Peace and its Shadow

Chapter 24: Self-Doubt

It was several days later.

Peacemaker was still in this dark and numb state every time he slept. Of course, like most days, no dreams. He had told Darkstalker what he remembered after the "Imagnery Assasin incident". Peacemaker still wasn't sure why or how he forgot that. If Peacemaker remembered correctly, it took quite a while to get that memory from not being constantly in his mind. He remembered how there was a search to find Chameleon, but he never was found.

Peacemaker also did remember how Kinkajou weirdly started asking how he...felt. It was similar to after Clearblade's death. It was like they always wanted him to be happy no matter what. Eventually, he started being back to his usual self or as normal as he can be after what happened which seemed to make Moonwatcher, Kinkajou, and his mother weirdly relieved. Relieved differently.

After he had explained it to Darkstalker, Darkstalker was unsure of how this could've happened but the topic of the earring came up again. Maybe the earring was the cause of this effect on Peacemaker similar to Darkstalker. Emotions seemed to disappear and numb, memories are lost, and even physical traits seem to be affected. If he remembered correctly, his eyes weren't always like this, it started to change after Blueberry's death and especially after Clearblade's death. But the earring could be the result of this too?

Hearing wing beats and wind rush by, Peacemaker slowly opened his eyes. He took a quick look around, everything was like how it was before, no objects missing. The light blue bed was amazingly comfy, if he could he would've stayed on it for most of the day but having friends like Bumblebee and Cliff, that isn't happening anytime soon. He heard the door to the guest rooms start to creak open, Peacemaker was about to jump right out of bed and get prepared for any attacker before he realized it was just a Skywing bringing in breakfast.

"Your breakfast has arrived Peacemaker," the Skywing informed, leaving the plate on the table, visibly skeptical about why the weapons that Peacemaker brought were no longer on it. The Skywing was quite old, maybe in their fifties? They constantly looked exhausted and had a few scars on their face, neck, and legs. It was interesting and impressive to see a dragon this old, although dragons die peacefully in their sleep at a little over a hundred, due to war, not many dragons could make it even half of that age. Queens is a whole other danger, since for most tribes, a queen can be challenged by either their daughters, sisters, cousins, nieces, and other dragons from further generations...if you live long enough. Though when Peacemaker looks at the queens right now and the potential heirs. It doesn't look like many challenges are going to happen soon.

Even when Peacemaker wasn't all too good in the defense classes that Clay taught, he had observed his friends. One thing is certain is that Auklet is not winning a battle against Queen Coral. Auklet is way younger regardless, she doesn't have the same talent or capability in fights unlike her sister, Tsunami nor was she ever an animus like Anemone. Peacemaker guessed it was an unfortunate result of Auklet being on a leash for most of her life. Peacemaker remembered how once they were paired up in the class and to his surprise, Auklet was around equal in physical strength with Peacemaker which was weak since Peacemaker didn't have a regular Nightwing build, but instead a Rainwing. Even looking at other daughters of Queen Coral, it didn't seem likely. Tsunami would be too focused on the school and animus magic is no longer working so Anemone's main strength is gone.

Mink doesn't seem to be interested in wanting to kill her sister and her other sister, Crystal is no longer in the Ice Kingdom. Maybe Mink's cousin, Icicle could be interested in the throne?

Sunny doesn't seem to be the type of dragon that would ever be interested in killing her mother. Queen Thorn also has no other heir to the throne so she's safe.

For Cliff's mother, Queen Ruby, there is no one else that can be heir to the throne probably because of Queen Scarlet's doing to make sure no one can challenge to kill her. Peril would've been a useful weapon to make sure nobody ever would have.