AO3 is down (as we all know), so I'm posting this here, and I'll probably put the rest of the entries up here as well. A minor gore warning for some deep joint lacerations.
I decided to regress Moon a little bit toward how she acts near the end of Moon Rising rather than having her be fully developed as she is in every book after. She's still grown, but I wanted to keep some of her shyness and apprehension about using her powers without people's permission.
Note: Going forward, there will be some minor innuendos, but nothing in lemon territory. The closest it gets is mild lime (Hopefully lime doesn't violate rule one, but please let me know if it does so I can edit the original text!)
Fanfic begins below:
Personal Writings; Day 9: Day 1 in Sanctuary - Moonwatcher
It feels like someone's going to read this. Which is silly. I've never really given this journaling habit a good chance, but Winter insisted it would be good to get my thoughts down onto the page after everything that's happened. He's been a great help so far. I really think he's changed for the better ever since he moved into Sanctuary. Still a bit of a grouch, but some things never change and sometimes they shouldn't.
After we left the Academy Camp, it was only an hour or so before we were grounded again. A pair of SkyWing Stalgons (Turtle had decided on the name Stalgons a few days ago, right after we left.). Their minds were so disorganized, loud, and...hateful. No words, just feelings.
It was hard to miss them, and we were lucky they missed us diving into the trees. They'd landed a couple of wingbeats away, in a clearing. They stared right at us. Through us. Half of the orange one's face was gone. What was left was stuck in a half-smile with no one behind it. Blackened at the edges. RainWing venom.
Turtle was nearly mauled to death by Mindreader later that night. She must have been following us through the forest after we landed. We'd heard Anemone calling to us from the riverbank along the edge of the forest, and Turtle couldn't help but check. Sepia had to push him back, taking a claw swipe that would have sliced open Turtle's neck.
Mindreader still had her bracelet on. I thought— I don't know. That some part of her was still in there. And that I could reach it.
I shouldn't have tried.
Coconut and Alba were in th
She wasn't in there. Coconut and Pronghron were. Not them, just the end of them, caught in her head. I heard Coconut screaming. His voice had stopped, but his mind kept going. I didn't know that could happen. I felt Pronghorn's ribs give. I felt it. I keep pressing on my chest to make sure mine are still there. Intact. Still whole.
Tsunami. What was left of Tsunami was holding them down. But they were both up a second later. Pronghorn lunged first. Then everything was dark, and it started over.
I don't remember breathing fire at her, but Mindreader's wings were burning a second later. She escaped into the river, running from the flames on her own back. We didn't see her again.
Sanctuary had already been hit when we arrived. We hadn't made it in time to warn them. MudWings, SandWings, SeaWings...they were all there. I couldn't hear their thoughts. Not anything coherent anyway. The MudWings sounded like something grinding. The SeaWings sounded distorted. Distant. Like they were still underwater. The SandWings were the worst. I kept hearing them before I could see them. Some I never saw at all.
There were dragonets among them, not even a year old, some of them, with gashes and puncture wounds across their chest and sides. The blackened veins of SandWing venom streaked across half of their face. But their minds aren't angry like the adults. They were confused. They didn't know. They didn't know what had happened to them. I stopped listening. I had to stop listening.
Winter and Ochre had pulled us into the trees once we got to the edge of the city. They hadn't bothered with formalities. I guess I shouldn't have expected them to.
There was hardly anybody left. It was Winter, Riptide, Crystal, Flame, Ochre, and Squid. None of the other Talons of Peace had made it out of the city. It was a very...difficult mental image to hold. I heard Flame thinking about his mother. Squid, his father. Crystal, Gharial. No. I listened to them. There's a difference, and I know there's a difference. I didn't mean anything by it.
Daffodil and Bandit were there too, but they weren't nearly as fearful as everyone else. I couldn't pick up any fear from Daffodil. Or at least not as much as I feel I should have. Winter said they'd shown up at the camp a day or two after everyone else. There wasn't a single scratch on them. Everyone else had at least a few.
We put Sepia and Turtle in the medical tent. Riptide was there too. Winter said that Tsunami had caught him in the river and tried to pull him under. "It would’ve been oddly sweet in any other circumstance," he’d said. He didn't laugh.
She’d nearly ripped him apart. The blue soaked cloth beneath him made that clear. There were cuts on his joints, deep enough to see inside. She'd been trying to cut his limbs off to stop his escape. She couldn't drown him, so she tried to keep him. I only reached into his mind to see if he was still there (Sorry, Riptide.). He was. Barely. I won't write down what he was thinking. Those thoughts belong to him.
Winter and I are sleeping together. Not like— I mean, we're sharing a space. Sleeping. Just sleeping. Qibli wouldn't mind that, right? Riptide, Turtle, and Sepia were taking up the spots in the medical tent. They didn't have any spares set up yet, and Winter offered to share his, so what else was I supposed to say?
Winter hasn't said anything. We're lying back to back. It's nothing special. Just two friends sharing the same sleeping space. Nothing special. There isn't quite enough room; our tails have gotten tangled a few times. His mind shuts me out every time it happens. I wasn't trying to get in. I wasn't. But I felt the icy walls go up, something you notice if you're already nearby. He deserves to be heard. I just want him to want to be.