Ten years later

"I'm so bored." Complained Ivy. "Isn't there anything entertaining to do in this dumb, stuffy library?"

"Your idea of fun is shooting venom at your friends." Replied Raven, poking her with his tail. His ears swept down, and he gave a frustrated glare at the scrolls in his arms.

"I shoot my venom at fruit and stuff that you guys throw in the air." The Rainwing snapped back. "It's not at you, it's at the fruit!"

"Whatever you're aiming at, it's not exactly fun for everybody." The dragonet said, sighing as he began stuffing scrolls back into the carefully carved slots before him. "Besides, you could be doing something else if you really wanted. You're the one who followed me in here. Actually, one of many."

Raven shot a look at the three dragonets behind him, besides Ivy, who froze, and pretended to do anything but stare at him.

"I'm the best venom spitter in my tribe. My mother taught me, after all." Ivy retorted, her frill and ears momentarily turning purple at the edges with pride. It looked startlingly reflective against her deep emerald scales.

"Your mom is possibly the most unpredictable, wild dragon in your tribe. I wouldn't be very surprised if she taught you as soon as you opened your eyes." Said Silversand dryly.

"Mamba is quite unpredictable." Topaz agreed, and shot a shy smile at Ivy, who snorted. "But that's good, sometimes." He added quickly. Ivy turned to the larger dragon beside him.

"Talk smack about my mother and you'll get whacked in the face, icebreath." Ivy said, threatening Silversand with her slender tail. The metallic green around her wings became violently shaded with red, and her underbelly became a pale yellow. The quick color change made Raven slightly dizzy.

"Try me, beetle." He countered, though despite the intensity of his gaze, his voice and stance was more playful than anything. Raven blinked and observed the hybrid- he was a bit easier to look at for the moment.

Silversand was a near perfect combination of his parents, manner-wise, and it baffled him every time Silversand spoke.

Though, of course, he actually wasn't their blood at all. He was the offspring of an unknown Sandwing and Icewing, who had left him at the mercy of the Scorpion Den. (Raven had his suspicions of his parentage, but that was for another time.)

Raven had heard stories about how bad it used to be. Even now, dragons seemed to have a hard time letting go of their old ways. Still, Seaglass and Snowfall had done well with their son despite the troubles he presented.

Raven's eyes trailed to Silversand's lack of wings as he thought this, and he immediately felt guilty. They were the source of most of the hybrids temper. Raven wished Silversand had been given better luck.

Raven knew him well, and he was certain Silversand wanted to at least know what it was like to fly through the clouds and the spray of the sea, but he was born without wings.

Silversand's sharp blue eyes suddenly darted to his. The jagged, pale blue frill that ran down his back raised like a sail. "Quit reading my mind!"

"I'm not!" Raven countered, feeling embarrassed. The silver scales in the corner of his rust colored eyes glinted strangely against his scales as he turned his head away. He looked like any other Nightwing, for the most part. Though Raven was not completely so. He was half Skywing. The only proof of this was the faint scatter of red scales down his forelegs. They appeared like embedded rubies(which he had to explain frequently to others that they indeed, were not).

He held up his arm, which he wore a silver bracelet- it was a small dragon encircled around his wrist with a decent sized black rock inside its mouth. Skyfire. The stone became a lot easier to find once the trade routes opened up. It was actually rather common among the Cavewings and Crystalwings. Go figure.

"No mind reading today." He assured his friend, and Silversand eased up a little.

"What are you in the library for, again?" Asked Topaz. "It is a bit cold and stuffy in here. Would you mind if I stepped outside, and sat in the sun for a while?" He raised his glittering orange-gold wings and fanned himself with one, like it would banish the dust. He caught Oracle looking at him in amazement. Raven rolled his eyes.

Oracle was Raven's sister. They hatched from a twin egg, which he learned happened to be more common among Skywings than Nightwings. They would both be four years old very soon. Most of his friends were the same age, though Silversand was five already.

Oracle resembled their father a bit more than Raven did, with dark grey-maroon scales that had hints of purple at her neck. Silver scales splashed underneath the membrane of her wings in a delicate spray, unlike Raven's more uneven pattern. More of them ran down only her neck, where he had none, and silver teardrops gleamed in the corner of her eyes as a sign of her power. Her horns were a bit longer than his as well, and curved up at the ends.

Raven discovered most were unnerved by her eyes. The right sparkled blue, while the other was a deep rust color.

One of their other siblings, Omen, had no power at all. He hatched in the same clutch a week before them (Raven and Oracle took their time, apparently) as the second oldest. He wasn't with them at the moment, but Raven could easily imagine him beside their sister. The tallest, unfortunately. His eyes were similar to their mother's, an alluring and bright kind of blue, and he had quartz under his eyes to mimic his sibling's teardrop scales and mother's diamonds, as well as many scattered about his body.

His scales were a muted grey-purple, and he had a few black scales down his legs that gradually faded into his claws. Oracle resembled a Nightwing, like most of the siblings did. His horns were long and elegantly curved down with a small chip in the left.

Then, lastly, there was Sunflower, their eldest sibling. She was only a year their senior. She was reserved, smart, and had a knack for mapmaking. She had very faint future-sight, not nearly strong enough to be able to search the strands of the future like the legendary Clearsight. She had no silver scales at the corners of her eyes, so her scattered visions always caught others off guard.

She had a golden underbelly and black scales with dull red at her neck. These bright underscales were what gave her the name Sunflower. She and Oracle were particularly close, and Oracle was always coming to her sister with her own future visions.

The one particular thing about Oracle was her crazy infatuation with Topaz. He saw it was obvious, Silversand saw it was obvious, as did Ivy and Seraphinite, and basically the entirety of Jade Mountain. But Topaz was of course clueless. (Not that he'd really even care if he knew anyhow).

Silversand tugged at the band around his neck, unconsciously picking at the ridged sapphires embedded there. It was a gift of the Crystalwings once he was born. Most of the others among them got similar items at their hatching. Raven had a very flashy set of earrings that had rubies to match his red scales. Queen Diamond didn't miss an opportunity, that was certain.

"Raven has a project to do. About history or something. Head outside if you feel you should." Silversand nodded to Topaz.

"I don't know what to write about." Raven confessed. "There's so many things to know...So many choices to pick from..."

"I'll be outside." Topaz decided, turning, his tail sweeping behind him. Ivy jumped out of the way of the hardly-there, harmless barb. Topaz's Sandwing side was very strange sometimes. He had to go warm up in the sun, and be warm always, or his muscles would stiffen terribly. Being cold meant that he practically turned to stone. Raven cursed the side effects of being a hybrid occasionally(his slower growth, the occasional stutter), but it wasn't nearly as much as Topaz dealt with.

He was, technically, a dragon of four tribes. More Sandwing than anything, thanks to his father. His mother herself was a tribrid of a Nightwing, Skywing and Mudwing. Topaz must've had quite a few confusing family trees. He was surprised he even existed. Whatever the case, he was still loved and pampered, so he was doing alright.

"You could do something on Darkstalker? That's a bit of a recent event. We had to fix the school around it and all...after he broke out. Or...the Scorching." Seraphinite wrinkled her nose as she scanned the shelves.

"But everybody does the Scorching because it's old and easy, and everyone will expect me to do the Darkstalker." Raven complained. "Its our first school project. I need to be original."

"Or just take the easy way out, and take the average grade. That's what I'd do." Ivy informed him, drawing out the last word.

"Well, that's why you're Ivy, and I'm Raven. Now, hush." Raven said. "I'm thinking."

Really, all Raven was thinking about was how Ivy's wings were still shaded with red, and that it was a great color on her- paired with her bright gold eyes and metallic green scales. Thankfully, he was the only mindreader in the room. As for mind readers around the school, he had his beloved skyfire bracelet for that.

His friend Mollymawk had given him the bracelet after learning of his powers. He was usually too overwhelmed by all the voices to single out his own thoughts, even after rigorous training. She was nice like that. He didn't miss the power very much.

"Oh, here's something." Seraphinite flapped her wings, a bit like a hummingbird, and lifted herself into the air to grab something on a shelf a bit higher than her arms could reach. Seraphinite was small, even smaller than Raven, so she could do things like that easily, even in decently packed rows of shelves. Her kind, pale brown eyes turned his way, and she gently dropped back down. He watched as her dark scales shot through with green glittered in the temporary exposure to the light flooding into the shelves.

This time, she held a bound book. "It's about the Twin Islands." She said with a twinge of excitement.

Seraphinite had grown up in Possibility, much like Silversand and Topaz did. But that wasn't where she belonged. Not really. She belonged at the Twin Islands. She was half Crystalwing, daughter to Aventurine and Mudpuddle, a good friend of Raven's parents. All of his friends parents were close with each other, really. Though that might have been because they saved the Twin Islands together, almost ten years ago.

If Raven were a Rainwing, he had no doubt he would have turned purple with pride. His parents were heroes. All of their parents were. Artemis, Potent, Tempest, Mudpuddle, Snowfall, Seaglass, and Mamba were the fated dragons from what they now called the Prophecy of the Eclipse.

Together, they had ended the rule of the tyrant Daywing, Queen Solar. If they hadn't, Raven worried that he may not have had the life he had now. He might not be alive at all. Worrying about the future was Oracle's problem, however. Which, ironically, she couldn't give a lizard's tail about, unless it related to herself and Topaz becoming a couple.

"I haven't seen that book before." Silversand remarked, taking it out of Seraphinite's talons and looking at it in curiosity. He muttered a quick "Thanks, Seraph." as he slid a sharp, serrated talon down the neatly tied twine that bound the book shut. He grinned, perhaps in amusement, or perhaps something else. It was hard to tell with him sometimes.

He opened it, and Seraph sidled over and rested her head on his shoulder. She fluttered her wings as she watched him flip through the pages. Only she and Nile, a Sandwing that they went to school with, could pull that off without a smack to the snout or a nasty bite to the wing.

"That's weird." Silversand tilted his head, and frowned. "It's about a dragon war."

"The war with Solar?" Raven asked, suddenly intrigued.

"No. A different one. With dragons called Metalwings."

Seraph took the book and gingerly turned through the pages, her brow furrowed. Her delicate talons suddenly stopped on a page, a few chapters in. "The Metalwings have been gone for a very long time, apparently. The Twin Island tribes had no choice but to exile the remaining dragons from the war. " She summarized.

Oracle popped up, looking over her other shoulder. "But before that, they fought themselves into a collapse. They destroyed their own tribe, trying to win against a large rebel group of dragons." Oracle said, about to continue in her occasionally foreboding tone.

"Don't start spewing prophecies." Silversand suddenly growled, looking to Oracle.

"It's not like I can control it." She snapped. "You armadillo."

"You are something else." He muttered, and Seraph closed the book, seeming amused.

"I'll go check on Topaz." Ivy declared. "I think that's the perfect subject for your project, though, Raven."

That was unnecessary, however, as Topaz sauntered into the library with two dragons at his side.

"Silver!" The small Sandwing on Topaz's right cried out, and rushed at the hybrid. He barreled into his chest, and Silversand couldn't fight his grin.

The Sandwing's soft rose gold and white speckled wings enveloped him, grey eyes sparkling in excitement. The other dragon at Topaz's side was at first unfamiliar, but then, Raven shouted in glee, and his aunt scooped him up in her warm embrace.

"Shove over!" Oracle barked, squeezing into the embrace as well. Prophecyteller beamed, her blue-grey eyes shining with happiness.

"Look at you two." She crooned. "Oracle, you've gotten so tall! And Raven! You look so big! Oh, I wish your brother and sister were here."

"Why are you here?" Raven wondered, his head still abuzz with excitement. "Shouldn't you be doing Rogue-y things?" He pressed, and then gasped, eyes alight about his cousin. "And where's Dewdrop?"

"I am." Prophecyteller said, spreading her wings, and chuckling. "He's with his mother. But never mind that right now, you'll see him soon. We're here with the exchange students."

"Yes!" Seraph cried, excitedly grabbing Ivy and shaking her, who hissed lightly but let the hybrid shake her anyways. "Where are they? Can we meet them? Are there any Crystalwings?"

"One." Prophecyteller tilted her head in amusement at Seraph's slight deflation. "Don't worry, there are more to come. These are just the first few. And you can if you'd like. They're out in the front of the school, with Silverfeather and Clay. Dewdrop and Xenia are there as well."

"We have to go." Seraph said firmly, and Raven felt a smile pull at his face.

"Of course we do. Come on then, Seraph."

_____

Silverfeather first greeted the curious students at the mouth of the entrance, Raven and his friends among them. Clay supervised outside, of course with his daughter Garnet hovering at his side, the pretty auburn and red dragonet casting curious glances at the newcomers. Before Raven could even glance at them, he was knocked flat on his back.

Dewdrop gave a delighted laugh as he barreled into his cousin on sight.

"I've gotten stealthier!" He crowed, and Raven laughed as well, feebly pushing at him with his talons. The Seawing snorted and poked at his side before pulling him back to his feet. He really had grown, and he had changed too. His horns were longer, and his pale blue/pink scales had become almost iridescent, so much so Raven was nearly convinced he had some sort of enchantment on from his royal friends. He was very friendly with the Seawing princes and princesses after all. He had thinned out and his otherwise awkward proportions didn't seem so noticeable anymore.

"How have you been, and where's Xenia?" Raven asked, and Dewdrop tilted his head to the left. Raven glanced, and saw the purple Seawing happily embracing Prophecyteller, her luminescent scales lighting up in one pattern constantly. I missed you.

"I've been good." He decided. "It's hard when Ma is gone, but she has important things to do. She visits through the portals as much as she can to see mother and I." Dewdrop's wings subtly drooped, and Raven lightly put his wing over his back in sympathy.

"Though I know you understand." He leant into his side a bit before stepping away.

He did, of course. Like Dewdrop's other mother Prophecyteller, his father worked with the Desert Rogues. He was rather high in command under their leader(and his uncle- wow did he have a lot of relatives) Apollo.

He was gone nearly as much as Prophecyteller was, and Raven would be lying if he said he didn't mind. Even his mother was a little let down about it as well. But she ran their shop with him and his siblings, and he knew she was happier there than out commanding other dragons with the Rogues. His father loved him, and like Prophecyteller, visited his family as much as he could. But he had been a little absent in his life.

"Well, whatever the case, I'm glad I got to see you." Dewdrop said cheekily, immediately switching back to his optimistic nature. "And guess what? I'm attending! So you'll have to deal with me every day." He laughed, and so did Raven, and poked him with his tail.

"What's your Winglet?" Raven inquired, and Dewdrop very obviously wracked his brain for the information.

"Quartz." He decided, and Raven smiled.

"That's a good one. My brother, Nile, Garnet, and prince Nightshade are in it."

"What about yours?"

"The Silver Winglet!"

"With Silversand?" He giggled.

Raven laughed as well. "He isn't too pleased with the coincidence.

"I wouldn't either. Imagine being named Silversand in the Silver Winglet. You'd definitely get some jokes from it."

Raven waved his talons. "Silversand is grumpy, though. Knowing him he'd bite anyone who tried him."

"What about me?" Silversand suddenly appeared- Dewdrop shrieked in horror and backed away fast.

"Nothing, sorry, bye Raven!"

Raven watched the pale dragon go, amused. Silversand sat next to him, huffing in annoyance.

"He didn't have to run away like that." He murmured quietly.

"Sorry, Silversand." Raven said empathetically. He glanced around, curious about Silversand's lonesomeness and the lack of a rose gold SandWing. "Where's Nile? You two are usually stuck to each other like barnacles."

"Off talking to one of the exchange students." He started, then sneered. "A real gallivanting pufferfish if I have anything to say on the matter."

Raven couldn't fight back his laugh. "Can't be that bad, can they?"

"Look for yourself."

Raven's gaze followed Silversand's tail, spotting Nile enraptured by a tall Moltenwing. He was practically swooning at the red dragon's story.

He looked to his friend once more and frowned. Poor, jealous Silversand.

"Let's go steal him back." Raven decided, getting to his feet. After a moments consideration, Silversand did as well. They were rather sidetracked, though, by Seraph flinging herself into Silversand's chest and fluttering her wings with all her might.

"She's so nice!" She cried. "Another Crystalwing, like me! Her name is Malaia! You have to come meet her."

As soon as he was there, Silversand was whisked away. At least he would be distracted for a little while.

Raven decided to wander. He met various other new students, one in particular from a tribe he had rarely gotten the chance to interact with or study- a Silkwing. She was very kind, and her voice was as sweet as nectar. Her name was Cydalima, though she insisted she be called Cinder instead.

Raven's heart thudded with...something, as her russet-purple eyes searched him, and he sat down awkwardly. He shuffled his wings back.

"You look different." Cinder said, tilting her head as she circled Raven and inspected him. "Not like others I've seen. What tribe are you from?" She flicked her softer than downy wings- all four of them.

"I'm a hybrid, of Nightwing and Skywing." He smiled slightly. She grinned back, and launched into a speech about how amazing she found other tribes, and how excited she was to be there, and that she was so glad to have met Raven and-

"Really?" Raven began, bashfully.

Cinder and Raven had found themselves relaxing along a large-branched tree. Cinder was stretched out and smiling.

"Of course, silly. You've got to be the most interesting dragon I've ever met! You know so much. How is that?"

"Oh, I just like to learn things." Raven said, slightly shredding a leaf with his talons as they conversed.

"I want to know things." Cinder said, rolling onto her back and out stretching a talon to the sky. "Everything in the entire world. I'm tired of not knowing. One day I'll be the smartest dragon there ever was, and everyone will be amazed, and everyone will love me and worship me." She grinned.

"I'm... sure you'll be able to get there." Raven said slowly, and Cinder gave him a look that was all at once...unsettling?

"With you, I definitely will."

"Raven, three moons, what are you doing up there?" A voice called, and Raven glanced down to see a rather disgruntled Silversand with Seraph at his side.

"It's almost time for class!" She chirped.

Raven glanced to the sky, bewildered. How long had they been talking?

He spread his wings fast. "Coming, coming!" He glanced to Cinder, who eyed him expectantly. "I'll see you around?"

Cinder smiled with lots of teeth. "Of course."

Raven touched down beside his friends, and found himself rather quickly whisked away into the tunnels.

"This is very unlike you." Silversand eyed him, a bit suspicious. "I get it's thrilling to doze off, but really, was that tree really so enchanting?"

Raven froze.

"I was talking to a dragon, though-"

Silversand and Seraph slowed, exchanging glances with one another.

"No, Raven. You were by yourself."

And then, Raven knew, something was very very amiss.

The end

For now.