The tale of the fox and the dragon egg

Chapter 42 - The way to hope

It gave Wei Ying the opportunity to really think about the words Wen Ning said before. They were so similar to his own and in his memory, he had Wen Qing's voice in his ear.

"Wen Ning", Wei Ying hummed and stroked over A-Yuan's head, "You know, I had a strange dream. And I think it's connected to our – our problem."

Instantly, he had the whole attention of the phoenix. The timid expression vanished from his face and made way for serious eyes and an alarmed push of lips.

"Please, tell me your thoughts Master Wei."

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>Try not to forget what I said. <

Wei Ying awoke to those words, ringing inside his head. At first, they echoed times and times again, but that was before he was really waking up.

In a desperate attempt to find a comfortable position to slip back into sleep, the fox rolled around in the bed he was laying in. Stopping on his left, he breathed in deeply and accepted the knowledge that he truly wouldn't fall back asleep. Maybe ever again in his life.

However, his body finally felt well rested. Something that was totally different to all the days before. And the fox exactly remembered why.

The happenings of the last day slipped back into his head. And with a content sigh, Wei Ying opened his eyes. They stung a little the moment they met the light, but he kept them open to gaze at the broad back facing him – because it was almost too good to be true.

The person sitting at the desk, right in the middle of the room, with the night-black hair cascading down his back, was surprising him greatly. He couldn't help but to follow those broad shoulders with his eyes, imagining how he could just scoop the long hair over one shoulder – would he be able to see those muscles on the back, right under the white robes?

It was worth a try, Wei Ying decided, but he was not quite ready to get up yet. Instead, his lazy eyes followed how a slim hand took one of the scrolls on the side of the table, only to let it vanish behind that wonderful back. He listened how an ink stone was rubbed across water, something which almost lulled him back to sleep.

The thought of rubbing his face against that space between the shoulder blades was much too tempting though. And so, Wei Ying stretched himself, long and good, making a sound that resembled a high whine.

A pale hand, which was holding a brush, stopped for a minute. Especially as that fox finally got up and slipped towards the figure in front of the table. It took no time to press his chest against that broad back, or to slip his arms around those shoulders, after he followed his thoughts from the beginning and brushed that soft hair over one of them. Such a heavenly scent greeted him and the fox buried his sensitive nose against that warm neck, inhaling once deeply.

From a clicking noise, Wei Ying knew that the brush had been put down and not a second after, a hand gently rubbed over his head. That space just behind his ears was tingling and the fox sighed happily, while his seven tails leisurely curled around the object of his every desire.

"Good morning, Wei Ying", Lan Zhan said into the space and the fox hummed in a reply that was still too sleepy to really understand.

From that amused huff, Wei Ying began to awaken more and more. In a shameless act, which Lan Zhan wholeheartedly supported, the fox weaselled his way onto the dragon's lap and clung to him, enjoying the soft beating of a heart against his ears.

It took some time for him to truly be conscious. Many minutes in which that brush returned to the paper, while a large hand stroked his back in slow circles.