A New Era

Chapter 11: We Need to Talk

   Palette stared up at Dream's door. He was worried about his dad for a multitude of reasons, but two were at the forefront of everything: his dad was started to lock himself away and he seemed more... anger prone.

    While he doubted talking would do much, he had to try. He let out a breath that he had been holding before knocking on the door.

    "Come in," came Dream's muffled voice.

Palette opened the door to Dream's office, taking in the fairly familiar sight of Dream behind his desk, glancing up with a smile before returning to the paperwork.

"Hi Palette," he said without looking up again. "I don't mean to be rude, but I'm kind of busy right now. Why don't you go play with PJ?"

"I don't want to play," Palette said, taking a seat. Dream looked up with a questioning look.

"Draw?" he asked, reaching over to grab some paper and pens.

    "No," Palette said again, Dream staring at him while putting the drawing stuff down.

    "Than what, Little P?" he asked, folding his arms over his paperwork.

    "I think you need to talk," Palette said, looking away.

    Observing the room, nothing really looked out of the ordinary. Pictures of him and Nightmare adorned the walls, photographs and paintings alike. The walls were painted a golden tan, the furniture was light brown and cushiony. It seemed like a perfect office.

    Palette didn't like the feelings in the room though. He could just barely make out broken glass just under the door to Dream's bedroom and a lot of the breakables in the room looked new. That wasn't to mention the sinking feeling he was getting, like he was about to step onto restricted grounds.

    "About what?"  Dream asked, tilting his skull slightly.

"Well...," Palette started, looking over to the side. "Maybe why you're angry so often?"

"What do you mean?" Dream asked with a confused smile and quirked brow, but his eyes didn't portray the laughable confusion the rest of his features showed. Palette could see the stiffness of his other bones and the way his look had suddenly become defensive.

"Well, I've noticed some odd feelings in the room," Palette continued, looking at the walls as though they were talking. "It's not... good feelings."

"And you assume that it's anger?" Dream said, not much of a question as it was an accusation.

Palette suddenly felt shivers up his spine and the sense of danger started to choke him. He forced himself to look up at his dad's face and saw the eye lights switch from a bloody red to their usual yellow, but a bit paler: as though they were fake.

Palette took a deep breath, "I know it's anger among other things. I... I think you need to talk about it so-."

"Talk about my emotions?" Dream asked, an edge to his voice that made Palette freeze. "Might I ask who I would talk to?"

"W-well, there's always Uncle Nightmare," Palette said, looking up to see the lights flash yet again, but his expression seemed calm in a predatory way. "Me, Classic... and maybe the new Ink?"

The moment he said that last part, Palette knew he screwed himself. Looking up, the eye lights didn't bother to change to the sickly pale yellow they had switched to before. They remained a bloody, angry red, glaring at Palette with enough poison to slaughter a multiverse.

"The 'New Ink?'" he asked, his voice dangerously calm.

Palette remained silent, every bone saying that he needed to leave and get away from Dream. His empathetic senses feeling anger and the constant murderous feeling coming off of his dad.

Dream simply continued staring at him, the mocking question staying stagnant in the air. Palette knew he needed to leave. Talking anymore was out of the question.

    Taking slow steps backwards and keeping eye contact with Dream, Palette slowly exited the room, only looking away once the door was closed.

    He let out a sigh of relief, listening to see if Dream would follow and hearing only the sounds of pen scribbling on paper.

    Palette looked down. He needed to tell someone about this. He didn't think Uncle Nightmare would be a good idea. Palette easily made friends, but Nightmare made him nervous. Not to mention that he could tell Uncle Nightmare didn't care for kids and would find him more of an annoyance than family.

    Maybe... he had been planning to talk to the new Ink for awhile now. Maybe now was the time to talk to him.

——

This is an amalgamation of things. This was going to be the extra for 300 views, then I decided it could be its own chapter, and then Christmas came and went so consider this also a Christmas present.

Sorry for the silence, I've been dealing with a lot. Between school work, Christmas shopping, and preparing myself to potentially lose a family members in the next few weeks or months, I haven't had much time. Writer's Block is the least of my concerns right now.

I can't thank you all enough for being patient with me. I might take it off hiatus but change the schedule, idk. Hope you all had a merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!