The Queen

Mature, su*c*de, murder mention.

Moons change, continents collide, darkness is born.

Warning: This fanfiction is canon turned on its head, shaken around a lot until a few important bits fall out, then dropped back on its feet and called a piece of readable literature. Read at your own risk.

-    -    -

She hatched on a dark night, a very dark night, the darkest night there had been in over a century, and the last Darkest Night there would ever be. All of the moons were new that night, a phenomenon that used to happen once a century, until a few very special things happened, and the moons changed just a little, enough for there to never be a Darkest Night ever again. It was if the night The Queen hatched, even the moons knew there would need to be a little less darkness in the world.

-    -    -

“Look!” a voice said. It was the very first thing the dragonet heard, and one of the few things she instinctively loved immediately. The sound of the voice came with the feeling of warmth, of safety. “I think she’s hatching!”

“How do you know it’s a female?” another voice asked. This voice the dragonet loved too, immediately and forever, and came with the feeling of protection, like whoever was speaking would stand their ground and protect her, no matter the cost.

“I just do,” the first voice said smugly. “How do you know SilkWings don’t have some special ability to know the gender of their eggs?”

The second voice scoffed. “Really? I highly doubt that.”

“Well no, we don’t. But it feels like a female.”

The dragonet wondered why she could suddenly hear anything. She had never been able to hear before, her only sensations were of comfortable, pressing darkness, accompanied by occasional motion. She cast her mind around her small space, trying to find any anomalies.

There! A small crack, barely enough to notice near one of her front talons. The dragonet wriggled around, pressing her head to the crack.

She could see nothing but darkness outside, and at first she was disappointed. Then she felt a rushing, a feeling of strength. The little crack of darkness had given that to her, and how much more power could all of the darkness out there give her?

The dragonet pushed, straining in all directions. Soon there was a crack by her tail, and then another one by her head, and then a few more by her talons. Finally, the egg splintered apart, and the dragonet stood up wobbly, shaking the bits of egg off her wings and staring up at the night.

The darkness was even better than she’d imagined, running along her wings and tail and talons, filling her up with black power that she didn’t know how to use yet, but swore to herself she would.

“Oh!” the first voice gasped. The dragonet pulled herself away from the endless darkness and turned awkwardly around towards the voice.

There were two dragons staring at her as if she was the best thing in the world. One of them had two wings and was almost the color of the darkness, but marred by faint blues and purples mixed in with the black. The other one had four wings, and was the color of freshly shined gold, with bursts of red and blue and purple splashed at random intervals.

The dragonet lifted her wings to look at them. There were four of them, but they were slimmer than the golden dragon’s. She peered down at her scales and saw almost-darkness like the two-winged dragon’s (Mother, a voice in her head supplied. And the other one is Father), but she had swirls of gold and blue and red mixed in throughout, like Father.

“She’s gorgeous,” Mother breathed, which was rather inaccurate. Mother looked more like the endless blackness outside than the dragonet did, and therefore she was much prettier.

“She is,” Father said. “She looks just like us. I thought she would look more like a HiveWing.”

“I knew she wouldn’t.”

“How, exactly? Do you have some strange NightWing ability to know the appearance of your unhatched dragonet?” Father joked.

Mother leaned over and gently shoved him, letting a breath of cold air in from the outside. The dragonet shivered.

“Oh look, she’s cold,” Father said. He extended his wrists, and a coppery thread spiraled out of them, wrapping around the dragonet. The instant the strange thread touched her, the dragonet felt immediately much warmer.

“Come here,” Mother said, holding out her talons. The dragonet hopped into them, and extended her wings. She wasn’t cold anymore, with the golden thread wrapped around her, but the coolness of Mother’s scales felt nice, balancing out the warmth.

“What do you want to call her?” Father asked.

“I was thinking Solar. That’s a NightWing name, and it can also be a SilkWing name, right? Plus, look at her scales. I think it fits her.”

“Solar it is then.” Father paused. “And I know you’re the magical one, Nightfall. But I have a feeling that our little Solar is going to change the world.”

-    -    -

“What if I am an animus?” Solar asked her mother, Nightfall. They were standing on the beach outside their small wooden hut. Ant, her father, watched from a sand dune a little ways away, half of his attention directed at his daughter, half used to watch the flamesilk pouring out of his wrists to start a fire to cook dinner.

“You’re probably not,” Nightfall assured her. “But if you are, I can help you control it, and decide what to do with it.”

Solar narrowed her eyes at Nightfall just a little. She loved her mother, but if Solar did have animus magic, she didn’t want Nightfall deciding what to do with it. Her mother had enchanted herself to lose her animus powers right after she fled the rest of the NightWing tribe, so that she wouldn’t lose her soul. Solar didn’t want to turn evil either, but she also wanted to keep any magic she might have.

“What should I do?” she asked, not voicing any of her inner thoughts. “What should I try to enchant?”

Nightfall looked around for a second, then picked up a small pink shell. “Here,” she said, and handed it to Solar. “Say, I enchant this shell to grow wings and fly around.”

I know how animus magic works, Solar thought as she took the shell. She held it up to one of her eyes, thinking.

Ever since the day she’d hatched, about a year ago, she’d felt a strange power inside her, crashing like waves and roaring like the wind and burning like flames. It didn’t feel like the little tingling her mother said she’d had before she took her own magic away. It felt stronger, more dangerous, but maybe the feeling differed from animus dragon to animus dragon.

“I enchant this shell to grow wings and fly around,” Solar said in her most powerful voice.

But nothing happened.

She glared at the shell. “I said I enchant this shell to grow wings and fly around!” Solar waited. Nothing happened, then some more nothing happened, then even more nothing happened.

“It’s fine, Solar,” Nightfall said, plucking the shell out of her talons and dropping it back onto the sand. “You’re special enough without animus magic. Now, let’s go have dinner.”

Later that night, when Solar had eaten her fill of the fish Ant had caught, she leaned back against a large rock and fought against sleep. Her parents were talking about shifts in the tribe alliances, and Solar wanted to hear all of what they were saying, even though it was boring. But she wasn’t very successful, as her eyelids kept drooping and Nightfall and Ant’s words were slipping into the background.

The world was blurry as Solar stared into the smoke above the fire. The smoke flickered and shifted, becoming a fish, then a turtle, then a shell. Solar remembered the shell she had tried to enchant earlier that day and reached out a talon, imagining attaching wings to it. She felt a strange sensation, and a little bending in the universe, and then, suddenly, the shell in the smoke had wings.

Solar knew she was hallucinating, but she liked this strange dream, and pulled on the energy of the winged shell, pulling it out of the smoke. She sent it flying around, flapping its black wings. It was much darker than the violet twilight, and she could easily see it.

Two sharp gasps jolted Solar out of her trance. All the blurriness and fading noise disappeared, but the winged shell didn’t. Solar watched the shell, awestruck, while Nightfall and Ant’s heads whipped from her, to the shell, then back to her again.

I made that, she realized. ''Am I an animus dragon? But then why couldn’t I enchant the shell earlier?''

A thought bubbled up from somewhere deep inside Solar as she watched the flying shell flit around. She didn’t have animus magic.

She had something much stranger.

-    -    -

Solar sat on a boulder overlooking the churning ocean and held out her claws, watching a dancing shadow play over them. It had been a few months since she’d called the shell out of the smoke, and since then, she, Nightfall and Ant had been trying to find out exactly what she could do, and how she could control it, and where it had come from.

Nightfall’s theory was that Solar did have animus magic, she’d just enchanted herself when she was too young to remember to have control over darkness, then enchanted herself to lose her animus magic, but she did agree with Ant and Solar that this was highly unlikely.

Ant’s guess was that another animus had enchanted Solar’s egg, or Solar herself, to have strange magic, although he couldn’t decide whether it was a blessing or a curse.

Solar’s theory was that she could control shadows because she’d hatched on the Darkest Night. Nightfall and Ant said her idea was improbable, as many eggs had hatched on the Darkest Night over the centuries. Solar’s response was that perhaps she’d been given the power because she was a hybrid, and more than that, a hybrid of a flamesilk and an animus.

But however Solar got her magic, it had very annoying standards. She could only control darkness, although she’d found out that it didn’t have to be complete darkness, just mostly black, or even gray. She could make things tangible, it just took a lot more concentration.

But other than that, it was fun to be able to control shadows. Once, Solar had given her father a heart attack by making a snake made of darkness slither towards him and bite him. She had sent lines of blackness to travel slowly along his veins towards his heart, like the poison from a dragonbite viper bite would. Ant had thought he was going to die, and had flailed around in a panic until he’d remembered that the Sea Kingdom didn’t have dragonbite vipers. Solar had been sent to her room for a week for that, but it had been worth it to see the look on Ant’s face.

She concentrated on the shadow wound about her talons, imagining it turning into a bird. The darkness obeyed easily, as it always did, and turned into the shape of a bird with its wings outstretched.

Solar flicked her wrist, sending the bird flying into the sky. It disturbed her a little that her shadows sometimes made some decisions by themselves, for example, the bird flying out of its course to dart through a cloud, or catch a new wind current.

But mostly it was interesting. Were her shadows more alive than she’d thought? And how far could they go away from her? Well, there was an easy enough way to check.

Solar raised a talon, and the bird flew back and landed on her palm. Well, strictly speaking, it floated half an inch above her open talon in a way that looked like it had landed, but close enough.

She concentrated, trying to make the bird tangible. She held up one claw and poked its feathers. It resisted, with the exact right amount of force. Solar dipped her head and whispered to the bird, trying to use her powers in a way she had never used them before. “Go to Pantala,” she hissed. “and bring back something that can only be made there.”

Solar watched the bird flap away, and tried to focus on it, putting all her energy into the bird. She was pretty sure that she would have to concentrate on the bird throughout its journey, to make it able to pick up whatever it brought back.

Two weeks later, however, Solar was losing hope. She kept sending all her energy to the bird, to keep it tangible. She fell asleep at dinner and slumped through the day, as it was completely exhausting to send all her energy to the bird. But she kept it up, because how much power could she have if it worked?

But it had been too long, and Solar was about to let the bird dissipate, when a shadow soared in through an open window, and landed right next to Solar on the table. It opened its scaly foot and dropped a small jar with a coil of pale gray silk inside. Solar smiled, recognizing the silk from Ant’s lessons on Pantala. Then she passed out from exhaustion, and slept for a week.

She never tried that again.

-    -    -

The night they came for Ant was quiet. Two of the moons were full, and the other was a half-moon, casting a glow over the beach where they lived. Solar, Ant and Nightfall were on the beach, enjoying the light cast by the moons.

Well, Ant and Nightfall were enjoying the moons. Solar was wishing that the moons cast less light, because she always felt more alive and awake in the darkness. She had mastered being able to ‘see’ perfectly in the dark, by sensing where there was an absence of darkness, and guessing what was causing the empty space. Sometimes her parents joked that they should have named her Bat.

Solar had also figured out how to make shadows tangible without using up as much of her energy. They would now become tangible with the slightest thought from her, then stay substantial without her having to constantly pour her energy into them.

“I’m going to go swim,” Solar said. The surface of the water reflected the three moons, but underwater should be much darker.

“I’ll come with you,” Nightfall said reluctantly, unwinding her tail from Ant’s.

Solar sighed. “I’m three years old now, Mother. I think I can handle a few little waves by myself.”

“Well, alright,” Nightfall subsided, settling back down on the beach. “Don’t go too far,”

“I’ll be fine,” Solar said, and dove into the waves. The water was cool, and dark, much better than the light above. She didn’t understand why so many dragons liked daytime. It hurt her eyes.

Solar swam deeper and deeper. She didn’t need to come up for air, because another trick she had learned was to pour shadows into her lungs whenever she needed air, and apparently that was an okay substitute for air. It was a little weird, but it essentially gave her gills, so Solar didn’t question it.

She caught a current on her wings and drifted farther out to sea. They lived close to the SeaWing Deep Palace, as Solar had discovered on one of her previous ocean excursions. She wanted to go closer, just to see what it was like, but her parents had forbidden it. The SeaWing queen, Jellyfish, was one of the most violent and unpredictably vain queens in history, and her parents didn’t want to know what she would do to a ‘helpless dragonet’ like Solar.

But I’m not helpless! Solar thought angrily as she swam just a little closer to the underwater palace. ''I can blind dragons with my darkness, and if I made a real spear out of shadows. . .'' Solar shook off the thought. She wasn’t a killer, and didn’t ever want to be one. Unless it’s self-defense.

Solar drifted around for a while, then saw a dark shape dart through the water. Then another, then another. It’s probably just a pod of whales, she thought. Then she saw one of the dark shapes light up patterns on its body, and another shape flashed more patterns back.

All right then, they’re SeaWings, she thought. SeaWings in the ocean, that’s nothing unusual. But that didn’t calm the instinct in her mind that was telling her to run.

Suddenly, all the SeaWings shot towards the surface, and Solar could see that there were too many of them to be just a patrol. She caught the current that the SeaWings had ridden, flapping her wings as hard as she could.

Solar broke through the surface of the water and saw seven SeaWings grappling with Ant and the flamesilk spiraling out of his wrists, and another four sparring with Nightfall. Ant saw Solar pop out of the water and dashed over to Nightfall, freeing her from the SeaWings. “Save Solar!” he shouted.

Nightfall looked from him to Solar, then flapped her wings and grabbed Solar, taking off into the sky. Solar fought to get away as the SeaWings surrounded Ant, then came away with bloody claws.

Solar roared. She wanted to stab them all with knives of darkness, to drown them in shadows and summon real dragonbite vipers to suck the life out of the murderers on the beach. She wanted them to know her name and fear it, to cower in terror before her and beg for mercy, mercy that she would not grant.

But Nightfall was stronger than her, and soon the SeaWings and the blood-soaked beach were gone.

-    -    -

It had been a week since Ant had been killed. Solar and her mother were hiding in a cave near the ocean, and neither of them left except to get food or water.

Nightfall had spent the entire week lying on the cave floor staring at the ocean, only eating when Solar forced her to. Solar didn’t understand why she was just lying there. Why wasn’t she making spears out of driftwood and preparing Solar to avenge Ant’s death?

Maybe, she thought, ''maybe Nightfall isn’t planning to kill those SeaWings that killed Ant. Maybe she just wants to lie around and mope.''

''But they can’t get away with it! They can’t just go back to their stupid palace all confident like they can kill anyone they want without consequences.'' Solar growled. She wanted to dive into the ocean right now and get revenge for her father. But even though she had strange magic that they probably wouldn’t know how to fight, she was still only three years old, and it would only take a few guards to take her down.

Solar sighed, and laid down in a little hollow in the rock. She could wait a few years, until she was old enough to make the SeaWings pay. She drifted off to sleep amid thoughts of bloody revenge.

She woke up to the sound of claws scraping against stone. Solar immediately bolted up and wrapped herself in shadows. Against the darkness of the cave wall, no one would be able to see her. She waited, until she could see who it was.

Nightfall walked right past Solar, looking terrified yet purposeful. Solar was a bit surprised. Her mother hadn’t moved from her spot since they’d arrived at the cave. She debated for a moment, then followed Nightfall.

Nightfall walked out of the cave and down to the beach, and Solar followed her. Alright, maybe she’s finally hunting, she thought.

Solar’s mother looked out across the waves, then dove into them. Solar waited a few minutes, but Nightfall didn’t come up. Doesn’t she need air?

A few more minutes passed, and still no Nightfall. Solar was about to dive down and get her, when suddenly she knew. In a story she’d read long ago, there was a dragon that had lost her egg, her true love, her entire family, and then had stabbed herself in the heart because she couldn’t live with her grief.

Solar had found it an impossible story. What dragon would kill herself, even if everyone she’d ever loved was gone? But here Nightfall was, drowning herself, even though she still had her daughter left to love.

I have to save her, Solar thought, and ran towards the ocean. Then she stopped at the edge of the waves. But should I save her?

If Nightfall was depressed enough to try to end her own life, then Solar saving her wouldn’t change anything. Nightfall would just find some other way to kill herself, one Solar couldn’t save her from.

Goodbye, Mother, Solar thought, tears brimming in her eyes, but she wiped them away before they fell. Nightfall had made her choice, and now Solar was choosing hers. She would find the SeaWings who had killed her father, and torture them until they begged for death.

I swear over the bones of my mother that they will pay.

-    -    -

Solar flew over the sea, her sharp eyes and senses scanning for any SeaWings. It had only been a few days since her mother had drowned, but Solar hadn’t waited. She’d gathered up all her supplies and immediately started circling over the ocean.

Her plan had been to torture the SeaWings until she finally grew bored of it and killed them. But then, the night after Nightfall died, Solar had a dream. Her parents had told her about Albatross, the crazy SeaWing who’d murdered his entire family. Solar had dreamed that she was Albatross, except she’d been killing the SeaWings who’d killed Ant.

She woke up in a cold sweat. Solar had realized the thought the dream was trying to show her consciousness. ''Am I losing my soul? Is killing the SeaWings that killed my father evil?''

She’d thought it wasn’t. It was righteous vengeance! But was it? Maybe they hadn’t wanted to kill Ant. If she killed them for doing something they were forced to do, that was evil.

But only animus dragons can lose their souls, right? Maybe Solar could lose hers too. After all, probably no one had ever had the power she had. ''I don’t want to lose my soul. So maybe I’ll change my plan just a little.''

So now Solar’s plan was just a little different. She’d find some SeaWings who were talking about killing Ant, and find out who had ordered them, then she’d murder the dragon who’d commanded Ant’s death. It could be a random soldier, a captain, or even Queen Jellyfish. Solar didn’t care. They would die, and nothing could stop her.

Finally, after days of searching, Solar saw a glint of green scales on a small forested island. She wrapped herself in shadows and landed in the trees nearby. She had to hold back a gasp when she saw who it was.

Queen Jellyfish herself was standing on the island, laughing cruelly. She was holding something that flashed gold in her talons, but Solar wasn’t paying attention to that yet. All eleven of the SeaWings that had killed Ant were standing there, laughing with the queen, gold, emeralds and rubies in their talons. What are those? Solar thought, creeping closer. She had to hold back gasps of horror when she recognized them.

The SeaWings were holding Ant’s scales, freshly polished and glinting in the sun. Queen Jellyfish had the most of them, adorning her crown and strung around her neck like jewelry. They killed my father to wear his scales, Solar realized.

Darkness rose in her, more than there had ever been before. A thousand ways she could kill them started flashing through her head, more than she had ever considered. Her careful plan of finding who had ordered Ant’s death blew away in the storm of rage and grief and fury. She was going to kill every last one of the SeaWings on this island.

But what about your soul? a tiny voice whispered in her head. If I have to lose my soul to get revenge, Solar growled back, smothering the voice in shadows, then I’ll destroy it myself.

She crept closer, her eyes fixed on one of the SeaWings. Then she leapt, landing squarely on his back. Darkness, she thought, knowing her power knew what she wanted.

The SeaWing screamed as shadows covered his scales with a sizzling sound, until he collapsed into a pile of ashes. Nine of the SeaWing guards leapt at Solar, while the last one stood in front of Jellyfish.

Solar pulled and tugged and blasted with her power, striking the SeaWings with black lightning and shooting them with ebony spears and scorching them with shadowy flames until the only one that was left was Queen Jellyfish, who was backing away from Solar in terror.

Solar advanced, loving that such a large dragon like Jellyfish was terrified of a three-year old dragonet.

“You can’t kill me!” Jellyfish shrieked. “I’m the queen!”

The Queen, Solar thought, that’s a good name. She smiled at the shaking SeaWing. “No," she said. "I am.”

She extended a talon, and a shadow spiraled from them, taking the shape of a black snake that wrapped around Jellyfish’s neck. The snake bared its fangs, then sank them into Jellyfish’s scales. She screamed, and then dropped dead to the ground.

Solar smiled wider, then took off into the sky. She had finally avenged Ant’s death.

-    -    -

Solar looked down at the reflective pond. Two months ago, she had finally let her inner darkness out. And she’d loved it. She remembered that she’d told Jellyfish that she was The Queen.

But she didn’t feel like The Queen. She still felt like Solar, a scared little dragonet that was all alone in the world. The Queen’s scales were dark in Solar’s mind, someone who could hide in the shadows without having to use her powers. Solar’s scales would not be able to hide anywhere.

So I change my scales. Solar had decided to do this a week ago, but now she was actually going to do it.

Solar reached down to her shadow and pulled it up, molding it around her scales, covering any trace of color, except for her wings, which she left a shade of muddy gold as tribute to Ant, and her eyes, which she kept the color of fire. Now she was as black as the Darkest Night three years ago.

The Queen smiled darkly, and summoned another shadow, the snake that had killed Jellyfish. “Now,” she said as the snake wrapped itself around her neck, “let’s see what I can do.”

The End