A storm, much fiercer and mightier than the one that had blown that night swirled around in Parrot's head. His eyes shut tight in his dream, thunder crys split his ears in all directions, and currents as hot as fire seemed to wind around his wings.

These nightmares typically weren't unusual for him, it was never not to be expected. At least, Parrot would have expected it only a month ago.

Being with the Rescue Riders and not his judgemental flock had surely done a toll on the fierceness of his nightmares. In fact, the dreams seemed to get better.

So, such a scary nightmare like the one he had at the night of the thunderstorm was concerning.

Parrot's cyan eyes flew open and he jerked in his nest. Thunder rolled outside and he flexed his spines several times in order to calm himself down. He squawked sadly and looked down at the hay below him.

He looked up again, and noticed that no one else was in the sleep cave with him. He assumed that after he and Summer were finished searching for Cutter and Aggro, that meant he could go right to his nest. But Summer had been wondering where everyone was and went up through the trap door, and he assumed she would eventually come back. He was wrong.

He perked his head up, hearing faint voices drifting through the trap door. Parrot shifted his claws and stood up nervously.

He walked over and pushed his nosehorn against the trap door (as an adult nadder he was tall enough to reach). Warm firelight filtered in and he awkwardly looked in.

"Hey Parrot. I thought you were asleep." He jumped slightly, not expecting Summer to notice him immediately.

"Come up here, you should hear this." He heard Leyla sigh, sounding somewhat defeated.

He flapped up through the trapdoor, barely fitting in. He hopped around and looked at everyone.

There stood Dak, Winger, Leyla, and Summer to the side, where a map was tacked onto the wall. A route was drawn in red on the paper, leading from island to island away from Huttsgalor, to a far away island chain nearly off the map.

"We're heading on a quest to help the dragons under threat by the rebellion." Dak said quickly.

Parrot blinked in surprise, "We're leaving?" He squawked.

That wasn't good, all the dreams he'd been having recently (the ones where he actually opened his eyes in) he'd seen places other than Huttsgalor. Bad things happening in stranger lands. Leaving could only mean a confirmation to all that he's been shown.

"Yeah." Aggro nodded. He realized she was sitting a little ways off with Cutter and Burple.

"And there's one more thing you should know." Cutter popped up.

"Yes..." Leyla put her hand to her head, sounding defeated and tired (of arguing, perhaps).

"I know I said I'm a Razorwing, but I'm only half Razorwing." Cutter admitted, he sounded like he'd already gotten it off his chest before, or maybe it was easier to confess to a dragon you haven't established friendship with for too long.

Parrot recognized Cutter's other half instantly, he'd spent most of his life in a world where so-called "rare" lightning dragons would frequent, causing havoc and shrieking their shrill songs from thunderstorms.

"Half Skrill." He said.

Cutter looked up, shocked, "How'd you know?"

"I- uh." He paused, "I just recognized it."

Instead of asking further questions, the hybrid turned back to the map.

"We'll be setting out tomorrow." Winger announced, bringing the group back to the task at hand.

Parrot gulped, eyes darting to the floor.

"Yes, and we all should get a lot of rest. It's late already." Leyla frowned in Dak's direction.

In response he shrugged and walked over to the stairs, gesturing for the dragons to head off to their nests as well.

Parrot hopped back through the trap door, his belly squirming at the thought of going back to sleep. He knew that the dreams would only start plaguing him again. Still he went quietly back to his nest, the hay suddenly feeling very uncomfortable against his scales.

He still wasn't completely convinced the BoulderDeath follower's had given up. Just because they've moved on from Huttsgalor for now doesn't mean they wouldn't come back.

He flapped his wings with an anxious air, eyes widening as if he could see snow-white jaws peppered with splatters of blood reaching out from the Earth to swallow him and everything in sight.

He blinked suddenly, finding the sleep cave suddenly darker than it was before. Wind was still whistling outside the doors but everyone was in their nests sound asleep. He shook his head, wondering how long he'd been sitting awake in his nest.

Parrot got up, uneasy and noticed an odd thing at the edge of his vision. He turned and noticed that he wasn't the only one apparently up.

Burple was awake as well, but with his back turned to him, obviously not noticing the nadder was staring at him. The rockspitter was looking over something in between his claws. Like a rock, but of a slight transparent orange hue.

Parrot stayed still as Burple whispered oddly to the rock.

"Hello? Hello? What are you saying?" He was asking in a hushed, yet confused tone.

The orange rock did not respond, just sat there boringly.

Parrot started harder, narrowing his eyes. He felt something coming on, like a surge. He knew this feeling, this feeling would only happen when he was about to pass out and receive terrifying nightmares more violent than any he would experience while in regular sleep. But this hasn't happened in such a long time, before he met the Rescue Riders, something had to be very wrong.

Just before the world darkened, he saw a slight blue flash emit, just briefly, from Burple's rock.

•

Thump.

Burple whirled around with a gasp, clutching the Amber Stone tighter. It was quiet, however, everyone else was laying down peacefully in their nests. Even Parrot, who was settled in a rather odd position face-first in his nest, was completely still, not twitching at all.

He shrugged and his eyes trailed back to the Amber Stone. Inaudible whispers floated around his head, and he just couldn't make out what they said.

"Maybe it's not you, maybe you're just a random rock I swallowed at the wrong time." He told the Amber Stone, "In fact I should probably give you back to Magnus..."

The stone sat silently, the whispers slowly fading out, giving a last word, 'Red.', before fading out completely.

'Red? Now that doesn't make any sense.' He thought and frowned, and swallowed the Amber Stone back before closing his eyes and going to sleep.

•

A pink dawn crept over Huttsgalor, and refreshing sunlight filtered through the Roost.

Leyla yawned and smiled, stretching her arms. It took her around three seconds to remember what happened last night.

Instantly she groaned, sourly remembering the argument with Dak about leaving or not, along with the dreadful 50%-of-Razorwing-notes-are-wrong news. She rubbed her eyes and headed down the stairs, her shoulder sagging. She noticed that the map that had been tacked to the wall was gone, the nails left where they were.

'Knowing Dak he's probably already outside waiting for me with everything packed and ready to go, go, go.' She thought, sighing.

She opened the door and found Winger relaxing in the training area of the Roost, saddlebags packed to the brim.

"Hey Leyla, Dak's wrangling everyone up." He noticed her and lifted his head.

"Yep, I figured." Leyla shrugged and opened the sleep cave doors and took upon the scene.

Summer was spitting water into water containers and nosing them into bags. Burple was emptying his rocks per Dak's orders to make room for more travel supplies. Cutter was flexing his newly molted spikes and staring weirdly at them as if he wasn't used to the new look just yet.

And finally Aggro was shaking Parrot awake, who looked to be in dead-locked sleep.

"We're all ready Ley!" Dak waved over at her before running up to her, "Right everyone?" He looked back at the dragons.

"What? Y-yes! Yes! I'm sorry, I'm up!" Parrot squawked loudly, jumping up and nearly knocking Aggro off her claws, earning a hiss from her. The deadly nadder's eyes were darting around nervously, clearly startled.

"Alright." Dak ran over to Winger and hopped onto his back.

Leyla went to Summer and the Rescue Riders plus Parrot were back up into the air. After conversing with Chief Duggard for a moment they set off.

The morning quickly gave way to bright sunny day as they flew. Leyla looked down at the blue sea far below them and gripped Summer's saddle harder. The fastfin noticed and asked her, "What's wrong Ley?"

"Nothing, still just nervous about this, you know?" Leyla admitted.

"Huttsgalor will be fine." Summer reassured her.

"I know, I know... It's what ahead I'm worried about. We know nothing about this Hidden World rebellion."

"We'll still be smart about this. We don't have to go blazing in immediately... in fact." Summer paused her sentence, then turned her head over to Parrot, who was flapping hesitantly along.

"Hey Parrot, do you know anything about the rebellion or the Hidden World?" The fastfin asked.

"I don't know... I've never been to the Hidden World before... I didn't even know it still had a king." The nadder responded, thoughts clearly elsewhere.

'That makes me feel so much better.' Leyla thought.

•

It felt so unnatural to have his secret out and accepted so quickly. Cutter couldn't stop thinking about it the whole three-day journey.

It didn't feel right to really be acknowledged as a hybrid, he's spent so long living with the Rescue Riders like a full Razorwing. It was kind of unnerving, thinking about all the time he'd been bullying for the fact that his friends, that Aggro, had received with open arms (although getting Leyla to accept it still had been a bumpy road).

Now with the molting he looked and felt more Skrill than ever. He couldn't help but wonder if he got any useful new powers... maybe he still had some part of his infamous ego.

"Is that it?" He was interrupted by Winger's exclamation.

He forgot how long he'd been flying after setting out from their last rest stop. The three days had really flashed by.

On the horizon the familiar spiraling peaks could be seen outlined against the setting sun. The wind rushed through his wings and a dark feeling pushed into his chest. Yet at the same time some kind of bravery swooped in as well.

Cutter's eyes darkened. It didn't matter if all he had of his former home were bad memories. It was his island no matter what, and no one was allowed to unjustly take it over. No one.