Flamefound, Ch. 1
Run, run faster. Faster than fire, lest it catch.
Azira woke with a start, the nightmare's warmth clinging to his pelt and the strange voice echoing its last words. For a moment he was frozen in terror, still watching heartbroken as his bookshop burned to mere ash. His bedmate stirred, mumbling and tugging at his partner's mane, "Az...jus' a dream, go back to sleep."
The pale-furred Tundra frowned, unwilling or unable to shake that unnerving nightmare. He murmured, gentle as he untangled from his partner, "It won't take me a tick to check and be back, I promise."
Crowfell had already slipped back into his weary slumber, the Guardian splaying out again without his mate to curl back into, hogging blankets as usual. Azira couldn't resist dropping a quick peck on his horn before creeping out of their shared room and towards the door that led downstairs to the bookshop proper. There was the faint pitter-patter of rainfall, and the scent of lightning in the air, as if a storm had passed in their sleep.
He couldn't shake the feeling of something still coming, stormlike in its strength and ferocity. A sense of foreboding that troubled his heart more than his mind. But he could not smell smoke, nor anything amiss as he padded downwards, then nudged open into the darkened stacks of stored books waiting to be sorted in the morning. Nothing peculiar, except-- well, as he meandered towards the front, he noticed something fluttering, caught in the letter-slot and crumpling as it strained between the worlds of in and out. The wind seemed to catch it and he nearly missed it before he curled his claws and tugged it inside. With that, the strange scroll unrolled, roughcut hide rather than paper, charcoal rather than ink, words few but meaningful writ upon it.
DANGER GROWS NEAR. CHILD MAY YET LIVE WITH YOU. PLEASE.
Oddly polite. He did not understand the message till a soft cry broke the rhythm of the rain, painful in its longing and confusion. He opened the door and there was a pitiful ball of fur, eyes brimming with tears not yet fallen, wings far too small to have carried the poor thing. The hatchling chirped, an almost hopeful sound, before leaping at his feet and cuddling up to him.
His heart, there and then, broke for the first time in his life.
The decision was made for him, and he spoke with a voice far kinder than any the child had ever heard before, "Do you like cookies little one?"
...>