Empathy the NightWing was in the infirmary. She had just delivered a prophecy. This time she swore it was real. Fatespeaker and Starflight sat beside her medicine bed speaking in hushed voices. They were the ones who didn't believe her, actually, and they her were parents! They were supposed to believe their dragonets more than anyone!
The purple dragon turned over to silently tell them she didn't want them there, and to go do their teacher stuff. Suddenly, she had another vision.
A massive dragon with shocking electric blue scales, feathers, and underscales of a different shade of blue was covered in jewelry and scars from horns to tail. The DreamWing queen roared for her dragons to charge- but charge where? Empathy recognized the rainforest in the background. The DreamWings were attacking Jade Mountain! But why?
She looked around. The land was covered in ash and smoke, there were fires everywhere with dragons fighting to survive. The Dragonets of Destiny were fighting as well. Nearby, a dragon roared in pain and she saw a SkyWing hovering by a pile of black ash. The vision flickered black and white.
Empathy sat up quickly, her heart beating as fast as a SkyWing flew. She saw her parents had left. And- was that the sound of rain- thunder too?
"Oh, you're awake!" she heard Clay's voice.
"Do you need anything?" he asked. The NightWing dragonet shook her head no. "Alright, it's optional period right now, do you want to go?"
Empathy nodded, smiling at him, and slowly climbed off the bed. She walked into the hallway and up to one of the maps of the academy. A tunnel that was marked NightWing Powers was not too far away from Botany Class.
The purple dragon hurried down a dark tunnel, breathing out small plumes of flame to light her way. It was probably on purpose that they didn't put any light down here because NightWings had night vision, as they were nocturnal.
Empathy suddenly saw a dark-scaled dragon appear at the end of the hall.
"Hello, are you here for the NightWing class?" she asked. "Follow me!" A mind reader! thought the dragonet excitedly, practically bouncing up and down.
"My name is Moonwatcher, you can call me Moon," Moon said, leading her into what seemed to be her classroom. It had no torches, but globes that glowed purple and blue. There were about four dragonets in the room, either reading at their desk or looking around.
The NightWing dragonet sat down behind a desk with a few scrolls and a curious black rock on it.
"Now that everybody's here, we can begin. First, we need to learn all of our names. As you know, I'm Moon, your teacher and I'm a telepath as well as a prophet. You, what's your name?" Moon pointed at a small dark green tinted dragonet with black underscales, a short snout, and long claws.
"M- me?" he stuttered. "M-m-my name's Everknow."
"Next, how about you?" Moon pointed at a larger NightWing who looked to be almost nine, with a giant scowl on her face that was probably permanent.
"Fury!" she roared.
Empathy took it that happened a lot. She was getting scary images coming from Fury's mind, like she wanted to kill everyone that got in her way.
"And you?" Moon nodded at the purple dragon. "My name is Empathy!"
"You?"
"Betrayal."
After the rest of them introduced themselves, Moon started the lesson.
"Have any of you heard the rain or waves before?" she asked. All of them nodded. "So, telepaths learn to keep themselves from going insane by slipping the thoughts of other dragons around them into raindrops, like this." The NightWing closed her eyes and appeared in some of the dragonets' minds and put an image of rain into them.
Empathy slipped Everknow's thoughts in the first, Fury the next, Moon's, then Betrayal's.
"The next thing we're going to learn about is," Moon picked up one of the strange rocks. "This." Everyone stared.
"That's just a rock!" Betrayal said loudly.
"Ah, that's just what you see. Try to read my mind. You can't."
Betrayal narrowed his eyes.
"What even is that?" asked Empathy, tilting her head.
"Skyfire," she answered, setting it down. "It keeps telepaths from reading the minds of other dragons and vice versa. Anyway, you can read some more about our powers in these scrolls."
Empathy learned that the NightWings indeed got their powers from the moons. Two moons, mind reading and prophecy, which she had, one moon, mind-reading or prophecy, three moons, very, very strong mind-reading, and prophecy, and mind readers hatched under a blood moon could project their thoughts to the minds of other dragons, not just mind readers.
GONG, GONG, GONG! The NightWing dragonet jumped, startled by the loud sound.
"Time to go, class!" Moon stood up and set her charcoal pencil back on the desk. The seven dark-colored dragons walked out of the classroom, out of the hall, and into the Prey Center. Empathy felt like she hadn't eaten in days! Which she probably hadn't, because of all the nonsense of prophecies, visions, classes, DreamWings, and Sheer being rude twenty-four-seven.
She hurried in and found the fruit bowl, quickly grabbing a banana and peeling it open.
More dragons came into the cave, and it was almost full now. Empathy's head started to hurt again and remembered what Moon had taught her. Think of rain, think of rain, think of rain! She told herself, forcing her eyes shut. She tried to slip all the thoughts into each of them, muting her inside world.
"Empathy?" she heard a gentle voice behind her.
"Are you okay? You recovered quickly." the NightWing dragonet turned around and recognized Mandarin the MudWing.
"It was nothing, really," she shrugged, taking another bite of her banana. Empathy searched his eyes, what was it, sympathy? Relief? Frustration? Concern? He caught her gaze and smiled. She let his thoughts flood her mind. Can she read minds? Is she reading it now? Was that a real prophecy? Those scales by her eyes are so pretty.
"The others are over here," he led her over to a table where Palo, Drift, Copper, Sheer, Kumquat, Flytrap, Cecropia, and Junix were sitting and eating.
"Hi!" Drift waved. "Is everything alright?" Empathy nodded silently and sat down next to her, finally finishing her banana. Some of the other dragonets didn't look satisfied with her answer. That was unsettling.
"What?" she asked, tensing.
"That prophecy!" Sheer growled. "None of us believe you! NightWings don't have powers anymore! All they do is lie!"
"Yes, they do! Are you really that ignorant?"
"Give us proof that the prophecy was real!"
"You were supposed to be my friend, Sheer!" Empathy yelled back.
"We're not! We never will be!"
At that, Empathy stood up and sprinted out of the classroom, out the Academy, and up onto a tall, tall sequoia tree growing into the open sky. The sun was setting and the stars were coming up.
Sheer's words repeated in her mind: None of us believe you! All they do is lie! She felt a tear stream down her face. The dragonet heard the shouts of other dragons in the distance.
"Sheer! Look what you did! You ruined our friendship! What is wrong with you?!" Mandarin.
"Yeah! Why did you do that?!" Drift.
"I don't think it will matter much." Junix.
"GUYS! STOP!" She heard a sudden outburst from Cecropia. That was unusual, normally the little SilkWing didn't talk, this must've upset her a ton to make her open her mouth, let alone shout!
Suddenly, she felt a raindrop fall on her head, then another, then another, and soon it was pouring. Amazing timing, she thought sarcastically and looked up.
She heard heavy wingbeats behind her, then heard the sound of Mandarin's quiet thoughts. I hope she's okay, I guess what Sheer said must have really hurt her feelings to make her run away like that. Empathy tried to shut them out, but it didn't work.
"Are you okay?" he asked, landing on the tree.
"No, not really," she said, wiping away her tears.
"She didn't mean it, you know that, right?" He wrapped his wing around her comfortingly and looked her in the eye. "I believe you," he murmured, and he was telling the truth. The NightWing dragonet leaned her head on his shoulder, and he didn't move away.
This. She thought. This is how it should be.