The dragonet froze, mid-scream. 

The dragon began to warp, its snout lengthened, its legs grew long, and its wings expanded. The two dragons just stared as all the color swept out of the dragon's scales, then came back in soft, swishing waves.

Her underbelly was still pale green at the moment, but it was changing; the webbing between her spines was the same, but she was changing. The sails of her wings were now transparent green, and her underbelly was now white. Lastly, the color wave ran over her eyes, coloring them a rich, golden amber. Tiny golden scales dotted themselves underneath her eyes, and around her snout.

Her talons were now webbed with transparent webbing.

Dawn and Flutterwing just stared. "You-the-a-wha?" Dawn managed to open her mouth, but the words she wanted to speak didn't come out at all.

The dragon that had shapeshifted paid them no mind. She reached her talons out and studied them, as though she had not seen them in a while. She paused, passing a fleeting glance at her tail, then spreading her wings, examining them closely. Finally, she spoke.

"Thank you for freeing me," she said.

Dawn snapped back into attention. "Oh-um... What... Just happened?"

She stood dumbfounded as the strange dragon stepped up and took the golden choker from her limp claws. It shimmered, once, twice, three times, and expanded loosely, turning into a thin, golden chain with a golden ball attached as a charm.

"Wha... What is that?!" Flutterwing finally regained the ability to speak.

"This. This is magic, magic in its darkest, most twisted form." The dragon looked up grimly, her eyes gleaming in the early afternoon light.

"How?" Flutterwing asked.

"Because of this," she explained.

The dragon carefully opened the golden ball and emptied its contents onto her palm. Everything inside was an impossibly small piece of parchment and a tiny black shard of crystal. The second it was out of the confines of the charm, the parchment began to grow, expanding.

"Are you still Dewdrop?" Dawn blurted out suddenly. She hadn't really been paying attention; she admitted it. She'd been staring at the dragon's incredibly hot features. Dawn! get a grip on yourself!

The dragon paused, considering. "Yes. I am just an older version of her."

"Soo... like..." Dawn started, trying to find an explanation for what she had seen and firmly pushing down her intrusive thoughts. You literally just met this dragon!

"Don't try to make any sense of it, it's impossible to understand," she said casually.

"You were saying," Flutterwing said, hastily trying to get back on the subject.

"Ah, right, yes. This-"  she tapped the crystal with one of her claws, "-is a Shadow Shard. You just word the enchantment or write it down, and it happens."

"Where do you get one?" Dawn interrupted. "They look like they don't exactly grow on trees."

"I... It's best you don't know where they come from. I believe that back at the time of the Old Rain Kingdom, there was something similar, called 'animus magic'. However, it disappeared long before the second great tribal war," Dewdrop said, glancing at Dawn for a moment. That one moment was enough for Dawn's face to heat up, but she quickly forced the blush off her snout.

Dawn sucked in a breath. That was a long time ago. Almost two thousand years ago.

"Let's see what spell was put on me," Dewdrop said, sounding incredibly uninterested.

Dawn hesitantly crept up next to the dragon and peered over her shoulder. The scrap of parchment had turned into a scroll in her talons.

Let this shard change any wearer of this one necklace into the form of the dragon by the name of 'Dewdrop', but at the age of two.

The coloring shall be as follows: pale green for the eyes and stomach, as well as the sails of the wings. All recognizable features shall be wiped. The main body color will stay the same.

The necklace shall appear tighter than it actually is.

The dragon shall not want to take this off, for in its mind, to take it off would be certain death.

This scroll shall shrink itself to be the size of a signal scrap. As soon as this scroll is removed from contact with this shard, it will return to its normal size.

When this is removed from the neck of the dragon, this necklace will lose all power over the dragon.

"Well, this explains so much," the green dragon said dryly.

"Why would anyone want to do this? To change a dragon, wipe their memory... That's just cruel," Dawn shuddered. Especially to a dragon this pretty, Dawn's inner mind smirked. WOULD YOU SHUT UP?! Dawn internally screamed at herself.

"So it is," Dew said simply. "But so is the world."

Flutterwing cleared her throat, and Dew's head shot towards her. "You have fire in your silk, do you not?"

Flutterwing balked, surprised to be addressed so suddenly. "Um... Yes?"

"Well then, I have a message for you."

The SilkWing RainWing hybrid gave her a sharp look. "From who?"

Dewdrop smiled coldly. "From a dragon named Cyan."

Both dragons sucked in a sharp breath.

"That-thats," stammered Flutterwing, trying to speak. 

"Oh-oh wow," Dawn said breathlessly. What was happening here?

"D-do you..." Flutterwing started, but she couldn't finish.

The two sisters locked gazes. "Is-is she a SilkWing?" Flutterwing asked.

"Yes, and a Flamesilk. Do you know her?"

"Know her?!" Flutterwing cried. "She's my mother!"

They expected the green dragon to react, to be shocked, something. Anything. But her face remained as blank as ever. "Ah, yes. Good. I have found my dragon."

"So what does Cyan have to say?"

"She says..." Dewdrop said, pausing for special effect.

"What?!" Flutterwing demanded.

"I received a letter to deliver," Dewdrop said calmly.

Dew pulled out a folded piece of parchment from a small pouch tied around her ankle that Dawn hadn't noticed before. She handed it to Flutterwing. Flutterwing snatched the letter and scanned over it quickly.

"What does it mean?" Dawn asked.

"It means, she wants us to come to her."

≺︱✵︱≻

Edit: ugg, this chapter needed a lot of work :/