The 'Dragon Goddess'

Mother Knows Best

Selene's POV:

I uncurl my wings from Melanite and lay her in her nest. I look to Asher's old nest and sigh. My little boy has left me to go off with his mate and start a new family. I'll miss Asher, even if he's still in the territory and really close by.

With Melanite asleep I can get on with a few things, so I head outside to catch a few fish before it gets too dark. I swoop low over the ocean and catch every fish that goes by until I've got a decent sized collection. That is, until I have enough fish to last me and Melanite the whole of tomorrow without us getting too peckish.

I carry the fish into our cave, dumping it all in the far corner for tomorrow. Thanks to us being dragons, the smell of the fish is actually quite pleasant, so what humans would consider a horrible stench actually doesn't bother us at all.

By now it's pretty late so I check on Melanite briefly before curling up in my nest. It doesn't take overly long for me to fall asleep.

I'm woken up when someone is screeching in my ear. I leap up in surprise, almost banging my head. "Get up!" a familiar Deadly Nadder is screaming frantically. I growl lowly at them until my senses return properly and I realise it's just Stylive.

I sigh in relief, then look to her hopefully. "Is Indigo here?" She snorts at me before unfurling her wings and laying my baby girl down in Asher's old nest. I'm shocked to see how bad a state she's in.

She's even paler than usual, drenched in a cold sweat and practically radiating heat, which she shouldn't be able to do even in dragon form unless she's trying to get someone to sleep or she's become a Titan Wing dragon.

"No! Indi!" I shout. Melanite, who Stylive also managed to wake up, charges over, but I lightly push her back with my tail. "Keep her back," I tell Stylive. "I can't do anything if she's in the way."

Stylive quickly traps Melanite in her wings so she can't disrupt me. I morph into human form and run my fingers along Indi's forehead. You could practically fry an egg on her right now.

I try to figure out how long it's been since she morphed. One, two, three... almost two weeks now. "Has she been morphing often?" I ask Stylive. "Not very often, but she's done it a few times," she replies, panic still in her voice.

"And has she been taking things easy lately?" I can already guess the answer, but I need confirmation. "She's been working twice as hard lately to 'catch up with her work', in her own words," Stylive explains.

"Has she been tired a lot recently?" I ask. Now I'm pretty sure I know what's up. "She's been saying about being exhausted lately and not knowing why, but she's not been going to bed until her work is done. No matter how much we tell her to sleep, only our Alpha can truly force her to and she's already scared of this ability, so he's not going to do it to her."

I decide that now is not the time to ask why Indigo is scared of her own Alpha when she's always saying how much she cares for them and respects them. Stylive leans closer to my daughter, nudging her worriedly. "Do you know what's wrong with her?"

I examine my poor baby girl a few minutes longer before I answer. "Her illness is definitely related to her Morphwing part. You were right to bring her to me. This illness is a sort of morph fatigue. Usually it happens when we morph way too much all in the same sort of timespan. We overexert ourselves and our bodies can't take it anymore, so this happens to us."

"Then why does Indigo have it?!" Stylive demanded, growling. "After her first morph, a lot has been taken out of her because her body is so new to it," I explain.

"If she's not resting and has been working even harder than usual, she's not had any time to let her body adjust. Morphing again makes it worse. Any bad wounds wouldn't be good either."

"She got wounded by a Night Fury about a week ago," Stylive admits. I bite my tongue in order to not demand an explanation until I know my daughter will be okay. "That's not going to be good at all. She'll be fine, but unless she starts resting she'll get worse and worse."

"Could she...?" She trails off, glancing down at Melanite. "If she doesn't let herself get better, yes," I confirm, my voice cracking slightly as I say it. "It'll take a month. If she rests for a full month without doing hardly any work, she'll be fine. She can even morph if she wants to as long as she doesn't do it too often. But she can't do too much work."

"She'll never agree to that," Stylive sighs. "She would never agree to anything like that. We're lucky if we can get her out on a break for a single day. How are we supposed to make this happen for a full month?"

"She has no choice in the matter," I say. "She can stay here so I can keep an eye on her if your Alpha is happy for me to do so."

Stylive pauses for a moment, looking over Indigo with a distant look in her eyes. "The Alpha says he's happy for this to happen as long as Citrine or Camo are also here. They're both Changewings."

"Oh... um... sure," I agree hesitantly. It's not that I don't trust my daughter's pack and her friends, but it's best to show as few others to the territory as possible. At least they're only Changewings. Changewings are trusted more than any other kind of dragon around here.

"Camo will be coming here, but I need to go bring him over. Can I trust you with Indigo?" Stylive asks. "Of course," I agree without hesitation. "I'd never hurt her."

"Don't take off her mask, I swear she has a sort of sixth sense for whether it's been taken off or not. She'll know and she'll hate you for it, you're not in her good books right now anyway. I'm trusting you with her, if you let me down then I won't hesitate to kill you."

On that cheery note, Stylive flies out.