This chapter is written for Vanessa and Kendra day of the Fablehaven ship fest.

Chapter 10: The People We Have Loved

Kendra woke up in a pool of her own sweat. She had just woken up from a nightmare, which sadly seemed to be the only thing she dreamed about. She remembered the dream vividly: Sidestep cliff, the knapsack, Ga- Navarog. She thought she was over him, after all he is dead. It was foolish of her for continuing to think of him.

After the initial shock of the dream ended, Kendra decided to go to Warren's cabin, as he typically comforted her whenever she had a bad dream, but when Kendra arrived downstairs, she saw Vanessa sitting on the couch drinking some sort of beverage.

Kendra walked towards Vanessa to see what she was doing. Kendra saw that her drink was coffee (strange as it couldn't have been later than 3am), and she seemed to be writing in some sort of journal.

"Ummmm, hi." Kendra said, cringing at her early morning voice.

Vanessa turned back to look at her, a little startled as she wasn't expecting anyone, and said. "Hello? Why are you up?"

Kendra sighed. "It was just a nightmare, per usual."

Vanessa looked concerned. "Well, how often are you having nightmares?"

"Almost every night."

Vanessa gasped. "That's horrible!" She hesitated for a moment, then asked "Do you want to talk about it? I'm not a very good at the comforting thing but I'll listen to your problems if you'll like."

"That'll be lovely."

"Come, sit." Vanessa patted the seat next to her. "Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No, but thank you." Kendra sat down next to Vanessa.

"So I'm going to need to give you some background for you to understand, so this may take a while."

"No problem."

Kendra sighed. "Okay so I guess that my story starts when I was inducted into the Knights of the Dawn. There were me and two other people being inducted. The other two were people named Estelle and Gavin. Anyways, Gavin was a boy about my age, and he was super cute. He had the most adorable stutter and was quite anxious. So by luck, when it was time for me to go on my first mission, I got assigned with him. We talked, and eventually I developed a crush on him. After that, he wrote me a bunch of cute, flirty letters. I couldn't wait to see him again! And when I got assigned another mission to the dragon sanctuary Wrymroost, we got to see each other again. You see, Gavin was the son of Charlie Rose, the dragon trainer. Gavin was also something called a dragon brother, which is kind of like me being fairykind in the way that we were adopted by our respective magical creatures."

"You talk about Gavin in the past tense, so would I be right to assume he is deceased?"

"Correct, But there's more to this story." Kendra took a deep breath and continued. "So as the mission concluded, everything turned out well. There were no casualties and we were going to be fine as long as no one died while attempting to exit the preserve. But, naturally with my luck, there were dragons surrounding us. Then, Gavin turned into this huge black dragon with black gems. I was shocked to say the least."

"Oh Kendra." Words could not describe how bad Vanessa felt for Kendra.

"So Gavin was this huge dragon. But hey. Maybe he would be a friend? After all he was protecting us from a bunch of dragons. Ha, nope. After he killed all of the dragons swarming us, he ATE Dougan, pushed Mara off a cliff, and then slashed me across the chest. Lucky, I was wearing armor or else I could have died."

"Ouch."

Yeah, but it gets worst. So I go into my knapsack which was an extra dimensional storage space. Warren was laying in there due to the fact that he was severely injured."

"Of course Warren was injured. He's always injured." Vanessa mumbled.

"I told him about Gavin, and he didn't believe me. While I was there, a grabbed my rain stick, which was a staff that's could control the weather whenever it was shaken. I went back out of the knapsack, found a little cave of sorts, and shook the stick in order to cause as much turbulence as possible. Anyways, after I did that for some time, Gavin still managed to find me. He essentially told me about how he was actually the demon prince Navarog and the Sphinx had told him act like he had liked me in order to gain my trust. I tried my best to stop him, but he continued to taunt me. He even threatened to kill Warren if I put up a fight so I didn't. Even still he burned the knapsack, with Warren still inside. Eventually, a friendly dragon named Raxtus ate him, but even still I dream of him and I think of him. It's so stupid. He's not even a threat so why am I scared? Why am I so weak as to keep on remembering think monster?" Kendra started to cry by the time she finished her story.

"Oh Kendra. Remembering someone who caused you great pain doesn't make you weak. It makes you reasonable. It's the normal reaction."

"Huh?" Kendra said, confused by what she meant.

"Whenever you are in pain, it's natural to remember who hurt you. Just because you remember them doesn't make you weak. In fact, it makes you strong. Being able to talk about what he did makes you so strong."

"Really?" Kendra sniffled, her tears drying up.

"Really." Vanessa said. "In fact, you're not the only one who got betrayed horribly by someone you loved."

"The Sphinx." Kendra groaned.

"Yup, that as- jerk." Vanessa caught herself. She wasn't aloud to swear around the children.

"So what the story with him?" Kendra asked. "If you don't mind telling, that is."

Vanessa sighed. What an embarrassing story. "So when I first met the Sphinx, I had no attachment to him. He was simply my leader, that was all. But I was so young and stupid, and I eventually found I had developed feelings for him. I really don't know why. It wasn't if he was trying to be super seductive or anything, though now that I think about it, he may have been a little flirty."

Kendra imagined the Sphinx flirting. She cringed. "Eww."

"Appropriate reaction." Vanessa continued. "I'm guessing he assumed that he could take my feelings towards him for granted and could use me as a pawn. He was right. I ended up doing all sorts of horrible things for him, such as betraying you, one of the only people I actually like. And what do I get for doing all of this dirty work for him? He throws me out like yesterday's trash."

"It's horrible. How could the Sphinx be so evil?"

"What's really horrible was that he didn't think that what he did was wrong." Vanessa paused. "Anyways, Do you see my point? Everyone makes bad choices from time to time, and often pay the price for it later, but what's important is that we live from these experiences and grow as people. So don't ever tell me you're weak for making one bad choice. Besides, you have Mr. perfect as your boyfriend now."

"He's not my boyfriend!" Kendra exclaimed.

"Ohhh, so what is he then?" Vanessa asked teasingly? "I thought you like him? Should I tell him otherwise?"

"Noooooooo!" Kendra exclaimed.

"No? You don't like him?!" Vanessa exclaimed.

"Of course I like him!" Kendra said embarrassingly. "You know what I meant!"

"I'm just saying what I was thinking." Vanessa said innocently.

"Ohhhhhh! So your playing that game! Two can do that!" Vanessa looked at her. "You wouldn't dare."

Kendra grabbed her phone. "Dear Warren, Vanessa loves you soooo much. She's had the biggest crush on you since forever, and she wants—"

"Kendra don't you DARE!"

"I will! And I'm just insane enough to do it!"

"Okay, okay! I won't tell Bracken anything!"

"Good." Kendra deleted the message. "You still need to tell him how you feel though."

"I would say the same to you." Vanessa replied.

Kendra concentrated for a few moments then said "Okay, I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"What if we make a deal so that we have to confess our feelings by the end of the week or else the other person will have to write a super cringy, embarrassing letter for the other person."

Vanessa smiled. "I like the sound of that. I'm excited to write your letter."

"Well I have have the week that Bracken is actually here. I am NOT confessing my feelings over text/letter/mental message. Isn't there like a rule against that?"

"I think that your talking about breaking up over text, but fair point. You have the week that Bracken is coming, which may or may not be next week if my sources are correct."

"Really?"

"You didn't hear anything from me."

"Got it." Kendra said cheerfully. "Thank you for taking with me. You helped a lot."

"Of course. We are friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah. We are aren't we." Kendra smiled. She looked over at the clock: 4:30.

"You should be getting back to sleep." Vanessa said.

"I should, shouldn't I." Kendra smiled at Vanessa. "Goodnight."

"Night Kens."

When Kendra eventually fell back asleep, she didn't have a nightmare. In fact, she had the opposite: a nice dream of her and her good friend Vanessa.