Master of None: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

8.

She snapped out of it the second the city went back to normal. I would have been jealous of her if not for what she said next.

"Gaze?" She looked so small and vulnerable in my talons.

"Where–where am I?" her breath was uneven her face streaked with tears. She shifted, looking around. "Is anyone left?"

I blinked. A sense of dread set over me. "You're fine. I've got you. Don't worry about now–tell me what you saw," I said gently.

She looked up at me, and whispered, "I saw tidal waves swallowing cities. I saw the stars, falling from the sky. I saw the dust storm, again, again, again–swallowing the continent whole."

"You've seen that before, haven't you?" I asked. She was shaking a bit, and I didn't know what to say–how I was supposed to make it better. If there was much I could do at all.

She shakes her head. "No–no, that was it. That is the new prophecy. Destruction, to no end. Before there was a way out, but I couldn't find a way out of this. It's not like the other visions. I can't–"

She looked at the city, hiding on rooftops. Now that the streets had drained, they were lined with the bodies of those who had fallen.  Someone's friends. Someone's family. I felt a little sick.

"What happened to this place?" she breathed.

***

The air is thick with smoke, and another scent too–something sharp that makes my eyes water. Brightmind has been trying to blast open the exit to the outside world for days, but nothing seems to be working.

"Gaze!" I shout. I've awkwardly slung the dragonet over my back, and my shoulder is starting to ache.

"Gaze!" I find her, Brightmind, and Dreamsinger inside the meeting room, all sitting around our table.

She comes running. "Epiphany? What's–who's that?"

She helps me slide Nebula off my shoulders and onto the rocks. He knows, he knows, he knows, and he's going to tell everyone. I should run while I still have the chance.

I just shake my head.

"What's going on?" Brightmind asks, scrambling over the uneven rocks toward us. "Why do you have a dragonet?"

"I feel like I've seen him before," Dreamsinger comments.

"This is Star's son. He might have... fainted when he saw me."

I hear another blast from the cavern.

"You need to keep that noise down," Gaze says scoldingly to Brightmind. "This is the definition of stupidity. If you do something twenty times and it's still not working, you're wasting resources."

"It's only the third blast," Brightmind reminds her. The exit sealed off not long ago, and with it, any way of ferrying dragons out of the kingdom. It looks like part of the cavern simply buckled under its weight, but somehow, I have a hard time believing that's true.

I look down at the ground, wondering if I was just imagining the dragonet mumbling to himself. "You can go," he breathes. "I'llbefine...donworry..."

Gaze and Brightmind mutter back and forth, and I can't hear what they're saying through the scenarios flashing through my mind.

If it happens, it happens. It's going to happen eventually, and even if I'd rather it be on my terms–

After everything your Mother sacrificed to keep your identity secret, this is how you repay her?