Dream Walker✔️

1.9

As I crouched so the humans could climb on my back, a soft paw nudged my arm. "What's going on?"

I sighed at the voidcat. "It's a long story, but we're leaving here before the glacier dragon comes back, so hop on."

She flitted up to settle at the base of my neck. Human hands grasped my feathers, and a shoe pressed against my side briefly before Aster sat behind her.

"Are you sure you can carry three people and a cat?"

"I'm not sure of anything except that I don't want to get eaten, and I doubt you do either." I felt Izzy's petite weight crawl up behind Aster, but there was no sense of Vance following suit. Fine, if he wanted to stay, that was up to him. I started to stand. The weight of two people and a cat was like a full backpack, nothing I hadn't hiked with before.

"Wait," Vance said in a squeak of a voice.

Annoyed, I laid down just long enough for him to scramble up at the back. Without checking if he'd grabbed hold of anything, I leapt to my feet. The extra hundred-plus pounds didn't make much of a difference, but it did make me acutely aware of my sore, clawless middle toes.

I wished I could've flown, but I'd never done it outside of Shade's dreamscape. Now probably wasn't the best time to risk it and possibly crash with passengers. Instead, I started walking and built up to a trot as I got used to the odd way passengers threw off my center of gravity. After a few minutes, I shifted into a smoother run that covered at least fifteen feet a stride.

This wasn't too bad. Now I just had to figure out where I was going. The glacier dragon's scent was everywhere around here. We must've been near the center of his territory. Turning right a little, I smelled his scent was vaguely weaker in that direction. With a little luck, we might not be far from his territory's border.

I ran across the snowy landscape for what felt like an hour with relative ease. Sure, my feet were sore, but the cold ground helped with that. And sure, every time I took a step, my passengers bumped up and down and added a new bruise to my spine, but it wasn't that bad. At first.

The snow gradually became deeper and fluffier, no doubt due to it being farther away from the dragon's typical travel routes. I wasn't sure what I expected running through four-foot-deep snow would be like, but it wasn't this. I had to slow to an awkward trot to force my way through the clinging slush. At one point, I tried heating up more in order to evaporate the snow before I even touched it, but my passengers fervently protested and I stopped. I guessed I wouldn't have liked having my butt burned either.

As I trotted on, the twin moons sunk toward the horizon much too quickly. The dragon's scent was less present, but we were still well within the confines of his territory. With the slushy tracks I'd left behind, he would have no trouble finding us come morning. I couldn't possibly outrun him, so I had to get out of his territory before it came to a footrace.

My natural glow dimmed as the first pinkish rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon. The dragon's scent was growing stronger again. He'd likely sprayed his scent along the border of his territory, which meant we were almost out of danger. At least, I hoped so. If I was wrong, I might've managed to go full circle and end up in the center again. Gah, I really hoped I hadn't done that. My legs were screaming for a rest, and every breath I took was a gasp that scraped my throat. If we weren't close to the border, I wouldn't be able to hold on for long. A while back, I'd taken a short restroom break, and I almost hadn't been able to get moving again.

It was worse now. All I could think about were my aching legs and my throbbing feet and the bouncing weights on my back. Maybe the dragon wouldn't care if we were just a little bit inside his territory. Maybe he would assume we were too stupid to stick around and he wouldn't bother to come after us at all.