Peace and its Shadow

Chapter 20: Aftermath of a Second Murder

"Hold on, you're assuming one of us did it?" Cliff questioned.

"We're not assuming but there could be a potential that one of you guys was involved indirectly," Sunny explained. "According to you guys, Sludgesnout wasn't so nice of a dragon."

"Are we going back at the dagger thing? How many times do I have to tell you? I wasn't even near Sludgesnout most of the time!" Venuswing defended. Peacemaker sat quietly alongside Dusky who still hadn't talked much. Moonwatcher had to read his mind which she oddly commented as being difficult considering Dusky's mind just suddenly was deeper down and hard to get anything from. Peacemaker remembered how suddenly darkness can consume a part of one's thoughts after a trauma or a build-up of stress, they can kind of close themselves in where even mind readers like Moonwatcher can't get any of the specifics for their thoughts. Peacemaker had heard a mention of being similar to Sora's thoughts, whoever that was.

There was quite a lot of tension within the cave and in the entire academy because the news that a student died goes on pretty quickly. The torches lit alongside the cave walls still making the sound of a light hum of flames and making the entire cave completely visible and never devoid of light. Some chatter slightly added to the noise from other students nearby. Peacemaker and Dusky sat on a large, tan cushion on the cave floor with the main sounds of arguing and conversations between most of the others.

Peacemaker tried remembering what happened afterward, it was all kind of a blur. The Graduating Jade Winglet were all informed and thus due to Qibli's connections with Queen Thorn, she, the Dragonets of Destiny, and probably Queen Moorhen of the Mudwings all were informed too of Sludgesnout's death.

"Maybe, but you still brought those three bags on the trip to Possibility, maybe perhaps one of you guys had used it knowing the dagger was within Venuswing's bags," Sunny proposed.

They all had to return anyways and each explained their side of the story, most had pretty much similar experiences considering Cliff, Auklet, Bumblebee, and Mink were all pretty much together for most of the time during the festival. Of course, Moonwatcher was there secretly nearby to see if she can pick up anything in one of their minds. However, since Peacemaker had already gone through this sort of thing back from Clearblade's death, he was mostly calm during the questions. Even if Tsunami asked them with a very angry and dangerous look.

"Haven't you guys already questioned all of us? I'm pretty sure it's clear most of us all saw this dragon while seeing each other in the same room," Mink pointed out.

"Also Peacemaker over here brought a knife," Venuswing commented.

"Didn't Peacemaker also use the sleeping dart gun at a Skywing?" Drytail added.

Unfortunately, that meant his friends talked about using the sleeping dart on Sunset and the knife which Peacemaker had to explain why it was in his bag. Even when Peacemaker told a reasonable answer, "It was for self-defense just in case out of the many dragons there, a few might still either have violent tendencies or beef with other tribes and could cause harm to either me or my friends(which there was)." Though, he could just feel the suspicion in the teacher's expressions, including the Graduating Year Jade Winglet. Peacemaker didn't have to mask his thoughts, for now, the Graduating Jade Winglet was probably getting chewed out by Tsunami about what in the moons were they doing at the time especially considering three royals are in the winglet. Even worse now, I used my venom, which means the whole thing of me probably not being the culprit of Clearblade's death because the evidence of venom on the tree is no longer valid for just a Rainwing. Now Moonwatcher and Kinkajou are aware of the fact that I have venom. To add extra layers to this mess, this is the second murder that just happened to be someone I knew, and I doubt the main teachers don't already know that. Which means...