Wings of Fire One Shots - Slow Updates

Moonbli #3

They're grown up and married, with twin sons and a daughter. They're humans with wings.

Moon glanced around nervously before slipping away from the village. She crept through the rainforest, making as little sound as she could, until she found it.

Her childhood home.

She'd spent her entire life here, dreaming of the day when she would leave at last. She'd dreamed of falling in love, getting married, and having a family. But none of her fantasies had involved a guy who wasn't a NightWing. The faceless man she'd dreamed of for years was always a NightWing.

She twisted her wedding ring around her finger; a nervous habit. Her future wasn't anything like she'd dreamed.

"MOOOOOOOOOMMY!" someone shouted. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

"Star, stop!" someone else shouted.

Her daughter, sons and husband burst into the clearing.

"Mommy!" Starchaser squealed, crawling into her lap.

"Sorry," Qibli said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I tried to stop her."

"Nobody can stop her," Cactus pointed out.

"It's okay," Moon said quickly, brushing away a few tears. "Really."

"Is this where you grew up?" Desert asked, looking around.

"Yeah," Moon said quietly. "I didn't leave until I was, oh, fourteen?"

"Fifteen," Qibli corrected. "I met you when I was sixteen, and you're a year younger than me." He sat down next to her. "Has Star already fallen asleep?"

Moon giggled. "I think so. I'm not sure-" She was cut off by an enormous snore from the little girl. "Okay, yes, she fell asleep."

"You should wake her up," Desert said. "We have to get back to Possibility."

Moon ran her fingers through her daughter's hair. "We can stay a bit longer."

Cactus sat on his mom's other side, and Desert sat by his dad.

"Why haven't you ever brought us here?" the twins asked together.

Moon started a little braid in Star's hair. "I don't know. I've never even brought your father here, to be honest. There's just... so many memories."

"Did you ever have a vision of us?" Cactus asked. "Me and Dad and Desert and Star?"

Moon laughed. "I wish I had. I didn't have my first vision of you guys until... the day your father asked me to marry him." She remembered how he'd kissed her, and then the faces of her family danced through her mind. Not her mother, her aunt, her sister, her cousins. Her sons, her daughter, her husband, her friends. Memories she hadn't made yet. Family dinners, Star's first track meet, the twins' first word (Possibility, they said it together), Cactus's first girlfriend, Desert's first boyfriend, all of Star's celebrity crushes.

They'd come like a constant rainstorm, not stopping until the day Star was born. Then her brain had allowed her to make the memories in the moment, not seeing them in her future.

She put an arm around Cactus, who, for once, didn't protest. Star stirred, then blinked her black eyes open. She'd gotten Qibli's eyes, silvery hair, and Moon's dark skin. The boys more resembled their father, with sandy hair slightly darker than Qibli's, his tan skin, but with Moon's green, green eyes. Desert had the mind reading birthmarks by his eyes, and though you couldn't tell, Cactus could see the future. Star had the birthmarks, but hadn't yet shown any signs of the power. Qibli sometimes worried that her lack of power despite the birthmarks was his SandWing blood in her veins, but Moon reassured him over and over that it was okay, that it didn't matter whether or not she could read minds.

"I love you guys," she whispered. "You drive me insane, but I love you." Qibli leaned over and kissed her (the twins both gagged), and she sighed.

"Come on. Let's go home," she said after a second.

And the little family left through the tunnel, spread their wings, and took off for Possibility.

For home.