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Dragon's Hoard pt. 12

(inspired by Bluegiragi and Docdudo)

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You woke to the crackle of dying embers and the soft, heavy breathing of creatures too large for silence. But the two most likely strongest were gone.

There was no gentle grumbling of Price's timbre voice. No silent support from Ghost- Simon. To be found. According to Gaz as he draped a large feathery wing around your shoulders, they have gone hunting. Ghost and Price had left with the rising of the dawn, and the cave was emptier for it. Not quieter— as Soap and Gaz remained—but emptier, like something had been pulled out by the root and the hole it left behind gaped wide, like an awaiting maw.

Soap was the first to speak. He always was. With the way sleep wore off of him, it made him seem almost human. The grogginess of his features and the contentedness of which his tail wagged. your lips twitched with disdain as he looked like he had a good night's sleep.

“Morning,” he said, awkwardly gentle, like he was afraid of scaring you again. “Brought you water. And some meat. Caught fresh.”

You didn’t answer. You barely looked at him. Envy curled in your tummy. Either it was envy for how Soap could sleep so well, or the sight of freshly hunted meat.

His ears dipped. “I... also still have that doll. If you want it.”

As if that could placate you.

From where he sat crouched beside you, Gaz watched the exchange with narrowed eyes. Half-wrapped in one wing, with the other draped lazily about your tiny shoulders, he looked more bird of prey than man. A bird protecting his baby chick.

"Leave the chickadee alone Soap, can't you see our chick is still scared?"

Soap's ears drooped, but reluctantly agreeing, he sourly crawled over to Gaz and with a dramatic sigh his head found weary solace against the meat of his thigh.

"Where's...Price..and Ghost?" You find yourself asking. Your lips betraying your desire to stay as close to the "safest" hybrids as possible.

The hurt on Gaz's features was better concealed then Soap's. But he made no move to address it.

"Hunting, they're out hunting my little chick." Gaz's soothing response made guilt twist uncomfortably hot in your tummy.

The hours passed like tar. Soap tried to draw you out with fumbling jokes, small gifts, stories. As did Gaz, his gentle crooning and now much softer preening trying to make you more comfortable. Sometimes he spoke to Soap in low, short phrases, their tones curling and twisting with something intimately private—something that had nothing to do with you. When Soap leaned closer, hand brushing Gaz’s feathers, his cheek still squished against Gaz's quad. In that moment, you saw something unspoken pass between them. Gaz didn’t pull away.

They were distracted.

And they stayed distracted.

Long enough.

You reached the mouth of the cave long before you stepped through it. Fear making your legs come to a standstill.

"They better not be out there..." You whisper to yourself, referring to Ghost and Price. If they even see you near the entrance to the cave unaccompanied, the consequences would be serious.

For a long moment, you only stood there—half-wrapped in the thin dark of the tunnel’s stone throat, blinking into the pale, gray-filtered light beyond. Dusk...the crisp air whisps and curls. Invading your lungs like a shockwave as for the past few weeks you've been in the near suffocating warmth of the cave. The trees outside swayed like the slow-breathing ancient giants of stories, skeletal limbs clawing at the colorless sky. It smelled like damp bark and loam and the ghosts of things long rotted..and freedom.

Cold wind slipped in through the opening and wrapped around your ankles like fingers, beckoning you onwards.

Hesitating, you look on.

"I got this." The sound of your voice almost startles you. as it sounds so foreign when not being echoed by the cave walls.

You moved when the air was thick and heavy with complacency. When the sound of Gaz and Soap's amorous laughter became soft, distant—an echo within the cavern walls.

Your bare toes curled over the uneven stone. The time spent with the hybrids has made your skin softer with how they tried to clean and groom you in accordance with their instincts and culture. The cave behind you stretched like a throat you were crawling out of. And something in you twisted at the thought of truly leaving it.

It should have been easy. You should’ve run the moment their backs turned.

But there was something about the threshold—this place between—that made you pause. Because it wasn’t just leaving them. It was leaving whatever safety came with them. The fire. The food. The weight of eyes always watching, always knowing where you were. Monsters or not, they never let the woods swallow you.

Now? You didn’t know what the woods would do.

You stared out past the treeline, at the pale spindled shapes of trees that grew too close together. They looked like ribs. Like a forest long starved.

You took a breath that didn’t quite reach your lungs.

Then, with one hand trailing the stone wall like a tether, you stepped out.

The cave mouth yawned behind you, silent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The forest groaned beneath the wind as the chill of dusk crept in—long shadows tangling through the trees like a vial of spilled ink. It was the hour when the woods began to rot into silence, when the birds quieted and the nocturnal predators roamed.

Ghost moved without sound, a sliver of shadow slipping between the underbrush. melding from one shadow to the other with surgical precision. His bone white mask caught no light. No puffs of breath clouded the air. Just the twitch of a clawed finger here, the tilt of his head there. He was not a man walking—he was stalking.

Price followed at a distance, his one wing pulled tight against his back, horns brushing low branches. His body was too large to vanish like Ghost, but he knew how to move like something meant to be feared. Where Ghost was absence, Price was presence—heat, weight, and thunder held back by an ancient, unwavering patience.

They had tracked the scent for over an hour now. A buck, if they were lucky maybe two. Fresh trails. Muddied tracks pressed into damp earth, sap licked clean from broken bark. Every so often, Ghost would tilt his head toward the canopy, as if listening for something only he could hear.

Still, neither spoke.

They rarely did while hunting. Words only got in the way.

But then, Price let out a low rumble—not a growl, not a warning, just a thought made sound.

“They’re still shaken.”

Ghost didn’t answer immediately. Immediately knowing whom the subject matter was. His skull mask turned just slightly, a glint of reflection off one hollow socket.

“Still?” Price pressed, quieter. “You’ve been watching, haven’t you?”

A slow nod from the wraith.

“You think they’ll settle?”

Ghost crouched beside a patch of trampled bramble, fingers grazing the torn leaves. He didn’t look at Price as he answered, voice low enough to be mistaken for wind.

“Eventually.”

Price huffed through his nose. “It’s Soap’s fault they’re still this rattled. He’s too rough. Doesn’t know when to stop.”

Ghost stood again, shadows reforming to a solid form from the darkness. “He means well.”

“He means,” Price growled, “but he doesn’t understand.” There was heat there. Not just anger—worry. “the hatchling is not one of us. Not made of scale, or fang, or sinew.”

Ghost tilted his head again. “They are now.”

That made Price pause.

He stepped around a splintered tree, wings brushing the edge of the path. There was tension in his frame that hadn’t been there earlier, like something pulling taut behind his ribs.

“Maybe.”

Ghost didn’t respond.

The shadows deepened. As if they were themselves alive and twisting in accordance with Ghost's mood. Far above, mournful crows cried out, sounding like decrepit old souls. The scent of blood drifted faintly on the wind—old, animal, not human. Something worse.

Still, Price’s gold eyes narrowed, scanning the woods not for prey now—but for something else. Someone else.

“...Do you feel that?” he asked suddenly.

Ghost stopped. His head lifted, the bones of his mask tilted toward the air.

Something was wrong. But not close. Not yet.

Price turned slightly, the anxious flick of his tail lashing against the tall grass. That was the one of many tells that Simon could understand and label. Price was nervous. Not many things usually made him nervous.

“We should head back after this,” the dragon muttered. “Sooner than usual.”

Ghost nodded once, slowly. "Trouble?"

Ghost didn't need to hear the answer as the look Price gave was more than enough to clue him in.

"Bloodsucker." Price spat.

Silently stalking back home, ghost under the cover of darkness and Price trailing not too far behind. Their minds in unison, as they think of how comfortable it would be to sink back into the safety and protection of the nest-their little one cozy at the heart of it all.

Unbeknownst to them, you've left.

The small, soft weight they’d called theirs was already slipping into the dark woods, leaving footprints behind them like quiet apologies.

Had the left to return ten minutes earlier, they would have seen you passing by.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

oh no...how horrible. Darn kids always are up to something when no one is looking ;) Hopefully the Hoard won't be too upset when they find you.

Enjoy pt 12.

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🔆Terzo is safe in Omegas arms🔆

Everybody makes Terzo all depressed all the time so IM LETTING HIM BE HAPPY FOR ONCE ‼️‼️

[[ PRINT ]] [ part 2 ]

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