Valor bolted upright, eyes glancing wildly around the small bedroom they'd sectioned off in the house they'd built, scanning for any danger, any threat.
He curled forward and covered his mouth with one hand as shaky breaths escaped him, while the other grasped at the blanket beneath him, far softer for the feathers that were hidden underneath it. Feathers from a thornripper he'd hunted down earlier that same day. Focused on just setting up a place to stay, they'd yet to gather enough potion ingredients to go into town and sell enough to get any actual mattresses, and the giant bird had had the misfortune of passing by while they were trying to figure out what to line the bedroom with in the meantime. Not only did they have plenty of feathers now, but also more than enough fresh meat for the coming days.
A quiet chirp from Swift caught his attention. She flew up onto his knee and cooed at him softly, and he quickly scooped her up to hold her to his chest as his whole body shook. He looked to Flicker, still sleeping beside him. Thank the titan he hadn't woken them.
Belos wasn't going to find him. Even if he'd happened to have lived so long to be alive now, which Valor doubted, he wouldn't know him. Wouldn't know him as a traitor or failure or someone that just could never get anything right no matter how hard he tri-
Swift chirped at him again, and he took another shaky breath. Right. It's okay. It's fine it's fine it's fine. Belos was unfair to him. Belos set impossible standards. He could do things fine.
He really wished he could actually believe that.
Valor laid back down in the makeshift bed, trying to calm down enough to go back to sleep despite how his mind was racing.
It was an hour later that he gave up. He needed to do something, go flying, clear his mind. That always helped him get back to sleep after nightmares. Pearl was going to wonder what he was doing up, but he couldn't just lie here for the rest of the night. He needed to do something.
Careful not to wake Flicker, he stood up and brushed off of himself feathers that had escaped from beneath the blanket they were sleeping on, then slowly made it to the doorway. He peeked out to first see where Pearl was, eyes glowing with a dimness that was only noticeable in the dark of night.