Wings of Heart and Gold

Chapter 1: Memories

It has officially been decided: I'm writing the sequel to my other fic, The Redemption of a Cowboy Imp after months of consideration.

Chapter 1: Memories

It had been over a week or two since Stella's death. However, one night, Striker tossed and turned, having recurring nightmares about her. His nightmares involved her ordering her husband dead when his attempts on killing him failed. He covered his ears to block out the yelling, grunting, wishing it would go away. It also included her threatening to kill him, instead. Thus, Stella put a gun to her victim's head. Sweat dripping from his forehead, he panted with fear.

"Goodbye, Striker," she said, cocking her gun before shooting.

Before anything else happened, Striker woke up panting frantically and looked around only to find himself in his cozy bedroom. He exhaled with relief, releasing what happened was just a bad dream. It wasn't like Stella was going to come back now that she was gone.

Someone looked out the open window at him with concern, neighing.

"Hey, boy, why aren't you at your stall?" Striker asked, sitting up on his bed. "It's the middle of the night."

Bombproof sputtered and nickered.

Striker sighed as he slid out of bed on his way to his open window, which let a cool breeze fill his room in case he got hot. If he wanted to go back to sleep, he may as well tell his horse what bothered him.

The cowboy imp patted his horse's head.

"I had a bad dream, Bombproof. Stolas' wife wanted to kill me for refusing to kill him."

Bombproof nuzzled his owner.

Striker nudged his head away slightly, needing a little space. "She's been haunting me even though she's dead."

The horse continued to rub him affectionately, making him smile a bit.

The cowboy sighed again. "Alright. I suppose we could talk outside." He put on his robe and made his way back to the open window, but not before grabbing his scrapbook. He had it in his room for safekeeping whenever he needed comfort.

With the scrapbook in hand, he stepped outside the window. Once outside, Bombproof lay down next to Striker, who sat down on the porch and opened the scrapbook, revealing pictures of his younger self and his parents. The next page revealed his parents bringing a young colt home.

"That's you, Bombproof," Striker chuckled, reminiscing his horse's younger self and he showed him more pages until they found a page of them at the fair. The last one at the very bottom of the said page was a picture of a young Striker, proudly standing beside his colt, who won first prize. "We were lucky winners back then."

Striker flipped through more pages until he came to pages of himself in his teens when Bombproof was much older and bigger like he is now. "You've grown since my parents brought you home to me. We've had good times together."

Striker closed the scrapbook and yawned. "Well, Bombproof, it's best we hit the hay and get some shut eye." He carefully set his scrapbook on the bedroom floor and stepped back inside his bedroom door. He undid his robe and hung it on a rack for hanging clothes.

Before closing the window, Striker whispered, "Goodnight, Bombproof." Then he shut the window and made his way into his bed, hoping for a better night's sleep.

AN: This fic is dedicated to JamieTheFandomGirl for coming up with a title for this story, Detective88 for helping me with my stories, Whirlpool24 (also known as Carlisle Fan 22 on Fanfiction) for reviewing the prequel to this story, and anyone else who read the first one and is willing to read this one.