Chapter 11: Aftermath

It´s been over a day since the dragons and dragon slayer´s moved away from Dragnof.

Aversia and Zeldaris were still asleep and Challot and Emrissen, who were still in dragon form and coiled themselves around their children, didn´t let anyone except Irene, Vulcan and Igneel even near them.

Everyone who tried would be threatened with a fire breath.

Irene was blaming herself for what happened, but no one thought that it was her fault to begin with.

They tried to convince her that it was Rung´s fault and not her, but she still felt guilty and blamed herself.

Because of that she tried to stay away from them as much as possible, but she was needed to heal their wounds and thus she was always close by them, but she always had thoughts how the two were going to react to her from now on and blame her.

Seeing that they couldn´t get ride of Irene´s guilt, everyone decided that they would wait until Averisa and Zeldaris wake up and try to convince her than.

In the meantime, they had other problems they had to take care of, namely the dragon slayer´s.

They evacuated more than two hundred people and all of them were scared, wounded and or confused.

Some were angry at the dragons and Irene; others were at the edge of despair and the rest were hoping that Irene could help and safe them.

The problem was that Irene was in a spiral of self-blame and guilt and was right now not able to lead them.

And with Belserion still not awake their only hope was that Aversia and Zeldaris would wake up and bring Irene out of her dark thoughts.

Most of the dragons departed from the group, they were afraid that such a large group of dragons would be easily found by Acnologia and by going separate ways they wouldn´t be such a big target for him.

They wanted to find a place where they could hide from him, or at least a way to hide from him.

The dragons that stayed behind wanted to help them until they could fend for themselves or were in a similar situation like Irene and Belserion.

Igneel and Metalicana stayed behind as well, both wanted to help the dragon slayer´s and were curious about Challot´s and Emrissen´s children.

Morning of the second day.

Irene and Vulcan were taking care of Aversia´s and Zeldaris´s wounds, Irene was taking care of Aversia and Vulcan of Zeldaris.

Irene was almost finished when she noticed that Averisa´s eyelids were moving; she was waking up.

Irene called to everyone that Aversia was about to wake up and tried to go away, since she thought that she doesn´t deserve to be one of the people who would greet her when she wakes up and the fact that she was scared about her reaction.

But Emrissen had other plans, she blocked Irene´s way with her arm and made it so that Irene could not go away.

Irene yelled at Emrissen to let her go and tried to for the others help, but they didn´t listen or tried to ignore her.

They all planed this from the beginning that they would force Irene to be present when one or both would wake up, that Aversia would wake up while Irene was treating her was a lucky coincidence.

While Irene franticly tried to get out, Aversia opened her eyes and looked around her.

She didn´t know where she was, but it felt familiar to her.

"Aunt Irene…...", said Aversia with a weak voice.

Irene became even more frantic.

Aversia with some difficulties stood up and slowly walked up to Irene.

When she stood right before Irene turned around, her face was filled with fear and despair.

Irene´s mind was filled with possibilities of what might happen next one darker and worse than the next. (AN: I am not going to dwell to deep into it and let it up to your fantasy.)

But what happened next surprised Irene to her core, Aversia hugged her.

And as she hugged Irene, her body trembled, and Irene could hear her sobbing.

"Aunt Irene …. I ... was so … scared ….. and ... it ... hurt so much. Why? ..... Why ….. did they hurt us so much?", said Avseria while crying all her pain and fear out.

Irene didn´t know what to do, she had many times thought what might happen, but never did she thought this would happen.

(Why, why is she not afraid of me. Why doesn´t she hates me for what happened?)

Irenes emotions were in complete chaos and she couldn´t hold her feelings back anymore.

Tears filled her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Aversia and began to cry her pent-up emotions out as well.

Everyone had a relieved expression as they heard this, but everyone got immediately scared as they saw that Challot and Emrissen were pulling through the ground with their claws.

Both wanted to turn Rung´s kingdom into ash.

Everyone panicked, it took them over three hours to calm them down when they came to this place and they didn´t know if they could do it again.

Aversia noticed the motion in her surroundings and looked confused around.

When she looked up, she saw the face of her mother.

"Mommy!!", yelled Aversia.

The yell of her daughter snapped Emrissen out of her thoughts and she looked down.

Aversia let go of Irene and jumped up and down trying to reach her and calling out to her.

Emrissen lowered her face and brought it next to her.

Aversia run to her and hugged her as well while crying the hole time.

Emrissen´s eyes were filled with affection for her daughter.

She turned back into her human form and hugged her daughter back, tears started to fill her eyes as well.

Vulcan who was finished with treating with Zeldaris wounds walked to his wife and daughter and wrapped his arms around both.

Challot was looking in the meantime at her son who was still asleep.

But as if on commando his eyelids started to move as well.

Soon after Zeldaris opened his eyes as well and what he saw was his mother with a face full of worry.

Zeldaris stretched out his hands trying to reach her while calling out to her.

Challot brought her son beside her face and Zeldaris cried his fear and pain.

Challot also transformed back into her human form and hugged her child with tears in her eyes.

Irene, Igneel and Metalicana looked at this seen with warm eyes.

Suddenly they could hear a groan beside them.

It was Belserion who also was waking up.

Irene run to his side and called out him.

"Irene? Where am I?", asked a confused Belserion.

"Finally, you are awake, I thought you would never wake up."

"Slept long enough."

Both Igneel and Metalicana grinned at Belserion who didn´t understood anything.

Both looked around them.

Challot and Emrissen embracing their children and Irene taking care of Belserion.

They felt that the future would be interesting, but right know they felt awkward in this situation and didn´t know what to do.

They wanted to go to another place but feared that they would interrupt everyone if they did.

In the end they tried to go but they were so loud that both Emrissen and Challot glared angrily at them.

Zeldaris and Aversia who calmed down looked at the two dragons and asked at the same time.

"Who are these Uncles?"