Eclipse arched her eyebrows in surprise.
"Wait, seriously? You've never heard of The Darkstalker?"
She laughed lightly. "Well, it's a very old legend. Most Nightwings and Icewings are convinced it's true, but a lot of dragons believe it's just an old tale to scare dragonets."
"So it happened about 2,000 years after The Scorching. A group of Nightwing diplomats went to the Ice Kingdom to discuss some boring trade stuff or whatever. Turns out, they were actually there to see what they could find out about the Animus heritage in the royal line, and potentially gain it for themselves. One of the Nightwings tricked the Queen's son into running away with her and stole him from the Ice Kingdom, taking the only other Animus royal at the time."
"His son is The Drakstalker. He was born under two full moons, and he was more Nightwing than Icewing, even though he was a hybrid, so he hatched with both strong foresight and telepathy, as well as Animus power, because of his father. He is still the most powerful dragon in the history of the continents."
"When Darkstalker was still young, he already had ambitions to take the throne, even though he wasn't female or Nightwing royalty. He put all of his power into a scroll so that he would never lose his mind, even though it isn't an Animus' use of their power that makes them evil, it's how they use it, and if they let it go to their head. He enchanted himself to be immortal and indestructible, so no one could kill him, and eventually, he killed his own father, and even more dragons after that."
"Eventually, his love Clearsight finally tricked him with the help of an unknown Animus and put a spell on him so that he would fall asleep forever. She hid him in a cave under Agate Mountain, which would soon collapse from an earthquake and bury the cave, trapping him in it forever."
"But during The False Brightest Night, the comet that passed made more earthquakes happen all over the continent, and the bracelet that was enchanted to make Darkstalker sleep broke, since it was almost 3,000 years old by then and he woke up."
Eclipse paused, rubbing a talon over her snout.
"This is the part that I never really learned. Somehow, Darkstalker got out of the cave under the mountain. His scroll was destroyed and his power returned to him, so he was able to escape. He regathered the Nightwings and placed a spell on the Icewings so that their tribe would die from an incurable plague. Another animus during the time somehow overrid the spell and saved the tribe, but not before it took their queen and a lot of other Icewings. They declared war on the Nightwings and the two tribes met at Jade Mountain and fought."
"The rest is a bit fuzzy. A group of dragonets from the old academy that was there somehow stopped the fighting and defeated Darkstalker. I don't know if anyone knows how, but it was after that the legend became more of actual history in both tribes."
Eclipse flicked her tail and gave Sunspot a cocky grin.
"I hope you don't mind my rambling too much, but I could literally talk your ears off about tribe history if you allowed me."
)
