thedargonden - Tumblr blog

[thedargonden]

BTW, This is not canceled at all, it's just hard to get the motivation to continue this due to my own mental health at the current time. I hope you understand, if anyone's actually reading this.

-OrieDargon

[thedargonden]

[13] ABSOLUTE PERFECTION

November 7th, XX19

9:00 PM

PHOENIX: “It’s... It’s perfect.“

Phoenix stares intently at her masterpiece, for her days of work and attempts are finally complete.

A metal frame surrounds the graham cracker based dough. Below the dragonfruit topping, layers and layers of different types of cream cheese, separated by varied fruits like cherries and strawberries (all of which she picked from the mountain above the den).

The perfect cheesepie has been completed. Phoenix would finally see a smile on Orie’s face. She would be appreciated by her. She might even be called Orie’s BEST FRIEND. That would make her truly happy, if Orie called her a friend.

Phoenix holds the door frame and sticks her head down the hall.

PHOENIX: “Orie! Come here! I’ve got a surprise!”

She involuntarily squeals quietly and shuffles her feet. She can’t wait to see Orie’s face when she sees this.

Loud grumbles of annoyance come from the basement stairs down the hall.

PHOENIX: “Oh come on, Orie! Trust me!”

Orie uses her telepathy from downstairs with an angry tone.

ORIE: ⦕I already know about the “perfect cheesepie.” It’s impossible to block out all your annoying thoughts about it, even with my mystic eyes closed, muffling it all out.⦖

PHOENIX: ⦕But, have you seen it with your OWN EYES YET?⦖

ORIE: ⦕Yes, through my mystic eyes, as I’ve already said. I’m a fucking mindreader, Phoenix.⦖

Phoenix thinks to rephrase the question.

PHOENIX: ⦕Have you seen it IN PERSON YET?⦖

An sigh of anger resonates through the basement stairs and down the hall.

ORIE: ⦕If I come up there to look at it for one second, will you leave me alone for the rest of the night?⦖

PHOENIX: ⦕Of course!⦖

ORIE: ⦕UUUUUUGHHHH, OH MY DREK. FUCKING FINE!⦖

As Phoenix hears Orie’s bedroom door open and then shortly after, stomping up the stairs, she looks back toward the pie and realizes... she forgot to cut the pie!

She runs over to the counter and quickly grabs a kitchen knife as well as a plate from the cabinet. She cuts the pie and carefully takes the piece out of the pie tin. 

The piece of pie sags just slightly, but since this is something Phoenix invented herself to her knowledge, this could be considered normal for the dessert.

She examines the layers. It looks so delicious, she wishes she could taste it, but she promised herself that Orie would take the first bite before her own.

Phoenix turns around as Orie walks into the room with an angry huff. Phoenix gestures toward her creation.

PHOENIX: “Ta-daaaaaaa! I made you a cheesepie! It’s a cheesecake, but in PIE FORM! A Cheesecake flavored pie, with my own twist! You’ll love it!”

Orie looks at the plate from afar, with a strange half smirk of confusion. This is it! Smile incoming! For a split second, Phoenix swore Orie’s eyes turned static, but it was probably her imagination due to her excitement.

ORIE: “It looks... bad.”

Phoenix’s face drops. She wasn’t expecting this response to her creation.

PHOENIX: “L-... Looks aren’t everything! Trust me, it tastes amazing!”

ORIE: “How do you know that? I heard your thoughts about not wanting to taste it before me.”

PHOENIX: “I...

I spent so long trying to perfect it...

and... and-!”

ORIE: “-and you failed! Congratulations! Can I go now?”

Phoenix looked back at her creation. It didn’t look bad at all! What was Orie talking about? Maybe Orie was skeptical of Phoenix’s skills as a chef. No, she would not back down until Orie tried her cheesepie.

PHOENIX: “At-... At least try it! You never know, it could be the one taste you didn’t know you were missing from your life!”

Phoenix thought she saw static in Orie’s eyes again, right before Orie closed all her eyes and shook her head a bit. Orie’s face took on an angry look again.

ORIE: “Fine! Look, if I try your stupid pie, then can-”

PHOENIX: “CHEESEpie!”

Orie rolled all of her four eyes at once.

ORIE: “Ugh, cheesepie... then can I finally go back to my room in peace and not bother me?

I was kind of busy, you know.”

PHOENIX: “Yes, I would leave you alone, if you really want me to.”

Orie squinted at Phoenix for a couple of seconds, and then to the cheesepie.

ORIE: “Okay. Give me a fork, then.”

Phoenix bounces up and down in excitement, before realizing Orie’s giving her looks of disapproval and impatience. Phoenix quickly grabs a fork from the drawer and after she sets it on the plate, she brings it to Orie, who promptly sits on the floor with her arm out to grab the plate.

Orie holds the plate up to her snout and sniffs it with an interested look on her face. With her other hand, she takes the fork, and chops off the tiny tip of the pie and carefully puts the piece of cheesepie in her mouth.

The flavor. Immediately Orie notices the amazing flavor. It’s just the right amount of sweet and savory. the dragonfruit gives it the punch it needs. The various fruits and cream cheese compliment each other as if they were made for each other. How could Phoenix, of all dragons, master a cheesecake flavor this perfectly. In Orie’s opinion, it’s absolute perfection.

None of this information reached Orie’s active mind though, as the entire time she tasted it, it was ripped from her and subdued into static.

ORIE: “Huh. I was... not expecting that. It tastes like water.

It’s surprising how bland it is, despite all the fruit and cheese you put into it.

Thank you for wasting my time.”

Orie sets the plate in Phoenix’s hand, who is stuck in awe of all the work she just put into, only to have her work blow up in her face. She doesn’t even know how to react, as Orie starts to turn away.

PHOENIX: “W- WAIT! How could it taste like that!?! I put so much work... and heart... and blood and... and sweat and tears into this!”

ORIE: “Maybe you’re just not meant to be a chef, Phoenix. It’s bad. Deal with it.”

Phoenix can’t believe this. She sits down, takes the fork and cuts a big piece of the cheesepie and shoves it in her mouth, not even caring that Orie had used the same fork a second ago.

No way. No fucking way. Orie had lied. It didn’t taste bland. It didn’t taste like water. It was clear as day that Orie was a liar. Phoenix hated that Orie would lie like this to her face.

None of these negative thoughts reached Phoenix’s active mind though, as the entire time she felt these negative feelings toward Orie, they were ripped from her and subdued into static.

PHOENIX: “But! It really is good! You were supposed to like it and say, ‘wow, Phoenix, I can’t believe you made something this good!’

You were supposed to become my best friend!”

Orie turns around angrily with static filling her four eyes.

ORIE: “Phoenix. No matter how hard you try. No matter how long you live. I will never. EVER. Be your friend.”

Phoenix stares at Orie with static filling her own eyes now, not knowing how to deal with this situation.

No, Orie actually likes the cheesepie. She doesn’t mean what she had said. That’s just how Orie was. She just doesn’t know how to say thanks. That’s all. Right?

PHOENIX: “I... It’s okay Orie. I know you don’t mean that. You’ll learn to be nicer in time! Trust me! I’ll be your best friend!”

Just then, faint rustling in the ground followed by hurried wing beats interrupts their standoff. Orie, thinking quick, runs to the door and opens the door, before opening it and seeing the shadow of a dragon flying away into the moonlight. Phoenix steps toward the loungeroom kitchen window and sees the dragon too.

The dragon turns their head back for a second and their glowing red eyes catch a surprised look before hurrying away quicker and impossibly disappearing after a couple of seconds more.

ORIE: “Who the hell was that?”

Orie throws around the idea in her head that it was maybe Arakados, thinking of the most likely dark scales and red eyes, but then...

ARAKADOS: “MAAAAASHHH!”

Phoenix and Orie turn around to see Arakados with Phoenix’s cheesepie on the floor and crushing it with their hands.

PHOENIX: “NOOOOO!”

Phoenix rushes over to Arakados and takes the cheesepie tin away from them. Her work! All of her beautiful and delicious work! It’s... destroyed!

She sits down on the floor and after a couple of seconds of examining the destruction, she promptly smushes the pie into her face without any words and holds it there indefinitely. Arakados smiles with glee.

ARAKADOS: “Yesss! You get it! MMMMAAASSSSH!!!!!!!”

Orie quietly steps away and back into her room, ignoring the dragon she had just saw, for she had research to continue, especially after this new interaction with Phoenix.

She had been reading ‘DREKI STUDIES - What We Know So Far About Dragon Psychology’ for possible answers about what the whole static thing inside Phoenix’s dream meant. But, now she had a new theory about what was going on.

Orie felt it. She felt the static wash over her in that moment when Phoenix’s eyes were filled with static. She felt it rip something from her when she ate the cheesecake. The static ripped the flavor from her. She knows that wouldn’t happen under normal circumstances. She knows magic was involved, in some way or another.

Stepping into her bedroom, she walked toward the bookshelf next to her bed. she grabbed the book on the bed, making sure it was bookmarked, and then she slides it into the shelf neatly.

Orie examines the books from top to bottom for a couple of moments, and then... her eye catches the book she was looking for.

She picks up the quite large book labled ‘DREKI STUDIES - Myrkur Sorcery and its Affect On Dragons.’

ORIE: “Absolute Perfection.”

Orie smiles as her prophetic abilities confirm that this was the right book to pick up.

[thedargonden]

I’ve changed the design of Orie!

Instead of being a blue dragon with a silver mane, she’s now a silver dragon with a blue mane! There’s not anything story related about this change, but it just felt better to  me. I have also changed some small scenes, such as the “hatchparent” scene from [8] THE TRUTH, the dimensional bag scene from [9] ORIE'S HATCHDAY BONANZA and smaller scenes from various episodes!

[thedargonden]

[11.5] AN INDEFINITE FAREWELL

The following is a story posted on 05/22/2020 on my StoryFire account. This is regarding the state of “The Dargon Den” on StoryFire. This isn’t about “The Dargon Den” in general. Thanks for understanding! - Orie

Orie sits in a room with a nice looking desk. Phoenix is behind the camera, reluctant to help Orie with this.

ORIE: "Hya. As you may know, my name is Orie!"

Orie sighs as she shifts her eyes to the ground.

ORIE: "I'm very sorry that it had to come to this, but I'm halting production of The Dargon Den on Storyfire indefinitely.

There's too much working against me here, such as the app crashing dozens of times (which I had to deal with to even start this update), the latest episode not being able to even upload, and the web support for written stories being nonexistent..."

Orie looks to Phoenix.

ORIE: "May I get a little help explaining myself?"

PHOENIX: "Gladly."

Phoenix puts her face in the frame of the camera.

PHOENIX: "This app sucks and they should work to make it better to use."

Orie gets up from her chair hastily.

ORIE: "NONONO! DON'T SAY THAT!"

Phoenix chuckles a bit and then unblocks the camera as Orie sits back down.

ORIE: "From this point forward, until further notice, I'll only update The Dargon Den on Tumblr and my personal "Google site" for Dargon Den... Not to be confused with The Dargon Den. Dargon Den is just the name of our indie dev company. THE Dargon Den is the story."

PHOENIX: "Myrka Drek, Orie, why didn't you think to distinguish the two a bit more? These are very confusing names to everyone else."

ORIE: "I KNOW, but now it's already too late! They're both called practically the same thing now... The company was just meant to be named after the story, but now it's out of hand...

ANYWAY!

If you wish to continue following The Dargon Den elsewhere, we'll always update it on our Google site page linked below. I don't believe Storyfire allows links in stories, but I'll try anyway."

https://sites.google.com/view/dargonden/the-dargon-den-story

ORIE: "If all else fails you could always search @DargonDen on Twitter and you can be directed to the Google site link in the bio!

Next, let's go to some of the other Den members to see what they think about the change!"

The shot changes to a yellow and blue bedroom with Arakados flopped on the bed and playing a game.

ORIE: "Hey, Dakka!"

ARAKADOS: "Oh, howdy. Just about to open my gates, do you want to join my island? Also what's with the camera?"

ORIE: "Sure, after I'm done with this. I'm filming a farewell video for The Dargon Den!"

Arakados sets down the Switch and their face turns to concern.

ARAKADOS: "Oof. You're quitting? What about the next part where your [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDAKKATED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]?"

ORIE: "DAKKA, THAT'S SPOILERS! Also I'm not done with writing it! I'm just not using Storyfire for it anymore. I'm switching to the Google site for Dargon Den."

ARAKADOS: "Oh, oki, neat."

Arakados goes back to playing Animal Crossing.

ORIE: "Oh, I guess they are okay with it"

The shot changes to Phoenix's lair, where Phoenix sits at her DJ System with her eyes closed, listening to music.

ORIE: "Hai Phoenix, just wanted to gather your thoughts about the changes to The Dargon Den!"

Phoenix doesn't respond.

ORIE: "Phoenix?"

She's seemingly lost in the music.

ORIE: "PHOENIX! I'm trying to get your attention!"

Nothing.

ORIE: "Come on, I wanted to finish this before 12:00."

Without opening her eyes, she pulls up her right hand into a rude gesture.

ORIE: "Wait so you could hear me?"

Phoenix nods her head a bit.

ORIE: "Oh, kay..."

The shot changes to the loungeroom, where Tom, the Tomatoess lays on the couch.

ORIE: "Tom, I'm sorry to say, but I'm indefinitely going away from Storyfire. Anything to say about that?"

Tom's eyes open and then she purrs loudly and makes mumbling noises.

ORIE: "No reaction from you either, huh?"

She mumbles in agreement.

ORIE: "Fine..."

Orie delicately pets Tom's outer tomato skin and she purrs hardly in agreement.

ORIE: "D'awwww. You're so cute!"

Orie realizes she's still recording and looks to the camera in surprise.

ORIE: "Uh!"

She rushes to shut the camera off, and the shot changes back to the original desk the video started at.

ORIE: "Well, I guess that's all for this. I just had to set up everything because Phoenix won't come out of her room now... As you guys could probably tell...

Anyway, remember, try the link at the bottom or check through the bio for the @DargonDen Twitter account! Farewell, And Agoobai!"

https://sites.google.com/view/dargonden/the-dargon-den-story

[thedargonden]

The Dargon Den now has a properly organized website!

If you plan to read “The Dargon Den” from the start, I suggest you use the website: https://sites.google.com/view/dargonden/the-dargon-den-story

Happy reading!

[thedargonden]

[12] PHOENIX’S MINDSCAPE

November 4th, XX19

7:00 PM

Phoenix sleeps peacefully in her mattress, snoring loud enough that anyone could hear in a room adjacent to hers.

Beside her, a headset is sat open faced on her bed, playing dubstep through the Musicboxe DJ System.

Her laptop is also on the bed, opened up to a web page on the art of making delicious pies. An ad is playing in the corner of the web page, but it's overshadowed by Phoenix's snoring.

Suddenly, from the stairway next to her room, someone stomps up the stairs angrily, scratching the walls with her left claws. Once she reaches the top of the stairs...

ORIE: "pH-"

Orie stops in the middle of yelling to her to keep it down when she realizes Phoenix is asleep. She sighs in frustration, not wanting to wake her, as Orie's sure she never got great sleep.

She quietly steps in to close Phoenix's laptop, then she turns the volume all the way down on the DJ System.

Orie steps out of the room and leans on the doorframe. She puts her claw to her chin. Something inside of her is really worried for her mental health, although that wouldn't make sense, because Phoenix never had any issues like that she can remember.

She looks toward the tomato creature bundled next to Phoenix's snout. It looks so peaceful with her. 

She can't help but feel a bit of a shiver of wholesomeness down her spine.

Orie's face twitches a tiny bit as the wholesome feeling is gone.

Ever since the other day, Orie couldn't stop thinking about how Phoenix was acting. She KNEW Phoenix didn't normally act so kind.

But at the same time, it could all just be in Orie's head. Maybe she's just crazy.

A thought echoes all throughout Orie's mind. What if she just... looked in Phoenix's mindscape?

Nothing intrusive, of course. She just wants to make sure nothing weird is going on to calm her nerves.

She closes her top eyes and uses her bottom mystic power eyes to dive into Phoenix's mindscape, realizing too late into reading her mind that she'd probably not agree to this.

At first glance, everything is sparce and separated. All of her traits, all of her thoughts, all of her memories are few and far between. Though Orie realizes this is normal for a dragon who's sleeping, and especially dreaming.

She can't find a dream though, which is strange because usually dreams are in the center of a dragon's mindscape when they're having them. It should be the biggest thing she can sense, but it's not there.

ORIE: "What the hell...?"

Perhaps Phoenix is just between dreams?

Orie's just about to give up and prepare to leave Phoenix's mindscape, when she hears a call behind her. Startled, she rushes out of the mindscape and turns around to see Arakados frozen in place, on their hindlegs, 4 pizza boxes in their arms, and staring at Orie.

Bleh. Switching from a mindscape to the physical world so fast usually makes her vision all blurry and it takes a while to refocus it. She can only see Arakados as a black and yellow blob currently.

ORIE: "Dakka? What are you doing here???"

Orie keeps her voice down as Phoenix is just in the room behind her, sleeping.

ARAKADOS: "I... Make pizza mash for me?"

ORIE: "Did you say something a moment ago?"

ARAKADOS: "Yea, I told you I make pizza ma-"

ORIE: "No, before that."

ARAKADOS: "Ohhh. Hrm... No I thought I was sneaky derg."

Orie looks to the ground in surprise and then squints back to Phoenix, struggling to focus her vision still.

ORIE: "Then who called out?"

ARAKADOS: "Uh I don't know but I go now bye"

Arakados flops down the stairs, dropping all the pizza boxes on the floor and falling down after them.

Orie cringes at all the noise.

ARAKADOS: "Ooh, box mash!!! Wonder what also could be mash!"

ORIE: "Shhhh!"

ARAKADOS: "Shhhh mash? That won't taste good..."

Orie rolls her eyes as she puffs smoke out of her nostrils in frustration.

ORIE: ;I temporarily cast this spell to mute Arakados's Shenanigan's for 5 minutes.;

Stepping back inside the room, she closes her top eyes and enters Phoenix's mindscape again. Inside, she searches all around but has trouble finding what could have called her.

She scowls, realizing it was probably only a stray thought and not something all too important.

Then she hears it again. Someone calling out for help.

She searches toward the distress but only feels darkness.

She begins to squint her bottom eyes as she tries to find the screaming and realizes there's an almost invisible wall of static. She looks deeper into it and finds that behind that wall is a box made of static and a small version of Phoenix inside.

PHOENIX: "HELP!!!"

This angry and emotional version of Phoenix bangs on the static walls with tears running down her face.

PHOENIX: "CAN ANYONE HEAR ME???"

She scratches down the wall with her other claws and collapses onto the static floor.

PHOENIX: "THAT'S NOT ME!!!

I DON'T WANT TO BE STUCK HERE ANYMORE!

LET ME OUT!”

Orie is baffled. Could it be that this part of Phoenix's personality was subdued in this small part of her mind? That might explain why it feels like Phoenix is acting unusual. How or what reason is another question though.

ORIE: ⦕Phoenix? Is that you?⦖

The bit of Phoenix in the static gasps in surprise and looks up as Orie's telepathic message echoes through her mind. Then her face turns to anger.

PHOENIX: "ORIE I SWEAR IF YOU HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS, I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!!!!"

Phoenix's mindscape brightens up as Phoenix begins to awake from Orie's Telepathy.

Orie begins to exit the mindscape more carefully this time and her top eyes open. She shuffles around anxiously as Phoenix pops her head up carefully, as to not wake the tomato creature, Tom, up.

PHOENIX: "Orie?"

Orie's eyes are wide open as Phoenix stares at her sleepily.

ORIE: "Uh. Yeah?"

Phoenix yawns deeply, rubbing her right eye with her hand.

PHOENIX: "Why are you watching me sleep?"

ORIE: "I was about to yell at you for making noise but I realized that would be rude."

PHOENIX: "Pff. You? Not being rude? I'll believe it when I see it, haha!

But no, for real, what are you doing? Did you just use Telepathy at me to wake me up, silly derg?"

Orie thinks for a moment. She couldn't tell Phoenix what she saw in her mind. What if she freaks out? Is that even possible in her state? She has to keep it cool and not reveal this, just in case.

ORIE: "You... Were having a nightmare. I didn't want you to go through that."

Saying the word "Nightmare" gives Orie chills that she couldn't even begin to understand. She supresses a prophetic vision of a snowglobe relating to that word into the deepest part of her mind. She shakes her snout to the ground while Phoenix's head tilts to the side in confusion.

PHOENIX: "Nightmare? But... I never have those..."

Actually, thinking of it, that other version of Phoenix could have easily been a nightmare and not some deep conspiracy or anything. Orie ponders on this thought for a moment.

PHOENIX: "Are you sure it was a nightmare?"

ORIE: "Well. I read your mind. You were in a static room, banging on the walls and shouting and crying to be 'let out.' I'd call that a nightmare"

Phoenix's face drops to a glare and she bares her teeth a bit.

PHOENIX: "You-..."

Phoenix stops shouting mid sentence and for a slight moment, her pink irises flash with static and her face instead turns back to a smirk with cute and happy eyes.

PHOENIX: "Oh, that's probably nothing to worry about, silly derg."

All four of Orie's eyes are wide with fear.

ORIE: "Did you... Uh... Notice that?"

PHOENIX: "Notice what?"

ORIE: "You... Glitched? ... I don't know."

PHOENIX: "No, I was just surprised you read my mind! I didn't realize you'd do that without asking is all. Pfff. "

ORIE: "But there was static in your eyes for a moment! You're telling me that's NORMAL?"

PHOENIX: "Whaaaat? What’s with you and static tonight? Are you feeling okay?

You didn’t pull an all-nighter again last night, did you?"

ORIE: "I don’t need you of all dragons to tell me when I can and can’t sleep, Phoenix. 

But either way, you just said in your nightmare... Or... A part of you said..."

PHOENIX: "I'm... pretty sure if that was a nightmare it only had to do with whatever happened in the dream. Either way I'm really tired. Goonoight!"

ORIE: "But-..."

Orie sighs. What if Phoenix is right? Maybe Orie's just overreacting and taking any evidence as proof of something else going on here.

Maybe she is seeing things. After all, the static in Phoenix's eyes could have just been a remnant of what Orie was looking at inside her mindscape.

Maybe it really WAS a nightmare... Maybe...

ORIE: "Good night."

Orie starts down the stairs, realizing Arakados is at the bottom crushing pizza boxes...

ORIE: "Oh, Myrka Drek."

PHOENIX: "Watch your language please Orie!"

Orie turns around to look at the top of the stairs with confusion.

ORIE: "It's just a name. Is saying her name offensive to you as a Myrkur?"

PHOENIX: "No, of course not, but that's KINDA disrespectful to use her name as a swear!"

Orie's confused face turns to a scowl and she yells up the stairs.

ORIE: "It's literally still just a name! I never said it was a swear?!?"

PHOENIX: "You used it as one though. I know what you meant."

ORIE: "Ugh! What the fuck ever, Phoenix."

PHOENIX: "LANGUAGE, Orie! Please don't say that!"

ORIE: "Oh my fucking God!"

:Stop!:

Orie's shout echoes through the stairway as Phoenix stops talking, not realizing she had used a myrkuran syntax in her anger.

She expects a response from up the stairs but gets none.

She turns back around to see Arakados laying across the bottom of the stairs, staring at their motionless claws in the middle of crushing up the box more.

ORIE: "Oh, have you finally started contemplating why you're doing that?"

She walks down, but she can't get past Arakados. They aren't moving at all.

Behind Arakados and to the left is the finished basement where they keep a bunch of computer stations in a group just in case they all have a LAN party one day. Also to the left, right around the corner of the stairway is Orie and Arakados's room, exactly the same shape and size and directly below Phoenix's room.

ORIE: "Move, I need to get by."

They still don't move. She's tempted to step on them, but something stops her from doing that.

ORIE: "Move... Please?"

They still don't move.

ORIE: "Ugh, I don't have time for your games right now."

;I cast this spell to lift myself over Arakados and land me on the ground behind them.;

Orie starts to float, but she accidentally kicks off the ground when it was unnecessary. So she spins forward while in the air over Arakados. Her claws hit the ceiling, knocking some of the tiles out of the roof, which fall on top of Arakados.

ORIE: "AHHGGHH!"

She's dropped on her left side right behind Arakados pretty harshly.

ORIE: "OWWW!"

She yells at the air above her, waving her fist and breathing a plume of purple and blue fire in anger.

ORIE: "What the heck was THAT for, universe?!?

Myrka DREK, that hurt!"

Orie starts to get up, her left arm a bit sore from the drop. She limps toward the bedroom door with three legs, right next to the stairway, dragging her left arm.

She reaches the door and realizes she can't use her left arm right now.

ORIE: "Ugh."

She shifts around awkwardly, not wanting to deal with this right now.

ORIE: ;I cast this spell to open this door for me.;

Orie's right hand is pulled violently to the door handle, causing her to fall forward. Her spell locks her right hand to the door knob as her hand pushes it open, then drops her hand, causing her to fall into the doorway.

ORIE: "Rhuuuuurgh..."

That's it.

Orie is done with the world right now.

She decides it's best she just rest here on the cold floor for the night...

[thedargonden]

[11] STRAWBERRY CHEESEPIE

November 1st, XX19

4:00 PM.

Phoenix is in the loungeroom kitchen with a chef's hat on.

She hums to herself while gathering her ingredients on the kitchen counter.

PHOENIX: "Orie!! Come here!"

Slumping out of the hallway, Orie quickly turns the corner to scowl at Phoenix.

ORIE: "What?"

PHOENIX: "I'm about to make you a cheesecake! What do you want on it?"

Orie's eyes just about roll right out of her head.

ORIE: "Look, you know I like cheesecake but that doesn't mean I want it literally every day. I just had some for Halloween."

PHOENIX: "But you can't ever have too much of a good thing!"

As Phoenix said that, her hat falls off and she catches it before it hits the ground.

ORIE: "And you're a 'walking example' of that."

Phoenix puts her chef's hat back on over her horns again.

PHOENIX: "Awww, such a nice thing to say!"

ORIE: "No! God dammit, do you know what sarcasm is?"

PHOENIX: "Hey, no need for that kind of language!"

ORIE: "What, SARCASM? Does that word offend you?"

PHOENIX: "Oh Orie, you know what I meant."

ORIE: "Whatever...

How about you make like... a pie instead? You've got most of the ingredients for that anyway. Graham cracker crust? Strawberries?"

PHOENIX: "You're right! I'll make...

A CHEESEPIE!"

ORIE: "That's not what I had in mi-"

PHOENIX: "Hush, I've already made up my mind! A strawberry cheesepie!"

ORIE: "That's not a real thing."

PHOENIX: "WELL IT IS NOW!"

Phoenix grabs all of her ingredients and pushes them to the side where she could use them when she needs to, while Orie leans against the fridge, watching her.

ORIE: "Are you okay, Phoenix? You seem to be acting... different than usual."

PHOENIX: "Pfff, what? Different? How do you mean?"

ORIE: "Well, last night you were cursing and screaming about tomatoes trying to kill you, until I stepped in and solved it for you."

PHOENIX: "Wait, THOSE tomatoes? No way, they were so cute and cuddly! They just wanted hugs!"

Phoenix steps away from the counter, making sure to set her knife down.

PHOENIX: "Tom! Come here, girl!"

A little stubby tomato creature runs out of the hall doorway and yips in joy.

PHOENIX: "See? Cute!"

ORIE: "But I remember you were definitely cursing."

PHOENIX: "I never curse! I believe you're mistaken."

ORIE: "You were definitely...

Huh. I guess...

I must be remembering it wrong then?"

Orie feels something inside her resonate within her mind. A strange presence... It almost feels like herself, but her mind reading powers aren't supposed to work internally...

This string of thought tells her that the events of last night aren't what Phoenix describes, and that neither Phoenix nor Orie are really like this... but Orie realizes this is no more than a silly intrusive thought and the two dragons have always been like this.

ORIE: "Hrm. I guess you're right. It must have been some dream."

PHOENIX: "Pfff, see Orie? Tom doesn't have a violent bone in her body!"

Phoenix picks Tom up, and kisses her forehead before hugging her close.

ORIE: "She doesn't even have any bones. Also isn't she just going to rot and die in like a week or so?"

PHOENIX: "Oh, you're right. I gotta enchant her!"

;I enchant this tomato to never ever rot or go bad, but have a healthy lifespan for a tomato creature!;

ORIE: "How long is a 'healthy lifespan' for a tomato creature???"

PHOENIX: "I'd say maybe half a year? Give or take?"

Suddenly, Arakados walks in from the hallway with a blank expression. They round the corner to see Phoenix holding the tiny tomato creature and their face lights up. They rush over and smile creepily, snout extremely close to the tomato.

ARAKADOS: "Mmmmmm! That would go PERFECTLY on a pizza!" ò.u.ó

Phoenix gasps and snatches Tom away from Arakados.

PHOENIX: "NO! Dakka, Don't you DARE!"

ARAKADOS: "It's tomato. Tomato is food. Pizza is food. So tomato should go on pizza!"

PHOENIX: "No! Not this tomato! She's my pet!"

ORIE: "I thought it was my pet."

PHOENIX: "Just by you calling her an it, you've revoked your rights to her as a pet."

ARAKADOS: "IT BELONGS ON PIZZA!"

Arakados lunges for Tom, who's blocked by Orie.

ORIE: "Arakados! What's gotten into you???"

Arakados's head tilts in confusion and they stop.

PHOENIX: "What? This is classic Arakados behavior! I thought you knew this, being their girlfriend and everything!"

ORIE: "But... I swear, they were nice... and a really cool dragon... and-"

PHOENIX: "Are YOU okay, Orie? Do you have one of those mind reader feedback loop migraines or something?"

Orie looks at Phoenix. She's slightly concerned, but overall happy in her mind. She looks to Arakados, staring down the Tomato, barely taking note in whatever crisis is happening.

This is... normal.

Right?

This is how she remembers things being for a long time...

But why is there something in her mind telling her otherwise?

ORIE: "Right. You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just feeling off and confused right now"

PHOENIX: "Well obviously! Let me make you a cheesepie and maybe then you'll feel better."

ORIE: "Fine. Hey Arakados, I've got a pizza. You want to eat it with me over there?"

Orie points her left index claw toward the sofa.

ARAKADOS: "PIZZA?" o.w.o

ORIE: "Yep. Got some just for us in my bag."

Orie reaches into her dimensional bag, decorated in pink, and stickers of cheesecakes and hearts. She can't remember why she decorated it like that, it's sorta embarrassing.

She reaches inside the bag and pulls out a big pizza box. Arakados's attention is fully on Orie now.

Orie opens the box to show a heart shaped pizza before she blushes and closes it in embarrassment.

ARAKADOS: "HEART PIZZA!" O . W . O

PHOENIX: "Awwwwww, Orie!"

ORIE: "Shut up!"

Orie drags Arakados to the sofa to eat it.

She opens the box again and realizes it hasn't been cut yet.

ORIE: ;I cast this spell to cut this pizza in equal eighths.;

In response, the pizza cuts itself in 8ths. Then does it again. And again. And again. Cutting it into many pieces nonstop. Arakados's head tilts with concern.

ORIE: "No! Wait! Stop!"

;Stop!;

The pizza just continues splitting individually.

ORIE: "Uhm!"

;.shthgie lauqe ni azzip siht tuc to spell siht tsac I;

The cutting stops and Arakados stares at the carnage. Instead of a crispy heart shaped pizza, it's now a big glob of cheese, tomato sauce, and bread.

ORIE: "Well, that was a mistake..."

Arakados reaches in the box to try pulling out a slice, but only just grabs a handful of mashed pizza. They cringe at the feeling of holding it, but puts it to their nose to smell it and then puts it in their mouth.

ARAKADOS: "Oooooooh! It's now pizza mash!"

Orie stares at them in disbelief. This isn't Arakados... is it? The real Arakados would look at this and realize this was a destroyed pizza, and not...

ORIE: "Pizza... mash? That... doesn't exist. Did you just make that up?"

Instead of responding, Arakados closes the... pizza mash box and takes off with it toward the hallway.

ARAKADOS: "MY pizza mash!!!"

ORIE: "Arakados, what the hell! I'm still hungry!"

They just continue out into the hallway to who knows where without saying a word.

PHOENIX: "Orie! Language!"

ORIE: "No, shut the fuck up! Am I the only sane one here? Neither of you are acting the way you're supposed to!

Am I even acting like normal?!? Oh god, am *I* also crazy???"

Phoenix sets down her ingredients and looks over to Orie on the sofa, her hands covering her eyes in frustration.

PHOENIX: "Who says I'm 'supposed' to act a certain way?

Seriously, Orie... I think you need to lay down for a bit and drink a lot of water. I'm worried you might be sick..."

ORIE: "No! I'm not sick! God dammit! Everyone's fucking insane, including me!"

Phoenix shrugs.

PHOENIX: "Orie, I don't know what to tell you... This is how it's always been..."

Orie points at Phoenix with her left hand.

ORIE: "No! Fuck you! I don't care what you're saying! It's untrue and you know it!"

Phoenix stares at Orie, hurt.

PHOENIX: "I..."

Orie notices a tear form in Phoenix's eye, making her even more angry at herself.

ORIE: "Fucking GREAT!!! Now I'm upsetting you! What the fuck is wrong with me?"

Orie smashes her head into her hands a couple of times.

PHOENIX: "O... Orie..."

ORIE: "No, you know what? I’m going away from you before I say something I don't mean. You don't need my shit right now."

Orie stands up and walks to the door, fuming.

PHOENIX: "Orie...!"

ORIE: "Bye."

She opens the front door and walks out, slamming the door behind her and leaving Phoenix alone in the kitchen with her cheesepie ingredients.

PHOENIX: "..."

Phoenix's chef's hat falls off of her head again, on top of Tom, blissfully unaware of what just transpired.

Tom shakes the hat off of her and peeks out to see Phoenix leaving her ingredients on the counter and heading to her room.

She doesn't feel like baking anymore.

[thedargonden]

The Dargon Den’s new thumbnail image

[thedargonden]

[10] PHOENIX’S SECRET

October 31st, XX19

8:00 PM.

Halloween night.

Tafla is out in the loungeroom while Orie's in the bathroom shapeshifting into her spooky Halloween costume.

TAFLA "Orie, you have 30 more seconds to shapeshift! You better come out soon!"

Tafla sips her tea on the sofa next to a large jack o' lantern basket of candy, looking ahead and to her right where the new blue bathroom door is.

ORIE "Okay, okay! I'm almost done! Just give me a second!"

TAFLA "I'm going to have to start reducing your candy if you don't hurry up!"

Orie and Tafla's Halloween traditions are different than others. Whereas other younger dragons would have gone "trick or treating," since they're more isolated, Tafla likes to get a bunch of candy, and Orie has 5 minutes to shapeshift into a scary form. Tafla would then rate her scariness using candy.

ORIE "Okay! I'm done, don't peek yet!"

Orie exits the bathroom as a silver skeleton dragon with glowy dots for all her four eyes as Tafla closes her eyes.

Her purple horns are still visible and her teeth (usually hidden by her scales) sweep across her mouth into a large and creepy smile. Her mane however is not present in this form.

Orie clears her throat and opens her mouth wide, her blue and pink dot eyes shrinking to be more frightening.

Orie tries not to move her mouth when talking...

ORIE "Okah loohkh!"

Tafla eyes open and she doesn't even flinch.

TAFLA "Oh, Orie... You did this two years ago!"

Orie closes her mouth.

ORIE "You're not scared this time?"

TAFLA "Sweetie, opening your mouth isn't going to make it any more scary. I've also seen it before so it's even less scary... I'll give you all the candy for effort though."

ORIE "No! I don't want your pity candy!!!"

Orie skeleton looks to the ground with her finally healed left arm fiddling with her jaw thoughtfully.

ORIE "Ooh, you know what's even better than one Orie skeleton?

I don't even know if this would work, but I'll try!"

Orie shapeshifts her form outward on the left and right of her.

Her form stretches out until... suddenly her form splits in half.

One skeleton Orie has her two blue eye dots, and the other one has her two pink eye dots. They're both half as big as Orie was.

PINK EYED ORIE "Uh??"

Tafla stares at both of the Ories in surprise. The pink eyed one looks sad and scared. The blue eyed one is surprised but generally happy looking.

TAFLA "Orie...? Are you... okay?"

BLUE EYED ORIE "I'm fine!"

PINK EYED ORIE "I'm not... what is this? What's happening???"

Tafla stares in complete bewilderment.

TAFLA "I... didn't even know this was possible..."

PINK EYED ORIE "Neither did I..."

BLUE EYED ORIE "... But i'm glad it happened!" :p

TAFLA "... Can you two please... uh... merge back or something?"

BLUE EYED ORIE "Sure!"

PINK EYED ORIE "I... guess."

Both Ories grab each others left hands and start to try to shapeshift into one... and they just... pop back into normal Orie.

Orie's now back to her non skeleton self, extremely confused and holding her head in her left hand.

ORIE "I... what?"

Orie looks to Tafla for an answer, who's staring in disbelief.

TAFLA "Don't look at me! I don't know either!"

ORIE "Well uh... do I win at least some candy?"

TAFLA "Oh, definitely. You scared the absolute shit out of me!"

Tafla throws the whole basket of candy to Orie.

ORIE "Woah, Tafla! I've never heard you say that word. Haha!"

TAFLA "I know. I'm sorry, just... give me about 15 minutes to think about what just happened..."

Tafla gets up with her tea and speed walks out of the silver front door.

ORIE "Oh, okay."

Orie suddenly has an urge to go to Phoenix's room. Her prophetic visions only tell her that Arakados and Phoenix are there... and something about tomatoes.

She walks through the doorway, through the hall, and into Phoenix's room.

Arakados is there on Phoenix's laptop again.

ORIE "Hey Dakka!"

Arakados puts their finger on Orie's snoot and makes a shhh sound.

ARAKADOS "Gimme ooooonnnnneee second."

ORIE "Oka-"

ARAKADOS "ShhhShSh!!"

Orie ShhhShSh-es and Arakados puts their fingers back to the laptop.

Orie looks around the room at Phoenix's empty walls. She feels like she should get Phoenix actual decorations.

ARAKADOS "Oh my derg, I found it!"

Orie looks back to Arakados.

ORIE "Found what?"

ARAKADOS "Phoenix's secret!"

ORIE "Oh?"

ARAKADOS "I found it inside a hidden folder in the recycling bin!"

On the screen shows a cooking book PDF file.

ORIE "No way! She-"

ARAKADOS "Yis! She's learning how to cook! I wonder why she hid it from us?"

ORIE "It makes sense. She'd be embarrassed about having a normal hobby like that."

Orie thinks about the red stained bandage Phoenix had the past couple of weeks, and the dried red liquid on the knife she was holding before...

ORIE "It was tomatoes! She was cutting tomatoes! It all makes sense now!"

Suddenly a loud shriek sounds from outside of the den, behind the new purple door across the hallway.

Both Arakados and Orie's ears perk up as they look out the hallway.

ORIE "Was that Phoenix?"

Out of the purple door, Phoenix quickly shuts it behind her frightened and clutches her other newly bandaged wrist while her body is covered in tons of bloody scratches.

PHOENIX "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!!!"

She notices Orie and Arakados standing in her doorway.

PHOENIX "OH GOOD! ORIE DO YOU HAVE A SPARE KNIFE!"

Seeing the blood on her new bandage, Orie closes her eyes and then looks at Phoenix.

ORIE "It wasn't tomatoes... was it..."

Arakados notices scratching coming from behind the door and runs into the loungeroom.

PHOENIX "WHAT?!?!?"

ORIE "Phoenix... what are you going to do with the knife...?"

Phoenix's eyes widen even more in realization.

PHOENIX "NO! I'M NOT DOING THAT WITH IT! JUST GIVE ME A KNIFE OR SOME OTHER WEAPON, QUICK!"

ORIE "Why do you need one...?"

PHOENIX "IT'S HARD TO EXPLAIN! I JUST NEED ONE! WHY DO I NEED TO ANSWER????"

ORIE "Phoenix! I don't want you to hurt yourself! I don't even want to be responsible for giving you something that you'd hurt yourself with! I'm not going to give you anything until you tell me what's wrong!"

Phoenix notices Orie's tears dripping from her snout.

She sighs.

PHOENIX "FINE! But it's going to sound like I'm fucking crazy!

I was practicing the fine art of...

Mincing... with tomatoes...

I was getting frustrated and decided 'Hey, what if i enchanted these tomatoes to come alive and possibly help me mince them properly...'

But... apparently cutting a sentient tomato with a bunch of its friends around made them... angry...

Now they're all out for MY BLOOD after carving themselves RAZOR SHARP TEETH!"

Phoenix winces in pain from all the scratches over her body.

PHOENIX "Oh my god I sound insane!"

Orie sighs, realizing Phoenix is telling the truth from her mind reading abilities.

ORIE "No, you're not crazy... I'm just worried...

And what about the bandages...?"

Phoenix looks at her bloodied bandages on both wrists.

PHOENIX "Mincing is fucking hard, especially when you're teaching yourself. I accidentally nip myself with the knife sometimes. Is that a crime?"

ORIE "Oh... I guess I just assumed..."

Phoenix closes her eyes and tilts her head down to the ground as Arakados runs back in with a knife.

ARAKADOS "Phoenix. Step aside. I got this."

PHOENIX "No! I'm already injured from them! I should do it!"

ARAKADOS "Exactly. I should deal with them."

ORIE "No. Neither of you."

;I enchant every single vicious tomato around to pop and not bother us anymore.;

Behind the door, they all hear about seven tomatoes combusting.

Phoenix slowly opens the door and immediately see the exploded remains of the tomatoes staining the wooden deck inside the cave.

In the middle of the deck sits a table with a cutting board, a knife, and one more tomato.

The carved eyes and mouth of the tomato face toward the three dragons.

It makes a noise and then jumps off the table and runs at the dragons with tiny stubby stem looking legs.

PHOENIX "ORIE! YOU MISSED ONE!"

Arakados steps between the tomato and Phoenix with the knife, and the Tomato creature stops and tilts its head at them.

ARAKADOS "Don’t come any closer, you... strange fruity monster weirdo!"

Orie peeks over Arakados's wings as the Tomato creature just smiles and runs around in a circle. It then faceplants on the wood after a moment.

ORIE "I... don't think that one is vicious."

Orie steps past Arakados and Phoenix to get really close to the tomato creature.

She puts her left hand in front of it.

PHOENIX "ORIE! GET AWAY FROM IT!"

ARAKADOS "Watch out! It might just be pretending to be stupid!"

The tomato creature slowly walks up to Orie's hand and stares at it, intrigued. Orie sees a big slit on top of its head.

ORIE "I think this is the one you cut, Phoenix."

PHOENIX "Oh NO! THAT PROBABLY MEANS IT'S EVEN MORE MAD!"

With an interested face, the tomato creature looks up to Orie's snout, which is close by too, and then back to her hand.

After a moment, the Tomato creature smiles at Orie and lightly bites her hand. Orie jumps, surprised, as the tomato creature latches on her pinkie finger happily.

PHOENIX "AAAAHHH ORIE WHAT DID I TELL YOU!"

Arakados runs over with the knife and Orie holds her hand that's not latched onto by a sentient tomato in Arakados's way.

ORIE "No! Stop! It's harmless!"

Arakados pulls the knife away from the tomato creature skeptically.

Phoenix walks over as well.

PHOENIX "IT JUST BIT YOU! WHAT DO YOU MEAN!"

ORIE "Her carved teeth aren't really sharp. She must have made them duller when she faceplanted a second ago.

Besides, she's not even biting hard. Only enough to stay on my finger!"

PHOENIX "You're calling it a 'she' now? And a bite's a bite! It's literally biting you right now!"

ORIE "It's more of a nibble. And yes. I want to keep her as a pet!"

PHOENIX "Are you crazy?!?!?"

Arakados's face lights up with an idea.

ARAKADOS "Tom. Tom the tomato."

ORIE "Ohmygod YES! That's the PERFECT name for her!"

PHOENIX "But... the name Tom is usually used for males. Why would you name 'her' a male name like Tom?!?"

ORIE "She must be a tomboy."

Phoenix throws her head up with her right hand.

PHOENIX "That's it! I'm going to sleep! Good. Night"

Phoenix walks away to her lair in frustration.

ORIE "Goonoight Phoenix."

Phoenix tries to slam her door, but realizes she doesn't have one.

PHOENIX "HEY, WAIT! WHY DON'T I STILL HAVE A DOOR YET?!?"

Arakados looks towards Phoenix's room.

ARAKADOS "She's a lazy derg!"

PHOENIX "UUUGHHHHH!"

She jumps into her bed and buries her face into her pillows.

Tafla runs out of the den and onto the cave deck.

TAFLA "What was all the commotion about...?"

Orie holds up Tom to Tafla with her left hand.

ORIE "Oh, we've got a new pet!"

After introducing Tafla to Tom the friendly tomato, Orie and Arakados say their farewells to Tafla as she departs from the den.

Orie also has distant visions of Tafla next time she sees her, along with a shadowy figure she'll probably meet at some point.

Phoenix cries herself to sleep as usual, hating herself for something which happened in the past...

But as soon as the clock hits 12AM, her restless sleep turns to a silent fever dream.

Everything seems to be fine, now that it's the 11th month of the year... although, why wouldn't she be fine?

This is how it has always been for Phoenix, and will always be:

No negative thoughts... no hatred... little to no sadness...

Just happiness... smiles... and peace...

[The Dargon Den Arc 1: "Tomato Mystery" Completed.]

[thedargonden]

[9] ORIE’S HATCHDAY BONANZA

October 25th, XX19

Orie's hatchday.

11:55 AM.

TAFLA: "Phoenix, can you pass me that streamer? We're almost done decorating."

Tafla is standing on her hind legs reaching up to the ceiling and attempting to hang a disco ball while holding her other hand out toward Phoenix. Phoenix is sitting on the sofa with party decorations laid out on the coffee table.

PHOENIX: "You said we were almost done half an hour ago. I don't think we need anymore decorations."

TAFLA: "Orie likes a lot of decorations! Just pass it over here!"

PHOENIX: "Fine. You're going to clean this up when we're done though."

Phoenix grabs a pink streamer roll from the table and tosses it to Tafla. The roll of streamer unravels in midair, creating a streamer tail before landing on the floor and the tail drifting to the ground.

TAFLA: "That's the spirit! See? Isn't that fun? Also maybe this would look better without streamers attached to the ball."

PHOENIX: "Whatever, Lady.."

TAFLA: "Hey, Arakados. Good job with the balloons, but there's not much need for more."

Arakados is at the table with Phoenix's laptop, finishing blowing up balloons of all shapes and sizes and materials.

They give an OK hand sign and then grab a handful of long cylindrical balloons.

They quickly twist blue, silver, and purple ones into a balloon dragon Orie, and sets it on the table.

TAFLA: "Absolutely marvelous, Arakados! How did you learn to do that?"

They simply take their claws and squeeze their snout horn twice and a honking sound comes out.

PHOENIX: "Arakados, can you PLEASE put down that honker, it's driving me crazy!"

ARAKADOS: "Oki"

Arakados sets down a honking horn they held in their other hand on the table.

PHOENIX: "Who are you trying to impress, anyway?"

Tafla finally successfully attaches the disco ball to the ceiling.

She looks down to Phoenix as she picks gets down from the chair to pick up the dropped pink streamer roll.

TAFLA: "Well... Orie, of course. It's HER hatchday!"

Tafla gets back up on the chair, quickly tying it to the ceiling in a loop around the disco ball.

Footsteps from the basement stairs can be heard by the three dragons in the room.

TAFLA: "Shhh! Everyone hide!"

Tafla steps down from the chair and quickly opens the fridge. She shapeshifts to fill the entire space inside and closes the door quietly.

Arakados hides behind the sofa with their snoot poking a bit out from behind.

PHOENIX: "No thanks. I'm just going to stay here."

Tafla opens up the fridge again.

TAFLA: "Phoenix! Hide! You're going to ruin it!"

PHOENIX: "ORIE! SURPRISE! IT'S YOUR HATCHDAY! How's that, Tafla?"

TAFLA: "Early! That's how it is! Now hide!"

PHOENIX: "It's not a big deal if I'm seen. It'll already be a surprise seeing all the decorations."

TAFLA: "But it's a SURPRISE party! That's how SURPRISE parties work! You hide and when the hatchday dragon comes in, you yell-"

ORIE: "What in the fresh prince is going on in here??"

Orie looks around the room.

Hundreds of streamers hang from the ceiling around the stationary disco ball behind the sofa and in the center of the whole room.

Next to the table, near the window, there's many large rectangular shaped presents of various colors.

On the table, next to Phoenix's laptop are dozens of Tafla's runestone tablets spread out.

PHOENIX: "Happy hatchday or whatever. God, I can't believe I'm saying this."

Tafla bounces out of the fridge, knocking some of the food and produce out on the floor.

TAFLA: "SURPRISE!"

Orie immediately notices Arakados behind the sofa.

ORIE: "Wow. This is a lot of streamers!

And Dakka! That's a silly hiding place! I can still see your snoot!"

ARAKADOS: "I'm not heeeereeeeee"

Orie notices the balloon Orie set on top of the runestones.

ORIE: "OH MY GOD, IS THAT..."

Orie quickly runs over to the table then gently and awkwardly picks up the balloon Orie with her left arm, which is still in the dragon splint.

ORIE: "DAKKA, DID YOU DO THIS FOR ME?"

Arakados stands up and nods their head.

ARAKADOS: "Yissssssssssss"

ORIE: "Thank you so much! This looks so good!"

Arakados does another OK hand gesture, grabs Phoenix's laptop, and slinks out of the room with it.

ORIE: "Oh, I guess there they go."

PHOENIX: "Arakados! Where are you taking my laptop???"

Phoenix reaches out toward the hall doorway.

ARAKADOS: "Nowherrreeeeee"

PHOENIX: "Ugh... Whatever."

TAFLA: "Orie! You ready for the hatchday traditional song?"

ORIE: "Oh yeah! How does it go again?"

Tafla grasps her hands with Orie's right hand.

Both dragons begin to sway in place as Tafla sings to Orie.

TAFLA: "Have a happy hatchday! RHAWR!

One more year has passed! RHAWR!

Happy happy hatchday! RHAWR!

Don't dwell on the past! RRRHHHAAAWWWRRR!"

On the last rhawr, Tafla yelled pretty loud. Loud enough to force Phoenix to cover her ears.

Phoenix mutters to herself.

PHOENIX: "Drek, that's so annoying."

ORIE: "What was that, Phoenix?"

PHOENIX: "Uh. Happy hatchday. That's what I said. Nothing else. Heheh."

Phoenix slinks into the couch cushions in anxiety.

TAFLA: "You want to open your presents?"

ORIE: "Cheesecake first! Please?"

TAFLA: "We would... but we don't have enough room for cheesecake on the table. Presents first."

ORIE: "Aw... What's with the runestones on the table anyway?"

Tafla lets Orie go and smirks at her.

TAFLA: "It may... or may not... have something to do with one of your presents"

ORIE: "Ooh! Do I get my own runestones you carved for me?"

TAFLA: "Well, yes... But that's not the only reason!

I'll show you after you unwrap the ones near the window first"

Orie moves toward those presents, which tower over her. They look like thin, tall rectangles with various colors of craft paper covering them.

ORIE: "Ooh! What are they? I bet they're something weird or cool from one of your adventures!"

TAFLA: "Adventures?"

ORIE: "Oh. I'd always assumed you'd gone on adventures into lost temples, or old shrines or something after I moved out."

TAFLA: "Ha. Not quite. But it IS something more useful to you that we could probably set up later!"

Orie attempts to drag one of the 4 rectangular boxes with both arms, but her left arm begins to hurt from the strain.

ORIE: "Ow. These are heavy! A little help?"

TAFLA: "Oh, right. I forgot."

Tafla scoots past Orie and sets one upright, almost hitting the ceiling.

TAFLA: "Should I open this too? Or do you think you could do that on your own?"

ORIE: "I'll try a bit, but you could open it more fully if you want afterward."

Orie uses her right claws to pierce through the white and pink polka-dotted wrapping paper.

ORIE: "What is this? Silver wood?"

Phoenix, barely paying attention and on her phone looks over.

PHOENIX: "Wood? As a hatchday present? Ha."

Orie tears the wrapping paper more fully toward the right side and she touches a metal ball attached to the wood.

ORIE: "What?"

Orie pulls the wrapping paper outward on each side and she realizes...

ORIE: "It's a door! Tafla, are all of these presents right here DOORS??"

PHOENIX: "Oh my god, fucking FINALLY!"

TAFLA: "Uh, huh!"

ORIE: "We've NEEDED doors for a LONG TIME! You're right! this IS useful!"

TAFLA: "I knew you'd like it!"

Orie walks over to the other 3 door presents and rips a hole in the sides of the wrapping.

ORIE: "You got me that silver one, and a blue one, a purple one, and a blue and yellow one?"

TAFLA: "That one I thought would be for you and your boyfriend's room."

PHOENIX: "About time you two got a room that was closed off."

ORIE: "What? I don’t get it.

PHOENIX: “You’ll figure it out when you’re older.”

As Orie stares at Phoenix obliviously, Tafla glares at Phoenix.

ORIE: “Wait, Tafla, what does this have to do with your runestones?" 

TAFLA: "Well, you see... I thought I'd give you another present that would help you a lot... Something I know you have been wanting of mine for a long while."

Orie looks around the room.

ORIE: "There aren't any more presents though... what are you talking about?"

TAFLA: "Oh, there aren't? I must have left it in your new dimensional bag."

ORIE: "My new dimensional-"

Tafla grabs the dark bag hanging on her shoulder and hands it to Orie.

ORIE: "OH MY GOD! YOU'RE GIVING THIS TO ME?"

TAFLA: "Yes ma'am!"

ORIE: "NOW that makes sense! You emptied your bag! You don't have to do this, really. I'm fine without it."

TAFLA: “Actually, those runestones are all stuff I don’t need anymore.“

Orie looks at the bag. She never looked at Tafla’s bag so closely before! The ceiling light radiates off of it with a powerful and colorful glint. The many markings on the bag glow a faint hazy green. Looking Deeply into the markings gives her a really good sense that whenever they’re green like this, it means it’s pretty close to empty.

After examining the bag for a couple of moments, a distant vision of a snowglobe, shadows, and fire appears in her mind. Hrm...

TAFLA: "Nope. It's all yours!"

ORIE: "What about all your other runestones? I thought you stored all of them inside this one!"

TAFLA: "Don’t worry, I’ve done some renovations back at home, and... let’s just say I have a brilliant place for all them now!"

Orie looks back to the bag, ignoring the now stronger visions of shadows and flames.

ORIE: "How does this thing work?"

TAFLA: "When you put something inside, its state will freeze until it's taken back out. And all you need to do to take it back out is to think of what you want taken out, and it would materialize in your hand. Intention matters a lot with it.

Try it! Reach in there and think about having some delicious cheesecake!"

ORIE: "Oke!"

Orie rests the bag over her right shoulder and reaches her right hand inside the liquidy feeling void inside. She thinks about cheesecake. The graham cracker-like crust. The cheesy desert... uh... rest of the cake.

The taste... oh, the taste. It tastes like... cheesecake. She can just imagine biting into one right this moment.

Suddenly, she starts to feel something in her hand... plastic. A large circular container of some sort? Is it really?

She pulls it out... and....

ORIE: "Oh my! A cheesecake!"

Inside the plastic container, the cheesecake reads 'Happy hatchday, Orie!' with whipped cream.

TAFLA: "And that's why I said presents first!"

ORIE: "Oh my god, Tafla, you're the best! You always know how to make great structured surprises out of a hatchday celebration!"

TAFLA: "You know it!"

Orie goes in for a hug, and Tafla slowly drops her smile after a moment and sighs.

TAFLA: "Well... there's still one present I didn't get to give you..."

ORIE: "Oh?"

TAFLA: "And it's... the truth about your hatchparent and guardparent."

Orie lets go of Tafla and looks at her in embarrassment.

ORIE: "Oh. Is this about what I said the other day? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to push you into telling me."

TAFLA: "No... it was a valid question...

I should have told you about them before... I just didn't know how..."

Tafla leads Orie to the sofa to sit her down next to Phoenix on the sofa, who quickly throws her phone on the sofa seat next to her, pretending she was paying attention the whole time.

Orie sets the cheesecake on the coffee table, in front of where Tafla sits.

TAFLA: "Your hatchparent is an Idnagol. He was an old friend of mine back before the massacre maybe 5 years before you hatched.

As you already know, Logi is a healing sorcerer and-"

ORIE: "Logi? Like the one who wrote those Dreki Studies books?"

Orie gestures to the book set on the TV stand behind Tafla.

TAFLA: "Yes. He wrote those specifically for you."

ORIE: "Oh."

TAFLA: "Anyway, Logi disguised himself as a Myrkur to protect himself during the massacre, and apparently fell in love with a peaceful Myrkur.

But... before you were hatched, your... guardparent started becoming... crazy, which i won't get into why right now because that's a whole new can of wyrms I don't want to open."

ORIE: "What's my guardparent's name?"

Phoenix squints her eyes and braces herself for Tafla's response.

TAFLA: "Her name is Perseus. When you hatched, she tried killing you, but Logi saved you and ran away. He then gave you to me to protect you.

She's actually now currently the queen of Myrkurs after killing who she needed to, including the old queen.

I don't know how she would have been able to kill so many dragons while never being seen herself, though."

Tears drip from Phoenix's eyes and she starts breathing harder.

ORIE: "Phoenix? You okay?"

PHOENIX: "It was me..."

ORIE: "What was you, Phoenix?"

PHOENIX: "I'm sorry... I didn't have a choice... Perseus forced me to-"

Phoenix shakes her head and wipes the tears from her eyes.

She takes a deep breath while Tafla looks at the ground in understanding.

ORIE: "You know my...?

Phoenix? It's okay. Whatever it was, if you were forced to do some things by... my guardparent, it's in the past. It's okay now. You don't have to worry about it..."

Phoenix nods as Orie leans on her side to possibly help her cheer up.

ORIE: "You can tell me about Perseus another time... It's upsetting Phoenix."

Tafla blinks at Phoenix thoughtfully and then to Orie with worry.

She sighs.

TAFLA: "I... don't know what else I can say... I told you all I know. Other than Logi cared about you, a lot, which is why he had to give you up to me. And maybe Perseus would too, if it weren't for Draumur..."

ORIE: "Draumur?"

Something inside her draws her eyes back to the bag over her shoulder. A clear vision of a shadowy dragon with fire coming out of their eyes, mouth, and nose appears in her mind.

Tafla's eyes widen as she realizes she said that.

TAFLA: "I don't know. Something that happened a long time ago, but again... can of wyrms... don't want to open... sorry."

ORIE: "Can you please tell me? I feel like it's important for me to know."

TAFLA: "I'm sorry, it's not... a good story. Especially with... your friend there having... certain ties. I might tell you another time, but let's just celebrate your hatchday for now, alright?"

Orie sighs.

ORIE: "Okay. Thank you for telling me about my family, at least a little bit."

Phoenix opens her eyes and looks to Orie.

PHOENIX: "Can I leave now...?"

ORIE: "Sure, but before you do, you get the first slice of cheesecake."

PHOENIX: "But you love cheesecake more than me. And plus, it's YOUR hatchday. Not mine."

ORIE: "I care about YOU being happy more right now."

Phoenix huffs with a smirk.

PHOENIX: "If that's how you really feel, at least take a bite out of a slice at the same time as me so I won't feel like I'm stealing your attention or something."

ORIE: "Of course!"

Tafla opens the box of cheesecake and takes the butter knife from inside to cut the cheesecake and begins Orie’s hatchday celebration.

Meanwhile, in Phoenix's Lair, Arakados still searches through the laptop for secrets.

ARAKADOS: "Hrm..."

After looking through plenty of stuff again, they start to get frustrated... until they remember about the hidden items check box.

They click the view tab of the file explorer, and check the hidden items box one more time, which they were sure they had checked plenty of times before.

This time though, they don't leave the computer. They begin to search everywhere from the start.

Throughout the Terabyte worth of files and folders on this computer.

This may take a while... but suspecting Phoenix knows that they were searching for her secret, they'll uncheck the hidden items box and close the file explorer up whenever taking a break, and just take a mental note of where they left off.

Using this method... they'd bound to find her secret some time.

[thedargonden]

[8] THE TRUTH

October 23rd, XX19

3:00 PM

Tafla sits quietly on the sofa drinking a cup of tea. The look on the green dragon's face is distant and a bit sad.

As someone walks up to the hallway door to her right, she shakes her head and puts on a quick smile.

Orie emerges from the hallway with a face that shows she has something on her mind. When she looks up and sees Tafla, she smiles at her.

ORIE: "Oh, hi Tafla!"

TAFLA: "Orie! How are you?"

ORIE: "I'm alright. I was just going to play my game in here, but you probably aren't that interested in Celeste. I'll play it later."

TAFLA: "No, no, don't let me get in the way of your game. Come sit with me! Tell me all about... Celets?"

Tafla motions Orie over toward the empty sofa seat to her left.

ORIE: "It's Celeste, Tafla, haha."

Orie sits on the sofa with Tafla and starts to reach the controller with her left hand before quickly switching to her right.

ORIE: "It's about this girl who's trying to climb a mountain while also dealing with her own depression. She's a really cute, mostly positive person who tends to have trouble staying on top of her anxiety.

She tries helping everyone she can, maybe even to a fault, and after everything is still determined to climb the mountain."

Tafla takes a sip of her tea and shoots a smirk at Orie.

TAFLA: "Sounds a lot like you, Orie."

ORIE: "You know, I was thinking about that earlier and I kinda agree.

Oh, also a week ago when I played last, I was just getting to a climactic encounter with her 'other self' who is essentially a purple embodiment of her anxiety and depression given form, which honestly reminds me a lot of Phoenix, haha..."

Orie starts the game on her switch and puts the controller on the sofa right in front of her.

TAFLA: "Is this one of those hands free games where you don't even need to use the controller to play?"

ORIE: "What do you mean?"

TAFLA: "Your injury. How are you going to play it with that?"

All 4 of Orie's eyes widen as she realizes she can't play the game with this injury.

ORIE: "Noooooooo!

Whyyyyyyy!"

TAFLA: "Aw, Orie! I'm sorry! I can look into the game another time!"

Orie sets the controller down and turns the switch off.

ORIE: "No, it's okay. This injury is just so frustrating!"

TAFLA: "I bet..."

The room becomes quiet as the two dragons stare around the room. Tafla sips the rest of her tea, then sets the teacup and plate on the coffee table in front of them both and looks to the redwood floor.

Orie closes all four of her eyes and tilts her head up toward the white ceiling.

She taps the sofa with her right arm unconsciously and sighs.

ORIE: "Hey... Tafla...?"

Tafla quickly looks over to Orie with concern.

TAFLA: "Yes?"

ORIE: "I've been meaning to ask... you mentioned something to Phoenix about my biological hatchparent and guardparent..."

She opens her eyes and looks to Tafla.

ORIE: "What were they like...? What happened to them...? All you've ever told me about my hatchparent is that he's a healing sorcerer..."

Tafla is surprised by the question and her mind starts racing to figure out what to say.

TAFLA: "W- well... uhm... I certainly didn't expect this question to be asked right now...

H-hey... Orie, do you want some tea? I'm going to go make some tea for you. Give me one second."

Tafla gets up and brings her tea cup with her to the kitchen in the same room.

ORIE: "That's not really an answer..."

Tafla ignores Orie and continues getting a box of tea bags and sugar out of the cupboard.

ORIE: "Hey. Tafla..."

She proceeds to get out more tea cups and at the same time takes a couple tea bags out of the box. She lays the bags inside the tea pot. Orie gets up to move toward the kitchen

ORIE: "Tafla?"

She begins to pour the already hot water from the kettle into the teapot. Orie stops near the fridge.

ORIE: "Tafla! Please tell me!"

Tafla drops the kettle into the teapot, breaking it, and pouring hot water all over herself.

TAFLA: "Agh!"

Tafla turns around to face Orie.

TAFLA: "Look, I'm sorry... I just... I don't know what I can tell you... I'm afraid you'd be upset if you found out the truth."

ORIE: "I'm getting more upset not knowing, Tafla!"

Tears begin to form in Orie's bottom eyes and Tafla sighs.

TAFLA: "I know... and I'm sorry, but I can't tell you right now..."

ORIE: "Why not! It’s MY hatchparent!"

TAFLA: "..."

ORIE: "I deserve to know! You never have told me anything important about them! You always skirt around details and pretend like it’s fine! PLEASE TELL ME!"

TAFLA: “I... I don’t know what to say! You’re putting me on the spot here.”

ORIE: “UAHGH!”

Orie’s tears begin to trickle fast down her face.

ORIE: “Why don’t you trust me with any information about my family??”

As Tafla is at a loss for words, Orie steps toward the hallway.

TAFLA: "Orie!"

Orie runs into the hallway and down the basement stairs next to Phoenix's doorway with tears streaming from her face.

Tafla stands in the hot water from the spill, looking around for a towel to clean herself up.

She sighs and looks to the wet ground.

She sends a telepathic message to Orie,

TAFLA: ⦕Orie... I'll tell you soon... I promise... Just give me some time to clear my thoughts and mind...⦖

Tafla reaches for a small towel hanging on the fridge handle. and puts it on the floor to wipe the mess up.

Meanwhile, in Phoenix's room...

PHOENIX: "Hey, Arakados. Was that just Orie running by, crying?"

Arakados is completely entranced by Phoenix's computer. They look up at her and give her a confused look.

ARAKADOS: "Hrm?"

PHOENIX: "Orie was crying. I think you should go comfort her."

ARAKADOS: "Oh. Yea yea, gimme a seconderg."

PHOENIX: "She's... your girlfriend. What are you doing that's more important than your girlfriend?"

ARAKADOS: "I'm finishing up for now."

PHOENIX: "Whatever."

Arakados had looked through Phoenix's entire laptop by now. There's nothing left to see.

No secrets.

No nothing.

They check the desktop through the file explorer one more time, click the view tab and zoom out the file layout. They... see nothing new.

They sigh and start to get up....

Before something catches their eye.

Right in the file explorer view options, next to a check box, there's an option that reads 'Hidden items.'

Their eyes widen as they realize this wasn't checked.

They were sure they had clicked it before, but maybe it must have turned off after taking a break and they must have missed something big.

They check that box again for later, and close the laptop.

They get up and begin to move to the basement.

As soon as Arakados is gone, Phoenix quickly gets up and opens the laptop.

She unchecks the 'Hidden items' check box and clicks back to the Home tab of the file explorer, then quickly runs back to her bed.

PHOENIX: "No one can know the truth..."

[thedargonden]

[7] UNINVITED GUEST

October 19th, XX19

6:00 PM

As the pink sunset shines into the loungeroom, Orie sits at the loungeroom dining table behind the sofa, right next to the front window.

Her left arm is still broken, but that's not stopping her from sloppily attempting to eat cheesecake with a fork in her RIGHT hand.

ORIE: "Gah! Why is this so difficult!!!"

She carefully positions her fork over the end of the slice and as slowly as she can, moves downward into the cheesecake.

She succeeds, going through the graham cracker crust on the bottom. But when she tries to pull the bit of cheesecake up, her unbalanced fork holding sent the whole fork and cheesecake bit to the floor.

ORIE: "Nooooooo!"

;I enchant this cheesecake to feed itself to me, right this instant!;

In response, the cheesecake slice lifts up into the air quickly and crams itself down Orie's mouth.

ORIE: "MOOOHH!!!! FSHTAHPH ITH!!!!!!"

She quickly gets up, almost collapsing, being unbalanced on 3 limbs. She limps over to the refrigerator past the sofa and around the corner to the hallway door.

Orie opens the fridge door, then opens and pours a can of root beer down her throat to help get the cheesecake down and also taking big gulps.

After a moment she coughs and collapses to the floor, finally able to swallow the whole slice of cheesecake.

ORIE: "Alright. Honestly, I deserved that."

Her voice is more raspy and breathy now, probably because she had to swallow a whole slice of cheesecake.

Phoenix emerges from the hallway and turns to her left to look around the corner at Orie.

PHOENIX: "Woah, what happened in here?"

Orie coughs again.

ORIE: "Tried enchanting a slice of cheesecake to feed itself to me."

PHOENIX: "Sweet Myrka, Orie, how do you keep finding ways for your sorcery to almost kill you? Weren't you taught anything about your magic?"

ORIE: "No, not really... I had been raised by an idnagol. Not a myrkur. Idnagols don't know that much when it comes to how myrkuran sorcery works. All they know is that it does."

PHOENIX: "What about your parent who WAS a myrkur?"

ORIE: "What do you mean?"

PHOENIX: "I mean, uh. Of course one of your parents was a Myrkur. You look like an Idnagol, but you also have Myrkuran sorcery. You got that from your family, right?"

ORIE: "I don't understand..."

PHOENIX: "Who raised you? Your hatchparent? Your guardparent?"

ORIE: "Hatchparent? ...Guardparent....?"

Orie stares at Phoenix, completely lost on what she's saying.

PHOENIX: "OH MY GOD, Orie! Had no one taught you about this?"

ORIE: "Not exactly... I know the words, but... I don't really know what they mean."

PHOENIX: "Oh my god. Do I really have to give the talk to a fully grown dragon?"

ORIE: "The talk?"

Phoenix sighs.

PHOENIX: "Fine. Okay, so. We as a species are different from most other life. Most other life need a 'female' and 'male' to reproduce...

However, we're not so much like that, as all of us typically have both uhhhh... parts for reproduction."

ORIE: "Uhm... so what does... this... have to do with hatchparents and guardparents?"

Phoenix begins to blush a little bit.

PHOENIX: "SHUT UP! I'M GETTING TO IT!"

ORIE: "Alright..."

PHOENIX: "Anyway, to cut it short and not get into any... awkward bits... when a dragon lays the egg, they are called the hatchparent. Whereas the other one in the... relationship is the guardparent.

Hatchparents tend to care more directly for the egg itself, hence they're called the hatchparent. Guardparents tend to be less closely protective of the egg, but more so the whole family unit.

Though this doesn't describe ALL cases. Sometimes the guardparent can be more protective of the egg itself, and the hatchparent more protective of the family, but the way I described first is the typical relationship."

ORIE: "Huh... So, do you have a hatchparent or guardparent?"

PHOENIX: "Well... no... unless you count... nevermind."

Phoenix squints her eyes and shakes her head.

PHOENIX: "Anyway, who were you raised by?"

ORIE: "Well, I was raised by-"

A knock interrupts the two dragons as they look toward the door frame where the knock was. Behind the door frame stands a shortish pine green looking old dragon. Her long lime green and curly mane waves in the wind. Her white horns show mysterious markings etched into them, almost as if they were in a different language. She holds a dark bag over her right shoulder and near her wing.

TAFLA: "Hellooooo! Am I disturbing you two?"

Orie smiles wide as she sees this dragon and jumps up, limping toward her and she clears her throat from all cheesecake residue leftover.

ORIE: "TALFA!!!!"

TAFLA: "Come now, Orie! You know it's 'Taf-la' and not 'Tal-fa!'"

ORIE: "I know, I'm teasing!"

Orie goes in for a hug with Tafla, but avoiding using her left arm for the hug.

TAFLA: "Orie! What happened to your arm??"

ORIE: "Oh... myrkuran sorcery... as usual..."

Tafla sighs and lets Orie go.

TAFLA: "I told you to be careful with that magic."

Phoenix thinks of saying "So did I, Orie" but she doesn't want to be rude in front of a new dragon.

TAFLA: "Oh, if only your hatchparent were here. He's a-"

ORIE: "Yeah, I know he's a healing sorcerer, Tafla. You've told me every time I got Injured."

Phoenix goes up to Tafla and holds her right hand out for a handshake.

PHOENIX: "Hi, Tafla? I'm Phoenix. So, you're Orie's... hatchparent?"

TAFLA: "Well, of course. I'm her adoptive hatchparent. Her caretaker, if you will."

PHOENIX: "Oh, whatever happened to her biological hatchparent?"

Tafla’s expression widens and she quiets to a whisper.

TAFLA: "Uh... ehehehh... well... they... they’re still alive, if that's what you're asking... but..."

Tafla gets close to Phoenix's ear and shoots a small look at Orie with her white eyes as if to ask her to not read her mind. Orie nods and looks away.

TAFLA: "I don't want to upset Orie by bringing this up around her... let's just say for now that her hatchparent gave her to me to keep her safe, and her guardparent is uhm..."

PHOENIX: "No need for the rest, I know her."

TAFLA: "How do you know Perseus?"

Phoenix seems to flinch at the sound of that name.

PHOENIX: "I... uh... well... she is the myrkuran queen... and I am a myrkur."

Phoenix feels the beginning of an anxiety attack coming on.

TAFLA: "Oh, you really ARE a myrkur! I thought it was my eyesight already going bad or you were an idnagol shapeshifted as a myrkur. Orie's hatchparent used to-"

Tafla looks over at Orie, who's now staring at the two.

TAFLA: "Oh... sorry, I shouldn't talk about that right now.."

PHOENIX: "Yeah... probably not..."

ORIE: "So... Tafla, what brings you to the den?"

TAFLA: "I couldn't miss your first hatchday on your own, Orie!"

ORIE: "Oh yeah! That's in only a couple of days, right?"

TAFLA: "Actually it's in 6 days!"

Phoenix looks away toward the hallway and closes her eyes.

ORIE: "How long are you staying?"

TAFLA: "Hrm... how long do you want me to stay?"

ORIE: "However long you want!"

TAFLA: "Well, in that case, I'll stay here until the 31st!"

ORIE: "Oke! That sounds good! I'm so glad you're visiting, Talfa"

TAFLA: "Oh, since I'm going to be here for a while, I'm glad I brought my trusty dimensional bag with my runestone equipment!"

Phoenix looks back toward Tafla, but not directly at her.

PHOENIX: "You're a runic sorcerer?"

TAFLA: "Of course. Didn't you see the markings on my horns?"

She points to her horns.

PHOENIX: "Sorry, I'm not familiar with idnagol magic."

TAFLA: "Oh, Orie, I've got some presents for your hatchday! But they're only for your HATCHDAY. You better not look in my mind or in the future to see what they are, otherwise you'd spoil the surprise!"

ORIE: "Well, duh!"

Phoenix starts to feel tears forming as she slinks away from Tafla and Orie and starts into the hallway.

ORIE: "I love surprises, why would I spoil HATCHDAY surpri- Hey wait Phoenix, where are you going?"

Phoenix ignores Orie and continues into the hallway.

ORIE: "Sorry, one second Tafla. Phoenix!"

Orie walks toward the hall doorway and peeks her head in.

ORIE: "Phoenix? Are you okay?"

Phoenix ignores her again, and walks into her room, tears dripping from her snout.

ORIE: "Phoenix..."

Orie steps back toward Tafla and sighs.

TAFLA: "Is she... always like that?"

ORIE: "Well, a lot of the time, yeah. I think something happened before we met that messed her up mentally, really badly. Now she tends to take her anger and sadness out on me. We're friends though, so it's okay."

TAFLA: "That's not friendship. That's just mean. She shouldn't do that to you even if she's suffering..."

ORIE: "No, it's not like that. I know there's good in her, she just has a hard shell she hides behind. I'm trying to help her break out of that shell, and I think I'm doing well so far."

TAFLA: "I know you mean well, Orie. I really do. But I wish you wouldn't let others do that to you, no matter if you KNOW they don't mean it with your mind reading."

ORIE: "I know... but Phoenix is different. I know she cares a lot about me. I want to just show her a friendly face and that I care for her, flaws and all."

Tafla sighs and closes her eyes for a moment.

TAFLA: "Alright... I trust she isn't as mean as you say..."

She puts her hand on Orie's chest.

TAFLA: "I just want to make sure you take care of yourself first, Orie... okay?"

ORIE: "Yes ma'am."

Tafla and Orie hug each other again, and afterward, Orie talks about setting up an air mattress in the loungeroom.

While Tafla gets settled into the den, Phoenix lays in her room bawling her eyes out on her mattress while Arakados and the laptop are nowhere to be seen.

Phoenix doesn't feel safe around herself right now.

She puts her claws around her neck for a moment and then shakes her head, pulling them away from her neck and around a pillow.

PHOENIX: "N... no..."

She hugs the pillow close to her body and continues crying silently, for if Orie heard, she'd probably come in.

After a couple moments of being silent, through a broken voice, Phoenix casts a spell.

PHOENIX: ;I enchant myself to not be conscious for... 10 hours.;

Suddenly, Phoenix's body goes limp and her crying fades a bit.

Her grip on the pillow fades and she sleeps through tears for the rest of the night.

[thedargonden]

[6] CLEANING  THE SHED

October 15th, XX19

2:00 PM

Orie is outside of the house in front of a shed on the right side of the house, trying to figure out how to clear a bit of clutter out. From the outside it looks like the back half of the den is engulfed inside the looming mountain peak. Or at least it's just one part of the mountain that comes to an end.

From where she stands, she could see Arakados's caves they dug out for a place they can hang out every now and then. There's even a rhombus shaped lava hot tub with a lookout area, directly behind and above the den.

The front lawn is completely pink grass and it's decently sized and flattened out until it reaches a cliff face over a pastel blue pine forest. Orie had roped the edge off just in case a while back, when Phoenix started living here.

Orie stares at the junk inside of the shed. A bunch of loose blank papers, old gaming consoles, a flamethrower for some reason, and more are scattered along the floor and covered by long burnt and broken pieces of wood. They were from an older version of the house that burnt down from a "poke war" that got out of hand... or... finger.

Orie tries pulling one of the pieces of wood out, but it's lodged underneath a bunch of boxes and garbage bags so it's harder to drag out.

ORIE: ;I enchant myself to be strong enough to pull this piece of wood out.;

In an instant, Orie dislodges the piece of wood but falls over onto her wings. Inside the shed, a lot of boxes and garbage bags fall over, making a lot of noise.

ORIE: "Ow!"

She rolls over, dropping the wood piece, back onto her chest. She rubs the joints from the base of her left wing.

ORIE: "Ow ow ow!"

Phoenix rushes out the front doorway, mildly concerned and sees Orie about 10 feet from the shed.

PHOENIX: "Orie? What happened? What was that noise?"

ORIE: "I was trying to clean out the junk and debris from the shed but uh... I think I may have sprained my wing."

PHOENIX: "Ouch. Why didn't you just use your magic?"

ORIE: "I did... But only to enchant myself to be strong enough to pull it out."

PHOENIX: "Orie, you've got to be more specific with it. Jeez, come here."

ORIE: "Uh. I can't. It hurts like, a lot."

PHOENIX: "Right."

Phoenix moves close to Orie.

PHOENIX: "Do you mind if I touch it?"

ORIE: "No! I said it hurts!"

PHOENIX: "Too bad."

;I cast this spell to numb Orie's wings for 5 minutes.;

Orie, who was wincing in pain is now relieved.

ORIE: "Whew! Thanks, Phoenix!"

She attempts to get up but she's pushed down by Phoenix again.

PHOENIX: "No! It's not fixed!"

ORIE: "But why can't you just heal me with the sorcery?"

PHOENIX: "It doesn't work quite the way you think."

ORIE: ;I cast this spell to heal all of my injuries.;

PHOENIX: "IDIOT!"

Suddenly, her pain shifts from her wing to her left entire left arm.

ORIE: "OW! WHAT?!?!"

She rolls over to her right side to get the pressure off of her arm.

PHOENIX: "God dammit Orie! I tried to tell you!"

;.setunim 5 rof sgniw s'eirO bmun ot lleps siht tsac I;

;I cast this spell to numb Orie's left ARM for 5 minutes.;

ORIE: "Agh... Why did that happen?"

PHOENIX: "I was GOING to say: any type of healing magic has to give an equal amount of injury back to the spell caster. And what you did there was you moved it to your left arm."

ORIE: "How did you know it was that arm? I didn't tell you."

PHOENIX: <.=.< "You were flailing it around, so. Good guess I suppose.

Now stay still this time."

ORIE: "Wait, I'm left handed! I need to be able to use this arm! Lemme just..."

;I cast this spell to-

PHOENIX: "STOP!"

;I enchant Orie to shut the fuck up for a minute.;

Orie's mouth shuts hard.

PHOENIX: "Look, you don't KNOW where the injury would shift to. It COULD end up damaging your eye, or maybe even worse, your brain, which both are much harder to fix than a broken arm. We don't KNOW this. So just to be safe, DON'T USE YOUR MAGIC TO FIX IT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

Orie stares at Phoenix and nods that she understands.

PHOENIX: "Thank you. If you had let me speak before, it would have been your wing and not something you regularly WALK on. You'll just have to avoid using your left arm, got it? Hind legs and right hand only."

Orie nods again with a sigh.

Phoenix picks up the piece of wood next to Orie and puts it under her arm like a crutch.

PHOENIX: "Stay completely still."

;I cast this spell to create a left dragon arm splint out of this piece of wood around Orie.;

The wood warps and twists around Orie to become a slender and curved object with multiple rings to keep it latched. It also stretches over her shoulder to look almost like a piece of armor. It looks like it fits perfectly, which is a good thing.

PHOENIX: "See? You'll just have to deal with this for maybe... A week and a half or so? Maybe shorter. It depends."

Phoenix's spell to shut Orie up wears off.

ORIE: "Alright... Thank you."

Phoenix pulls Orie up gently from her right arm.

PHOENIX: "You think you can make it back to the den on your own?"

ORIE: "Yeah, I think so."

PHOENIX: "Alright."

Orie begins limping back inside avoiding her left hand for obvious reasons.

Right before she gets to the door...

PHOENIX: "Hey."

Orie turns around to look back at Phoenix.

ORIE: "Yes? What's up?"

PHOENIX: "I just wanted to apologize for losing my temper at you..."

ORIE: "No, you don't need to. I was being dumb and not listening to you, it was the only way I would have heard you..."

PHOENIX: "That too... but... I mean... The other day. When I told you it's not your business to worry...?"

ORIE: "Oh. It's okay. I was being a little too nosy anyway."

PHOENIX: "Maybe, but I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. That's not how friends should treat each other..."

ORIE: "You think of me as a friend??" ::o

Phoenix hides a blush.

PHOENIX: "God dammit, why'd I say that?"

She begins to speed walk toward the doorway.

PHOENIX: "I mean uhhh, you're dumb and I hate you so much, rhawr I'm gonna kill you and etc, I'll be in my room- er, lair listening to music, don't come in or else okay baiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

Phoenix runs past Orie into the loungeroom.

ORIE: "You can't take your friendship back, Phoenix!"

PHOENIX: "SHUT IT!"

She disappears into the hallway.

Orie goes inside as well, planning on eating a cheesecake to help her get through the injury.

She feels a lot better after hearing what Phoenix said, but she still has a decent bit of anxiety left.

She's still worried about Phoenix a lot. Orie doesn't know if she's actually genuinely fine, or just trying to get her off of her back.

As usual, Orie submerges her anxieties with happy thoughts, but for how long will she be able to ignore it?

[thedargonden]

[5] FORGOTTEN HOLIDAY

October 11th, XX19

11:55 PM

Orie is in the loungeroom, reading a story about dragons on her phone.

The story starts with "October 11th, XX19. 2:00 PM"

ORIE: "wAIT!

THE 11TH???"

Orie quickly looks at the date and time.

ORIE: "No!!! I missed it!"

From the hallway, Arakados frantically speeds through the doorway.

ARAKADOS: "What? What happened?"

ORIE: "We missed invert day!"

ARAKADOS: "Oh yea. Today WAS meant to be invert day."

ORIE: "And now it's too late to do it this month!

Oh well, I guess we'll have to wait a whole month to be able to do it again on the next 11th day."

ARAKADOS: "Wait, isn't next month the 11th month of the year?"

Orie gasps!

ORIE: "You're right!!! We can absolutely do invert day for a WHOLE MONTH!"

ARAKADOS: "Are we going to do something special for the month?"

ORIE: "Oh, definitely! Instead of using magic to invert all of our colors like usual, we can act the opposite of what we usually act like!"

ARAKADOS: "Your sorcery could help."

ORIE: "Well, obviously! Oh, that'll be so much fun!"

ARAKADOS: "Can't wait. Anyway lemme get back to searching for Phoenix's secret."

Arakados flops back into the hallway.

ORIE: ;I cast this spell to make the 11th month of every year to invert the personalities of everyone who lives in this house.;

"Wait, oh yeah."

;I cast this spell to make every 11th day of every month invert everyone who lives in this house as well, beginning after today.;

"Perfect!"

[thedargonden]

[4] GOOD AS USUAL

October 11th, XX19

1:00 PM

Orie is playing on her switch again. In the game, the character she's playing as wanders into a castle ruin. There are these glass-like blocks with little white specks on them all around the place, but she can't interact with them.

Down a path she uncovered, she dashes through dangerous and spiky areas to land on a ledge on the right.

ORIE:

"Woo! I did it!"

She walks to the next room where only a mirror stands in the center of the room. Thinking nothing of it, she walks past it.

But the character realizes that her reflection showed a creepy and purple version of herself, before said purple version bursts out of the mirror and runs away.

ORIE: "Hrm..."

Orie starts to think about that.

Phoenix bursts through the doorway and sits in front of the TV, looking furious.

ORIE: "Oh hi, Phoenix!"

PHOENIX: "DON'T even start with that!"

Phoenix stares daggers at Orie.

PHOENIX: "WHAT is your PARTNER doing on MY DJ SYSTEM, in MY ROOM, looking in MY SONG LIST FILES?!?"

Orie realizes Arakados has been in Phoenix's room since a week ago.

ORIE: "Ohhh right! Wait why didn't you ask me before?"

PHOENIX: "I didn't care at first. In fact I actually like Arakados. They’re pretty cute.

But they haven't left my room for DAYS, and I'm going to LOSE MY MIND if I don't get some FUCKING ALONE TIME!!!"

ORIE: "Did you just call Dakka cute?" ::o

PHOENIX: "SHUT UP, THAT'S NOT THE POINT AND YOU KNOW THAT!"

Orie sets down her game controller on the sofa next to her and sits up.

ORIE: "They are trying to look for your 'super special secret,' that silly derg."

PHOENIX: "My... What?"

ORIE: "They believe there may be a secret song on your song list or something that you're either embarrassed of, or don't want us to hear."

PHOENIX: "... No. I don't have a 'super special secret'... Or whatever you said.

And besides, even if I did, I wouldn't hide it in my MusicBoxe! If anything, I'd hide it in my laptop!

... Not that I have a secret on there anyway..."

ORIE: "Oh."

PHOENIX: "And that's NOT AN INVITATION, you understand?"

ORIE: "Uh huh!"

Phoenix starts to turn toward the doorway.

PHOENIX: "Good. Well I'm going back to my room to slee-"

ORIE: "Wait!"

Phoenix stops to lock eyes with Ori.

ORIE: "Do you have a minute?"

Orie gestures to the empty sofa seat next to her as Phoenix starts toward her again.

PHOENIX: "For?"

ORIE: "To talk, you know... Like friends do."

PHOENIX: "No thanks, I'm not a talking type dragon."

ORIE: "Please?"

PHOENIX: "Just tell me what you want to say right now. I don't want to sit down."

ORIE: "Alright.

First off, are you feeling okay?"

PHOENIX: "What do you mean?"

ORIE: "Like...

mentally..."

PHOENIX: "As good as usual. Why?"

Orie glances at the bandage around Phoenix's forearm.

ORIE: "You're not... Doing... Uhhhh...

Something with a knife, are you?"

Phoenix glares at her.

PHOENIX: "What are you insinuating?"

ORIE: "I'm just checking up on you...

I'm worried about you, you know?"

Phoenix bares her teeth at Orie.

PHOENIX: "It's not YOUR businesses to worry about me, Orie.

Fucking hell, is everything that happens to me suddenly your business just because you 'care' about me? What, do you want me to give you a reward for pretending to care about me?

Or, do you think I'm your child or something? No. You're not my hatchparent, Orie. You barely even know me. I only live here because I've got nowhere else to go. No other reason.

If you're asking if I'm cutting myself, my answer's no. That's my final answer and I won't change it.

Don't ever bring this up again or I'll actually literally kill you."

Phoenix begins to stomp out the doorway.

ORIE: "But-"

PHOENIX: "Bye."

Orie stares into the doorway as Phoenix disappears into the hall.

She sighs. This wasn't what she needs to hear right now.

She wishes she could help Phoenix somehow, but clearly she has trouble opening up, and lashes out toward her when pressed.

Besides, she has a hard enough time dealing with her own mental health issues, even if they tend to be hidden below surface level.

Orie reluctantly accepts the fact that she won't be able to get through to Phoenix and picks her controller back up to play more Celeste.

Meanwhile, in Phoenix's Lair...

Phoenix storms into the room brushing past Arakados in front of her MusicBoxe DJ System. They barely even look away from the screen with their red dragon eyes.

ARAKADOS: "Oh hi. You look like someone stepped on your tail."

PHOENIX: "DON'T-"

Phoenix stops before getting to her bed and looks at Arakados with an apologetic look.

PHOENIX: "Sorry... please... don't even start with that..."

ARAKADOS: "Alrighty then."

PHOENIX: "Thank you."

Phoenix flops onto her bed with anger and pretends to go to sleep.

Arakados continues searching through Phoenix's laptop, acting as if they are using Phoenix's DJ equipment, as they overheard Phoenix from the loungeroom.

They silently chuckle to themselves about how devious they are, and wonders what kind of secrets Phoenix would have on there.

It's only a matter of time before they're uncovered...

[thedargonden]

[3] SUPER SPECIAL SECRET

October 4th, XX19

10:00 PM

Orie and her partner, Arakados, are sitting next to each other in Phoenix's room with headphones on, listening to music through her DJ Equipment.

Arakados is a black dragon with grey horns and yellow across their red eyes.

ORIE: "She has such a great music selection! Why doesn't she ever allow us in here to listen to it?"

ARAKADOS: "Maybe she has a secret song she doesn't want us to hear."

ORIE: "Oh my god, that makes me want to listen to this more!"

ARAKADOS: "How about we look through everything to find it?"

ORIE: "Ooh, sure Dakka!"

Arakados opens up the screen of Phoenix's DJ equipment. After a moment of thinking, they click a folder named "Song List."

ARAKADOS: "E Z."

Orie crowding behind them, Arakados looks through the song list on Phoenix's DJ equipment.

While searching, a feeling of dread washes over Orie.

ORIE: "Actually, you know, we shouldn't be digging through her stuff."

ARAKADOS: "Nah, I wanna find out all of Phoenix's dark secrets!"

Orie's mind races with visions of a couple minutes with Phoenix in the room. She's definitely going to be here very soon.

ORIE: "We need to get out of here."

ARAKADOS: "I'M NOT STOPPING UNTIL I FIND OUT PHOENIX'S SECRET!"

ORIE: "Nonono, this isn’t a joke, seriously we need to get out! She'll be here any moment!"

ARAKADOS: "Do you really think she would mind me taking a quick peak into her files?"

ORIE: I mean... Probably!

Phoenix suddenly marches into the room, eyes half closed, and holding a knife with red dried liquid on it. She looks at Arakados, waving the knife in their general direction and mumbling incoherently.

Orie stands completely silent, still, and frightened while Arakados (barely noticing what's happening) continues searching through Phoenix's song list.

ORIE: "..."

Phoenix also takes a look at Orie, but only does a tiny scowl from her exhausted face.

Phoenix takes a couple steps toward her bed and then collapses to the floor uncomfortably.

Arakados turns to look at Phoenix and shrugs, then goes back to searching the computer.

ORIE: "... phoenix?"

Phoenix doesn't respond. She's out.

ORIE: "... are you okay?"

No response.

ORIE: "Well in that case..."

;I cast this spell to lift Phoenix up carefully and gently onto her bed and tuck her in so she's comfortable.;

Phoenix carefully and gently lifts up into the air and onto her bed. Her blanket floats over her and tucks her in like Orie's spell said.

Phoenix cradles the red covered knife like a teddy bear, next to her snoot.

ORIE: "I wonder what she was doing with that knife...

Arakados moves over to look at the knife Phoenix is holding."

ARAKADOS: "Probably cutting... really juicy pumpkins? That are... red? Like, really red pumpkins?"

Orie tiptoes on all fours toward Phoenix's bed to sniff the knife. While Orie's close to the knife, Phoenix shuffles in her sleep and almost cuts her with it. She jumps away, a bit scared.

ORIE: "Well, it's definitely not pumpkins...

Hrm... I hope she's okay... and didn't go on some murderous rampage or something..."

Orie notices a bandage tied around her wrist with blood splattered on it.

ORIE: "Or... did something to herself..."

Arakados looks over again.

ARAKADOS: "Did she get into a fight?"

ORIE: "Maybe, but I don't know where a fight could have happened around here."

ARAKADOS: "Where did the derg go?"

ORIE: "I have no idea..."

ARAKADOS: "Anyway, come here. We gotta find the super special secret!"

Orie looks at Phoenix's knife and then to the bandage.

ORIE: "... No thanks, I feel sick to my stomach right now... I'm gonna go lay down."

ARAKADOS: "Okie dokie, dergie."

Orie walks out of the room and directly down the stairs, extremely worried about Phoenix.

She knows Phoenix struggles with depression, but not exactly what from, or if there even is a reason.

Her anxieties consume her from the causes of Phoenix's injury.

She didn't... do that, did she? Surely it's just a fight wound...

But what if it's not?

[thedargonden]

[2] NIGHT TERRORS

October 1st, XX19.

6:00 PM.

In the loungeroom of the den, Orie is playing a game on her Switch in TV mode.

Her silver scales glisten in the light of the TV. In front of her on the coffee table is a half glass of root beer. She's getting ready to climb a section of a mountain in the game.

She pauses the game and sets down the controller, about to grab the glass of root beer. She stops before she touches it and instead touches the end of her curved purple horns with her purple claws.

ORIE: ;I enchant this glass of root beer to float over and let me sip it when I need to.;

The glass follows her Myrkur enchantment and floats over to her. She slurps some root beer and wipes her snoot with her backhand.

ORIE: "Why didn't I think of this before? This is so much easier!"

The root beer floats in agreement. She brushes her sky blue Idnagol mane back out of her eyes and grabs the controller again. Her top blue and bottom purple glowy eyes shine with determination in the minimal light.

In the game, she jumps on a bouncepad that sends her to a block that launches her across the chasm. She dashes into another launcher block that shoots her up to a platform.

ORIE: "Yes!"

Excitedly, she makes the character jump below a wall on the ceiling and tries dashing up to get to the next platform.

Instead, she misses the platform and falls into the pit below, dying.

ORIE: "Oops..."

She drinks the rest of her root beer, but notices that the empty glass still floats in front of her.

ORIE: "Right, I need to take the enchantment back..."

;.ot deen I nehw ti pis em tel dna revo taolf ot reeb toor fo ssalg siht tnahcne I;

The glass promptly falls onto the carpet with a thud in response.

Orie gets back to her game, more determined than ever to finish this first level.

Meanwhile, through the hall, into Phoenix's Lair...

Phoenix's purple scales and pink horns, underbelly, and Myrkuran spikes are difficult to see in the dark for dragons such as herself, but she’s asleep, so it doesn’t matter that much

PHOENIX: "heeeaaaayyyhhhhhh, put dhaa shrrrrimmmps hooOn the bahhhHHHbieee!"

She seems to be mumbling in her sleep, saying nonsensical things from a very strange dream.

PHOENIX: "rrrrhrhhhhawwwwr... Iiiiii'mmmmmm a rrrhhhombuuusssss...

whhhot's dddaah wwwwwwecccomendeddd ammmmmounnnnttt of dddeh... ditayyyytedd wwwhaam..."

Phoenix's dream suddenly focuses on something specific.

PHOENIX: "Iiii'll dhoo whhhhhatevver yyyouuu sssay, Quuuueeenh peeerseuuuushhh...

Kiiilllll thhhhis perssssson? Sssssuuuure whhhy nooot!"

Phoenix's legs start twitching, her hands grip into fists, and her eyes squint into a disturbed expression.

PHOENIX: "I'm ttttttotalllly okkkkay with it....!

Sssssssssure, I'llllll killll your eex ppppaartnnnnner.... nnnot likkke mmmmy opinnnnion matttttters tttooo yyyou, yyyyour maaaajestttty..."

She starts shivering and breathing harder, tears begin to form out of her eyes.

PHOENIX: "........

Iii'm sorrrrry queennnnnnn..... Iiii ccccouldn't finnnish hhhhim.... Iiii waasssss tttttoo scccaredddd...

........

nnnno... yyyyou cccan't ddddo ttttthat ttto mme... Iii'llllllllll ddddo annnnyttthingggg...

..........

Yyyyyyyour...?

Yyyyou wwwant mee tto... kkkill yyyyourr... whhat?"

She starts shaking hard and tears stream onto her mattress.

PHOENIX: "...............

... I'llll dddo it...

... I'llllll k-killl hhhher..."

Her silent crying turns to loud sobbing that anyone could hear from inside the house.

Orie pauses her game and runs through the hallway, past the basement stairs, and into Phoenix's room.

ORIE: "Phoenix! Are you okay? Do you need help?!?"

Phoenix jumps awake and quickly wipes her tears, assessing the situation.

PHOENIX: "h-HEY! What are you doing in here?!? I told you to NEVER come in here!!!"

She's obviously anxious and mad and confused as her voice quivers while talking,

ORIE: "You were crying... I heard you from the lounge... Are you okay, Phoenix?"

Phoenix stares at Orie for a moment.

PHOENIX: "Will you go the fuck away?"

ORIE: "Only if you tell me what's wrong."

PHOENIX: "Fine! I'm not okay! But I don't want to talk about it.

Now SHUT UP and let me go back to sleep."

She slams her snout back into her pillow.

ORIE: "Well first, at least let me give you a hug. Alright?"

Phoenix peeks her pink glowy eyes from the pillow and glares at Orie.

PHOENIX: "NO WAY!"

ORIE: "Too bad. Hug incoming."

PHOENIX: "NO!"

Orie shuffles past Phoenix's DJ equipment and to her bed. Before she could shift away, Orie scoops her dragon arms around Phoenix's shoulders and rests her head on the side of her neck. Orie's slightly bigger size makes her heavier than Phoenix too. The purple dragon stays completely still, covering a blush.

ORIE: "Aww! You're enjoying it! You sappy derg!"

PHOENIX: "Shut up, please go away."

ORIE: "I've read your mind, I know inside your hard mean shell is a really cute small dragon who really cares about people!"

Phoenix throws Orie off of her with a furious look.

PHOENIX: "OKAY, YOU CAN FUCK OFF RIGHT OUT OF MY THOUGHTS THIS INSTANT!"

ORIE: "I'm not reading your mind right now! I don't just violate your mindspace whenever I please or without your permission, that would just be rude!

But fine, just know you're not fooling me, Phoenix! Even without my abilities, your cuteness is showing through your blush!"

Phoenix buries her snout into her pillow, screaming in frustration as Orie goes away.

She lifts her head up and calls out into the empty door frame

PHOENIX: "WHY ARE THERE NO DOORS IN THIS FUCKING HOUSE?!?!?"

ORIE: "Because I'm lazy!

Besides, you can always create one with your Myrkuran Sorcery!

I'd do it, but... lazy!"

PHOENIX: "UUUGH!!!!"

The rest of the night, Phoenix sleeps... like normally.

She'd always had night terrors. That's just what she'd always known.

Nothing she can do about it.

Besides, she deserves to have these awful dreams, so who is she to try to stop them?