Yup this is a weird one that hit me out of the blue. The plot bunny bit much harder than expected and quite frankly I would love to see more random pairings like this in the fandom.
And honestly, I love these guys. Sure they’re terrible but at the same time, I can’t help liking them. Mastermind even has a fanfiction or two that added some nuance to the character that I’ve decided to take inspiration from. Plus when you take a step back and look at it they’re doing terrible, and I mean TERRIBLE things for the ‘right’ reasons. To save their tribe from extinction. Is it okay? Nope. But hey. If I can like Darkstalker than I am allowed to like these guys too.
So be aware that this AU will be delving into these characters and trying to add a more sympathetic side to the story. As well as making them slightly softer than in canon. I do try and always keep a basis for characters in AU’s but these two did need to be toned down a little bit to be fair they were a little one dimensional in canon. I mean they were written well! But all we got was a very one-sided view. A valid one-sided view but one-sided nonetheless. Not to say there wasn’t something else but I definitely took liberties. I also added other AU elements that I wanted to explore. Thanks, everyone and please enjoy my craziness.
Morrowseer and Mastermind end up spending more time together after Queen Battlewinner’s encounter with the Icewing.
At first, Morrowseer is more than a little annoyed with the scientist and only interacts with him whenever necessary.
Which increases as time goes on.
Morrowseer is surprised when he slowly finds himself not minding Masterminds company and eventually even begins to seek it out. Sharing his food with him and showing interest in some of his studies besides the cure for Battlewinner.
Mastermind is surprised and delighted that someone else besides his good friend Farsight is showing interest in his work.
Eventually, both dragons admit to themselves that they have feelings for one another.
Morrowseer is the one who makes the first move but being Morrowseer his request for a date is more of a demand than anything else. Luckily for him, Mastermind surprisingly recognizes it for what it is and tells him that ‘scientifically’ his request would be better received if he put more of a romantic flair into it.
Morrowseer growls and leaves and for a moment Mastermind is worried that he had scared him off but Morrowseer comes back with a new scroll he had picked up on one of his journeys on the mainland that he had thought Mastermind would be interested in. Before asking again. This time much softer.
Mastermind melts and agrees.
It’s a strange courtship. Romance amongst the Nightwings has pretty much become nonexistent the only concern is to always have enough dragonets to keep the tribe going.
Battlewinner has little care over the strange coupling as long as it doesn’t affect their future plans.
A couple of years go by and the Dragonet Prophecy is written and delivered.
Morrowseer and Mastermind decide that they would like a dragonet of their own to raise.
Mastermind immediately knows who he wants to ask to be a surrogate. His dear old friend Farsight. Farsight agrees but insists that it has to be Mastermind who sires the egg. She and Morrowseer don’t exactly see eye to eye.
Morrowseer agrees but only because Farsight already had a dragonet, Feirceteeth, who already seemed strong even though she had only hatched a month before. And to him, he doesn’t mind who actually sires or lays the egg as long as they’re the ones who raise the hatchling.
They try but one is only conceived after a year. This means that their future dragonet is in the running for being the ‘wings of the night’ for the prophecy which more than concerns Morrowseer but Mastermind points out that they’re not the only ones who had an egg at the time. And the likelihood of it being theirs that is chosen is slim. Not as slim as they’d like but slim nonetheless.
A year goes by and sadly it is indeed their egg that will hatch on the brightest night.
Both of them are heartbroken but they still do as their queen demands.
However, after they take the egg to the talons of peace (Mastermind demanded to come.) they both decide to stay at the very least for the hatching.
Neither is impressed by the guardians and both become more and more concerned for their son or daughter.
Morrowseer is furious when he discovers a Rainwing egg in place of a Skywing egg and is half tempted to smash her egg right then and there.
But with his own egg clutched nearby by Mastermind he finds that he can’t bring himself to do it. Instead of glaring angrily at the egg but leaving it alone.
When it’s time for the eggs to hatch Mastermind expresses his desire for their egg to hatch under the light of the moons. And old scroll he had found mentioned an old tradition of bringing Nightwing eggs to hatch beneath the moons. Which simply wasn’t possible on their island with the seemingly eternal cloud cover.
He is more than a little delighted to find what would become the study cave where all three moons are shining through a hole in the ceiling.
Mastermind is fascinated when the Mudwing hatches first and immediately goes to help the others hatch and he has to slam his foot down on Kestrels tail when she goes to intervene.
He explains what the dragonet is doing and states that though he had read about it he had never been able to study it in practice.
He then pointedly asks how the guardians planned on raising the dragonets if they didn’t have even a basic understanding of the different tribes.
He stops speaking when he notices something strange with his egg. It had turned silver. He’s too focused on his own egg to notice that the Sandwings egg had also lightened in shade.
A black dragonet breaks through the shell of his egg and squints into the moonlight. His new bigwings is quick to greet his new sib helping him to finish breaking the eggshell and grooming his scales free of the fluid he was bathed in. Then turning to the other eggs that were hatching.
The newly hatched dragonet peers around curiously. Unbeknownst to all of the older dragons he is searching their minds. Then he focuses on the only other two black dragons in the cave. Those were his parents.
Morrowseer practically melts when his son's eyes focus on his for the first time.
The dragonet toddles over to the two older Nightwings and is quickly scooped up by Mastermind who quickly looks him over to make sure that he is healthy.
Besides the two strange teardrop scales next to the corner of each eye he looks more or less like a regular hatching. If a bit small.
Morrowseer stands awkwardly yet proudly next to his mate and son.
The dragonet holds out his talons towards his other father and Mastermind passes him over with little hesitation.
For the first time, the guardians begin to realize what the relationship between the two and decide that it would be best to remain silent while the rest of the eggs hatch. The little bigwing proudly helping each one.
When they are all finally hatched the spell over the three Nightwings is broken and they watch on as the guardians begin to name each one.
Clay, Tsunami, Glory and Sunny. The last one was decided with a slight almost guilty shuffle of Dune’s talons.
Almost as one the guardians all turn to the Nightwings.
Mastermind and Morrowseer smile down at their dragonet who chirps cutely up at them.
Starflight. His name was Starflight.
As the years go by the two Nightwings continue to visit their son.
This helps with the neglect from the guardians but only by so much.
Mastermind isn’t able to visit as much as Morrowseer but he always makes an effort and is the one who is willing to teach all of the dragonets about their tribes. Except for Glory at this point, the Nightwings know very little about the Rainwings since they hadn’t really begun preparing for that assault yet.
Starflight and Sunny know from an early age that the prophecy isn’t real. But they also know that there is a reason for it and one that Starflight’s parents believe in wholeheartedly.
Morrowseer and Mastermind slowly become more and more fond of all the dragonets and begin to feel guilty in using them for the Nightwing plot but they know that the fate of the tribe lies with them succeeding.
A year or so before the events of canon and before the Nightwings begin capturing the Rainwings Starflight has a vision of his father, Mastermind, experimenting on Rainwings without any remorse.
The next time he sees his father he begs him not to do it. That it would lead to his destruction.
Mastermind is understandably freaked out and talks with Morrowseer and together they confront their son about it.
Starflight is hesitant to explain his abilities but eventually caves when he realizes the future would be all the better for it. He is very careful to keep Sunny’s own abilities out of it of course.
They are obviously in shock and in awe of their son’s abilities.
Mastermind theorizes about it possibly caused by being born away from the volcano or if it was possibly even the moonlight.
Starflight says he thinks that actually is what it was. His first memory drinking in the moon's powers as his own.
While they are in awe of their son they are also fearful and both of them decide that no matter what Queen Battlewinner or any other Nightwing could be allowed to know about his abilities.
They are afraid to ask about the prophecy but Starflight beats him to the punch. Admitting that he had known about it for years now. But he didn’t fully understand what the purpose of it was.
Morrowseer reluctantly explains about the volcano and Starflight catches helpful glimpses of it in their minds.
He is also horrified and quite possibly traumatized by it all.
Now he feels conflicted. He knows what his tribe is going through is awful but what they had planned to do to the Rainwings was also awful.
For the next little while, he remains conflicted and can’t bring himself to tell the rest of his friends what he had learned. Except for Sunny of course. Who is also traumatized by what he had seen in their heads?
But Sunny tells him that they have to come clean to the other dragonets about the Nightwings plans.
The others are understandably upset by this, they had known about the prophecy being fake but they had all believed that the Nightwings had had nobler intentions with the lie. Perhaps believing it would set events in motion for an end to the war?
But instead, it was all a plot to take over new land.
This is upsetting because the dragonets themselves all like Morrowseer and Mastermind since whenever they were around they were treated MUCH better by the guardians.
Starflight himself is conflicted. And as time goes by he always wonders what he should do. Help his parents and tribe? Or the family he had found in his friends.
On the flip side. Starflights vision of captured Rainwings has come true and Mastermind is confronted by the sight of a Nightwing with his face half-melted and a terrified Rainwing queen.
He has his orders and when he shows hesitation Queen Battlewinner is sure to remind him what is at stake and that she had been kindly allowing them to help raise Starflight and continue their affair. As long as they didn’t allow their attachments to make them grow weak.
So Mastermind experiments. He is much kinder here though. Treating the Rainwings as well as he possibly can under the circumstances and making sure that fruit is collected for the Rainwings. Not ideal. And it would be admittedly easier if he focused only on experiments but he keeps seeing Glory in their faces and Starflights horrified face when he begged him not to hurt the Rainwings.
So he does the best he can. And can only hope that it’s enough for his tribe and the makeshift family he has made with Morrowseer.
He can’t wait for the day that it’s all over.
And that’s it for now. Again, I know I have a very unpopular opinion when it comes to these two. And people are totally valid in not liking them. But what can I say? I find them very interesting and there’s a lot of potential for them. I see them as villains of circumstance instead of villains to the core. But to be honest we don’t know nearly enough about them to really make judgments on how they got to the way they are.
Honestly, the only reason this AU exists is me Jokingly saying “I ship it” when we first saw their interactions with one another. I knew that if the fandom was bigger and had a larger fanfiction crowd their absolutely would be joking fanfiction for these two.
But then I wanted Starflight to exist and it blew WAAAY out of proportion. Like this thing is still going, I mean I straight up wrote the scene where the dragonets hatched and I plan on posting it sooner or later after some editing and polishing. These old guys have become a serious guilty pleasure for me and I hope at least a couple of you will find it at least funny enough to give it a chance because honestly, I’m not going to stop. I’m going to keep working on it and have fun with the concept because that’s kind of the point of this blog. Haha
And YES I totally just inserted prophet and seer Starflight (and Sunny. ) You’re welcome. Convoluted? Maybe. Do I care? No. Not really. Yes, I am a troll.
II did mention this before but I am going to take a bit of time off and work on some things on the side. I’m going to try and get a bulk of AU’s done so if I have conflicting schedules I can still get them posted. And I also want to just try my hand at writing again. So hopefully you guys can be patient with me while I’m working on this.
Not gonna lie guys I am seriously torn on whether or not I'm actually going to have Moon in my MorrowMind AU.
I mean I could but.... I kind of don't really want to. I've mentioned before that Moon's not my favourite character. I mean she's fine. In her book. After that I really struggled with whether or not I liked her. I don't like characters who are immediately adored by everyone around them and if anyone doesn't like them they're now the bad guys. Especially when they don't do anything to deserve it.
I mean. I could have it that Moon was a product of Secretkeeper wanting a dragonet and asking Morrowseer to be a surrogate and that could be an interesting touch but at the same time I don't know if I have enough interest to really make this happen.
I don't know I'm torn. I'm a hypocrite I know but I haven't really been interested in Moon since the end of Moon Rising.
I guess we'll have to see. Anyone have any thoughts?
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