"I've dreamed a lot. I'm tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything."
â Fernando Pessoa
I really like this chapter even though most of it is a throwback (kinda, not really) or past memories cropping up. Still important to plot, but I don't typically like flashback scenes - but maybe that's just because I'm picking about stuff like that in my own literature.
Part Two - Chapter Three
"The Dragon's Loved Witch"
"It's okay, starlight," they whisper, huddling down next to Stray as they watch a witch storm down the corridor. As their hiding spot gets passed by, both of them hold their breath, wide eyes tracking the footfalls until she falls out of view.
His heart hammers in his chest, claws clenched over the other's wrist.
It's always scary, sneaking around. One wrong move, one time being spotted, and the witches won't be happy. He's supposed to be in the cage, the witches don't like him out of it.
But not all the witches.
This witch, the one hiding with him, will not be angry.
They're his, after all. His hoard. Nothing is more important than that.
They're trying to get Stray to the big window, so he can see the sun. He hasn't touched sunshine, let alone been outside, for so long. It's no good for him to be without it, he's weaker and heals slower.
"Go," a hand on his back, pushing forward. "Go now, before patrol comes back."
Time is irrelevant, here, nothing makes sense.
They're standing in front of the window, then, one second or one hour later.
Outside has always amazed Stray.
It's large and it's free, tall trees and wide, blue skies. Sunlight casting over big, puffy white clouds that he dreams of flying over. Today, the sun is bright and warm, soaking into his skin.
He exhales, eyes not leaving the golden light.
"One day," they say, hand in his and giving it a light squeeze. "I'm going to get us out of here, star. We're going to leave and never come back, we'll get a small house and a cow and anything else we want."
Stray turns to them, frowning. "I don't want anything but you."
"I'll be there," they smile. "No matter where we go, it's us forever."
"Us forever, really?"
"Of course. Where else would I be if not with you?"
Voices carry over to them, twisting and angry.
They run down the corridor without saying a single thing, movements all faint and hazy, like it's not actually happening. He wants to comment on it but the panic of hearing people talking from just around the corner brushes everything awayâ
His witch shoves him, suddenly, into an empty room.
It's small and dark and he whines, a hand clasping over his mouth as a body presses into his. The door shuts silently behind them.
"Be quiet," they whisper, gasping. "We can't get caught."
With their fear palpable in the air, there's no way that order is going to get ignored. He nods, reaching up to grab their wrist, tugging it from his mouth.
Stray looks up, expression twisting upâthe witch is faceless.
None of this is real butâ
He remembers this, it was one of those rare days that were good.
He remembers the sunshine, the closet, the giggles muffled between them as they both escaped notice once again. He remembers sneaking back to the cold, empty room, to the metal cage. He remembers shifting, getting in.
He remembers a promise made to him, a promise to let him out again.
Those were before the wards, before the lock stopped being easy to pick. Before the cruelty got worse, before the constant nightmares, before he escaped.
Before, before, before. But not now.
"I don't understand," he whispers. "This already happened. What's going on?"
They pause, jerking in their place. "You're... you're here?"
"Yeah?" He frowns, hands sweaty and heart pounding but when he clenches his fingers around their shirt, his hand is stiff, steady. "Oh. This is aâI'm dreaming."
"...we," they correct, hands hovering over his shoulders. "We're dreaming."
Stray looks up at them. They're still faceless. He still does not understand.
No longer are they those young kids, no longer does his wings shake. He's back in his body now, but not, wings steady and back straight. Strong once more.
He's no longer that little dragon stolen from his clutch, no longer can he be hurt.
"Please," he says, reaching out, trying to grab them closer. He can't. He can't and it's heartbreaking. "Please don't make me leave you again."
"C'mon, starlight," they laugh. It sounds sad. "First time here and you're already crying. You know I hate it when you cry."
"No, no I don't," the golden dragon sobs, hanging his head against their chest. They feel cold, solid in the way that fog is not. See-through. "I can't remember anything. Your name, what you look like... all I know is that I love youâI love you and I can't even remember why."
"I did that for a reason, y'know," they sigh shakily, bringing up a hand to his cheek. "I never wanted you to have a reason to risk coming back."
"That's not fair!" He cries. "That's not fair, it's not."
"It was necessary. I know you, star. You would've done anything for me, including going back to... to the old coven. I couldn't let you do that for me."
"But you stayed, why did you stay?"
"To give you time," a hand he wishes he could feel the warmth of runs through his hair. "And look at you, you did amazing. You survived. You have a life."
"Not without you, not without us together," he vows, heart breaking or heart broken, he's not sure. "I'm going to find you."
"No," they say, simple and sure. "I'm past the point of finding."
Then, wellâthen Stray wakes up.
-ââ-ââ-
When Stray was little and in between the time of his escape and Atlas catching him, he had lived in a small field for about a month. It was on the edge of a cliff and hidden under tall oaks with thick leaves, a creek running across one side of it in a wide arch.
The water was deep enough for salmon to swim through but shallow enough for the little dragon to never fear drowning. It was cold, sandy, and ice webbed over the surface for every chilly morning he had been there for.
During this time, the break in his leg had been fresh.
Scrapes and bruises covered golden-white scales in ugly, gray and pink marks. They threading across his back and chest, spreading like a burst of fireworks over his legs and down his throat. He did not remember where he got it from.
He did not yet remember the old coven, the cages, the room without any sunlight.
He did not remember anything but that he needed to stay hidden, that he needed to be small and good and quiet. That he needed to run, and stay on the run, but not why.
Always moving from one place to the next. Hiding from people on the edges of towns, in rundown farm houses, on roads and between crop fields.
He stays away from them all.
Stray needs to survive. No matter what, he needs to survive. There is someone out there that he needs to find. He doesn't not know them, not anymore, but he needs to stay alive.
The field has been his home for long enough for him to start to get wary, but he makes a routine out of the fear.
Often, he spent the warmest part of the day hunting for foodâit's never enough to end the hunger pains in his stomach, never enough to let him sleep without chills racking his spine or stop his ribs from digging into his skinâand the rest of the time sleeping, trying to conserve energy incase something happens.
He's not sure at this point what that something is but he knows that he's meant to be scared. He's scared. He has to be, no matter how confusing the fear is, so he never stops it.
He does not know what it is like to be cared for or to care about something.
Stray's dreams are different from his reality. In them, he is curled onto someone's warm chest, cradled in the arms of a person who would protect him from the world if given the chance. He is loved, there, in those dreams. He is never alone.
There is a child, like him, with the safety of darkness surrounding them and laughter in their chests. There is nothing there that can hurt them.
Then the little dragon wakes up. He wakes up and as he remembers the chains and the cold hands and the cruel coven, he forgets the warmth and the too-real dreams and the heartbeat under his ear, never ending.
He forgets the promises, forgets his witch.
He never stops loving them, though. This, he thinks, more than a decade later, is the most heartbreaking part of it all. The love that doesn't leave.
It feels a lot like anger, sharp and thick.
It feels like grief.
Stray doesn't know what to do with it all.