Wake Me Up When It's All Over

Chapter 11

Janus thought that Roman definitely did not deserve what they had been through. There were very few people that deserved to be cursed to a sleeping curse for any longer than two hundred years, but there was absolutely no one who deserved ten thousand, let alone a child.

He looked to where Remus was comforting them and frowned slightly. Ten thousand years... Did nagas even exist back then? Did any of his friends' races even exist back then? He could guess that shifters probably did, based on Roman's initial reaction to Remus, but he wasn't sure about any others.

Roman was still crying, but they started apologising. Janus frowned

"Why are you saying sorry? Roman, you haven't done anything wrong" he hissed out softly, watching as Roman looked up for a few moments, before looking down

"I'm sorry for being weak..." They mumbled, so quiet that Janus almost didn't hear them

Janus was stunned into silence. Were they really apologising for having emotions, because it made them 'weak'? He suddenly wished that time magic had been figured out, just so he could hurt everyone who pushed that thought into their head.

Patton was the one who said something in return, leaning down to them

"Roman, look at me, okay?" Roman looked up "You are not weak. Having emotions does not make you weak, you are so so strong, but your brain is trying to cope with a big change. Sometimes, you just need to let your emotions out. That doesn't make you weak"

Roman looked down again, wiping their eyes. Remus grew an extra arm to ruffle their hair, and hugged them closer, before letting out a small laugh

"And if it's physical strength you're worried about, I've been hit by you enough times to know that you are definitely not weak in that department either"

Roman laughed, smiling a little, and Janus laughed as well. They sat in silence for a while, with Roman humming something to themselves.

Janus eventually announced that he was going hunting, and slithered away with his thoughts. How advanced was human society when Roman was there? What had humans accomplished that had been lost in the pages of history? Roman had probably had friends, family even, that they missed, that were long gone by then.

He started attacking his prey as his thoughts wandered. Humans were so small, but Janus remembered hearing somewhere that it was theorized that a lot of things were smaller a few thousand years ago, so maybe humans weren't actually that small, everything else was just big in comparison.

The world Roman knew was smaller, less dangerous. This one was more suited to someone of Janus' size, and Roman was about ten times smaller than Janus. Once his prey was dead, Janus sat down a while, thinking over all he had learnt in the past few weeks.

There were so many things that didn't make sense in his mind, how hadn't it been noticed that humans were sapient, all the signs were right there! He supposed that willful ignorance may have played a part, people never seemed to see what they didn't want to see. But even so, he had a weird feeling in his chest at the thought that centuries (millennias, even) worth of people simply didn't notice something so crucial.

He shook his head, starting to drag the food back to the nest. He was still only hunting for him, Logan and Roman, with Patton and Virgil preferring to hunt during the day, and Remus taking a bite out of a tree every time he was hungry. It led to a lot of bite marks around the nest, but no one really cared, especially since Remus had taken to doing it in a smaller form to minimize the damage done, as per Logan's request

He returned to the nest and discovered that Roman had gone back to their den for a nap, and Virgil had done the same on his web. Janus rolled his eyes, and passed the food to Logan, to prepare it. He let out a yawn of his own, starting to curl up around a tree. He rested his head on his arms, which in turn rested on his tail. It was just around the time that he and Logan would be starting shedding, so he decided to treasure his current comfort while it lasted