Night Fury's Wrath

Chapter 72: Choosing Fate [Part 3]

-More snippets of the past, and more mystery. I wonder how many of you will catch the foreshadowing here? Enjoy!

-NFD

~~~

The softly glowing forest, blocking out the moon and stars with its dense canopy to replace them with its own light, only got less interesting as time marched on. Scratch that. Time had died of boredom and was now being dragged forward.

Because the forest was always exactly the same.

The plants glowed, some of them grew into strange twists and bends and, in the case of the trees, always reached the canopy. Much of the undergrowth was wild and unchecked, some of which had irritating thorns, and some that were dying. Actually, several large patches of the forest didn't glow, and the plant life in them was unnaturally dark in color... more than I remembered seeing when I last flew over it, but it wasn't like I kept track of them anyway.

"I don't think this is working."

~You don't say?~

"You were the one that wanted to stay up late again," I recalled teasingly. "Even after I told you three times we were getting up early, by the way." I was tired, too, as I'd stayed up with her, but I seemed to tolerate it better than her. We probably wouldn't be as tired if we slept in our den, but Nox was probably still there, and I hadn't figured out how to break the news to her yet.

Nibbler shot me a tired sidelong look, her eyes promising death that I knew she wouldn't actually act on. "Shaddup," she grumbled. 

I wisely chose not to tease her further. "Why now, of all times? Star always answers us eventually. We're even far away from the others!"

"She tired too," Nibbler grumbled under her breath.

"You did that to yourself," I replied breezily. "And... I don't think Star needs sleep anymore." She wasn't really alive, so she didn't need things such as sleep or food and water. Technically, we shouldn't need it either, but I wasn't eager for the headache figuring that out was sure to cause.

It didn't make sense. Why wasn't Star answering us? She used to be in the middle of our business even when we didn't want her to be, but now that we wanted her to show up, she was conveniently absent. Did we do something to anger her? She couldn't be hiding from discovery, either, as everyone else was on the other side of the forest.

"Star, come on!" I groaned. "We need your help!"

"As far as I'm aware, Star is quite dead." A stone dropped into my stomach as I slowly turned around to face Nana Moon, who regarded us with narrowed eyes. "At least, she was, unless that has changed."

I gulped and Nibbler shuffled to hide behind me. "Uh... did I say Star? I meant... erm..." Nana Moon waited, unimpressed. "...Uh..." Damnit, why don't I know anyone else with a similar name?!

"This is when you give up," she growled.

I hung my head and nodded sadly. "Yeah..."

"What do you know about Star? Why were you calling her name?" I kept my mouth shut. Nana Moon glowered. "Vaskr, now is not the time to be stubborn. Answer me!"

"I-I don't know anything!"

~Why was she following us? Shouldn't she be busy?~

I don't know! She might've...! I froze when something clicked. Wait a second...

"You're lying!" She barked, angrily storming closer. "Why else would you be calling for a dead dragon?"

Nana Moon had no reason to be following us around when she had so much work to do. In fact, she specifically told us to 'do our thing,' probably meaning she already knew what our secret was. Not to mention, one reason for Star's tendency to hide was her fear of discovery, particularly by her enemy.