1. Stone and Cloud: In the Time of Umber Shadow

Cloud woke slowly, conscious only of being curled on a fur pallet in a warm bower. After days of tense, rapid travel through the suspended forest, with only brief stops for exhausted sleep in the rain on marshy platforms, it was a luxury. Still drowsing, he rolled over and stretched. That was when he registered that something nearby was breathing.

He snapped awake and flailed upright, only to see it was a consort fledgling, sitting beside the hearth bowl, watching him critically. The fledgling had a bad eye, a white mark across it obscuring the blue, and was clearly unimpressed with Cloud.

Cloud sat down on the furs with a thump, trying to pretend his heart wasn't pounding. After that overreaction, he doubted the fledgling was convinced. "Who are you?"

The fledgling shifted to his soft-skinned form. He had dark bronze skin, dark hair, and the undamaged eye was a bright blue. He said, "I'm Stone. I'm not supposed to be up here."

"I know, you're supposed to be in the nurseries." Cloud ran a hand through his hair, reminding himself there was nothing to panic about.  After meeting Paragon, the first consort, it had become obvious that it was unlikely that anyone would mistreat him in Umber Shadow's consorts' quarters. Paragon had the air of a settled older consort who disliked trouble and the size to enforce his opinion on that point.

Somehow Cloud hadn't expected Umber Shadow to be such a small court. It wasn't much bigger than his birth court of Sunset Water. And the fledgling was still staring at him. "Why are you here?"

"Cerise is mad at Indigo," Stone answered. "Indigo's my favorite."

Cloud tried to ignore a surge of guilt and doubt.  Cerise was the reigning queen. Cloud had seen her briefly before Paragon had come to take him to the consorts' quarters, and she had been furious. "Why aren't you down in the nurseries?"

From Stone's expression, he thought this was a nonsensical question.  "I'm going to live up here some day."

"Is this a good place to live?" Cloud said, mostly as a distraction. He was curious, but he didn't expect a fledgling to have a useful opinion.

"I guess." Stone shrugged. "I'll live here all my life." He pointed to his eye.  "No queen from another court is going to want me."

Cloud frowned. It might be true, but it was a cruel thing to say. "Who told you that?"

"No one had to tell me, I'm not stupid." Stone's stubborn expression said he was perfectly aware of the attempt at distraction.

He said, "I want to be Indigo's consort but I can't because we have the same birthqueen. And Cerise is really mad at her."

"Right." Of course the reigning queen was furious, of course Indigo was the one who was going to pay for this. Cloud wasn't sure what he had expected on arriving here. Maybe he hadn't expected anything, he had just been congratulating himself on the cleverness of his escape.

Cloud obviously wasn't reacting the way Stone had expected, because Stone clarified again, "Cerise is mad at Indigo because of you."

Cloud looked away. He hadn't stopped to think about what this would mean for Indigo, at least in part because he had expected Indigo to betray him at some point. It was only on the journey that he had begun to realize that this wouldn't happen. Indigo and Lapis and the others from Umber Shadow were too much like his own clutchmates back in Sunset Water.  He said, "It's not..."  my fault. 

He couldn't get the words out, couldn't lie about it, even to placate a disgruntled fledgling. "I did what I had to do."  He winced. Even to him it sounded as if he had tricked Indigo into being savaged by a mud-tangler to save himself.

Stone frowned slowly, his brow furrowing. "There's probably going to be a war because of it."

Startled, Cloud said, "Who says it's going to be a war? Cerise?"

"The warriors."

Cloud let out a breath in relief. "When you get older you realize warriors say a lot of things, and most of them you don't need to pay attention to."

Stone appeared to take that thought in for serious consideration. Then he said, "But if there was a war, it would be your fault."

Cloud felt the words hang in the air for a long moment. "That's true, but there won't be a war.  No one would go to war over me."  He thought about trying to explain that his queen Argent hadn't cared about him enough to start a war. Now that it was done, she would realize she was as glad to get rid of him as he was to be free of her.

Another young consort ducked his head through the door. This one was old enough not to be called a fledgling, but just barely.

"Hello," he said, "I'm Bright--  Stone, you should be in the nurseries."

Stone shifted and bounced up to cling to the ceiling. "Says who?"

Bright yelled, "Get out!"

Stone was eventually shooed out, and Bright and his clutchmate Sunrise and their curious warriors were a welcome distraction. Anything to keep Cloud from thinking about Indigo.