Chapter Text
She wasn’t sure when the warmth had turned cold. As long as she could remember, the world had been dark and warm, comfortable. Now, it was cold, and she didn’t know what had changed. Just as the warmth had fled before the ice, the ever-darkness had fled before the light. It was a fulfilling, blossoming silver light that penetrated through her scales, filled her up completely, and then continued to pour. It gave her all that she could drink, and more. The light showed her things. It showed her wonderful, terrible things, and it was through these things that she learned about the world - not the world that is, but the worlds that could be.
Within the swell of the light, it grew brighter. There was a flash, and freezing blue blood exploded across her face.That was how she learned about death. That was how she learned what it meant to kill, to bleed, and to die.
Although she recoiled from those visions, not everything that was shown to her was so terrifying. It was through these visions, through the wisdom bestowed upon her by the light that she learned about love.
Her existence wavered again, and she was somewhen else. She saw a tiny dragon, looking up at her with amazed adoration mere moments after coming out of its shell. She loved her dragonet so much. He was there, too. He was in almost all of these visions. She knew him, without knowing him. A dragon whose fate was intertwined with her own, whose soul was another half of her own. She didn’t know his name, but she knew his essence - or at least, she knew what his essence might become.
For a long time, all she did was watch, allowing the light to guide and instruct her. As she watched, things began to take shape in her mind, one by one. Through the light, she came to understand war and peace, excitement and fear, joy and grief, family and tribe, and this dragon. This dragon who was always there for her, with her, against her. She didn’t know his name, but already, she thought of him as hers - her dragon. It was a comfortable feeling, having a presence, a consistent feeling that she could hold onto, something that she knew would be there whenever she looked.
It wasn’t until much later that she realized that the light was fading. Before, she’d been able to drink all that she wanted from it and there had always been more. Now, it was slowly dimming. Where there had been abundance before, now there was thirst. Where there had been thirst, the darkness returned. Bit by bit all that she had seen and learned was fading, slipping through her talons. If she didn’t act quickly, it would all go dark, forever.
Not long ago, the ever-darkness was all that she’d ever known. Now, such a short time later, after all that she had seen, she couldn’t imagine going back. She needed to escape. The light showed it to her clearly; If she got out, the light would stay - however much of it she could save. It wouldn’t be easy, though. The visions were getting darker.
Another flash led her to a vision of erupting earth, rocks falling from the sky, and the wails of dragons who were crushed beneath her weight. She heard words that cut through reality like the talons that they compelled cut through flesh, followed by howls of pain and screams of terror.
She knew what pain was, but now she was experiencing it. Something sharp and nasty that rolled through her in waves, growing worse and worse with each passing moment, with each vision, and with every bright thread forward that was severed, snatched away. She summoned all the force that she could muster and lunged forwards, reaching out as though she could grab the light itself, pulling it closer, pulling inside of her, where it would never let her go. There was a soft crack. She thought she heard some noise from the elsewhere, beyond her, but she could barely tell beyond the rolling, roiling waves of the darkness that had risen again to stake their claim over her.
A great storm blowing her off course, plunging her into the ocean, from which she would never return. She could feel the waves crashing around her, squeezing the air out of her body, the water flowing in to replace it.
A hapless clink of metal on scales. The last, terrified moments of a dragon who would never see the moons again. Pools of bright blue blood appeared on the ground where he stood, covering her visions, covering it until it felt like the wonderful, loving silver light itself might have turned completely blue.
She forced her body to move again, she shoved her talons out, again. Not only was the world getting darker, now, it was becoming less clear. Some of the things she knew that she used to know were blurry and lost, she realized, and she didn’t have time to try to get them back. Another shove. Another crack. Another moment of being shunted away from the light, into the dark. It felt like the entire world was shaking, as though it might finally consume her, and take with it the one last connection she has. Then, she saw his face again, her dragon, smiling down at her, and the rest came as an instinct. She gave one more push, pouring every ounce of strength she had into until finally, something gave in. The darkness stopped approaching as she took her first real breath. It was terrifying, but she’d done it, she’d made it out. As the splinters of eggshell dropped around her, and one stuck itself to her nose she was plucked up into a pair of talons. A mirror of one of the better, more important visions she’d been shown that now danced behind her eyes like threads.
“Hello, Clearsight.” The loving voice whispered, barely an inch from her own face. She stared back into the loving eyes before her, and tried not to let it show. She could feel the warmth in the claws, the love in the eyes, but no matter how much new light it seemed to pour in, she couldn’t help but feel the absence of what might have been. What she might have been if she’d made it out earlier. What she would have been, if she’d been better. She focused inwards, holding the light that remained tightly. She clung to it, her one defense against the ever-dark that had tried to reclaim her. She held it tight, the shining light from above, and its beautiful, wonderful, terrifying gift - it was her one defense, her only protection and as long as she would live, she would never let that light fade.