Work Text:
Turtle POV:
If anyone asked Turtle what his biggest fear was, he would answer honestly and quickly.
Moonwatcher.
Not because she was scary. Not in the usual dragon-eating-you kind of way. But in the way that his stomach tied into elegant sailor knots and his brain stopped functioning the moment she walked into the room. And to make things worse — worse — she could read minds.
He was in constant terror she might peek into his head and discover the terrible, tragic truth: He was completely, helplessly, irrevocably in love with her.
She had that way of walking — like she wasn’t aware she was walking, floating maybe. Her scales shimmered with starlight, like she carried the whole sky with her. And her eyes — oh, her eyes! — those deep green whirlpools of secret thoughts and stars and—
“No. Stop. Stop thinking about her eyes,” he hissed to himself, his claws gripping the scroll.
His tail twitched. His fins trembled. He forced his snout back down to the scroll.
Too late.
Her hips.
AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH —
He slapped the book over his snout like it was going to smother his thoughts into obedience.
No. No no no no no. Bad brain! That was NOT where we go! That is not a polite place to think about your friend, Turtle! You are a dignified SeaWing! A royal SeaWing! An Animus!
Well. A secret Animus. A weird Animus. A nervous, bumbling Animus with the social grace of a panicked eel in a tea shop.
Turtle groaned quietly, his face flushed under his scales, and he rubbed his snout with his claws. Maybe if he focused on the scroll, his brain would stop betraying him. It was about ancient SeaWing war strategies. Perfectly boring.
He’d read the same sentence three times and still had no idea what it said.
"‘Forward flanking maneuver performed in — ’ no, no, no, hips hips hips, STOP IT!" he muttered to himself, shaking his head furiously. "You’re a SeaWing. You are royalty. You are a disaster, but you are not a creep. She’s your friend, Turtle."
And — ugh — the worst part was that even being her friend felt like being handed a plate of treasure and being told not to drool on it. Moonwatcher was so smart. So kind. So shy and sweet and strong, all wrapped into one night-sky-colored dragon. Every time she looked at him — actually looked at him, not just glanced past him — he felt like he might melt into a puddle on the floor.
Turtle’s gills fluttered. No amount of magic could fix this. Animus power might let him enchant armor or hide scrolls or build underwater palaces — but it couldn’t teach him how to talk to a dragon he liked without sounding like a malfunctioning bird.
And so, he did what he always did when the pressure got too much.
He pretended to be deeply invested in whatever scroll he could find and hoped that she wouldn’t notice he existed.
He was so focused on repeating “Don’t think about Moonwatcher’s hips” like a sacred mantra that he didn’t notice her—until it was too late.
“Hi, Turtle!” said a familiar voice.
He froze mid-scroll.
His brain: Don’t panic, act normal!
His body: Time to drop all the scrolls dramatically? You got it.
“Ah!” he yelped as parchment went flying everywhere. Moonwatcher, startled, ducked as a scroll about Queen Lagoon’s seaweed tax reforms fluttered over her head.
“Oh! Sorry! Sorrysorrysorry!” Turtle spluttered, diving after the mess.
He bent down, trying to gather them quickly, his glowing sea-green facial markings flaring in chaotic pulses of embarrassment. The bioluminescent patterns along his flanks were flashing like a distress signal. No. A catastrophe signal. There might as well have been a glowing sign above him that said “I AM IN LOVE AND HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DEAL WITH IT.”
He tried to act casual. Tried to lean on a bookshelf like one of those dragons in stories who always seemed to have a witty remark ready. Instead, he knocked over a jar of quills.
“Well, uh, heheh… fancy seeing you here. In the… uh, library. Which is… where books live.”
Books live? Books don’t live! What are you saying, you great green fishstick?!
Moonwatcher tilted her head. “Are you okay?”
“YES!” he said, a little too loudly. “Yes! I’m fine! Perfectly fine! Just doing, uh, normal reading. Regular dragon things. Not about anything weird. Or hips. I mean, not about hips. Not your—I mean—Just Books!
The silence that followed was so awkward, Turtle could hear his own heartbeat echoing in his skull. He stood there stiffly, chest puffed out in a pitiful attempt to look regal, while the luminescent swirls on his scales shimmered madly, flashing blue, then green, then a blushing violet.
Moonwatcher smiled again, kindly, if a little confused. “Well,” she said, “I just came to say hi. But I’ll let you get back to your books.”
“Thanks,” Turtle squeaked.
They stood in awkward silence. Turtle tried not to melt into a puddle.
Moon shuffled her wings a little. “Well… I’ll let you get back to your, uh, cute reading”
And just like that, she was gone.
Turtle stood there for a full minute, completely motionless, his fins drooping like wet sails.
His brain: She called you cute. She. Called. You. Cute. You absolute disaster of a SeaWing.
He flopped forward, snout hitting the table with a soft thud.
All his thoughts spiraled now. Her smile. Her voice. That wink.
“She winked,” he mumbled to the scroll, as if it could console him. “Oh no. Oh tides. What does it mean when a dragoness winks? Is that a flirty wink? Or a ‘you’re funny and ridiculous and I’ll never date you’ wink?”
He groaned again, clutching his face. He wanted to bury himself in a sand trench and never come out. His tail slowly curled around him as he slumped, defeated.
Moonwatcher POV:
Well. That was… something.
Moonwatcher walked slowly down the corridor, scroll tucked under her wing, her claws making soft click-click sounds on the smooth stone. She wasn’t even reading the titles of the scrolls lining the walls anymore. Her mind was still tangled in the flickering green and blue glow of one very flustered, very adorable SeaWing.
Turtle.
She sighed and stopped by a window, letting the cool breeze ruffle the edge of her wings. The view showed Jade Mountain’s winding paths, distant clouds, and little dots of dragons flying in and out of the school buildings. A few RainWings were napping on sun-heated rocks down below. Somewhere far off, someone laughed.
But inside her chest? A thunderstorm.
“Stars,” she whispered, staring at nothing. “Why is he so cute?”
Did I really say “He is so Cute”? UGH, Moon, what were you THINKING—
But she can't. He’d been trying so hard. Trying to act casual while dropping every scroll he owned, glowing like a bioluminescent jellyfish in the middle of a panic attack. His voice had cracked. His face had flushed so green she thought he might turn into kelp. And still… her heart wouldn’t stop flipping around like a fish out of water.
It was unbearable.
Unbearably cute.
And unbearably frustrating.
Because she couldn’t read his mind.
Every time she reached out, gently brushing against the outer edge of his thoughts, hoping to hear just one word — something, anything! — there was nothing. Not silence exactly, but a fuzzy, buzzing sort of mental fog. A cloud she couldn’t pierce. Not with the softest mental touch. Not with the strongest.
It was like trying to read a scroll that had been dipped in ink and set on fire.
“I know it’s the some weird thing,” she muttered, pacing now, her wings twitching. “A very strange space stone that blocks any magic and, blah blah blah — but why him? Why Turtle? The one dragon I want to hear is the one I can’t.”
Of course, fate would think that was hilarious.
She scuffed the stone with her talon. “I don’t even want to spy on him! I just — want to know if he feels the same way. Is that too much to ask?” She threw her talons in the air, then glanced quickly around to make sure no one saw her talking to herself.
Moonwatcher sighed and slumped against the window. Her reflection shimmered in the glass — black scales, star-flecked wings, violet eyes that didn’t show half the chaos inside. She wished, just once, that Turtle would say something real. Something that told her, yes, I like you too. I’ve been thinking about you nonstop. You make me glow like a plankton field under a full moon.
Okay, maybe that was a bit much.
But still.
She’d caught him staring before. His eyes always widened a little when she walked into a room. He fiddled with his claws when she spoke to him. And he blushed so hard — he was practically a color-changing flower.
And today?
Today his scrolls had leapt out of his claws like they’d been offended by her presence.
She couldn’t help but grin, even as her face heated.
He’d looked like he wanted to sink into the floor and vanish. Yet he stayed. He tried. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
Still. She couldn’t be sure. Not without her powers. Not without cheating.
Which meant — she had to figure this out like a normal dragon.
Talking. Being honest. Asking questions like, “Hey, Turtle, do you think about me when I’m not around?”
Or maybe, “Do you ever get distracted by my wings? Or my tail? Or—”
Her wings flared and she covered her snout with her talons. “UGH. Stop it!”
She wasn’t Kinkajou. She couldn’t just flutter up and say, ‘Hi! I think you’re really cute! Want to go to the lake together and look at frogs?’ Kinkajou had that bright, fearless confidence that made everyone love her.
Moonwatcher, meanwhile, could barely hold a conversation without calculating ten ways it might go wrong.
And with Turtle?
She was always so aware of everything. The way his voice softened when he was reading. How his fins twitched when he got nervous. The way his glow would pulse in sync with his emotions, as if his body was telling her the secrets his mind wouldn’t reveal.
It drove her crazy.
He must know, right?
She groaned and slid down the wall, sitting with her wings slumped. “Maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe he’s just nice to everyone. Maybe he’s glowing because he ate something funny.”
That thought didn’t help. In fact, it made her laugh. A ridiculous little snort-laugh that echoed off the empty corridor walls.
Turtle? Eat something glow-in-the-dark by accident?
“Actually,” she said aloud, “he probably has.”
The thought made her heart ache in a weirdly warm way. He was so shy and awkward. So careful with his words. But beneath that, he was brave, too. Braver than anyone realized.
She stood, tucking the scroll tighter under her wing, and started walking again. Slower this time. More thoughtful. More determined.
Dual POV:
The corridor was quiet, washed in soft golden light from the sun filtering through the high crystal windows. Dust motes floated lazily in the air, scrolls lay stacked neatly on shelves, and everything felt… calm.
Except for the two dragons currently speed-walking around opposite corners at the exact same moment.
WHUMP.
“OH STARS—!” Moonwatcher let out a startled cry as she tripped over her own tail and sat awkwardly on the floor.
“I’m so sorry—!” Turtle squeaked childishly, rubbing his forehead, not yet realizing who he had bumped into.
They both yelped. Scrolls hit the floor. Wings flared. Eyes locked.
“OH! Moon—I mean—I—uh—are—you—uh—Hi?!” Turtle squeaked, already glowing like a glowworm on fire.
Moonwatcher blinked up at him. “I—! Hi! I wasn’t—looking—and you—were just—”
Their words overlapped like two dragons trying to recite different scrolls at the same time, neither making any sense.
They both bent down to grab the fallen scrolls and immediately bonked heads again.
“OW! Ohmygosh I’m so sorry!” Moonwatcher gasped.
“No, no, I’m sorry, I have a very clumsy forehead—!”
There was a pause. A breathless, too-close pause. Their eyes met again.
Turtle’s fins sparked with a wild glow.
Moonwatcher’s wings twitched.
They both inhaled at the same time to speak—and then both panicked.
“WELL, I HAVE TO—STUDY—BATTLE MAPS!” Turtle blurted, spinning around and bolting down the hallway at what could only be described as an awkward gallop. Scrolls flopped out of his wings like defeated flags.
“I FORGOT I HAVE—UM—A—MOON THING—MOON PROPHECY CLASS—THING!” Moonwatcher shrieked, taking off in the opposite direction, nearly tripping over her tail as she fled.
They vanished around opposite corners with trails of flustered wingbeats behind them.
Turt le:
You IDIOT! You ran! You RAN?! From what? From her FACE? Her beautiful FACE?! What are you, a tadpole!?
He skidded into a random hallway closet, slammed the door, and slumped against it, chest heaving.
“I bumped into her and then sprinted like a criminal,” he wheezed. “Cool. Real cool, Turtle. Casanova of the Sea.”
He buried his face in his claws, glowing like a lava lamp.
“And I said I have to study battle maps. What does that even mean? I’ve never studied battle maps in my LIFE!”
Moonwatcher:
“Oh stars, oh moons, oh EVERYTHING,” she gasped, fanning herself with her wings. “Did I just shriek ‘moon prophecy thing’ at him like a banshee?”
She pressed her back to the cold stone, heart hammering.
“You bumped into him. You locked eyes. It could’ve been romantic. You could’ve said, ‘Hi Turtle, you look nice today’ or ‘Oh, fancy meeting you here’ or literally any coherent sentence. But no! You did the dragon equivalent of screeching and flying into a tree!”
She slowly slid down the pillar. Her wings flopped at her sides. She stared at the ceiling. “I’m in love with a sea cucumber.”
Turtle:
“I bet she thinks I hate her now. Or that I’m allergic to her. I mean — I glowed, dropped scrolls, BONKED HER IN THE FACE, and then ran away like someone yelled ‘free eels!’”
He stared at the scroll still clutched in his claws.
It wasn’t even his. It was hers.
“I HAVE HER SCROLL,” he whisper-screamed.
Moonwatcher:
“He dropped my scroll. Of course. Of course I have to go back and face him again to get it. Great. Wonderful. That’ll go perfectly.”
She groaned and covered her face.
“Next time I see him, I’m bringing Kinkajou. And a script.”