Night Fury's Wrath

Chapter 78: Lost in the Dark

~Well, here we are! Happy holidays and stuff! All I will say is that I have a big hint hidden in this chapter somewhere, which will eventually answer a question I have been getting constantly. It's short, only a single sentence, but it's an important one!

Anywho, thanks for all your patience. Work will still be a massive headache for the next month, as I seem to have very few days off scheduled, but I will do my best to get the next chapter out sooner rather than later. Being short-staffed sucks. 

Enjoy!

-NFD

~~~

"Nngh..." 

My head throbbed a slow and steady rhythm, stirring me from my slumber. I couldn't remember what I did to get such a raging headache, but it must've been something bad. Did I eat something rotten? Probably not, else my stomach would be angry, too. I was pretty sure I didn't hit my head, so I chalked it up to bad luck or something equally unavoidable.

Even though I was conscious, I wasn't eager to actually get up yet. I was warm and comfy, so until my body decided it had other needs, this was where I'd stay. That is, until I heard the hoot of a bird, making my ear twitch. Was I... outside? Why was I sleeping outside? Even better, why was I sleeping in the woods? Shouldn't I be in my little burrow with Nibbler?

I slowly opened my eyes, greeted by the glowing forest, though the tree I was looking at looked a little worse for wear... Well, a lot worse for wear, what with the dozens of deep gouges in its trunk. My brows furrowed, struggling to recall last night's events. Nibbler was pissed off about something I did, and some stuff happened. It was mostly a blur, but I did remember what followed... sort of. I remembered the start of it.

A soft hum interrupted the nocturnal sounds, drawing my eyes to the grey dragoness snuggling with me on the forest floor. My face flooded with heat when I realized my wings were wrapped around her. Oh, no...

Closer inspection revealed that we were quite tangled up with each other. She appeared to be partially curled up, mainly her upper half so that her head was nuzzled into my chest, though the lower half of her body sprawled out without a care. Particularly her hindquarters, which were lying on my left hind leg, with my right resting on her hip, and her tail was wound around mine, and my forepaws were either on her flank or her chest, and my head was resting almost between her wing joints, and—

We were very close together! We were so close that any passerby would immediately assume we were a couple, particularly because we were male and female, which would normally only happen after...

My eyes widened. Oh, please, no... We didn't... We couldn't have! There was an easy way to find out, but I was almost too afraid to know.

On the edge of freaking out, I very carefully shifted my head to push my nose into the crook of Nibbler's neck, taking a deep breath of her scent. If we really did the deed, she would surely smell like the result of such a joining, which always created a strong scent unique to mating. Her scent flooded my nostrils, smelling similar to a small forest fire, mixed somewhat with my scent, but nothing else.

I relaxed with a soft sigh of relief. Thank Nana Moon...

We hadn't mated. Nibbler and I just... got close. Very close. Fortunately, knowing that nothing too serious had happened made this situation a lot less embarrassing and shameful, letting me relax once more. It was just other stuff. Good.

Still, we hadn't slept this close before. Sure, we've gotten rather close in the past, and we'd pretty much accepted that, but this was very close, even for us. On any other occasion, we could pass it off as simply being very close best friends, but this? This was too close for that excuse. The only way we could be closer was to mate.