his imagination. Or perhaps it was fate, destiny speaking to him through his own powers. Whatever the case may be, he listened, for now.

He lay down at his mother's left with Peregrine to his left, and closed his eyes. As soon as he did so, he regretted doing so. 

The visions slammed into him hard. One where he is training with his father, another with him and Peregrine much older on a mountain. Peregrine and him in the kingdom of the sand, then in a cave, then in a different cave, but the same he had seen when he touched Peregrine. Then it showed the frightening visions where he saw his mother and father dead, Peregrine's body was there too now. A whispered voice seemed to speak in the background, low but clear. 

"To halt the rise of the darkest heart,
One must take a shadow's path,
The Prince of Night and Rain shall rise,
To save from a Dark Dragon's wrath.

Three are learned and three are seen,
Two are bad and one is good,
The missing awakens a darkness within,
To gain wealth and power, she hopes she could.

Night flies to meet the Sky,
With Day close behind,
Then Light and Dark join with possibility,
From a den Sand comes final with fates to bind.

To find the secret hidden and forgotten,
Night will need to follow the Sun,
Despair not for broken shells,
For all that's need intact is one.

Secret powers, secret caves,
Hidden away so none can see,
Peace be captured by evil's intent,
For peace is darkness' key.

Success they need,
Succeed they must,
For if darkness' wrath is unsheathed,
Pyrrhia shall turn to dust."

"Hey, Shadow! Wake up!" Peregrine called, shacking Shadowscale out of his sleep. He opened his eyes to a pair of concerned looking moss green orbs staring back at him. "You okay? You where mumbling some pretty scary stuff while you slept..."

"Like what?" Shadowscale asked, his scales turning a pale green.

"Like... it was mumbly, but I was able to make out 'darkest heart,' 'Dark Dragon's wrath,' 'broken shells,' 'evil's intent,' and the last one clearly, 'Pyrrhia shall turn to dust.' What where your dreaming about?"

"That was no dream." Shadowscale slipped. Peregrine cocked his head then nodded. "Nightmare then?"

"Yes, and one I wish to not talk about at the moment." He sighed, then rose. He glanced around and saw Queen Glory and Firefly still sleeping, Deathbringer watching vigilantly and pretending not to listen to his son an Peregrine's whispered conversation.

"I understand, sounds crazy whatever it was."

"How long has it been?" Shadowscale asked, shielding his eyes from the sky as he also tried to guess it's position.

"About 10 minutes, the moment I lay down, I suddenly felt all my energy return to me so your dad and I started chatting. Then you started to toss and turn and started mumbling gibberish and... yeah..."

"Don't tell your mother." Deathbringer whispered down. "I am supposed to be watching her while she rests, not chat. Though, I have to say you have some imagination."

"Thanks! Wait... that was a... complement... right?"

"Yes." Deathbringer replied with a wide grin.

Shadowscale remained quiet, staring at the ground as he became absorbed in his own mind. He remembered every word. It sounded like a prophecy, it had to be a prophecy...

"Hey, Peregrine? I'll see you latter, I have to go talk to someone..."

"Are you sure you want to go alone? I mean... your mi-"

"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for everything."

"Yeah, no-" Before he could finish, Shadowscale took off. "-problem..." He finished when his friend vanished into the foliage.

~☆~

"It definitely sounds like a prophecy." Moonwatcher stated several minutes after he finished uttering the final phrase to her. 

"Prophecy?" A male voice yawned from the direction of her bedroom causing the prince to jolt. "Dear moons not another Moon, can't you tell them to wait a several hundred more years?"

The owner of the voice popped his head out of the door and yawned loudly. The first thing Shadowscale noticed, was that he was neither a NightWing, nor a RainWing. He was a warmly handsome SandWing, with a scrawny, freckled snout and pale, sand colored scales. His most notable feature was a zigzagging scar across his snout and a single amber earring hanging off his left ear.

"Qibli." She said warmly and with a small smile. "They don't work that way. You can't reason with a prophecy."

"You sure you can't? I mean... it'd be nice if you can..."

"No Qibli, you can't. But I doubt it involves us, so you can rest easy. Besides, it's not mine, it's his." She assured, then flicked her tail towards Shadowscale.

"Oh..." He turned his attention towards Shadowscale, blinked a few times as if surprised he hadn't noticed the dragonet before. Shadowscale tried to see what he was thinking, but that only resulted in being blocked with a strange, staticky darkness.

He has a stone that can block mindreaders, I told him about it, and told him to keep it on.

Oh...

"So.... who are you? And you can see the future?"

"I'm Prince Shadowscale, and yes, I can also read minds..."

"Oh, Prince? So... you're Glory and Deathbringer's son? Awesome! Does anyone else know about your powers?" Qibli began.

"Yes, I am and no they don't. Only me, Moon, and now you know about them." Shadowscale replied.

"Oh... well... what's this prophecy, perhaps I can help."

"I rather-"

"Qibli is one of the smartest dragons I know, if he can't decipher this prophecy, then chances are no one can." Moonwatcher interrupted before Shadowscale could politely reject his offer. He was quiet for a small while then sighed, "Alright then..."

He repeated the prophecy, slowly, so Qibli could digest every word, every phrase. He nodded after each stanza, writing down each as Shadowscale repeated. The more he spoke of the prophecy, the more real it seemed. And the more real it seemed, the more terrified he became.

Qibli turned pale at that final sentence. "Moons... 'Pyrrhia shall turn to dust?' That doesn't sound good... but at least it's straight forward!"

"I mean..." Shadowscale said, turning his attention back to Moonwatcher. "He's not wrong."

"True..." She finally sighed.

"Alright! Let's focus on one stanza at a time..." Qibli began. He pulled out a scroll and began to write down the prophecy. Then under it, he drew a line and wrote in bold, "Interpretation."

"Alright, for the first. 'To halt the rise of the darkest heart, One must take a shadow's path, The Prince of Night and Rain shall rise,To save from a Dark Dragon's wrath.' Hmmm.... what did you see when this stanza showed?"

Shadowscale shuffled nervously as he wracked his brain. "They where so fast, there was a few... Red eyes, dark figure, blood, bodies everywhere, me training with my dad. Then more blood, fire, and bodies..."

He began to shake, tears stinging his eyes and he found it increasingly hard to breath as he recalled his visions. Moonwatcher was instantly at his side, wrapping a kind, almost motherly wing around him. Soothing him with thoughts and words of safety. Qibli felt terrible, but he also knew that it was necessary to know.

"Obviously, you have to train with your father. I don't know any other Prince of Night and Rain, unless it's talking about Glory's brother, but I assume it's you that the world depends on. It also seems like an evil dragon is on the rise. One who sounds angry, evil..." He began to write everything down in bullet points as he spoke. When he finished, he looked over his words and the prophecy to see if he missed anything, then moved on to the next stanza.

"'Night flies to meet the Sky, with Day close behind, then light and dark join with possibility, from a den Sand comes final with fates to bind. Interesting... this one is complicated... what... what did you see here?"

"Ummm... My friend Peregrine and I on a mountain, then us where there is a lot of sand. that was it..."

"I think it is speaking figuratively... Night is you, Sky is him. Sand is obviously a SandWing, Day could be a RainWing but so can light... I think that is stating how you meet everyone else. Or how they join you, since you already met Peregrine, obviously. The Mountain might be the Sky Kingdom, and, it could be a stretch, but perhaps the den, doesn't just mean a home or a cave. Perhaps it's THE den, or The Scorpion Den. 'Then Light and Dark join with possibility,' could mean that there is a likely chance they won't come? Or maybe it has to do with Possibility, again, a stretch..." Just like before, he wrote as he spoke. "Anything else Moon?"

"No, I think it's good so far." She replied.

"Okay, so... 'Three are learned and three are seen, two are bad and one is good, the missing awakens a darkness within, to gain wealth and power, she hopes she could.' So, what can that mean..."

"I've seen three versions of the future so far. The first, my entire family is dead, the second I die. There are some variations to those two, but that's the main importance. Then there is the one that prompted this vision. It seems like less dragons die..."

"Ah, so, the first two lines talk about your vision. Two are bad, one is good. Follow the good please? Still doesn't answer the second two lines... maybe someone gets lost and accidentally awakens the Dark Dragon stated above? To gain wealth and power, she hopes she could.... could be talking about a betrayal of a one of them. I assume dark. But then again, it could be something completely different. One thing I learned from Moon, prophesies can be interpreted many different ways. I could hear this way, someone else can hear something completely different...

"'To find the secret hidden and forgotten, night will need to follow the Sun, Despair not for broken shells, For all that's need intact is one.' Could be talking about eggs? Or broken seshells? Sorry, getting ahead of myself. Maybe the secret hidden is something animus touched, or perhaps it's your powers, but they aren't forgotten... I think the SandWing in the group is a guide and is represented as the sun. And I've already speculated on the shells..." he drew a circle around the two bullet points at the beginning of the fourth stanza speculations and drew an arrow pointing under the last thing he wrote.

"Alright, 'Secret powers, secret caves, hidden away so none can see, peace be captured by evil's intent, for peace is darkness' key. Okay! Peace ca also be a RainWing-"

"Or a certain RainWing/NightWing hybrid..." Moon mumbled, then suddenly paled. "Qibli! Could.... could it be about... about him?"

"I... Moon, you know he's defeated, gone! Kinkajou made sure of it-"

"How can we be certain? If there is an animus-"

"Animus magic is gone. Jerboa II made sure of it. After his downfall, she realized that the powers where too much, and that none should possess them. So, you know the story. She took away her immortality then animus magic as a whole. There is absolutely no way it can return!"

"What about the legend-"

"That's all it is Moon, a legend."

Qibli and Moonwatcher grew silent, he was calm, but Shadowscale didn't need to read his mind to know that he was internally just as concerned as Moonwatcher was. He just didn't want to scare her, or make her more nervous.

"Who are you talking about?" Shadowscale asked confused. Moon and Qibli exchanged nervous looks, then turned back to the prince. 

"A dark, evil dragon who was destroyed long ago." Qibli replied, earning a glare from Moonwatcher.

"He wasn't that evil, he... he was just hurting internally. And he was my friend! But... you're right, he wasn't a saint either. He did some terrible things but... he thought he was doing the right thing!"

Shadowscale felt the tension rise, he immediately regretted asking the question. Finally, Moon's face softened and she turned away. "Sorry, it's still..."

Qibli too, softened as he wiped his talons with some banana leaves and made his way towards Moonwatcher. He carefully wound his tail around hers and placed a comforting wing around her. "I'm sorry, you'd think after eight years, I'd get over it..."

"No, Moon, he was your friend. A bad friend but a friend nonetheless. I am glad you remember him actually. It means you actually care about us. I should be the one who's sorry... anyways, we have one last stanza to cover. Right?"

She nodded, then leaned into him and closed her eyes. Qibli wrapped his wing tighter and rested his own head atop of her's. Shadowscale sat awkwardly, yet patiently. He looked away but kept glancing at then to see if they where done. After a while, and it was indeed for the sun was setting, he decided to make his presence known and clear his throat.

"Should I just... go? We can-"

"No, let's finish this." She replied as she and Qibli reluctantly separated. "Then Qibli and I can fly you back to Queen Glory's. Just so she knows you where with someone rather than alone. Okay?"

Shadowscale nodded and waited as Qibli hurried back to the scroll and dipped his talon into some more ink and began to speak.

"Alright, last stanza, right?" He asked. Shadowscale nodded.

"'Success they need, Succeed they must, For if darkness' wrath is unsheathed, Pyrrhia shall turn to dust.' Well, that one was quite self explanatory! You need to succeed or the evil dragon will rise, unleash his wrath, and we all die! So... ugh... please don't fail. I'd actually LIKE to live long enough to get to know our dragonet..."

"Oh?" Shadowscale said, smiling slyly towards his teacher. Moon blushed. "Laid just last week. I'm quite excited... and nervous..."

"It's alright Moon, you'll make a great mom. What did you say her name was going to be?"

"Kit." She replied with a small smile. "Because she is like the Kit Fox. Agile, quick, and adorable. But I'm biased on the last part."

"Great, can I go home now?" Shadowscale said, feeling uncomfortable again watching them flirt.

"Oh, right. Let's go." With that said, the three launched into the air.

~☆~

Shadowscale couldn't fall asleep. The visions and the prophecy replayed in his head over and over, like a broken record. "You need to succeed or the evil dragon will rise, unleash his wrath, and we all die! So... ugh... please don't fail. I'd actually LIKE to live long enough to get to know our dragonet..." It's not just my family at stake here. Moonwatcher's, Peregrine's, every dragon in Pyrrhia is depending on me to fulfill this prophecy the right way... "Obviously, you have to train with your father."

He rose from his bed and sat. He closed his eyes and listened to the light rustling of the trees outside. He took many deep breaths, then opened them again. He projected his consciousness out and felt for his family. Glory and Firefly where fast asleep. The Queen's dreams where of... queenly duties. Firefly's where of the family. Glory holding her up to the sky and booping her snout with her own. Deathbringer and Shadowscale laughing as Firefly giggled. When Glory set her down, she began to run after Shadowscale who then ran off too, now they where playing tag.

Deathbringer, on the other talon, was wide awake. He paced silently at the foot of Glory's bed, fearing what might happen if he fell asleep. Worrying about his mate and his children. Shadowscale smiled and rose from his own bed. He knew he had to do this now, or else he wouldn't sleep properly the rest of the night. He left his room and made his way towards his parent's. He opened the door as quietly as he could and watched his father pace for a while. Then, he decided it was time, no more stalling.

"Dad?" Shadowscale's voice called out, gently and silently like the wind. The NightWing's ears perked up as he turned his head towards his son.

"Oh, Shadow, what are you doing at this hour? Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"

"Don't NightWings sleep during the day now?" Shadowscale retorted causing Deathbringer to bark out a laugh. "Touche my son! But still, what do you need?"

His small talons where shaking as the flashes of fire and death flashed before his eyes, as if reminding him why he needed to do this. Why he needed to ask this. Because if he didn't... it could possibly be the end of Pyrriah. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, his amber eyes where full of determination.

"Teach me how to become an assassin."