A Dragon's Tale #Watty's2015

The Morning After

My eyes shot open. I felt my heart racing, the sweat pouring off of me. I quickly looked around. I wasn't in the white room in the other base anymore, I was back at the temple. Adelind and the kids were sound asleep beside me. The clock beside my bed was glowing in blue.

“AM 1:36.”

I carefully stood up and entered the hall way, checking on everyone. Shadow and Nina were asleep, with Nina curled around their eggs, Ator and Vanlith were KO, Val and Vez were curled around one another, while Taro was on his back with a book draped over his snout while Rolland was just putting down, not even seeing me peeking in. Sozenn and Cora were curled around their cubs and Fireclaw and Tala were sleeping, their kids on top of them.

My friends loud snore echoed down the hall way. The light stung my eyes due to still having tears in them. What had just happened? It seemed like a dream, but so real at the same time. Was I still dreaming? Was there a presence? The hall was dimly lit from the nightlights that lined the ceiling. I lost my train of thought and walked back to the room. Sliding the door open stirred Adelind, who obviously saw that I was distressed.

“Something wrong honey?”, she asked softly.

“Not sure”, I replied laying down next to her.

“Your sweating”, she said, “what's wrong.”

“I had a nightmare where we messed up an op and got Trent killed”, I replied, “we were nearly put to sleep and...they killed you, the kids...all of you.”

I felt the tears start to come. Adelind curled around me, twined her tail around mine and began to lick the tears off my muzzle as I let everything come out. I'd always tried to keep my emotions bottled up, but it never worked. After I had gotten done crying Adelind and I showered off and then returned to the bed with the kids.

“Better?”, Adelind asked.

I nodded, yawning, “a little.”

“Goodnight my boy”, Adelind said curling against me.

I smiled and licked her snout, “goodnight my love.”

It took a while, but sleep eventually found me again.

The next morning I was stirred by the kids jumping up and down on my back. One of these days they were going to brake my spine. Or maybe I'd just fake it for an April Fools joke.

“DAD!”, Ace howled, “wake up.”

I groaned as I sat up, “alright, alright I'm up. No need to brake my back.”

“You owe us a day”, Dusk said.

“Who said?”, I asked lowering my muzzle to stare them in the eyes.

Ace put his front paws on my snout, “we said, we had an official meeting.”

“Did you now?”, I asked, “Dusk organize it all?”

“That doesn’t matter”, Tyson howled, “what matters is you owe us a debt!”

I smiled, “Well how about we start off with breakfast?”

They smiled and we walked down to the mess hall where Sozenn and the others were waiting for us.

“Adelind told us about your nightmare bro”, Fireclaw said, “if you need anything Tyro...just tell us.”

“I'm fine guys”, I replied, “Adelind made it go away.”

“You got lucky with her”, Sozenn said, “I barked up that tree for years before I found out you already had her.”