Epilogue

Three years later, Sunny still remembered that moment.

Standing outside the gates of the stronghold, as she did every morning to greet the dawn, she often found her thoughts wandering to that day. Reminiscing over the events that unfolded, over each painstaking detail, she wondered whether there was a way she could have stopped Blister from taking her own life.

She wondered, even if there was, whether she should have stopped her.

She wanted to die on her terms, not ours. A petty request, but who was I to deny her?

Sunny lowered her head, closing her eyes as the sun peaked over the dunes and washed her face in warmth. They'd carried Blister's body out, and the soldiers had parted in silence as they bore her out the stronghold gates and laid her next to Scarlet. Two queens, two tyrants, both of whom had fallen that day—one with pain on her face, the other maniacal glee.

Perhaps, in a twist of fate, the last Sandwing sister had finally found an ounce of happiness in the throes of death.

"My queen?"

Snapping out of the past, Sunny opened her eyes to see a familiar Outclaw approaching her.

"Qibli." She smiled, his presence always managing to warm her mood. "What brings you out this early?"

He settled next to her, and out of instinct twined his tail with hers.

"What's wrong with watching the sunrise with my favorite dragon?"

"Oh stop it, you." She batted him half-heartedly with her wing, and he returned the favor. "You know I don't need you watching over me all the time."

He shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"You're as bad as Deathbringer."

He laughed. "Oh, he is something else, eh? Now that he's got his own dragonet to look after."

They stayed in companionable silence until the daily bustle of the stronghold called Sunny back. The new queen of the Sandwings led a busy life.

"I still think it's crazy, sometimes," she said to Qibli as they headed through the gates. "Me, the queen of the Sandwings."

"I would've chosen you any day," he replied as servants and guards greeted them respectfully, "and I think the rest of the tribe would agree. They knew you would put them first."

"It's just strange. I set out to bring peace to Pyrrhia, and ended up becoming a queen in the process."

"Well, the same thing happened to two of your friends." He pointed his muzzle at the stronghold walls, and Sunny followed his gaze. "Besides, the Sandwings appreciate what you've done for us. For everyone who didn't make it."

Where once stood the tall, bloodstained walls of the stronghold, there was now only a low foundation, as high as Sunny could stand on her hind legs. After the tribe named her queen, Sunny's first order of business was to tear down those walls. To her, and the Sandwings, they symbolized the war and tyranny, and Sunny didn't want to be a queen who hid behind walls for protection. So they dismantled the walls, brick by brick…but she left the foundation intact. Then, for nearly an entire moon, Sunny stayed outside and etched, with care and precision, as many names as she could into the stonework. Names of the fallen, on both sides. Sandwings, Icewings, Skywings, dragons from any tribe who had died in Blister's War. She had her friends and the other queens assemble as comprehensive of a list as they could, and together they set to work, inscribing names into a wall, ensuring that they would never be forgotten. A memorial, to those who had given everything to make peace a reality.

She left Qibli's side and walked over to a section of the wall. There she saw familiar names: Six-Claws. Stonemover. Caiman. Sahara, who had been executed only a day before the war's end. Even Icicle and Scarlet—for as Sunny knew, even those with evil in their hearts and stories and voices of their own.

And there, near the bottom…

Blister.

Sunny felt a wing wrap around her, and leaned into Qibli's warmth. He said nothing, for no words were needed.

So many lives lost to make way for peace. And more. Every day Sunny worked to improve relations with the other tribes, to promote equality and prevent conflict. It hadn't always been an easy process; old enmities remained, and new ones were sparked by anger, greed, and selfishness. Some days it felt like she'd accomplished nothing, that dragons would continue to fight and war as they always had.

Then she'd look at this wall before her, and she would know. No matter what happened, whether they succeeded or failed, they brought peace. They brought the end of the war to Pyrrhia.

They fulfilled her destiny.

But what if we could do more? She thought, lifting her head from Qibli's embrace, scanning the lines and lines of names. What if we could prevent this from happening again, by teaching young dragonets peace and tolerance? What if, by starting young, we can create an entire generation of Dragons of Destiny?

And, just like that day five years before, an idea struck Sunny's mind.

"Huh," said Clay as he stepped into the cave. "It's smaller than I remember it being."

"Well, you were a lot smaller back then," said Peril, jabbing him playfully in the side. "Much smaller."

"Oh, come on, Peril," he said, "I'm not that fat. Right, Sunny?"

Sunny, who was sitting on ledge overseeing the cleanup efforts, spared a glance at Clay's rather bulky figure.

"Hmm. I think you look fine." She grinned toothily and gestured at the river flowing through the cavern. "Maybe you could try reenacting that little escapade from four years ago?"

The others burst out laughing while Clay smiled sheepishly. "Eh…I guess not."

"Well, I for one still think it's too dark and claustrophobic," said Glory, raising her snout distastefully at the gloomy surroundings. "Right, Liana?"

"Yeah!" The three-year-old dragonet clung to her mother's back, trying to match the pattern of Glory's scales with her own. "Smelly too."

"We're working on that," said Sunny. "Moorhen has sent a few Mudwings to dig out more entrances and skylights. By the time work is done this cavern should be well lit and ventilated. Nothing like when we were here."

"Thank the moons," said Deathbringer. "We don't want our daughter turning into a Glory clone, now, do we?"

He yelped when she smacked him with her tail, and they all burst out laughing again.

"It's been too long," said Tsunami. "We've all been too busy to see each other. We need to do this more often."

"I agree," said Starflight. "But you had a reason for calling us here, didn't you, Sunny?"

"Yeah," said Clay. "Why'd you bring us back to the cave we grew up in?"

Sunny got to her claws and leapt off the ledge, heading over to where they were gathered.

"About a moon ago I decided to return here first, to check how the cave had fared in the years since we were here. There was a lot of work to do—and there still is—but I think this would be a suitable place."

"Suitable place?" Tsunami cocked her head. "For what?"

Sunny didn't respond. She meandered over to Glory, who was watching Liana prowl around exploring the cavern.

"Glory. You love your daughter, don't you?"

Glory blinked. "What kind of question is that? Of course I do."

"You want Liana to live in a peaceful world, right? To never know war, and be a queen who respects and welcomes dragons of other tribes and backgrounds?"

"Yes…where is this going, Sunny?"

"Tsunami." Sunny turned to the Seawing. "You want your sister Auklet to learn the same thing, don't you? To learn about the world instead of being sheltered forever."

"Well, yeah. Did you have something in mind?"

Sunny turned to Starflight. "Starflight, the Nightwings now have a huge library of scrolls, thanks in no small part to you and Fatespeaker. How wonderful would it be to have young minds across the continent learning from those scrolls, and putting that knowledge to use for the betterment of dragonkind?"

Starflight's muzzle lifted into a small smile. "It'd be wonderful indeed."

"It would. And Clay," she said, turning finally to their ever patient bigwings, "you and your troop share an unbreakable bond, as do the five of us. We're all one troop—one family—despite the fact that we come from different tribes. If we can forge a bond like this…who's to say other young dragonets can't?"

"Mm. Good point." He cocked his head. "So you want to go gather a bunch of dragonets…"

"…and bring them to this cave…" continued Glory.

"…so that we can teach them what we've learned…" quipped Starflight.

"…and ensure another big war never breaks out again," Tsunami finished. "You mean, you want to start a…"

Sunny swiveled her head, looking each of her friends in the eye. A smile grew on her muzzle.

"How does an academy sound?"

THE END

A/N: And it all comes full circle! :) What a fitting way for it to end, eh?

Wow guys. The End. I apologize in advance if I start rambling for a bit, because there are a lot of things I have to say now that Under a War-Torn Sky is finished.

I didn't think I would see this day. I began this story over a year ago after finishing the first arc of WoF books. While I liked the books as they were, the ending of The Brightest Night left me...I'll just say dissatisfied. This story sprouted from a simple "what if". What if Blister hadn't been stopped on the brightest night? What if the war had continued instead? Could the dragonets still fulfill the prophecy even despite the odds? Could they really stop Blister?

At its inception this story was a lot smaller and simpler scope. I intended to finish it in one summer. One year after the fact, I can safely say that - aside from being a really slow writer - I've filled this story out and expanded it to a degree that I'm satisfied with. I built on the characters that Sutherland created, and introduced a few of my own. I tried to make these characters deeper, give them goals and motivations of their own instead of being one-dimensional obstacles for the heroes. I set out to write a better ending, but ended up with a mammoth of a story. At least, to me it does.

Granted, the story isn't perfect. In hindsight there were some things I wished I'd done differently, and many ideas that I never got around to implementing. You can see a few of them. Heron was going to get more attention, and I wanted to show her overcoming Caiman's death in more detail. The conflict between the Rainwings and Nightwings, while acknowledged and built on, wasn't tied up as neatly in the end as I wished. Starflight and Fatespeaker got left out largely towards the end, and Fierceteeth more or less vanished (I'll leave her fate up to you to decide for yourself :P).

But I realized something as I proceeded through the story. As much as I wished to build upon every aspect of Wings of Fire, and give every character a bit of the limelight, there was no way I could do so without derailing the course of the story. Ultimately this tale is about Clay, Tsunami, Glory, Starflight, and Sunny, and while there are plenty of other great characters to write about I had to keep the focus on them. And you know what, I at least feel I did a good job in this regard. I like where the five dragonets ended at the close of this story - grown up, more wise and mature, but still the same DoD's that we know and love.

If nothing else this story has served as excellent practice for me as a writer. We all need to begin somewhere, and comparing the first few chapters of this story with the later ones really shows me how my style has changed and refined. This is the first long-form piece of writing that I've done. Over a hundred thousand words, it's taken 15 months to write.

And now, it's finally finished.

A favorite author of mine recently said that the best piece of advice she could offer any beginning writer is to finish what you start. No matter what it is, how big or small, how good or bad, finishing what you start teaches you everything about the writing process. I've learned a lot while writing this story, but most importantly I've gained confidence in myself. I've had a bad habit in the past of not finishing the stories I start. It's what's really handicapped me as a writer and shaken my confidence that I could actually do this, not just as an amateur but perhaps professionally someday. Part of the reason why I wrote Under a War-Torn Sky was as a test for myself, to see if I could actually crank out a piece of publishable length. Sure it's fanfiction, but I didn't care. I told myself, if you can finish this story, and not make it terrible, then you have what it takes to actually write a book someday.

It took lots of hard work, lots of late nights, and a lot tearing myself away from computer games. But I stuck with story. I didn't abandon it, unlike most of the other stuff on my fanfiction profile. I wrote it all the way to the end, and despite its imperfections I can say that I feel proud of what I accomplished.

So where do I go from here? Well, those of you who have read my profile know that I've sort of moved on from WoF. Maybe it's just me changing as a person, but the series doesn't hold my interest as well anymore. This will most likely be the first and last long story for the WoF fandom that I write. Does that mean I'll never write again for this fandom? Not necessarily. Maybe, if my muse lands on something it likes, I'll end up writing a short story or one-shot. But certainly nothing as long as this story. More like in the range of five to six chapters at most.

Other than that I'll probably take some time off from this site to work on my own writing. I mentioned it way back when in some chapter or another, that writing contest I was doing for Inkitt. I didn't win - there were a lot of great submissions - but I'm not heartbroken. I'll simply carry on with my current WIP, The Children of the Sky, and see where that story takes me. Hopefully somewhere nice as well. :)

That about wraps things up. It's been a crazy ride guys, and I absolutely wouldn't have gotten as far as I did without your plentiful support. Your kind words and reviews, even something as simple as "keep up the good work" is enough to make me smile. Many of you have followed UaWTS since it began, and I hope I delivered on your expectations. I'd like to give a special shoutout to MCZ, whose been a consistent reviewer on not just my story, but many other stories within the WoF fandom. You rock :)

I feel both happy and sad to writing this. Whether or not this is the last time I write for you remains to be seen. For now, I'll say this. It's been a fantastic experience writing this story. Thank you for being a part of this incredibly journey, and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

~SpicyDog99