Before Beasts, There Were Storms--6

Dreams of Worlds

Ayah didn't ask what had happened when they met on deck the next morning. She didn't ask where he had gone afterwards, nor did she attempt to apologize for any preconceived offenses. She didn't ignore him either, but gave him a pale morning smile and a bowl of sweetened, cold oatmeal (she must have soaked it in water to 'cook' it since he hadn't been around).

"Tyson isn't awake yet," she said, as though mentioning something from a newspaper.

That surprised him a bit. During his first days as a newly reborn freak, he had wanted to sleep forever but got woken up every five hours or so by ravenous hunger. Even as he thought that, though, he thought he could make out a torn box of empty cans. Curious, he drew closer, a spoon of oatmeal held in his mouth. Sure enough, the cans hadn't been opened by any conventional means, but by rough holes stabbed into the tops. Ice pick? Or large claws.

Ayah didn't wait for the awkward quiet to settle beneath them. She had finished hers long before Kai had gotten to the kitchen, so she left and headed down to the deck. There, she found a spot in the morning sunlight to spread out on her stomach. White feathers spilled out as far as they could. He shivered with a sudden cold, longing to join her. It had been so long since he had felt properly warm. But after the freak out from the night before, he had barely stood being in the same room as her. After all, what kind of man had a panic attack when a beautiful girl was kissing him?

Remembering made him physically cringe. "God, I suck."

The sound of a long, plated tail being dragged along metal announced Tyson's arrival not too long later. He all but strutted in, scratching at his elbow.

"I'm still growing scales," he said, as though Kai should be incomprehensibly jealous.

Kai put aside his empty bowl. "If we're lucky, you'll lose all your baby fat to lizard."

"Dragon, dude. And what baby fat?" Tyson twisted around, even lifted up his shirt. "I'm a lean, mean, dragon-clawed machine. Hey, what's in the pot?"

Kai stepped aside and let Tyson at it, which was as gross as he expected to be. Tyson without the monstrous hunger pains of change were horrifying enough. He didn't even bother getting a bowl, but used the ladle to scoop the oatmeal into his mouth.

To Kai's disgust and amazement, Tyson tried to continue his conversation through the oatmeal.

"Dude..llrpp...this is the greatest--uuurssrrrp--thing evar. I can like--ruuurp--I don't know, like---ssruuuurp---feel Dragoon closer than ever. And he keeps---uurrpl---like, popping up in my dreams and talking to me--"

"Eat or talk." Kai wrinkled his nose at the flecks of oatmeal kernels splattering the floor with each word.

To his continued amazement, Tyson actually chose to talk.

"Like this last dream I had, Dragoon told me he'd been waiting for something like this to happen. That I had the strongest affinity for his blood yet out of all my ancestors. And get this--he looks like my dad with crazy white and black hair!" Tyson scraped the bottom of the pot with the ladle. "And he told me that the story Ayah told us about humans killing off all our kind wasn't exactly true. More than half our ancestors breeded with humans, and it was being bred to humans that killed some. Of course, there were hunters that wanted them for their powers--"

"Wait, hold on, Dragoon told you all this in a dream?"

Tyson blinked, his mouth opened up to receive the waiting ladle-full of oatmeal. "Doesn't Dranzer tell you anything?" The oatmeal went down, spilling a bit off the side of his mouth.