Chapter 3: Dreams

"Spyro… Spyro…" a haunting voice whispered, "Spyro…"

Suddenly, someone woke Spyro up from sleeping.

"Spyrooo… Spyro?" Sparx called.

"Sparx, what's wrong?" Spyro asked his friend.

Sparx stared at him, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you! You were rolling around like crazy in your sleep."

Spyro looked down, confused. He did have a bad dream, but he didn't know what it meant.

"Anyways," Sparx continued, "I came here to say…sorry. About Cynder, I mean."

Spyro didn't say anything.

"You know, I'm not saying that I trust her now, and I'm gonna be best friends with her, but… I can be a bit nicer…" Sparx pouted, "…If you want."

Spyro smiled, "That'd be great, Sparx. Thanks."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A small black dragoness was sitting in a tiny cage, surrounded by apes. She didn't know why they stared at her the way they did. Every once in a while, one of them would come over and shake her cage, or start yelling at her, trying to scare her, and they did every time. She felt like crying each time they did that, because she had no idea who they were or why she was forever locked in her small cage. She's never left the cage; she'd been in there since she was born. Three times a day, a very large ape named Gaul brought her food, and she would devour it. She liked Gaul, whenever he was around, none of the other apes would bother her. They were scared of him.

"She needs to be strong and powerful for the transformation process," she heard Gaul telling some of the other apes, "If she's too weak, she may die during the process, and then we will have failed the Dark Master."

Gaul turned to look at her in her cage. The young dragon stared straight back at him with her emerald eyes. She didn't know what the transformation process was, but she didn't like the sound of it.

Cynder woke up. Wow… she thought. She hadn't thought about what it was like before she was put under the Dark Master's evil spell in forever. It's been about a week since Spyro saved her, and this was the first day that she hasn't felt horribly guilty about what she did.

Maybe I could learn to forgive myself after all… This place is finally starting to feel like home. It's definitely better than living with those apes. I mean, every once in a while I catch Sparx giving me the evil eye…but at least I'm not stuck in a small cage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"No!" he screamed, "Mom! No!" but it was too late. His mother was gone.

He watched as a group of apes covered with armor dragged her away, leaving a trail of blood. Tears were running down his face. He heard an ear-piercing scream, looked up, and suddenly he stopped hearing all of the yelling and the fighting. Cynder. She was staring right at him. She didn't know who he was, but he knew her – everyone did. He was paralyzed with fear, but he kept waiting for something to and nothing did. She stared deep into his warm, red eyes. He couldn't stop shaking.

After waking up from his dream, Flame laid awake in his bed. He's had the same dream three nights in a row. Everyday, it becomes so much harder to talk to Cynder, even though they got along so well.

She killed my mom…he thought. She KILLED my mom.

Flame was torn. He didn't want to act like Sparx and be a total jerk towards Cynder, but he also found it hard to bring himself to forgive her for what she did. I'll just try and avoid her, I guess. So, with his new plan, he got up to go and get some breakfast. He sat and ate with Terrador. Once Ignitus came to join them, Flame casually got up and walked away, not looking at or saying anything to his father. This was how it was everyday. He never spoke to Ignitus, and he found it easier that way. He found himself to never be in the mood to deal with him. He wasn't scared of his dad anymore; he almost believed that his father would never hurt him again. He was mostly scared of how he would react if his dad said something that made him angry. He was really good at getting angry easily. It was something that he was sure got passed down to him by his dad, unfortunately.

He soon found out that not speaking to his father, and avoiding Cynder was becoming very lonely, which made him sad.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sparx went into Flame's room and saw him just lying there.

"Hey, man. What are you doing?" Sparx asked.

Flame looked at him, staying where was, "What does it look like?"

"Well, come on!" Sparx encouraged, "I wanna show you something!"

Flame took a moment to think about it, and decided that there was no use lying around being depressed.

He jumped up from his bed, "Okay, let's go!"

Flame ran after Sparx who was flying towards to door, and then they were outside. Sparx started to fly towards the burnt down city.

"Wait," Flame stopped him, "where are we going?"

"I found something really cool yesterday. When Spyro was ignoring me I got super bored and decided to explore."

Flame looked back at the temple, and then towards Sparx. He whispered, "Well, I don't think we're supposed to go in there."

Sparx's jaw dropped, "Oh, come on! Who are you, Spyro? I thought you were a badass."

Flame gave him a sly look, "Haha, okay, let's go then."

Flame loved the idea of breaking the rules, especially when he knew it would bother his dad so much.

They ran off into the city. Sparx led Flame to one of the many huts that had been destroyed. Some huts had been completely demolished, while others had only been slightly damaged. Something seemed familiar about this hut to Flame.

Flame walked in slowly after Sparx flew in. Oh my god… this was my home. This was where my mom took me on the night of the raid. He looked around at everything. Most of they're things were still there. The blankets they owned were sprawled along the floor, covered in dirt and ash. Then, he looked at Sparx, who was holding a necklace with a ruby crystal pendant. Flame's eyes shot wide open.

"Look at this thing, imagine how much it's worth!" Sparx said excitedly.

Sparx put it around his neck, pretending to wear it, even though it was much too big for him. While dancing around with the pendant, he suddenly lost his grip on it, and it started to fall to the ground. Flame immediately jumped towards the pendant, and slid on the ground as it landed in his hands.

"Woah…uh, nice save," Sparx said while scratching the back of his head. He wasn't so sure why he tried to hard to save it.

Flame hesitated, but then decided to tell Sparx the truth, "Sparx… this belonged to my mother. She used to wear it all the time."

"Oh…" Sparx suddenly felt pretty bad about almost destroying it. He figured his mom must not be alive anymore.

"Can we go back now?" Flame asked. He wasn't in the mood to fool around anymore.

They made their way back to the temple in silence. Sparx didn't know what to say, nor did Flame. When they got back, someone was waiting for them to return. A red pair of eyes was glaring down at them when they walked through the door.

"Uh…gotta go!" Sparx told Flame before quickly flying away.

Flame looked down, trying to avoid the angry look in his father's eyes.

"So, how did you find out where we were?" Flame asked.

Ignitus took a breath, "The pool of visions really does work, you know. What is it you have in your hand?"

Flame looked at the pendant, and then raised it up to show Ignitus. Ignitus recognized it as well. He reached out to take it from Flame, but when he started to pull it away, Flame tightened his grip on it. Flame kept staring at the pendant for a few seconds, and then finally let it go.

Ignitus held it close to him as he observed it. Then he looked at Flame, who was starting to walk away slowly.

"Flame, stop," he said quietly.

The young dragon stopped and turned around halfway, not fully facing Ignitus.

Ignitus held out the pendant towards his son, "Here."

Surprised, Flame looked up at Ignitus and slowly took the pendant from his father's hand. Then, he ran back to his bedroom. He fell asleep while holding his mother's necklace to his chest. He was so happy to finally have something left of his mom.