Prologue: Nightmares

It was a placid morning in the valley. The sun shone illuminating the crystal clear water of the lake, and the lush trees made a pleasant rustle as they were brushed by the wind. Rhaegal loved that peace, and with a smile on his face he drank the clear water. He was sure that today would be as peaceful and fun as any other; for some strange reason he couldn't remember those others, but he was sure they had been good. He had no reason to believe today would be any different.

Around him, his brothers and sisters enjoyed the sun and played continuously. Rhaegal noticed Darbi rolling around in the mud while Keita and Tikka made some weird jokes, Kotaru watched them smiling, and Maldor stood a little aside laughing too. A little further on he could also see Sisna, Teramon, Corgorin and many others.

"Hey, brother" a voice suddenly said behind him. Rhaegal turned around and saw the smiling face of Haku, who was walking towards him. "Won't you join us? Darbi had proposed to play his strange game of stones"

Rhaegal smiled back. He had always been like this, his precious brother: he always wanted to include him in their games, always wanted to have him by his side. He never wanted to leave anyone behind. This was Haku, the Haku who wouldn't change for the world. "I'm happy to join" he said. "Let me finish my drink and..."

But suddenly, a shadow passed over him. The world turned black as two gigantic wings obscured the sun. Rhaegal looked up to see the shape of a gigantic dragon hurtling towards him, jaws wide open and claws outstretched to grab him. His brothers and sisters screamed in fear and ran in all directions, and Rhaegal felt paralyzed with terror. He couldn't move a muscle, his whole body seemed to have frozen, and his mind was lost in the murderous and ravenous eyes of that monster. The dragon would surely have grabbed him, if it weren't for Haku who lunged at him and pushed him away. "Move! Run!" his brother yelled at him, advice well accepted by Rhaegal who fled towards the trees.

Haku and Rhaegal entered the dense forest, which had suddenly gone from lush and green to dry and barren, with dead grass and skeletal trees devoid of leaves. The dragon chased after them, uprooting every plant in its path and trampling everything. Its roar was heard throughout the valley, making Rhaegal's blood run cold. But there was nothing he could do to stop that monster, just keep running for his life.

As they ran, Rhaegal noticed the silhouette of another adult dragon nearby. A dragon with red and blue scales. It was his mother! Hope entered in his heart again and he headed in that direction. "Rhaegal, no! You know she won't protect us from our father!" Haku yelled after him, but he didn't listen. He wanted to believe it wasn't true, that his mother would protect him; he was her son after all, wasn't he? She was strong, she could hunt the other dragon!

"Mother!" he yelled at her trying to get noticed, but the dragon barely gave him a smug look. Only when he was close enough did she finally turn towards him, albeit with clear reluctance. "Our father is returned again! Cast him out!" Rhaegal told her.

But his mother let out an annoyed snort. "Why should I? As I give a damn about you. Go get yourself eaten. A dragon that comes to ask its mother for help… you're not worth saving. You're pathetic"

Rhaegal froze at the words. No, it couldn't be true! Had even his mother abandoned him? Was there no one who would defend him from his father's fury? The other dragon's footsteps were getting closer by the second, but Rhaegal didn't have the strength to keep running. He was tired, he didn't want to fight anymore. He wanted to stop being afraid. He wanted someone to protect him...

And that someone came. Haku appeared in his field of vision and grabbed him by one horn, forcing him to keep running. For a moment, a brief moment, that gesture seemed to rekindle a spark in Rhaegal's heart, and he followed his brother. Soon a small cave appeared in his field of vision, and hope filled his heart again: if they had reached it, their father would have no way of chasing them...

But just as they were about to enter the cave, Rhaegal felt his tail grab him and lift him up. Haku held out her paw to him and he grabbed it, holding it tight; his brother planted himself on the ground with all paws free, clawing at the rock to avoid being dragged away. Rhaegal was squeezed between his father, who tried to detach him from his brother, and between Haku who tried to hold him back. But Rhaegal saw the doubt in his brother's eyes... Haku knew that soon he would lose his grip, and that they would both be devoured. There was no way to save both of them...

"Haku!" Rhaegal exclaimed in panic. "Brother... brother, help me!"

But in response Haku stared into his eyes with a terrifying look. A blank, murderous, cruel gaze. And there was a smile on his face, not a benign smile as he was used to seeing it, but a distorted, evil one, like a true psychopath. And then Haku spoke, and he said words Rhaegal had heard him say once before, though they were a little different. "Long live the... king!"

And with that he lifted his right paw and struck Rhaegal on the cheek, leaving three deep wounds. Such was the pain and surprise that Rhaegal let out a scream and let go of his brother, who fled into the cave. Rhaegal was hurled into the air, and beneath him his father's monstrous mouth opened, his throat was like an endless pit, blacker than the deepest of abysses, and he fell into it screaming in despair, and as he fell upon him the sun disappeared completely as his father's jaws closed...

"NOOOOO!"

Rhaegal's eyes widened and his head jerked up, his heart pounding and his breathing ragged. It took him a moment to realize that it had all been a dream. He and his siblings had left their mother's territory long before, their parents were long dead, and he was currently hiding inside the hold of a ship, because he had accomplished an important mission to free some beastmen prisoners in a labor camp and was now on his way back to reunite with his family and their other allies.

With that knowledge in mind, his breathing finally slowed, even though his heart didn't stop pounding. He grit his teeth angrily. He hoped no one had heard; what would he look like if that were the case? He could already hear them, the jokes about a dragon having nightmares! He was certainly not someone who depended on the opinion of others, but he still had his dignity. Fortunately it seemed that no one had noticed anything, or someone would have already run to check how he was.

To calm down he began to circle the room continuously. Exercise helped clear his mind. Perhaps, if he continued long enough, his heart rate would return to normal. After all, he wasn't going to be able to fall asleep again that night anyway.

Suddenly the door opened and a human figure entered. It was Serengal, inside her avatar. "Rhaegal, sorry to wake you up, but I've been talking to our siblings and...". She stopped and an expression of despondency came over his face. "Uh...another nightmare?"

Rhaegal snorted and looked away in embarrassment. "How did you understand that?"

"Your pupils are dilated and your nostrils are extremely open, and where you used to sleep there is a pool of sweat" Serengal answered as she came closer to him. "I thought you had... solved this thing"

Rhaegal snorted. In fact, it had been a long time since he'd had a nightmare, or at least one of this magnitude. Maybe it was because he'd had his mind busy with the mission, and now that everything was sorted out and he didn't have to think about anything anymore his defense had collapsed. He let out a sigh-like huff. He had hoped that the time spent without nightmares was a sign that they had ceased... but apparently he was only deluded. They still haunted him, from that fateful night when Haku hit him.

They were always the same: their father attacked him, everyone except Haku abandoned him, and then the latter to save himself hit him making him lose his grip and using him as a sacrificial victim, repeating to him the same words he had said when he killed their mother time before (even if with a variation of the subject due to the different gender). The setting changed each time, but often it was their mother's old territory, where they had lived now more than two years ago. Sometimes in his father's place there was a hydra, other times there was his mother, although much more often she played the role of a simple spectator who didn't care what was happening.

Serengal sighed. "I still think you should talk to Haku about it" she told him.

Rhaegal shook his head. "No. He just managed to rekindle that flame that fed him and that went out more than a year and a half ago. I can't risk putting it out again now that it's still so weak. Haku... Haku mustn't know this"

Rhaegal didn't want to spoil his brother's happiness. He knew that if Haku had known about his nightmares, and especially what these nightmares consisted of, he would have been gripped by despondency. Perhaps he would thought that Rhaegal considered him a despicable being. Which couldn't be further from reality: Rhaegal knew very well that Haku would never abandon him, he had proof of that when he almost died to save him and all the others from the hydra. Rhaegal knew that his dreams were just stupid and indeed he was ashamed of not being able to control them. But she knew that Haku wouldn't see it the same way, so it was better that she didn't know anything.

And then, even if he told her, what could Haku have done? Those dreams weren't caused by her behavior. They were a matter for Rhaegal and his mind. Other than despairing and feeling sorry for him, and obviously hating himself for allowing such a situation, Haku wouldn't be able to do anything else. Haku couldn't enter Rhaegal's mind and take those nightmares away. Nobody could. "He can't help me and I don't want him to lose his confidence again. No need to tell him" he said.

Serengal shook his head. "I know your intentions are good, but... I can't stand seeing you like this" she murmured. "There must be a way to fix it..."

"There isn't, sister. Or at least, we don't know a single one. If we did, do you think we'd have all these problems?" Rhaegal snapped. "There's nothing we can do but wait. Sooner or later the nightmares will stop. And until then, we just have to pretend everything's okay"

Rhaegal didn't want Haku to know how much his trauma still haunted him. She knew that if she told him he would blame himself (rightly, technically) and maybe get depressed again. He didn't want that to happen, so he had done everything to try to make him believe that things were getting better for him. He slept away from him so he wouldn't know he was having nightmares, he tried to talk to him in a normal way, and he smiled and joked as best he could. Unfortunately his brother was very intelligent and surely he had noticed certain signs, Rhaegal could see it in his eyes. Haku knew that not everything was going as well as Rhaegal wanted him to believe in an attempt to rebuild their relationship.

One event in particular was imprinted on the young dragon's mind. It had been a few weeks before Rhaegal left on his mission. He and Haku were sitting alone talking about something, and his brother noticed a stain on his face and offered to wipe it away, but as soon as he lifted his paw Rhaegal jerked out of the way. He hadn't done it voluntarily: his body was frozen and moved on its own. Rhaegal clearly remembered Haku's crushed and devastated expression at that moment. To prevent that incident from happening again, he had told himself that next time he would have to maintain greater control, but he knew he wouldn't succeed: that hadn't been quick reflexes, it had been motor memory. It was his body's automatic response to the trauma he'd suffered over a year and a half ago.

Rhaegal couldn't allow that scene to repeat itself. Haku had recently taken the first step towards some sort of recovery, and was slowly getting back to what he used to be. But Rhaegal knew that if that event happened again, Haku's heart would break. He couldn't let that happen. He had to be strong, for his brother and for himself too. After all, it was just nightmares and a little fear: nothing Rhaegal hadn't already faced… though not with such intensity.

Serengal seemed willing to tell him something, but she didn't have time to do so: hurried footsteps were heard and a lionman suddenly entered the hold, visibly panting. "Sir, we have a problem" he said, and looking into his frightened eyes Rhaegal knew he wasn't talking nonsense at all.

His body stiffened, this time with real-world danger. But ironically, he felt more comfortable dealing with that. "What is it about?" he asked the lionman with a voice full of determination. His body was filled with adrenaline and he was ready to fight against any opponent.

He would think about nightmares another time.

Now, the real world claimed him.

Now, he had to deal with real problems.

Now, he really had to fight.