Page 17 of Bitten in the Wild

Maybe I wasn’t dreaming at all! Were the stars really trying to shoot me down? I clung to Nycto’s arm until I spotted the slide and made to dash down it. His mother caught me before I could escape! Her paw rested over both of my legs! Was that her real plan? Was I her real dinner?

“Think about your problems. It’ll distract you. You’re not the first townie to have a bad head after eating them. They’re not food for you. For my son, it is easy to forget you’re a townie – at least in your stomach.”

Problems? What problems did I have except for the stars trying to shoot me?!

“Your people want elf doors,”she reminded me.“Stay still and think. It will help you, mate of my son.”

“The stars are trying to shoot me!”I shouted back at her over the flight link.

A massive red wing stretched out over both Nycto and I. He held me tight, not letting me up to go inside away from the literal shooting stars.

“I’m so sorry, mate. I’m sorry. I forgot about the mushies and the townies. I always eat them. Everyone here eats them. I’m so sorry. I’m such a fucked-up mate! I’ve poisoned you.”

“No, good mate,” I patted his arm and pulled him closer. “If I sleep will this shit stop?”

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Nycto whispered in my ear as I squeezed my eyes shut.

I drifted in and out of the waking world. Each time I came up for air Nycto was still whispering apologies under his mother’s wing. She purred above us as if to soothe us both with her song. It worked a little. At least I knew she wouldn’t let me walk off the side of the nest and plummet to my death. I barely finished the thought before I was gone again.

I came to outside the nest and realized I hadn’t come to at all. I was lost somewhere inside my head or inside the mushies. Frost in a toilet. This sucked! People did this for fun!?

The forest around me was dark and dense. The trees moved in circles as if they all thought their neighbors were a maypole to dance around. A woman with hair as crimson red as the scales of Nycto’s mother stood in the middle of a clearing next to a transparent door. I sprinted over to her, hoping the door would lead me to the world of the waking, but she held up a hand for me to stop. I stopped and waited for her to speak. She only nodded in the direction that her palm faced. I turned to see a silver dragon ghost or spirit. Maybe it was a Frost-damn hologram for all I knew. A thin silver line ran between the silver dragon and the woman with the red hair. The dragon followed the line until it was back inside of her. She glanced at the door next to her and shook her head. That wasn’t the door for me.

She turned on her heels and walked away. The wind and the dancing trees ruffled her long hair just enough for me to notice the points of her ears sticking out through her crimson locks.

“Do you make doors perchance?” I asked her.

“I did. My descendants do,” she said, softly. “I do now, but not in the land of over there. I am over here.”

“Where is over here? Wait!? Am I dead?!”

“Not dead,” she chuckled. “Just lost. Probably tripping on something. The high and the dead always seem to get confused and end up here. This is my grove. These are my trees. They all died with me, you know, but I saved the eggs.”

“Are you a dragon or an elf?” I asked as I followed on her heels.

“Bold of you to assume that I am one or the other. Some of us are both. Even my dragon’s ears are pointed.”

“What’s your name?! See, my crew came from Earthside and we’re trying to figure out how to connect these worlds we’re onnow to the Other World gateway network. It seems you make doors, and we could really use the help. They don’t really do money over there, but they trade a lot and I’m sure they’d be glad to pay you something for your trouble.”

“I am a dead queen. I died saving the eggs of many. I died so that my magic might pour through the veins of my clan and so it has. So it does. You must find them, I’m afraid. I can only make doors here now. Mostly I make them for those who show up intoxicated like you have. Where will you go? Back to the world of your birth or back to your mate?”

“My mate!” I spat out the words.

What a fucked-up question! I wasn’t going back to Earthside and leaving Nycto behind. Mushies aside, our lives blended together into a perfect tapestry.

“Good answer,” she nodded. “He’ll have an egg soon. He’ll need your help.”

She tilted her head as if looking right into whatever my soul was made of.

“Your egg will hatch before the egg that you listened to last,” she said.

“What’s your name?” I asked her again.

“I gave it away too. Now, go home.”

“How do I find your clan?” I asked as she waved a hand and a door became solid in front of me.

“How do you find anyone?” She smiled softly. “Ask about dying worlds. We had humans too. They killed our world but not before killing themselves off and leaving us to deal with the mess they made. My death made the escape of my people and their eggs possible. Someone must remember us if everyone is still using our doors.”

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