Small Steps to the Future
Chapter Twenty: Dreams
Maybe it was the unfamiliar surroundings, or perhaps the length and general stress of the day, or even that this was the first night he'd spend bonded to Evola where he wasn't too exhausted to dream, but that night brought anything but restful sleep. For at least an hour, he tossed around, unable to find a comfortable spot on the bed which now seemed far too large. Roset's speech with its hidden agendas and veiled references to Mars kept running through his head, and he couldn't help imagining the time sometime in the future when he would be forced to face all of UNIS and stand against them for his home planet. At least Evola was asleep, so his fretting couldn't disturb her. When he finally fell into restless sleep, he kept waking up again with a rush of adrenaline and the feeling like he had been falling just a moment before, only to find himself laying sprawled on the bed, nowhere near the edge.
Somewhere in the small hours of the morning, real sleep finally hit-- and with it real dreams. He was back on Mars, sitting in a corner of the tiny Martian militia's meeting room during his earliest years of being allowed to attend, listening to his father, the guerilla leader and spokesperson Malagai Kethron, and several others shouting at each other. Only they weren't shouting about guns or tactics or the evils of UNIS; they were shouting about dragons and demons and walking trees. Malagai was the loudest of all, and Riya wanted to melt into the wall, to be invisible, to be anywhere but that stuffy, noisy room with his father pointedly ignoring him, as if he were not worth the attention, as if he were a traitor to the family and the great cause of freedom for Mars--
Forcing himself awake and out of that horrible scene, Riya rolled over to a cooler part of the bed, curled up into a ball against an as-yet unused part of the pillow, and sank back into sleep again. Now he was running through the halls of the base in Rome, veering left and right into corridors that were more maze-like and darker than they had ever really been, away from Franco and Adara and Andy jumping out at him around corners, screaming that they knew who he was and would turn him in to Mullen as soon as they found him. A flash of gold and silver disappeared into a dark room on one side, and he darted to follow, hoping to escape the persecution and hide until the coast was clear-- for an instant he thought he was safe. But then, as soon as he'd slammed the door shut behind him, the lights came up and Mullen was standing across the room looking stern, Andy smirking behind him with his gun trained on Riya, and the failed female Favorite, Yoko, crouched on the floor behind them and crying.
"I didn't want to tell!" she wailed, "But they said it was the only way I could get a dragon!"
Andy's gun went off, and Riya woke with a jolt, staring at the ceiling. He blinked a few times, trying to clear away the terrifying feeling that he had been staring at his own death, then rolled over again and the inside of his eyelids quickly melted again into the dusty red landscape of his home planet. His father stood facing away from him, looking out across the desolation of the planet's surface, his arms clasped behind his back and expression pondering.
"We might be able to make something of this," he mused, but what he meant, Riya had no idea. "We just might."
But before Riya could ask what they might do with what, there came a deafening roar from behind them. Riya whirled but his father turned slowly, both of them facing a man in a UNIS uniform clinging to the shoulders of a monstrous black demon. More of the monsters, with more UNIS officers riding them, were charging up behind him. "There he is!" yelled the first, waving at Malagai. "Charge!" The swarm of demons surged forward, and Malagai started running, Riya hot on his heels, in a vain attempt to escape. Something snatched at his shoulders and lifted him away, struggling and reaching for his father-- and then he realized that he had no oxygen tank and breathing suit, and he couldn't breathe--
--and the next moment, he was in the queen-sized bed, gasping, staring at a pair of worried silver eyes, with the nearly the full weight of a dragon kit on his chest. Relief warred with embarrassment-- he wasn't dying, at least, and his father was probably still safe, or as safe as he ever got; but his nightmares had brought Evola out of the other room, and she'd had to wake him up. Her concern and confusion radiating through their bond only made him feel worse. He slumped against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling a moment before rubbing at his eyes and waving her off of him. She backed up wordlessly and let him sit up-- and see Evoli lurking in the doorway, eyes also on Riya, lit from behind as the hall light was on. Riya groaned and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, kneading at his eyes. It couldn't be morning yet....
"Don't tell me I woke you both up..."
"Just me," Evola said softly. "Evoli woke up and followed me out when I came in here."
"Well, that's something," Riya grumbled.
Both dragonets were silent a moment while Riya tried to shake off the remaining terrors of his restless dreaming. Finally, Evola piped up hesitantly, "I-I thought you said you were from Earth...."
It was the last thing he had expected to hear, and he looked at her abruptly. He must have been flooding her with quite a mix of emotions, because she cringed, flattening her ears and looking apologetic. Brushing hair back from his face, he leaned back against the headboard with another groan. "What all did you get?"
"All of it," she whispered. She sounded so miserable-- bits of regret and fear and unhappiness were leaking through their bond, though she was obviously trying to keep those feelings from him-- that he sighed and scooped her up, hugging her against his chest. She squeaked in surprise, momentarily stiff and nervous, but when he didn't do anything but settle her in his lap, she relaxed and snuggled down. His dreams had been disturbing enough to him, who knew what they were about and was old enough understand that they were just dreams; for Evola, a dragon-child who knew nothing about those images and fears, they had to be terrifying.
"I guess I'd better explain then, huh?" he said, resigned. He patted the bed, inviting Evoli to join them. The smaller kit approached and clambered up, curling up near Riya's knees and watching him expectantly.
"To start it all off, at the beginning," Riya began, "my full name's Riyikith Kethron, and I'm really from a planet called Mars...."