A Dragon's Tale #Watty's2015

2:00 AM

I woke a few hours later, panting and with a few drops of sweat on my forehead. I wiped it off and took a deep breath. I'd had another nightmare.

I was with Hunter and Taro, somewhere in Afghanistan. We were alone, on a night op. We were walking down seemingly empty street. It was inky dark outside, the only light came from the street lights, which glowed a dim orange. Out of the complete black, RPG rocket struck the wall next to us. I went sprawling while Taro and Hunter took most of the damage from the explosion. Two unseen men had come up behind me, flipped me onto my stomach and held me down. Then, four more men armed with shotguns had come from the darkness dressed in US military uniforms, their faces were covered in black masks and tinted goggles. They hauled Taro and Hunter out of the black and dropped them feet in front of me. They'd both been ripped to pieces by the rocket. Taro was missing both his back legs, a good piece of his tail and half of his front right forepaw. A sheet of skin had been ripped out of his side and his ribs were showing along with most of his insides that had been peppered with rocks and small pieces of metal.

Hunter was much worse. Half of his snout had been taken off and both of his horns were gone, leaving holes in his head. His wings were a little more than bony stumps and his scales had been vaporized, leaving nothing more than than the clear, thin film that separated them from the muscle, much of which had been burned black. His right leg was gone at the knee with only a sharp piece of bone left. Both of them were crying from the pain.

One of the soldiers handed me a picture of each of them and said, “pick, or we carve them both.”

I couldn't bring myself to pick one of them. No matter the choice I made, it would have been a betrayal.

The soldier, seeing the choice, drew his knife and started with Hunter. He grabbed his leg by the bone and cut the muscle off the bone like he was stripping the bark off a tree branch. His blood was spurting more and more with each second as the knife sliced through more and more blood vessels. Hunter let off such a loud scream that it hurt my ears. Once the man was done with that leg, he worked the next, then turned Hunter over on his back and starting carving the muscle from his chest and ribs. Hunter was screaming from the pain. I don't know what happened, maybe the solider got bored, thought that his task was too hard, whatever the reason may have been I didn't care to know, but Hunter was stripped down to the bone of his chest plate and ribs before the soldier said.

“To hell with you”, and broke his knife off in Hunter's skull.

The snap was what woke me up. My eyes stung, they felt too heavy to keep open, but there was no way I was going back to sleep. I looked at the clock, the glowing hands touched two in the morning, I had been asleep for barely an hour. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I reached for my nightstand and grabbed Taro's tags. Even though the room was only lit by a little blue nightlight, I could still read the tags.

“Major First Class Taro Ferreth Salanth. Y Positive 7764435672 Mate: Faline Chelian Salanth.”

I held the tags in my paw, turned them around, around and around, not entirely sure what I was doing. Maybe if I messed with them long enough it would bring my friend back.

“Hey”, Adelind whispered, I had been so focused on the tags I hadn't known she'd woken up, “it's 2 in the morning. How come your not asleep?”

I shrugged, “can't sleep.”

She sighed snuggled against me, laying her head on my chest, “thinking about Taro and Hunter?”

I kept fingering the tags, “I feel like it was my fault. It's not just Taro and Hunter either. It's Mnerloth, Shadow, the shy little girl Syril, Sozenn, Fireclaw, the kids....you.”

Adelind didn't answer.

“My parents don't know yet either”, I said, “you know how close friends they all were.”

She sighed, “so what are you gonna do?”

“I don't know”, I said wiping tears out of my eyes, “I've never felt this way before. Those two dragons were huge parts of so many lives, Taro was practically a part of my family. I could have talked him out of the whole thing. I could have and I didn't.”

“He was dying”, Adelind whispered, “and if you had talked him out of it, they might have caught and killed Shadow and Nina, plus Faline would still be rotting in prison.”

I sighed, my mates words stung like a .338 Lapua to the side of the face. I felt more tears run down my face.

“What am I supposed to do Adelind?”, I asked crying, “Help me! My parents are going to hate me when I tell them! I feel like it's all my fault! I don't know what to do!”

She licked the tears out of my eyes, but didn't answer. I wrapped my arms around her and cried into her shoulder. I was hurting so bad on the inside, I wanted it to go away. I wanted the feeling that their deaths were my fault to leave me. I wanted to escape it all. I wanted the fear of my own parents blaming Taro and Hunter's deaths on me to leave. But it wasn't, it only seemed to get stronger.

“What am I supposed to tell them?”, I asked.

“The truth”, Adelind said, “it's gonna keep eating you until you tell them.”

“I'm not sure that I can”, I answered as I hugged her tightly, “and what about Lung being a traitor? I doubt Nolan knows yet.”

Adelind sighed and licked me across the snout, but she didn't say anything. Everything hurt so much. I tried not to think about what Shadow and Mnerloth must be feeling if I felt this way, both of them had just lost their fathers in one blow. What about Syril's parents? Did they know their daughter was dead on her first mission? At least Shadow had his mother back, but Mnerloth was by herself now.

“Are you gonna be okay?”, Adelind asked.

“I'll be fine”, I answered, “or at least I should be.”

“If you need anything”, she whispered, “just ask.”

“I know one thing I need”, I said placing the tags back on my night stand.

“What's that?”, she asked placing one of her paws on my chest.

“I need you”, I whispered pulling her into a kiss.

“I need you too”, she said returning my kiss.

I closed my eyes as Adelind pulled away. She snuggled up closer to me and wrapped her tail around mine. In a way, I knew she was right. This was going to keep eating at me until I told everyone who needed to know. Shadow would probably tell Syril's parents about her death, so I wasn't worried as much as I was with telling my parents about Taro and Hunter, mostly because I didn't know how they would react...or if I could even work up the courage to face them and tell them. I'd never been so scared or in so much pain in my life. I felt like my heart was tied into a knot. It wasn't like the fear of getting lost way back when, it was worse, much worse.

“What am I gonna say to my parents?”, I asked myself as I fell back to sleep.