Today was the day. The day he'd be meeting his healer for the first time and actually talking with them. Zephyr had come by their room earlier that morning and dropped off some papers that had everything they needed to know on them.
They were encased in envelopes and she assured them that she hadn't read the reasons they were at the Healing Center; apparently, it was all confidential, to the point where not even she was told.
She said to give these papers to their healers as confirmation when meeting for the first time that day, and even the thought of talking to someone sent a shiver down his spine. He sat down on his bed and ripped open his letter, as did Flame, and pulled the thin piece of paper out from its familiar sealing.
Name: Umber
Hybrid: False
Tribe: MudWing
Healer: Nighthunter
Room number: 974, north building
General information about patient: Has past trauma, but doesn't like talking about it. Gentle and kind, but blames himself for his sister's death, and can become extremely defensive on the topic. Currently recovering from a traumatic injury after narrowly surviving a house fire. Likes reading scrolls, spending time outside, and is particularly fond of the garden. Loves making and drinking tea, and spending time with significant other. Can be difficult to calm, but food apparently helps.
You will be expected to show up to your healing sessions every day at 10:00 AM for any length your healer decides on, up to an hour. Your healer may let you out early if they deem it appropriate. Failure to show up to your sessions may result in punishment decided on by your healer.
Give this paper to your assigned healer on your first healing session.
Reading those words on paper made him shiver. From the extremely detailed synopsis of him to the way they somehow knew about Crane without him ever having to speak a word to them about it, to the amount of control his healer had over him. It was…unnerving.
"Wha… How do they…?" Umber muttered in shock.
"What's wrong?" Flame asked, peering up from his paper to look at him But he knew Flame too well and could clearly see it in his eyes that he knew exactly what he was talking about. He told her everything.
"You told her?" Umber said quietly, feeling a bit of betrayal looming from underneath his scales.
"That was part of our deal, remember? I socialize with your strange winglet, and I tell your healer about Crane." His eyes flickered to worry, and he came over and rested a talon on his shoulder. "Hey, you know I'm only doing this to help you, MudWing."
To be fair, he was right. He just wanted to tell her on his own time was all; he wasn't ready. He didn't feel ready. The fact that they knew everything about him now only solidified the fact he'd have to take classes if it wasn't already.
The things he made him do when confronting Stonemover were far out of his comfort zone, but he did them anyways. He did them for me, a voice in his head whispered.
But talking about Crane was too much for him. Every time he thought of her, he ran away from those thoughts, the feeling of confronting them head-on scared him worse than anything he'd ever encountered before. He'd heard that was probably the worst thing you could do, but his situation was different.
If it were up to him, he wouldn't even have a healer — he'd throw his feelings aside and act like everything was fine as Flame worked on his stuff. He did it the last time he was there, and he could do it again. The only problem with that was that Flame wouldn't let him. I'm fine, he tried to convince himself. This is all just an unnecessary waste of time.
After a while of waiting around in their room reading scrolls — that Flame had finally brought back from their house —, his internal clock was telling him that it was nearly time to go to his first healing session. He was hardly paying attention to his reading at that point — the words were all just words to him and meant nothing more.
His worst fears came true when he read the last line of the current part they were on, and Flame rolled up the scroll faster than he could realize. "Hey!" he protested, hoping Flame was just making some kind of joke.
"It's time for our sessions, we don't want to lose track of time, do we?" he said. His eyes looked Umber up and down. He felt talons begin trembling, and put them against the table in an attempt to hide it. But Flame noticed; he noticed almost immediately. He rested his talons on his shoulder just like earlier. "Hey, all she's going to do is ask you a few questions, alright? Think about it like Jade Mountain — you get through this one session, and you get the rest of the day to do whatever. We can go back to the garden and pick some tea if you want afterwards." His voice was soft and gentle, and he almost fell victim to feeling better about the situation.
"Yeah…" was all he said before grabbing the piece of paper from before and folding it with unease.
Oh how much he wanted to stay in that room and lay in his new bed. He could lay there for an eternity before wanting to talk about Crane to a dragon he hardly even knew.
He stood up and walked through the door, Flame following close behind him, before they split off into separate directions. Flame's healer was Starfish again, while he was stuck with someone named 'Nighthunter'.
At least Flame gets to spill out all his problems to someone he's used to doing it with, Umber thought.
The entire walk to his healer's office, dread flooded his veins and his heart raced at a million miles an hour. The trembling in his talons was almost too much to bear. Even Manticore playing their delightful tunes in the main building weren't enough to ease him.
"Hey Umber!" Manticore waved. He hardly even heard their voice as they spoke, but the words somehow broke through.
"H-Hey…" he said weakly, a shaky wave forcing its way into existence.
Flame said she's only going to ask me questions today, nothing about Crane, he thought to himself. The paper says I'm defensive, so surely she won't bring up Crane.
He turned the final corner to where his healer's office would be; to where he'd be traveling every day for the next few months. Right at the end of the hall, a sign atop an opened door read "974".
He stood by the door for a good few minutes, building up the courage to talk to his healer for the first time. Adrenaline surged him through then more than ever and his legs suddenly felt like they couldn't support his weight. Just walk in, he told himself. Walk in before she gets mad at you for being late!
Without even thinking, he took his first step into the small office and closed the door behind him. It smelled similar to every other office he'd been, with the boring smell he couldn't put his talon on.
Her desk was in the corner of the room on the wall next to the door on the right. She looked like every other NightWing; there was nothing specifically unique about her. No teardrop scales or special jewelry, just a plain old NightWing.
"Umber!" she said cheerfully. "Take a seat, take a seat." He set down his piece of paper on her desk and retreated back to one of the seats near the door. It took him until now to realize how badly his talons were shaking, but she didn't notice and swiped up the paper. "Perfect," she muttered.
She unfolded the paper and took a quick glance at it — one not even long enough to read more than a few words — and stuffed it in a drawer in her desk. She had a few things he assumed was for dragons to fidget with as she talked, like magnets, a strange cube like the one Flame bought Starfish, putty, and a few other things.
"Alright, Umber, how've you been?" she asked.
"G-Good," he muttered, an obvious lie.
"Good. I know we don't exactly know each other, so I'll start. I'm Nighthunter — as you probably already know — and I'm a healer here at the Healing Center. On your records it says that you've been here before with your sister, Sora." she said, her voice welcoming and friendly.
He didn't want to talk; he hated talking right now. He was hoping to be able to sit there and listen to her talk instead. "Y-Yeah," was all he could muster before snapping his maw shut.
"I heard she's living with Zephyr and Jet now — Zephyr talks about her often," she said. "Anyways, your file says that you like reading, what kind of scrolls do you like?"
He tried to build the courage to talk, but the constant recurring thought that she'd ask him about Crane kept surfacing, pulling his words away and choking him with them. She will eventually.
After a couple seconds of him staring down at the wooden chair and fidgeting with his talons, she took the hint that he wasn't going to speak. "Well, my brother likes to read horror scrolls, I don't read them too much because they scare me. Do you like horror scrolls?"
Crane liked horror scrolls… he remembered with a stab of fear, immediately pushing that thought away. He stayed silent yet again, his words keeping a firm hold around his neck.
"Not much of a talker, I see," she tried, grabbing a piece of paper on her desk. "It says here that you went to Jade Mountain Academy. Not many dragonets were chosen to go there, but seeing how your brother is one of the founders, it was probably almost guaranteed."
This was probably the part where he was supposed to say something — once again. But he let his response hang in the air.
She sighed. "Umber, I know you're probably nervous to talk to someone, especially after so long, and I'm very sorry about your loss; Crane was probably the most wonderful dragon in the world. But I need you to work with me here, alright? I just want to get to know you, that's all." He let those words sink in for a moment, before realizing what she had just said.
She was the most wonderful dragon in the world, he thought, drowning Nighthunter's words out. He wanted to push the thoughts away; stop them from harassing his mind any longer. But he couldn't drown them out anymore. She was the best of all of us, and I let her die. If I didn't sit there and watch, maybe she'd still be alive. Maybe I'd have taken her place instead…
But then I would've never met Flame, and she would've wanted that for me. But even that didn't stop him from thinking how he could've saved her. Even if he didn't succeed, at least he tried. But he didn't. He was a coward.
Flashbacks of Crane forced their way into his mind. The way she looked at him before her throat was slit, the way Icicle smiled at him as she did. The way she screamed at me as she died, the way her talons jumped up to her throat as she bled, the way she couldn't do anything except sit there and let it happen, begging me to save her.
"I-I've got to go!" Umber interrupted. He stood up from his chair and bolted through the door. Despite the pain all around his body from sprinting, he knew he had to get away from her, and fast. Every ounce of muscle in his body forced him to run, and the shaking in his talons only got worse.
"Umber! Wait!" He heard her try to stand up from her chair, but crash and fall instead. The perfect time to run.
He felt his breathing start to increase in speed rapidly, and tears threatened to pour from his eyes. Every dream of Crane played over and over again in his mind. Every detail he remembered vividly, from the smell of the blood ocean, to every hint of emotion in her expression, to every fold and crease on Icicle's face as she smiled the same way she did when it happened for real.
It didn't take long before he found his room; his legs were working on autopilot. He looked behind him one last time before entering his room to see that nobody was following him, thankfully.
He twisted the knob and slammed the door behind him, turning the lock and falling backwards onto the wooden floor. He scrambled to his feet and jumped atop his bed, backing himself into a corner. He hadn't even realized the tears running down his face until now, light sobs echoing throughout the dark, empty room only being illuminated by the sun.
His breathing was speeding up faster and faster by the second, making his head spin into lightheadedness. As much as he wanted to stop, he couldn't; any attempt at trying to breathe normally only ended in failure. That's what I am, a failure. A failure to Crane, he sobbed.
What would Flame think of me if he knew everything? He probably thought the dream wasn't perfectly accurate. If he knew all the details, he would probably hate me just as much as I hate myself. He let his wings cover him, protecting him with their warmth as all he felt was cold. All it did was muffle his sobs, though.
After a few minutes of sitting in deafening silence, he heard a jiggle of the door handle, followed by a familiar voice. Flame. "Umber, open the door, let's talk, alright?"
"Go away!" he demanded, his voice shaky from his tears. He wanted to open up and feel Flame's warm embrace to make everything feel better, but he'd rather sit there and sob than talk to someone. "Leave me alone!"
"We just want to help you, alright, Umber?" Nighthunter tried. "Please, just open up. Flame will be right there with you the whole time, I promise."
"You hear that, MudWing? I'll be right beside you." He could tell he was trying his best to add sincerity to his voice, but all it came off as was a plea. "So if you'll just-"
"NO!"
I need to get out of here! he thought, panic and dread ripping their way through his veins, more now than ever. Images of Crane still flashed through his mind. His legs were weak; weak to the point where he wasn't even sure he would be able to stand up anymore.
Regardless, he looked around the room for a way out. Flame and Nighthunter on the other side of the door, walls all around him, seemingly no escape. But then he looked at the window. He'd snuck out through it once, surely he hadn't grown too big to fit through it anymore, right? It had only been two years.
With that, he rushed to go stand up, but as he took his first step onto the floor, he felt his own mind come crashing down on him. A faint buzz filled his head, and soon spread throughout his entire body. He reflexively grabbed for the table, but it was no use, because just like that, everything went black.
"It's been a while," Starf greeted. His office was still bland and old just like it had been two years ago. If he'd known his healer would be Starf again, he would've brought that strange cube he bought a while ago.
All of the chairs were in the same spot, and so was the bookshelf holding all of the files of his patients. Nothing had changed, it was exactly how he'd remembered it.
"Yeah, sorry about your hatching day. If I knew you'd be my healer, I would've brought your present with all of my graphicolls." Flame apologized. "I was kind of…busy."
"I heard. That must've been really difficult for you." He kept his professional posture and tone, even though he'd consider them friends at this point. I guess dragons with his job are just accustomed to it.
"I'm fine now. It was hard at the time, but not anymore." He stared down at the carpeted floor, remembering the joy he was feeling as he saw Umber's eyes open for the very first time. "When he woke up, all of that anger and grief turned into joy — I'm just glad he's alive."
"I see, I see." He jotted down some notes on a piece of paper. "Now, it says that you came here because you're too attached to Umber. In what ways-"
The door swung open, slamming against the back wall hard enough to put a hole in it. Luckily though, the doorstopper was there to — well — stop it from doing that.
Standing in the doorway was a NightWing. Nothing particularly stood out about her, except for her face. Nighthunter? he thought. She looked panicked and she was panting, from what, he didn't know. Isn't she supposed to be in a session with Umber right now?
"Nighthunter! I'm having a session with Flame right now!" he scolded. His bioluminescent scales grew brighter in frustration.
"Exactly! Flame, I need you right now! It's about Umber!"
All of a sudden, everything clicked. Umber being nervous going into his healing session, her not being in her office when she was supposed to be in a session with Umber, his healer showing up to his healing session randomly, panicked and exhausted. Umber ran away. And not just for no reason. She said something that made him run away.
"What did you say to him?!" Flame demanded, a burst of anger taking control of him. He shot out of his seat, staring her down, smoke rising from his snout.
"Now, Flame, calm down," Starf tried, but his advice was thrown aside like a piece of paper with art that not even the artist wanted to keep.
She better not have said anything stupid! I fucking told her not to talk about Crane!
Nighthunter took a cautious step back, but she didn't seem scared. It was as if she'd dealt with dragons like him before. "I don't know! He wouldn't speak, and all of a sudden he ran off! We need to go find him!"
"Really? I was hoping we'd just stand here and fucking chat about it!"
He wasted no time pushing past her, heading to the place he knew he'd be. Not the garden — his favorite place in all of the Healing Center — but his room. If he really did run off like she said, he'd want to be alone.
"Where are you going?" she asked, bits of panic still remaining in her voice. Five fucking minutes is all it took! And here I thought this would be good for him!
"To our room!" he yelled as he stomped ahead. He didn't need to provide much more of an explanation before Nighthunter was at his side.
They walked through the halls of the Healing Center as Flame rehearsed what he was going to say once they got to their room — assuming he was in there.
Once he got to their door, he jiggled the handle. Locked.
It didn't take a genius to figure out why the door was locked, and he certainly wasn't going to waste time calling out for him to get a response he already expected. He put on his most friendly, sincere voice. "Umber, open the door, let's talk, alright?" he tried.
"Go away!" Umber demanded, his shaky voice revealing he'd been crying, and just that made him feel horrible. He wanted to go in there and wrap him up in his wings until all of the bad thoughts went away. "Leave me alone!"
"We just want to help you, alright, Umber?" Nighthunter tried. "Please, just open up. Flame will be right there with you the whole time, I promise."
"You hear that, MudWing? I'll be right beside you. So if you'll just-"
"NO!"
He sighed, thinking about what he'd say next, and obviously Nigthunter was doing the same, her shocked expression giving a perfect insight to the workings of her head.
He looked around the door, possibly for a way in. From the times his mother wasn't there and he'd gotten back from whatever she'd sent him away to do, he had to learn to pick a lock. He inspected the lock from their side, but alas, it wasn't the same lock he knew how to pick.
But we don't need to pick it, Flame realized. We have a key.
"Nighthunter-" But just as the words were leaving his mouth, he heard a loud crash from inside the room. Not the kind of crash you heard when you dropped something, no, this was the kind of crash you heard when someone had gotten seriously hurt.
"What the fuck was that? Umber?!" But he got no response. Nighthunter looked down at him, the same panicked expression plastered on her face for all to see.
Panic immediately flooded him. Fuck the key! His body seemed like it moved for him when he slammed his full weight against the door. Then again. And again. And again.
He did it until the door started splintering and cracking, until the lock finally gave way and the door shot open, faster than it did when Nighthunter first got them into this mess.
As light from the outside flooded into the room, his eyes flickered around. His heart raced faster than it ever had before, almost faster than it did in the restaurant. At first, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Both beds were there, the window was closed. But as he looked below it…
"Holy shit, Umber!" He raced to him faster than he thought possible, leaving Nighthunter to stand there in shock. He slapped his talons in his face a few times.
The table was knocked over, and laying under it was Umber.
For all he knew, he could be dead. He could've done something to himself because of Crane — because of Nighthunter. "Umber, wake up! C'mon, you're okay, right?"
Tears tried to push from his eyes with force, but he forced harder. The amount of pure panic and fear running through him told him that he didn't have time to cry. He looked back at Nighthunter, and she was just standing there in pure shock.
She looked terrified; unable to move. Scared and sad at the same time
But his fear and panic were quickly drowned out when Umber opened his eyes just a few seconds later.
He pulled him nice and tight, until their scales were almost one. The tears he was fighting before finally won, and they spilled out all along his face. "You scared me so much," he sobbed, his voice almost a whisper.
Umber's arms quickly shot up and around Flame's back, creating an even tighter seal between them. He couldn't see his face as he had his eyes shut, but he knew Umber's expression was a mix of glee and sadness.
Flame opened his eyes, and now that the light was illuminating him, he could see fresh tears were still dripping down his face from before.
"I should go," Nighthunter interrupted. She didn't give any time to respond before she started walking away, presumably back to her or Zephyr's office to help clean up the mess she'd made. And get punished! Flame hoped.
They laid there for the next couple of minutes. Umber seemed to be out of his panicked state, hard and fast breathing turning to soft and calm.
"I'm so sorry, Umber." He pulled away, tears crystallizing under his eyes. "I should've been there with you for your first session. I thought you'd be fine, really! I can get you a new healer if you want, alright? I'll get you switched today."
He stayed silent for a few moments. "It's okay, it wasn't her fault. She didn't know," he said shyly. His voice was still shaky, and his talons mirrored it nearly perfectly. Before he knew it, their talons were interlocked.
"Umber, it's her job to know," he said sincerely. "She's a healer, she should know better than to talk about…" he trailed off.
Umber stayed silent, turning his head away. But it wasn't because he was at a loss for words — he knew exactly what he wanted to say. But if it was anything, it was about Crane. And right now, talking about her is the last thing he needed to do. What he needed was to stop thinking about her, and what better way to do that than to get him some food?
"Breakfast is still being served, we can get some food if you want."
He gave a little head nod. He looked like how he did at the restaurant — right before the fire. Sad and scared. After that, he didn't need a healer; or any other type of therapist for that matter. Right now, he needed Flame.
The walk up to the library was uneventful. Flame held Umber in his wing like he usually did, and they got their food, and went back to their seats to enjoy their meals.
Flame got a breakfast burrito with an omelet, and Umber got essentially what he did, but double and with cheese. It was awkward most of the way through — they silently sat there and ate, no words being exchanged about what just happened whatsoever.
Until the silence got too loud, and Flame finally spoke up. "Umber, you know you can talk to me about anything, right?" he said, looking over at him where his wing covered him. Other dragons gave them weird looks. But the other dragons can go fuck themselves.
He hesitated. "Yeah…" he said. But he was just pretending, he wouldn't actually listen to him. He was about to push the subject forward, but Umber interrupted. "Hey, do you remember that time we went out to Prince Egret Island? I was thinking about it and was hoping we could go again sometime." His voice was still shaky.
He knew deep in the back of his mind what Umber was doing; why he was changing the subject, steering away from Crane before it even began. But the memories of that night flooded his mind too fast for him to realize.
The way the cold night air felt against his scales as Umber huddled close, the way Umber fell asleep resting his head on his chest, the way the moons rose high above the clouds, illuminating the valley in the night perfectly. That was the night their relationship had changed forever — the night they got closer than ever before.
"Sometime," Flame sighed. "I wish we could MudWing, but your wing is telling me a whole different plan. Maybe when your wing heals though."
This time, it only took Umber a few minutes to inhale all of his food, leaving a few empty plates with only scraps left.
They walked back to their room, walking past Manticore playing their guitar in the lobby — who didn't notice them, thankfully. Talking to other dragons was the last thing Umber should be doing. He just needed to relax and get away from everything right then.
Once they made it to their door, he twisted the handle and they both walked in and sat down at the table beside a lit candle, and a graphicoll spread the length of it. The most relaxing way he could spend his day.
But as Umber's soft voice repeated the text on the paper, he couldn't help but zone out, thinking about that night — wishing he could go back and replay it from the beginning, like a song. Over and over and over again.
The forest all around them with the buzzing of different bugs and animals, especially ones Umber could use as a quick snack. As for him, it'd be like a full sized meal.
"Keep up, MudWing!" Flame yelled, soaring through the trees faster than a RainWing. Obviously, he wasn't going to leave Umber behind, but between the wind against his scales and wings, and the upcoming valley where you could see the island in all of its glory, he was tempted.
"You said you wouldn't fly fast!" Umber complained, his voice echoing off of the leaves from far behind. He could hear him swatting through the different branches as they nicked his scales, his build being too big to slide through like Flame did. "These branches are annoying! Why couldn't we have picked a different way? Like maybe above the trees?"
"That would ruin the surprise though! Hurry up!"
He continued zooming past the trees, weaving under and over branches. He swore that on the way, he saw a cougar chasing down a deer. And judging by the terrified screams, the cougar had definitely won the encounter.
Almost there, Flame thought.
He could see the light up ahead, through the leaves. He was tempted to fly straight up through the canopies to see it just a few seconds sooner.
But he broke through, into the bright sunlight that poured against his scales, and landed in the grass. It didn't take Umber too long to find his way next to him. "Woah."
"How's this for a surprise?"
"It's so beautiful!"
Author's notes: A bit of a shorter one this time, but I couldn't really extend it much more without the filler seeming like a little too much. Anyways, something I forgot to say in the last author's notes is that I want to get some beta readers for my chapters.
What that means is that you'll be able to read my chapters a little earlier (not much) and provide feedback on what could be improved, what places feel a little off with pacing, and any errors that I miss. The only requirements for this are that you have to be a writer yourself, and have uploaded stories in the past. When it comes down to it, a writer's eye is much better than a reader's eye when it comes to critique, and critique is what I'm looking for. If you're interested, my Discord is "Amisgal".
Also, just as a warning, next Sunday's chapter won't be a full sized chapter, just a mini chapter expanding upon this flashback. If I can make it a full sized chapter though, I gladly will.