me stuff. He tried to get me to buy this old nag that looked like it was ready to die. Told me it was a great ‘pre-owned horse.’ Honestly!” Kovos sat hard on the bed next to him and placed his hands on his knees.
“Well he’s a used-horse salesman, what do you expect?” Sasha said.
They continued to talk for a bit and then decided to head off to bed. Arkin had his own room and Legon and Sasha were sharing one. The place was nice, a lot like their home, but it felt odd not to have his own room. Not that Sasha was a bother, but the man at the front desk had asked about them being married and that had made his skin crawl a bit. At the same time he wasn’t keen to leave her side. He was in protection mode right now and he probably wouldn’t sleep unless he knew she was fine.
It was nice sliding under the sheets and putting his head on a somewhat soft pillow, almost like this was just any other trip. Soon the ceiling he was looking at faded away as sleep took over.
The ceiling was replaced by clouds. In his dream he rolled on the ground. “Great, another one of these,” he thought. He was on the field tonight, but to his left he saw dirt and gravel, so he was somewhere in between the two… two… whatever these were. To his left in the mist was the outline of the black dragon, to his right just mist. This was such an odd dream. He never saw the other dragon, just the one that he associated with evil and bad things. He wondered… if he only saw the black dragon, did that mean that he was a bad person? There was an overwhelming feeling of confirmation, which somehow he knew was coming from the black dragon. He was a bad person, but why was he moving toward the field where perhaps the white dragon was?
The feeling came again, this time saying he couldn’t make it. But there was a new feeling now, one that came from somewhere else, one that felt good and hopeful. There was a grumble from the black dragon; he needed to be paying more attention to it. “No I don’t. Maybe I need to concentrate on the other feeling,” he thought, or did he say it? Could you think to yourself in a dream? What did all this mean anyway? Did it mean anything? He wasn’t sure.
He thought about this for awhile and then looked down, noticing that he had gotten closer to the black dragon. Fear came. He didn’t want to be closer to that one. Still lying on the ground, he started to inch the other way but somehow he kept getting closer to the dragon. He rolled around on his belly, facing the field away from the dragon, crawling, straining to remember the feeling of hope that he had felt. The more he thought about it the more he moved away from the dragon. He wanted to turn back and look but something made him keep his eyes ahead of him.
The mist was getting thick now and he couldn’t see the ground, even on his belly. There was a thunderous THUD… THUD. The second was softer and coming from behind him. The dragon was leaving. THUD. He pawed the ground, wanting to keep moving away but it was so hard to figure what way to go. THUD. His fingers closed around a vine that was on the ground. He pulled himself along, holding to the vine, hoping it led away from danger. THUD. Soft now. Deep breathing from high above him. There was the fear again. What if this was not the white dragon? What if this was just another Iumenta? He looked up into a violent flash of bright blue.
Chapter Twelve
Empathy
“It has been said that love is the strongest power for good in this world, and that if more people loved there would be far less suffering. I would disagree with that theory; it is not love itself, but what and how we love, for surely the tyrant loves the suffering he causes just as much as the mother loves her child.”
-Teachings of the Restored Queen
Legon’s eyes blinked open. He felt cold sweat covering him and his breath was ragged. He stared up at the canvas ceiling of the tent; he couldn’t hear Sasha’s breathing. He sat up trying to wave off