"Nightstar."

No reply.

"Nightstar."

The bundle of wings and scales in his arms shifted slightly, a muffled voice startled him out of his rapture. Striker.

Who was Striker again?

Then everything flooded back, and Nightstar was left with a residual terror at his own ability to forget his friend - his best friend. Nightstar detangled himself from the purple SilkWing, and his blue eyes found Striker's for a long second.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, meaning a whole lot more.

"Forget about it," he dismissed. "This is no place for an argument anyway. You need me. I need you. What are we going to do, Night?"

"Nothing." He said firmly. "The teachers have it under control."

Striker didn't respond for a long, long moment. Enough time for a group of dragons to sprint past the duo, wings flailing at their sides, and cries spilling from their mouths. But to Nightstar, their emotions were strangely elevated, as if their pain was connected on an astral level he could almost feel in his heartstrings.

Dipping into the feeling, he felt his breathing slow and it was almost like he could reach out and touch their sadness. Like he could lift the fear right off of their faces. Like the chaos and disorder around him existed within his own body.

It was Striker's voice that eventually awoke him from the trance.

"Are you okay? You look kinda sick."

Nightstar shook his head, clearing the mess of feelings he'd grown. "I'm fine." Then he corrected himself. "Well... No, I'm not fine. I don't know if I can just stay here, Striker. It's too ... I mean, I'm too... Scared?"

"This is what I'm saying!" He cried. "Will we ever feel safe here? No, I've got an idea." He said, suddenly possessed by a fiery passion in his eyes.

Nightstar didn't like the be-all and end-all feel it gave him.

"I conveniently overheard Professor Moon -"

"You eavesdropped?"

"I conveniently overheard Professor Moon, and they're sending a patrol to get the Pantalan students back to Pantala tomorrow morning. They're going to temporarily close the school, Nightstar, there's not much we can do!"

"So? You go back to Pantala, I go back to the rainforest, and we ..." He trailed off, realisation dawning in his eyes. "And we never see each other again..."

"That's one way of putting it." Striker agreed. "But..."

"Oh no. I don't like but."

"What if you came to Pantala with us? No, in secret, Nightstar," he explained, when Nightstar showed signs of interrupting. "I mean, we disguise you as a LeafWing, and you come with us."

"Why would I do this when my home is right here?" He asked plaintively.

"Because I'm your friend? And as your friend, I say we need to stay AWAY from Pyrrhia. Once we're there, we'll send a letter to your mum, okay? We'll be safer there! She'll agree. Don't you?"

Another long pause. It seemed that the death of a student had plagued all conversations with an overdose of hesitance. Then he sighed.

"I do."

"Excellent," Striker beamed. Let's make you into a LeafWing, then, hm?"

"I guess so," Nightstar smiled a fraction.

At the very least, their grand disguise seemed to take Nightstar's mind away from Astral's death. He was able to shift some of his scales into verdant shades of green, and using some stolen banana leaves, they rendered his wings practically identical to a tree.

Then Striker guided him to the art rooms, and with a pot of green ink and several sable brushes, they coated everywhere else with a lathering of meadow colour.

Equipped with the fake name Hollybush, Nightstar thought he made quite the convincing Pantalan.

But after that, it still came rushing back to him.

He couldn't stand looking at her body; it made him sick to think that just yesterday he was meeting her for the first time.

Astral. A SilkWing he'd spoken maybe ten words to? And now she was dead. Gone.

This only hardened his resolve more.

***

The next morning, he did not protest along with the other Pantalan's when their departure was announced.

He did not even say a word.

His brain had flipped into a surreal reality, where he barely even remembered who Nightstar was when a funny hybrid called Kelp approached him and asked his whereabouts.

If he had to describe it, he would say that he'd gone into a mental lockdown after the action of Striker's plan. If he was going to act convincingly, he couldn't have any regrets.

So, goodbye Nightstar, he thought grimly, and hello Hollybush.

The two of them rejoined each other in the gathering of Pantalan students waiting on the field outside, under the watchful eyes of Professor Moon who would be escorting them home. Hollybush only hoped they'd leave before his mother came looking for him.

He performed a quick mental scan of the students.

Ash and Ginkgo and Violet and Elestren and Clove, the other LeafWings. The first two were daughters of a famous couple, Sundew and Willow.

Then of course there was Striker, Rosy, and Amarillo.

And a bunch of others.

And not Astral.

Hollybush turned to Striker, who shot him a reassuring look, one that said this is totally a great idea! So stellar! Not going to go wrong at all! And Hollybush convinced himself to believe it.

He tuned out the rest of Moon's talk in favour of his own thoughts, which lingered on Pantala.

In truth, he had been very little when he'd last been. He didn't remember much. Only...

Burning Hives. And Flooding caves. And earthquakes. Great storms. Hadn't there been a volcano too?

Pantala screamed danger in his face, and here he was returning.

But... Hadn't those been the memories of a young dragon named Nightstar? Not Hollybush?

But I AM Nightstar! He cried. I am...

I certainly was...

The fleet of dragons lifted off, and nobody even raised an eyeridge at their extra LeafWing. Hollybush spread his fake wings, and launched his fake persona off of the cliff after them. Then, supposedly, he was free.

The murder had shaken everyone, whether they knew Astral or not. And to Nightstar, this left him more confused and more fragmented than he'd ever felt in his life.

He barely even knew what he was doing anymore.

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Guys I'm sorry if this is incoherent writing XD

Spending waayyy more time on original novels recently, apologies. BUT hey, here's your irregular update of the month.

*Crawls back into the hobbit hole*

By request, here's a reference of the  Hollybush disguise:

PS spot the Macbeth reference 🫢😮

~ Solar out