Late August, 1996
It had been a long night. One of the young dragons was sick and it had been Charlie's turn to sit with her. Still, the Romanian sun rise almost made it worth staying up all night. A sweep of dusky pink rose from behind the distant, cloud topped mountains, their silhouettes becoming more apparent as it changed to the burning, orange glow of the appearing sun. Coupled with the early morning birdsong and the gentle snorts of the other dragons, in Charlie's eyes this was absolute perfection.
Out here you would never know that there was a war on. It was a game Charlie liked to play, forgetting, pretending. Reality could be too hard to handle sometimes.
Despite the rising sun, Charlie gave a shiver as one of the other handlers came to relieve him of his shift. It had been a cold night and the warming spell he cast a few hours ago was starting to wear off. He was glad to stretch out and walked the long way round back to his cabin, to feel the full effects of the early morning sun on his skin.
The cabin door gave a loud creak as he opened it. He had been meaning to fix it for months, but it was one of those things he never quite got round to. No matter. No one else ever came in here anyway.
Charlie flung his coat down on the chair, filled his small kettle with water and put it on the stove to heat up. He wanted nothing more than to crash out, but there was a letter to his mum that needed writing and she didn't need to give her anything else to fret over. After the events of the recent months, Charlie knew she worried more and more each day, with good reason.
He walked past his bedroom door on the way to get some parchment and froze. The unusual shape his duvet took strongly suggested that someone was asleep under it. Cautiously, he inched into the room, wand at the ready, before gently lifting an edge of the covers. Brown, messy hair greeted him. His heart sank.
She had looked progressively worse the last three times he had seen her. If she had got to the point that she had to escape to Romania, things must be bad.
Protectively, he climbed on to the bed and curled around her, cursing every damn thing that was making her fall apart.