Ash POV

I roll my now smaller blue eyes as the whimpering continued.

I was fixing Cade's broken wing in my human form as he groans in pain and 'pure agony' as I reajust the bones back into their sockets.

I had shifted back because Cade refused to walk all of the three miles back to the academy, and the crimson Dragon has nudged a bag of clothes towards me with his snout that he had managed to pack before we escaped.

I made sure I was well concealed behind a large oak before I shifted. It turned out I didn't need the clothes, as they reappeared on my body as soon as my ligaments and limbs contracted in on themselves.

It was painful, but not as much as the first few times. I suppose I would have to get used to it.

I didn't deliberate over why I still had clothes on, when I had grown and shrank so much in such a short space of time. But I changed into the clothes in the bag anyway, as to not to look suspicious, as the Dragon had handed me clothes for a reason after all, and pulled on the knee-high lace up boots, my feet flowing perfectly into the shoes that had looked much to big. Huh. Strange.

My brother's complaints pulled me back to the present.

"All right, all right, okay, I know it hurts soooooo much, but please! Be still! A snake doesn't hiss and wriggle as much as you you do, dear brother of mine," I say, my voice dripping with saecasm as I twist the bat-like tendons of his wings one last time. He yowls like a dramatic woman giving birth, digging his talons into the dirt. I roll my eyes.

"It's fine now, you can move it. It wasn't even broken, you big wuss." I jump down from his back, landing in the wet leaves, sending a spray of water around me.

"And how do you know exactly?" He replies, still groaning in his massive form, his words coming in a strange hiss from his forked tongue.

"You're an over-sized bat. There's plenty in the barn at home that the cat caught and abandoned on the back doorstep." I smirk, gauging his reaction to my bat comment. He wasn't taking it well, considering the look on his face. I suppose I could read him perfectly, even when he was Dragon form. We were twins after all, I guess that's why.

"That feral thing is still alive?" He questions, and I imagine his eyebrows scrunching until they blend together, "I thought she'd be long gone by now, either dad would have killed it or it would have ran away, with the way you chase it."

"Yup," I say, popping the 'p', skipping away, adding, just to stress him further, "and.... the kittens that she had last year. That are just like her. All six of them!"

I turn around once more, clapping my hands, jumping up and down on the spot.

"They're all so fluffy and cute aswell!" I raise my voice an octave, squealing with clear sarcasm. I knew how he hated that cat. So did dad.

His head drops in between his legs as he mumbles incoherent words to himself. Most likely curses. I giggle evilly, if one can giggle evilly.

All we have to do now is wait for Cade to 'recover' from his 'injury' so we could continue to fly to the academy. He refuses to walk on his human feet. I wasn't too keen on the idea either. We all know how unfit I am. I felt more free in my other form. And flying was the best feeling in the world, of course, what else could beat that?

Except breathing clean air so you could live, I suppose. Well, that was necessary, and took all the fun out of it.

Talking of breathing, I inhale deeply through my nose, marveling at my senses even in human form, ten times as good as a human's but only a fraction of what I would be able to smell if I was shifted right now.

One smell stood out, and that was the one of the red Dragon's, the one who I didn't even know the name of yet. And I had let him squash me to near death. Oh sorry. That my Dragon has let him squash me to near death.

A smell of wood and nutmeg that comforted me in an envelop of warmth, as I pulled it around me like a blanket around my shoulders as I began to drift away into the waves of sleep as my twin's gargantuan body shook with snores that shouldn't be so comforting, but having being separated for so long, I was grateful for the familiar sound from long ago, even if it did sound strange and arrived with a puff of smoke each time he exhaled. It still gave me a sense of home.

Pulling both of these things around me like a fort of pillows, blankets and warmth, I drifted away into a light slumber with nature around me.

~~#~~

My eyes were shut, and I could feel myself struggling to open them. The light was too bright above me and I squinted when my eyelids finally fluttered open to the glare of the unusually bright sun.

The pain in my arm was throbbing fiercely as I felt myself swaying in strong, familiar arms, and curled into their chest while my injured limb drapes outside of their secure hold.

Something tight is wrapped around my arm, obviously to stop the blood, which I can feel soaking through the material, staining it a crimson red. It was running down from just below my elbow to drop off the end of my small pointer finger.

What has happened? My young mind questioned, where was Cade? He came up to the willow tree with m- oh.

The events of this afternoon rushed back to me all at once, causing tears to well in my eyes, and I squeeze them shut, but the tears leak out anyway as I began to thrash in my father's arms, sobbing and shaking as I remember every detail of the horror of having my twin stolen away from me.

"No! No, Daddy! Cade! Cade! Please, Daddy, go back! Go back!" My little lungs shrieks these words over and over again, my mind set in nothing else but Caden, not caring about the pain or the blood anymore.

Caden was gone. My brother was gone. My twin was gone. Nothing mattered anymore as I went limp in the arms of the man that saves the wrong half of a pair of twins.

Exhaustion kicks in once more, as my young mind fades into the darkness with tears still staining my cheeks.