SecretKeeper watched in anguished dismay, being dragged roughly away from her everything, the real secret she kept, by the cruel guards. Cruel guards. How dare she even think that about them? They were her own loyal tribe. They were her friends. Dragons she knew. 

Slaughter, not smart, not kind, but caring deeply for his cousin, Vengeance. 

StrongWings, barely old enough for guard duty. Always in trouble, but he meant well. 

And FarSight. Tears in her beautiful, grass-green eyes. Her favourite dragon in the world. She could almost hear her whispering under her breath. She could only catch a few words, before she caught Secretkeeper's eyes. Her face contorted into a snarl, tears streaming from her eyes. "I loved you." Her face softened into an agonised mask, all sadness, anger burned out of her scales, and she shook her head, tears flowing in rivers down her cheeks. 

Her friends. None of the other guards would let her see their faces. Fair enough. After all, she had betrayed them. For what? She wasn’t sure anymore. Her odd, silver egg that MorrowSeer held roughly under one arm? Her dragonet, about to hatch? She heard a crack like the breaking of bones. Forcing her eyes to look at the hatchling, she saw an eerily perfect, dark silver dragonet. Maybe a little bigger than average, but she inherited that from her father. She inherited everything from MorrowSeer. She was all him, none of her. A destroyer, a liar, probably. Just another fake prophet. 

Like her father, who just stood there, dragonet in his talons, expressionless. She had dark, rainforest-green eyes. Rainforest green. The colour of freedom for the NightWings. The colour of their perfect paradise, if they just had the guts to take it. A colour that SecretKeeper knew she would never see again because of this cursed dragonet. The dragonet with the long slim tail and the two tiny silver teardrop scales behind each eye. How beautiful. Maybe it was a symbol. Maybe she was just destined to cause tears. Or to shed tears. Maybe she hadn't decided yet. Well, she would have ample time to choose if she was raised by MorrowSeer. 

His fiery yellow eyes glared at the dragonet’s mother, SecretKeeper, but his voice cracked, barely perceptibly with well-hidden emotion. A dragon who didn’t know him as well as SecretKeeper would never have even noticed it. “Since you care about her so much more than I could, what would you have me name her?” SecretKeeper met his sad, golden eyes in one last act of defiance. “MoonWatcher. Name her MoonWatcher.” The tall, obsidian-gray dragon nodded slowly, remaining silent apart from his laboured breaths. Just another awful by-product of living on the island. Maybe he hated her. Maybe he didn’t trust himself to speak. The curving galaxies on his wings glittered mournfully, almost like the real stars that SecretKeeper knew she would miss so much, shining bright beside the beams of moonlight that snuck through the shadowy shapes of the rainforest, where the canopy stole the light from the ground. 

Somehow, SecretKeeper found herself missing the dragon MorrowSeer had been before he’d become so obsessed with trying to get the tribe off the island. He spent all his time in his quarters, drawing out horrible plans of salvation and destruction. He had been so good before. He’d been honest, ambitious, and loving himself and his mate over anything else. That was the dragon SecretKeeper had loved. That dragon would’ve been so excited to meet his dragonet. Where had he gone so wrong?

“It is a… good name. Goodbye, SecretKeeper.” He turned away from her. Neither she, nor the NightWings holding her back, could see his face, but SecretKeeper could have sworn she saw a drop of silver like their own dragonet’s scales roll off his face. Was MorrowSeer crying? She reached a talon towards him, forgetting herself for a moment. “Go! Leave me. Or I’ll never let you meet her.” SecretKeeper turned on her tail, silently hanging her head.