Fight or Flight

Chapter 51: happy new year!

:3

SELA'S POV:

It still smelled like medicine when Sela began to rouse frome her tranquilizer induced nap. She shifted her wings and winced at the resulting flare of pain as she cracked one eye open.

It was dim. The kind of dim that was too bright to be dark but not bright enough to be light. In better terms, her night vision was useless. She could hardly make out the fact that she wasn't back in another cage but otherwise the slight yellow of the surrounding walls didn't give her much more than that. The surface under her shifted, bowing under her weight as she sat up. A quick glance served to confirm what she had thought she felt. She was on a bed.

Wait, a bed? Her eyes trailed over the rumpled covers to the headboard. Not only was she on the foot of the bed, but so were someone's feet. Someone's very big, smelly feet... she carefully sniffed at the air trying to differentiate the hot mess of odors polluting it. There was the obvious medicine, a strong Tradenth musk, and Kymari... Kymari. She focussed on the scent trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar. Obviously she had smelled it before, but-.

The person with the big feet moved unwittingly kicking her off balance making her fall.

Sela gasped but landed on her feet nonetheless. She turned to glare at the ofe but instead found herself staring in the face of Torren's sleeping father. He was alive... With speed and movements that could hardly be considered careful, she lumbered stiffly to his side something in her chest doing a little leap. It was him, it really was him he was alright!

She nudged his shoulder with her muzzle, waiting, watching.

He didn't even grunt.

Again, she nudged him this time a little harder.

He grumbled something in his sleep and rolled to his other side but otherwise nothing.

She didn't like that. Not at all. She circled around to the other side of the bed; maybe if she kept trying he would stop ignoring her. A few attempts later and her results hadn't changed. She huffed. If that was the way they treated someone who saved their life that would be the last time she helped a Kymari- who was she kidding she'd do it again if needed.

She went back to his side resting her head on the mattress. Stupid Kymari... she should have protected him better, should have been faster. But she didn't. Now he was hurt and she couldn't do a thing about it.

A long moment passed and she sat on her haunches, head still on the bed watching, glaring. She pinned her ears back and coiled her tail. How long had it been? An hour? Two hours? Too long, that's it, it had been too long. He had been asleep long enough. She stood and shook herself as loudly as she could, ignoring the pain that caused black spots to dance in the edges of her vision.
***

TORREN'S POV:

He had laid Sela down all of ten minutes ago and she was already moving around? Torren mentally sighed wishing he could go back to resting his eyes. At this point she was acting more energetic than when she was whole... He watched bemused as Sela's shadowy form fell from the bed with a crash that sounded more like a rifle being smashed on the ground than a living being falling over.

A moment later her head popped back into view, her glowing eyes peeping just over his father.

It was at that point that Torren decided it was time to video the scene as it continued to unfold, eyes moving from the night vision screen to the fire lizard and back again. His bemusement slowly turned into amusement at her antics. That is until she jumped back onto the bed, grabbed one of his hands in both of hers, raised it as high as she could, and dropped it. Right. On. His. Face.

His father bolted upright with a shout, Sela startled falling over, and Amia screamed.

"TORREN!"

He didn't need to see the expression on his father's face to know he was about to be in trouble.

As if knowing this, Sela stood up just in time to intercept the coming storm. She chirped and whistled, happily jumping around with a little twirl.

"Sela!" His father threw his arms open and she crashed into him, writhing and squirming as he hugged her tight his face buried somewhere in her mass of scales.

"Well, that is..."

"Unexpected." Torren looked to Amia scooting over to avoid getting smacked by Sela's wagging tail.

"Yeah, I didn't think they would react this way."