—Sally—

  I woke up in a mildly more manageable position than last time, and was once again impressed by how much Orion could move while asleep. While there was still an unfortunate amount of skin-ship, I was far more perplexed with how he'd managed to get into his contorted position than… disgusted.

  He had twisted himself through the bedsheets, the blankets wrapped around him multiple times in a tight wrap of restraints. The twisted rope-like cloth had pinned one arm to his chest and the other to his side, the end of it wrapped around and between his thighs, holding them together.

  While I wondered how he'd managed to lose a fight with his bedsheet, I was slowly and carefully removing myself from his side. Even though I had gone to sleep the furthest I could from him, I'd still somehow ended up with my back leaning against Orion's side. For a decent portion of the night too, judging by how completely numb the wing caught between us had become.

  I was doing my best to tolerate the situation, mostly because I'd been unable to come up with a suitable alternative. Orion wasn't going to stop fighting apparitions in his sleep anytime soon, so the only way to avoid it would be for one of us to leave the bed. And—while unfortunate, but realistic—Orion couldn't sleep on the hard stone floor. The man would probably need the whole bed just to not wake up worse than the aftermath of Ulun'suti. The alternative was unacceptable. I—theoretically—could get by with a pillow on the floor, but I wasn't ever going to stray towards that passive acceptance of inferiority. It's no different than a dog-bed, and therefore I refuse to entertain it.

  I eventually moved to lie on the table, jumping onto its surface successfully this time, and settled down while facing Orion's prone form. He had done something unacceptable yesterday—understandable, but not easily forgivable. It vaguely reminded me of the once-off incident with my head, but completely lacked any of the desirability of the action. When he scratched my head, it was overwhelming and uncontrollable, like I'd accidentally drunk a third of a bottle of vodka. The stomach was the opposite, finger near there put me through extreme discomfort, fear, I wanted to flee, and the same heebie-jeebies as being peer-pressured to stay still while a drunk person insists on playing the knife-game with your fingers. A very specific and thankfully avoided scenario.

  At least Orion had seemed to have gotten my warning loud and clear, avoiding the area as deftly as he did after my retaliation for head-scratching.

  I continued to watch Orion shift and make noises of discomfort, the sounds he made while weakly struggling against his woollen bonds weren't quite grunts. It wasn't a sound that I was familiar with, but they did kind of remind me of an animal in distress, heavy breaths with unconscious vocalisations mixed in. A strange part of my mind that I hadn't known of before this whispered to me, the—assumedly—draconic instincts suggesting that they were noises of… surrender?

  I familiarised myself with the brand-new part of my mind with concerned confusion, wondering where it came from, and why it found Orion… interesting. The messages from the new section of my brain had no intent behind them, no purpose or drive, nothing for me to hunger after. They were just innocent inquiries, like a wild animal investigating and poking its head around a strange new environment.

  Orion began to struggle even harder, and I amusedly watched his unconscious body try its best to slip out of its self-imposed bonds. Though a wave of shocked hit me like a bucket of cold water as I noticed something… funky, with his lower half. I immediately broke eye contact with the fifth appendage and reassessed the scene I'd spent a few minutes staring at. The growth of it compared to the last time I’d accidentally gazed on it was both repulsive, and jealousy inspiring.

  But it was mostly disgust I had felt upon realising that I was watching him twist and writhe, innocently thinking that he was just having a 'strange' dream.

  I gathered a ball of clouds and shaped it in my front talons, continuously working the fluff past the point I usually did. I'd learnt the trick to controlling the cloud's qualities through trial and error, the knowledge on how to turn its fluffy texture into something harder and with more structural integrity.

  I threw the cloud once it'd become a ball with a hard exterior, enough to sting. But with the mass of a single plastic ball from a ball-pit, its potential to harm was just as limited.

  It hit him on the nose, transforming the elusive sounds coming from Orion's mouth into a startled grunt. I let out a sigh of relief as he scrambled to stand up, his wild panicked eyes unable to focus on a single thing for longer than a millisecond as he struggled against his bedsheets.

  I'm sure that he intended to stand up at first, though I could see that he hadn't recovered his mental acuity yet. So I instead watched as he tried to roll out of bed onto his feet, only to flop onto the floor instead, muttering to himself like a lunatic.

  Orion had to take a few seconds to calm down, his breathing settling down from its frantic pace as I appreciated being freed from the previous situation. He was busy looking down at the sheets covering him and unwrapping them as I noted how blissfully unaware he was of why I'd woken him up. And I was never going to tell him why.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I was going to do what any reasonable adult would do—a personal favourite response of mine—and completely ignore the previous ten minutes of my life. It never happened. Because I did not need to feel any more shame or disgust with myself, and a conversation about what was probably a wet dream was going to add more awkwardness to the already strange relationship that the both of us had been forced into. Well… Orion wasn't forced per se, but he was unaware—tricked by the system.

  "Did you wake me up?" He asked. Once fully freed from his bonds, the Ranger's hands began patting down his body as he assessed the situation.

  "Why?" Orion unwisely continued to question, and I stayed silent, refusing to answer. When his hand eventually reached his lower half, he paused, noticing his appendage's rebellious action for the first time.

  "Oh. I'm sorry." The Ranger apologised. He swiftly stood up and turned around, and after hearing some rustling, he began to leave.

  "I'm going to… take a cold shower. No—Bathe in the river." He decided. I was silent as he fled the house in what I could only assume was flustered embarrassment. I struggled to tell with how composed he was staying, but I could admire his ability to stay stoic—especially after that rough of a wake-up. It only added to and reinforced my understanding of him—of his nature, that of a stoic warrior.

  ***

  After Orion eventually returned with soaking wet hair, we departed for the day without a single word spoken. It seemed that both of us wanted to simply move on from the awkward awakening. Good.

  We'd agreed to go hunting again, as the town was starting to grow uneasy around us. Not only had we exhausted all of the questions we could ask, but after the town-square meeting we'd stumbled into, the people had started to grow antagonistic. I guess I could understand why, with the unfortunate timing of our arrival and all, but we'd fed them? And were helping with their hungry hungry—man-eating—hippo.

  So I'd appreciate a little more gratitude. But as much as I'd love to demand their respect, I'm still lying low for the moment. I don't want to risk exposure and being on the receiving end of whatever had the town in a vice-grip of fear—the gratitude could come after we saved them for a second time.

  But as Orion and I sat outside, absorbing the morning sun until his wet locks fully dried—I refused to sit on musty wet hair—a familiar little girl ran up to us. Aylin was just as chubby—maybe even fatter—a child as I remembered her being, and just as enthusiastic to see us.

  Her mother was nowhere in sight as she bounced down the street, hauling her weight like it barely existed. Unfortunately, both Orion and I had to squint painfully to see her coming, the rising sun was right above her head.

  "Hello Orion! Hello Sally!" She called out as she abruptly stopped right in front of us, thankfully sparing us from the sun's glare.

  "Did you know that if—OoOoh! Your eyes are cool!" Aylin interrupted herself as she pointed at Orion's face, reminding me of the mutation he'd received. It wasn't that noticeable, but with the glare from the sun, his pupils had shrunk as far as they could, making the thin black line that bisected his irises all the more obvious.

  It really did make him look all the more interesting. A small detail that made him seem strange, in a good way. One that twisted something completely ordinary into a mystery that had yet to be solved. I liked it, it gave him a hawkish, bird of prey vibe.

  "Yes, they are." He succinctly responded.

  "Can I make my eyes like that too? Do they go like that if you hang around dragons?" Aylin continued to ask.

  "No. And Sally is not a dragon." Orion denied. Aylin pouted, and was disappointed for about a second before her enthusiasm bounced back.

  "Did! Did you know that if you… Borrowed! A person's key thingy, you can make them play hide-and-seek with you?" Aylin proudly shared, like she'd made an incredible discovery. Though it sounded like she'd come up with a way to force people to play games with her by stealing their valuables. But it does seem a bit impossible.

  I mean, how good of a thief could you be when you can't slip through any cracks? Though she has already surprised me with how fast she can run, so maybe her weight isn't such a problem for her when it comes to stealing either.

  "I stole Chester's key this time! But I don't think he wants to play with me… I haven't seen him for a while!" She added to her previous statement. I ignored the implication of the boy's unknown whereabouts. Nothing positive to glean from that.

  "That… Sounds like them chasing you?" Orion asked, some extra blinks the only thing that betrayed his confusion.

  "No silly! They follow me! Only Mommy chases me." She innocently replied, her grin faltering for a moment.

  When I saw that Orion wasn't responding to the unwitting admission, I carefully poked his side, making sure the gesture was out of sight for Aylin.

  "Does your Mother chase you often?" Orion questioned, understanding my gesture and accepting it without hesitation.

  "Hmm… Not when Daddy was around. Bu-ut, she likes to do it a lot now… Especially last night. I don't like playing chase with Mommy. She's mean sometimes." Aylin slowly answered, her enthusiasm slowly drained by the conversation.

  "Why not?" Orion continued to ask, either not noticing or caring about Aylin's depressive mood.

  "I don't like when I lose. It hurts."

  "Aylin… I-" Orion almost said, but was interrupted by another person running down the street. A quick glance revealed it to be Aylin's mother. Though she looked a bit worse for wear than the last time I saw her… 'wonderful' face.

  It'd somehow become even more rat-like, which I didn't think was possible without a horrific amount of facial surgery. The lack of food must really be getting to her.

  Before, she simply had a mole-like face, well within the bounds of human ugliness, now, it had become… worse. Her face had become even more emaciated, the skin pallid, pale, and a distinctly wrong shade when compared to the rest of the villagers. As if all the blood had been drained and had never found its way back.

  I wanted to say that even the bone structure had shifted, though it was such a subtle difference that it could've been the light playing a trick on me. Her chin looked smaller, and her nose even more mousey. The starvation must've been really taking a toll on her, because her arms and legs looked so thin they resembled the long, lanky limbs of a stick insect.

  I suppose that the unfortunate lighting and starved appearance really made her look like the first stage of an Animorph character changing into a rat.

  "Aylin! I told you—ah!" The mother started to scold Aylin, before noticing Orion and I sitting on the step to our temporary residence.

  But it seemed that the morning light had revealed Orion's improved pupils to Aylin's mother as well, at least judging by how she stopped and stared into his dark brown eyes for painfully long. Her lips twitching in what had to be an extremely difficult to repress expression. Happiness, surprise, anger? I had no idea what she felt when looking at Orion's serpentine eyes.

  "Aylin. I warned you about talking with… foul strangers. You know what happens." She scowled into Aylin's ear, probably assuming that neither of us could hear the whispers.

  "B-bye…" Aylin muttered as her mother tightly gripped her fleshy upper arm. The woman grasping and pulling Aylin hard enough that it would definitely leave a bruise. I suppressed a wince of sympathy as the girl was hauled off by her mother.

  While I wanted to intervene in some way, I felt trapped. As much as I knew that what Aylin's mother did was reprehensible, how was I meant to intervene in this domestic situation without making it worse somehow? Even if I got Orion to tell off the mother, she'd probably just punish Aylin even more for telling 'foul strangers' about playing 'chase'.

  I sighed and lowered my head onto the ground, putting the situation out of my mind as I chose to instead enjoy the sun while it lasted. I still had a bit longer until Orion's hair would dry, and I would much rather think of new ways to train my skills than the depressing reality of domestic abuse.