Some time has passed. A sandsuun is raging above the desert. Aien is curled by their tiny window, watching the sand slowly pile up and cover it, when a crack of lightning illuminates four silhouettes in the storm. An unlucky strike stabs through one of the dragons' wings and sends them tumbling through the storm.
Fae are specially adapted to seeing through intense flurries of sand, snow, and wind, and Aien realizes that, if the other dragons are anything but fae, they won't be able to find their lost companion; or worse, they'll all get lost in the sand and end up caught it a shiftpit or impaled on a broken tower of copper. She tells Kwyn to stay and protect the egg and sets out into the chaos, searching for the fallen dragon and their companions.
The dragon lies bleeding into the sand, her cobalt feathered wing splayed painfully to one side. Aien rushes to her side, but jumps back in alarm as another fae, this one the color of coal and sunlit silk, hisses and yells at her to back off. The fae is accompanied by two others, a red-orange mirror female and a old white-marked skydancer.
The fae spreads her wings and bares her fangs, standing protectively over the lightning-struck nocturne, in a clear warning.
"I can help," promises Aien quickly. "My mate and egg are back at our den, we have healing supplies and a sheltered safe place. We have to get her out of this sand now if you even want to be able to heal her."
The other fae studies her with fear and blind fury, but slowly the frills on either side of her face lower and she drops her wings. "Thank you," she says softly. "Please help her."
The mirror gently sets down the nocturne on a nest of black down, tucking her magenta tail in. Kywn busies himself with healing supplies and kind words as Aien sits down with the other three dragons and asks them what on earth they thought they were doing trying to fly through a sandsuun, the most dangerous kind of storm throughout the entire desert, and how four dragons of such disparate alignments and elements ended up together.
The old skydancer, who introduces himself at Nueneo ("Nun for short, please") folds his ink-dappled wings back and begins his tale.
"Ashwing - her over there, the fae dragon - was adopted into the small clan my older brother and his mate ran. We loved her and she was a great help, but she also came with a great problem. She had been assigned to track down a creature that had escaped from the Lightning Tower, a monster of a dragon that had vanished months ago and had rarely been seen since. When she clearly couldn't do such a thing, she was kicked out of her clan and eventually came to join ours. She was still an outcast from her friends and family and hoped every day to come back to them once more. When she met Zodzog there on a patrol mission and she told her the monstrosity had been spotted in the misdt of the Shifting Desert, she couldn't help but go look for it, and I couldn't let her go alone. We ran into young Radian over there on the way to where it had been seen, and she decided to come along.
"We traveled for a month together from the farthest shore before finally reaching this place, and Radian spotted a scale from the monster in the sand. The scales can't be mistaken, they're shimmery and look almost like metal, unlike anything I've ever seen. Ash plunged straight into the desert, although Zod saw the signs of a bad sandstorm coming and tried to get her to wait.
"When Ash realized how bad the storm actually was, she tried to fly above the clouds to find us, and then Radian was struck and you know the rest from there."
"So have you seen a monstrosity around?" Ash jumped in quickly. "It has iridescent scales and morpho blue wings, and eyes all over its body."
"No. I'm sorry," Aien told her.

The six dragons lived together in peace for a few weeks, getting to know each other better, and when the sandsuun finally ceased, they decided to stay together in the desert. Radian and Zodzog had no place to call home, and Ash still harbored hopes of finding the monster. Nun steadfastly stayed with Ashwing no matter what.

Two months later, Kywn had convinced Aien to leave their egg, which was nearly ready to hatch, in the care of Zod and Nun to go out hunting with him. They were just returning when a howl split the air. Only one kind of creature in the desert howled like that: the moonwolves, silver-coated runners beneath the Shadow-trees and among the plaguefields, scourge of the desert and the lightning palaces. Moonwolves were rare and beautiful creatures, but they were nicknamed the dragon-eaters for a reason.
Kywn and Aien took one look at each other and shot into the sky towards their den.
Three wolf corpses, silver beasts half as big as Nun and with vicious teeth and claws, lay scattered around the front of the den. Nueneo’s roars echoed from inside the cave, mixed with the growls of multiple wolves.
Kywn let out a cry and dropped from the sky next to a still red-orange body. He fumbled in his pouch for herbs, whispering in a panic to Zod. Aien spared them a single terrified glance before charging past to help Nun.
She slammed her claws shut on one of the wolves’ necks, snapping it instantly and immediately pushing off of it and burying her fangs in the lower leg of another. Nun fought desperately against a third.
Finally, chests heaving, the two dragons stood amidst blood, fur, and scales as the final wolf let out a choked cry and died. “Our dragonet,” Aien managed eventually. “The egg. Where is it?”
Nun dropped his head and pointed with a single talon towards the wreckage of a shell on the ground. Aien pushed aside the shards of egg, fear mounting in her.
Within the shattered shell lay a tiny purple fae, eyes closed. He was dead.

Five dragons sat in front of two graves, one noticeably smaller than the other. On each grave, a small copper plaque was inscribed with a simple memento. The first read “Zodzog, who died to save the ones who loved her.” The second read “Iyo, who never breathed but was loved more than he could imagine.”
A tiny burbling noise caught Radian’s attention. She pushed back her tears and turned around to see two small, bright purple eyes peeking out of a pile of sand. She slipped quietly over to it and carefully uncovered an iridescent dragonet with violet eyes along her face, neck, and legs. The little female murmured happily and bumped her head against Radian’s leg, giggling.
Radian couldn’t fully believe that this was the dragon she had almost died to find. She was half-convinced that this was some kind of trap or trick, but she scooped up the dragonet nevertheless and set her softly down in front of Aien.
The morpho-winged dragon fluttered over to Aien, burbling shyly. Aien stared at it in shock and confusion, but then it tumbled over its own claws and lay, laughing, on its back, and she laughed too, and gently nudged the dragonet back onto its feet, where it sat blinking at her with bright shadow-dragon eyes.
“Is that- is that the monster?” asked Ashwing with astonishment, noticing the baby.
“Yes,” agreed Aien, a sad smile breaking onto her face. “And I think perhaps she’s our monster now.”


300197-M was tossed back into the void-plane, almost toppling over as their memories were flung back into their mind, sending them staggering. They bent over, coughing, wings-half spread as they tried to regain equilibrium.
"You're back!" 000666 loped over to his side. "Are you all right?"
"She didn't die?" 300197-M asked with confusion. "I thought she was supposed to die, but it just ended with the dragonet with so many eyes."
000666 wrinkled her forehead. "You're supposed to experience the entirety of their memories, right?"
"I just talked with my mate - her mate, I mean. And I spent a few months with Ash and Radian and Nun, and Iyo died- my hatchling was killed by moonwolves- he died, died, and Zod died too-" They were half-crying, shaking so badly that their claws clattered against each other.
000666 furrowed her brow, spinning through a full circle with distress. "Maybe the shiftsands are skipping over unimportant time? Or they pushed you out because you were getting too interwoven with Aien's memories? Or maybe you were just getting too emotionally unstable?" She flung up her wings in a hopeless gesture. "I studied the shiftsands with Iriys, but there's so little information and so much speculation about them. All I know is that they know what they're doing and that you are either very fortunate or extremely unlucky."
300197-M slowly, carefully dropped their crests. "I hope I'm lucky," they said softly.
"Okay. Let's try this again." 000666 bumped her nose against 300197-M's forehead and said, "Aien." 300197-M closed their eyes and braced themselves for the disorienting sensation of being thrown into another's mind, but nothing happened. They slowly looked back up at 000666, who tilted her head. "What happened? Did you see her death this time?"
"I didn't go anywhere, though. Nothing happened."
000666 flapped her wings with frustration and muttered an angry word that 300197-M didn't recognize. "What are we supposed to do?" she asked no one in particular."Are you just stuck with me in here now??"
"AIEN," yelled 300197-M experimentally. "Uh, what's the name of another dragon?"
"It doesn't exactly work like that," 000666 said, "but I guess it's possible? I'll try my grandfather." She touched their forehead quickly and said, "Firefly." She studied 300197-M hopefully. At their negative gesture, she tried again. "Iriys? Zodzog? Odin?"
Nothing.
"Duskstep! Mian, Lyre, Kyrne, Kaira, oh, who was that pearlcatcher, Ijou-"
300197-M barely had time to shout before their world whisked away before them and their eyes opened into the interior of a dark carriage with bars on the windows and other dragons huddled around-