Prologue:
A Veeeeery Mysterious Beginning

Two moons glowed brightly overhead, the third not yet risen. Stars shimmered. The night air hung heavy with fog and mystery.

A large MudWing looked up at the largest moon. He sighed.

"Hello, Clay," a blue SeaWing called to him, her voice much too soft and out of character. It was Tsunami. "What are you doing out here?" she asked, gesturing with her strong tail back toward Jade Mountain Academy as if to beckon him back to it.

"Oh, just thinking about why that moon is so mysterious," Clay replied in an enigmatic way. "Why is everything so mysterious and foreshadow-y tonight?"

Tsunami frowned and peered up at the stars. They were beautiful and distant, perfect for making metaphors about. "I don't know. Sunny just lost all her character development from the last four books and became scared of the dark. Can you help me with her?"

Clay tore his eyes off the night sky and nodded. "All right. Just please stop acting nice around me. My heart belongs to Peril, and our romance needs some drama before we can confess our love."

"Sure," Tsunami agreed, and instantly became more hostile to contribute to Clay's personal drama.

They flew back toward the academy with new tension between them. Tsunami couldn't help but notice the anxious energy that seemed to hang around the school, as if the night itself were warning of something bigger to come...

The halls of Jade Mountain Academy were fairly quiet, quiet enough for both Clay and Tsunami to start ruminating their life goals as they walked in a slow, heroic fashion.

Kinkajou bumped into them. "Hi, Tsunami! Hi, Clay!" she said cheerfully.

"SHHHHH!" Tsunami snapped at her, shoving the RainWing aside. "Oh my gosh, Kinkajou, we're trying to mysteriously ponder here!"

The little RainWing paled from hot pink to more of a...salmon-ish color. "Sorry," she said.

"Shut up, Kinkajou," Tsunami said, still trying to heroically ruminate.

Kinkajou shut up.

Clay frowned to Tsunami as they walked away. "I hope she isn't injured later to motivate/guilt us."

"Eh," Tsunami grunted, "I kinda thought that was going to happen to Sunny."

As if on cue, Sunny ran up to them and hugged Clay. Her warm scales shined a friendly gold color in the torchlight. "Clay! There you are! I was looking for you." She turned and looked at Tsunami with friendly green eyes. "Thanks for finding him, Tsunami." She spread her wings in a friendly, welcoming way. "I just got so scared of the dark. But now you're here, so I don't have to be afraid." She smiled. It was a friendly smile.

Clay wondered why Sunny was acting like a quirky side character instead of a heroine. Then he remembered the mysteriousness of the night.

"I love Jade Mountain Academy," Sunny said, offering some friendly exposition, "Everything has been so peaceful. The students are happy now. The lessons are going well. Our school is so lovely. Thank you, guys."

Tsunami grinned and gave Sunny a light shove. "Oh, Sunny," she said, clearly endeared, "You say that as if it'll all end one day."

Sunny laughed and hugged her. "Oh no, it can't. It's too perfect right now."

The sound of footsteps made all three of them look up. They spotted Starflight stumbling toward them with lots of scrolls in his arms. He looked worried.

"What's wrong, Star?" Clay asked, using a new nickname for no particular reason.

Starflight ran into a wall. "Oh, gosh, I'm blind," he said sadly. He groped around, trying to grab all the scrolls he had dropped.

Clay, Tsunami, and Sunny stepped forward to help him, but he waved them off, proving that he was an independent and functioning dragon.

He presented them with an old, yellowed scroll. "Look at this," he said, shaking it at them blindly. "Fatespeaker just read this to me, and I think it could mean something bad!"

"Something bad like what?" Tsunami asked.

"Like an ancient prophecy that could end us all!" Starflight cried.

Sunny gasped. "Oh no!" She took the scroll from him in a scared but friendly way. Her scales blanched in a way that was biologically improbable but still somehow canon.

Clay looked over her shoulder to read the scroll's ancient words. "This looks very, very bad," he said.

Tsunami read it aloud:

The Prophecy...

One shall come from the familiar night

Seeking an end to all that is right

A glorious sun shall set, and then

The chosen one will make things right again

An academy on a mountain of jade

Will fall down and destroy everything that it made

A special hero will come when it's time

This last verse exists for the sake of a rhyme

Starflight nervously wrapped his wings around Sunny, squeezing her just enough establish the story's take on their relationship. "What could it mean?" he asked.

Sunny started to cry. "I don't know!"

"Well, there's nothing we can do now. Nothing except foreshadow the rest of the plot," Tsunami said, sounding defeated already.

Clay looked out of a conveniently placed window. "The moons are very mysterious tonight," he commented. "Let's go watch them."

Sunny shrugged. "Sure."

"I'm down for it it," Tsunami said.

"I'm blind," Starflight said sadly.

They went outside to heroically ruminate and watch the mysterious moons.