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[Foxikoosh]

Katare had never, not even as a kid when they moved around frequently, adjusted well to sleeping in unfamiliar places. And even though the wyrmling barracks were not so different from the candidate quarters, they were just different enough to make sleeping even more difficult than it ordinarily was. Llachar had no problems, though. He claimed a spot next to Kat's head, almost on her pillow, and sacked out in a heap of limbs and neck and tail. But she did eventually drop off to sleep, however uneasy the slumber. Whether it was the presence of something new in her head with her, however unthreatening, or a result of being in a different room, or just bad luck, she was plagued by vague nightmares most of the night. She woke herself up five times and fell asleep again every time, but the last one she couldn't quite awaken herself.

It wasn't really much of a dream to start with. She found herself in her old village, which did make her hesitant, but it wasn't scorched and burned and horrible, so she shrugged it off and picked her way in amongst the houses and things, looking for people. She looked for her friends, but they weren't there, and she looked for her family, but they weren't there either. It was like they were all gone. Crestfallen, she stood in her family's old home and looked around. And then she heard a sound to make her blood run cold- her brother's voice. Her older brother, shouting in fear, or pain, or warning. She couldn't tell which, but she swung the bow from her back and tore out of the house. Now the village was burning, people suddenly present and trying to flee while a big dragon, a bright Fire, took passes overhead, spewing fire from its jaws on the hapless people below. Katare listened for her brother and heard him again, and took off at a dead run in his direction, but in only moments she heard her name again from another direction. It kept happening, the voice jumping around, as she grew more and more upset, dashing helplessly for the panicked calls of her entire family. Ashes blew up and singed the front of her shirt, and she tried to brush them off. She called back to her family, letting them know she was coming. She would find them.

"KATARE!" someone shouted, her brother's voice but not, and she found herself startled awake, a shout frozen in her throat, sitting up in bed with Llachar attached to the front of her with his prick-point little glass claws. It was his claws, not ash, that had stung her front, as he'd tried to awaken his panicked bonded. She shuddered in surprise at finding herself in her bed and yanked her knees up to her chin to bury her face against them as she heaved a sob. Llachar slithered out of the way and to her shoulder, making distressed little sounds at her because he couldn't tell what was wrong, except she'd awakened him with her panic and now she was very sad and he couldn't fix it. He put his head against her cheek, wrapped himself around her neck, and hummed.

"Lass, 's alright lass, you're here now. Please stop cryin'," he murmured at her, flooding her with safety and security and calm as much as he could keeping up a litany of soft muttering until her shoulders stopped shaking and she was breathing normally, if still sniffling. When she uncurled slightly, he leaned forward to look her in the eyes. To his surprise, she gently picked him off her shoulder and held him as if he were a comforting puppy, warm and fluffy and snuggling in her arms with merry puppy abandon. So he did his best, nudging his nose up under her chin and pressing against her chest as if he was trying to occupy the same space as her. He yawned, and she smiled at him sadly.

"Sorry, Llachar," she said hoarsely. She looked up from the little Glass and in Merla and Zodiac's general direction, afraid she'd awakened them in somewhat of a rude way with her shouting. "Sorry Merla, Zodiac," she said to the darkness, but couldn't bring herself to go back to sleep. Not after that. Llachar gave her a last full-body nudge and then extricated himself from her arms to sit in front of her on the bed. He arched his neck primly back to look at her, his lavender eyes bright. Then he tipped his head to the side.

"Nightmares, mine? Y'needs must not worry for your safety, y'know," he said silkily, and she smiled softly.

"It was not that, Llachar. I'm fine now. Do not worry," she said. He gave her a cunning look of slightly narrowed eyes that suggested he was about to enquire further as to the nature of her dreams, so she forestalled him by speaking up to her roommate. "Merla? You are alright? I did not mean to frighten either of you," she asked, well aware that being awakened in the middle of the night by a shouting, panicked roommate and her dragon could certainly be disturbing.

[Zinc]

The move to a new location hadn’t bothered Merla much. The Wyrmlings barracks, if anything, were in a bit better shape than the Candidate’s quarters. The rooms were also quite a bit bigger. To her joy, she had been placed within the same room as her friend, Katare. She was glad for this, seeing as she felt she’d found little acquaintances amongst the newest class of wyrmlings, though she had talked to one or two of them during the feast not long ago. There were beds for the new riders as well as beds that were established for the breed of the wyrmlings, one for Zodiac and one for Llachar. They were small now, but Merla had no doubt that as the months would pass, they’d fill out the space in the rooms with their bulk. If Zodiac and Llachar’s parents showed any indication of possible size, they’d soon have two large golden wyrms living within the spaces of these walls.

The only real adjustment she felt troubled by was the bed. It felt different, and smelled old and unused. The same had been the case of the Candidates beds when she’d occupied her quarters, but by the time that she’d come to bond, it had picked up her own natural scent as well as the smells of the room that she and Katare had inhabited. It was just going to be time to adjust. The oddest thing about sleeping, Merla decided, was Zodiac. The young Celestial had taken it upon himself from day one to push himself onto her bed to sleep beside her. At a little over six feet in length, propping his entire self upon her bed was a challenge, and adding wings to that only made it more so. Despite this, the wyrmling was stubborn and managed to contort himself into a form that allowed him to comfortably rest, if not with his tail and one of his wings draping off the bed. Merla was left to take up the rest of the bed, and Hugin had found another place to perch himself within the room, where he could keep an eye on the two golden dragons that fascinated him so.

Even with Zodiac splayed out like a limp noodle, Merla was surprised to find that sleeping wasn’t as uncomfortable as she thought it would be. With the new presence in her mind and the peace of the sleeping dragon so close, it was easy to relax and settle down within her blankets. It didn’t take long before she was asleep altogether. Unlike her room-mate and her unsettling dreams, Merla’s was relatively peaceful. Sights and smells of the forest permeated her thoughts and a tangible presence, most likely Zodiac, was lingering on the outer reaches of her consciousness. It was odd, experiencing another mind within her dream, but they didn’t interfere with anything that swept through her rest. But it seemed that all too quickly, the time for dreaming and sleep was over. Alarm shot through her mind causing her to bolt upright in her sleep, as Zodiac himself bolted awake from Katare’s screaming, the sigils on his side, once dim in his sleep blazing into full glorious white and silver.

A snarl of warning etched onto his maw as he planted himself upright he called out “What’s wrong? I’ll-“ he didn’t finish his sentence as his foot, planted on the edge of the bed, slipped off as the nature of the mattress gave way. The result was him slipping forwards and faceplanting onto the marble floor beneath him. A low groan was all Merla heard from him as his blazing sigils guttered to a dim glow, her eyes sought out the form of Katare’s bed in the faint light, and the source of the screaming. Llachar, her own bonded dragon was calling for her to calm down. A dream? Was that all that had startled her room mate? Merla’s startled breathing lowered a notch, and relief and calm started to flood through her, pressing against the resistant wall of startled ferocity that Zodiac was trying to erect. He pulled the rest of his body off the bed and shook himself out. “Oh my head…” he muttered, working his jaw to make sure nothing was injured.

Merla heard a quiet apology from Katare across the room, and called back in a hushed whisper, “It’s alright.” If anything, she could understand nightmares. After her encounter with the Forest so long ago, she’d had persistent night terrors regarding it. A shudder worked itself up her spine at only the memories. She shut her eyes and exhaled. This was not the time to dwell. She cast her feet out of her blankets and leaned over to see to Zodiac. “Are you alright?” she asked him, taking his head gently in her hands. “Fine. Fine.” He grumbled. “I just hit my jaw…pretty hard…” his crest had ruffled up with some embarrassment.

“You’re not injured?” she asked him carefully, afraid that he might have harmed something upon himself even from the short fall. At the shake of the Celestial’s head, she let out a gentle sigh of relief. “Good.” She murmured, and stroked a hand over his forehead, smoothing down his crest. He gave a faint purring rumble and then pulled his head away, his sigils lighting up again as he looked across the room to Katare.

“We’re both alright.” Zodiac called quietly, the faintly illuminated outline of his body crept across the room in the direction of Katare’s bed. Merla stood and followed after him. “I think that the better question would be are you okay?” he asked her quietly. He glanced at Llachar, who he figured was probably wondering the same thing.

[Foxikoosh]

Katare winced as she heard Merla ask her dragon if he was alright, sorry that she had so thoroughly disrupted their slumber with her carrying on. It was dark in the room, so dark that the sudden illumination of Zodiac's sigils caused both dragon and hatchling to blink in surprise and jump. Katare was still twitchy, jumpy in the aftermath of that dream, but as Zodiac came closer, she heaved a sigh and forced tense back muscles to relax, shivering slightly as they did so.

Llachar abandoned his perch on her shoulder to hop down onto the bed next to her so he could say hello to Zodiac and Merla as they came closer. Katare shifted slightly so her back was leaning against the wall along the one side of her bed, arms wrapped around her knees as she sat semi-cross-legged on the heaped and tangled linens that, when she'd gone to bed, had been neatly tucked at all corners. She'd contrived to wrap them around herself and then subsequently thrown them off in the throes of her nightmare.

Having dipped his nose to say hi to Celestial and rider, Llachar turned and arched his graceful neck back to look at his rider, curiosity written all over his slim face. Katare looked back at him, a little defiantly, if he wasn't mistaken. She didn't look frightened anymore, at least. She did look stubborn. He turned to Zodiac and Merla and flicked his wings.

"I asked 'er, but I don't think she wants to talk about it," he said softly, which made Katare feel a little guilty. She didn't want to talk about it, that was true, but there was also no need for Llachar to be going on as if he was taking it personally. Sensing that his rider was now frowning mightily at him, Llachar did an about face and leaped neatly onto her knee, looking up at her.

"Are you okay, mine?" he asked in repetition of Zodiac's question. Katare looked at her little audience of three and shifted, uncomfortable at having three undivided attentions. Llachar's undivided and overly curious attention was plenty, she didn't need two more to add to it. The nightmares were bad enough, without having to share them, which she was convinced would only make them worse, rather than better for the burden having been shared. She shook her head at Zodiac, not entirely able to lie, but her answer was to the contrary of the shake of her head.

"I am fine. They are only nightmares," she answered softly, reaching a hand out to Llachar, almost as if for reassurance. He realized what she was doing and leaned forward so that her palm rested on his head. "We all have them, yes? They are nothing," she said, more to reassure herself than as a statement, "Only... only ghosts," she added in a quieter voice. Ghosts of an old existence, she meant, or the ghosts of her family, probably haunting her because they'd had no proper burial. She'd never found them, not in the charred remains of the village. It had burned too hot, she assumed. Llachar was looking at her again, and whined softly. What had so frightened his rider? Why was she avoiding it so thoroughly?

"Llachar. It is alright. Stop worrying," she said tiredly, and he shuffled his shoulders in slight annoyance. Then he gave a little flap of his wings and looked around at everyone. "Well, I couldn't possibly sleep now. When's the sun up?" he asked with far too much enthusiasm for the hour.