Ash POV

The next time I woke up, it was in a hospital bed, hooked up to I don't know what through a needle that was stabbed in my arm.

Everything was hazy in my young mind and my eyes dragged themselves around the small moss green room that I was in.

There was a man sitting in the corner. He seemed familiar.

I push my mind to remember who he was and why I was here.

Why was I here? I didn't feel any pain, weren't people in hospitals meant to feel pain?

My eyes drift to the man again, suddenly remembering who he was.

My first words to him wereas follows, with a small pinch of hesitation,"Daddy.... Where's mummy?"

He sighs and drags over the chair beside the bed, dragging his hand down his face, as though he was in severe stress.

Even my tiny mind understands why- his wife was about to give birth to a set of twins naturally and his only other child was in hospital aswell.

"She's with the baby, honey," He says, a flash of pain flowing across his eyes.

"Baby? Why only one baby, daddy? Is the other one sleeping?" I ask, looking up at my father in confusion when he has tears flowing down his cheeks. I frown. I don't understand, "It's okay daddy, they're nice and warm snuggled in a blanket, just like me!" I giggle slightly, and he looks at me with pity, but a small smile tugs at his lips.

I gesture to the large green blanket on the bed that was covering me from toes to chin.

As I gesture, I notice the thick bandage on my arm for the first time.

"Daddy, what happened to my arm?" I ask, my mouth turning down at the corners.

My father seems to stumble on his words, "Eh- sweetie, you-you ah, tripped and your arm and landed on a big sharp rock and you banged your head when you tripped aswell, that's why you- ur, don't remember it?" The end of the explanation sounded more like a question than anything else, but I just went along with it.

I bob my head to show agreement, even though I feel as though it isn't the full story.

"Ok, Daddy, I believe you-"

My sentence is cut off as a doctor rushes into the room.

"Sir- it's your wife again, please hurry," she rushes the words out, then dashes out of the room again.

My father smoothed my bright hair from my forehead, whispering in a strange language that he sometimes uses to sooth us- I mean me to sleep. He had always told me it was Gaelic, but mummy was Nannie was teaching me and I don't think it was.

"W-what's happening to mummy?" I yawn unwillingly, fighting to keep my eyes open again.

"Hush. Rest, honey, your body has been trying to heal for three weeks, and you need to be strong, okay?" He rises from his chair, his eyes watching mine as the drowsiness dulls the colours I see until they black out completely as my father's footsteps fade away.

Why am I falling asleep? I want to see the babies! I finally get siblings!

I could still hear muffled voices through the thin walls, and I struggle to hear as I fight to not slip underneath the waves of unconciouness.

"We can't do this to our own daughter, Derek! He's her twin! How long do you think she's going to believe that she never had a brother, my siblings all think I'm dead! We can't do that to Ash!" My mother sounds broken, "We've already lost two children, I can't lose a part of another!"

I can hear her sobs through the haze, why was she crying? I didn't understand!

"Shhh.... young hatchling, sleep, don't worry, I'll wake you..."

~~#~~

I woke up shivering and shaking, a cold sweat running down the back of my neck, soaking through the back of my grey, long sleeved shirt.

The sun was setting on the horizon, basking the clearing in a warm glow while I hug my knees to my chest, thinking over the dream that I knew wasn't really a dream, but a surfacing memory.

How dare they! How dare they take my choices and my freedom!

They had taken away my memories of my brother.

They were desperate, I suppose. There was still no call to do that, even if it did save me pain, I grew up believing I was the only child my parents had before their twins. That wasn't right. Not right at all.

A forceful breeze forces its way through the clearing, disturbing the still long grass as well as sending a wave of shivers through my sweat-drenched body.

I hug my knees, watching the light fade from the sky, listening to the snores behind me. I suppose they were both still shifted and asleep, their heavy breathing backing up this fact. Cade had obviously healed completely, it has been a few hours according to the low position of the sun in the glowing sky.

As it becomes darker, the air becomes colder and the breeze picks up again as the stars begin to twinkle in the sky.

I need to think this through. The only way I could feel as though I can do that freely is if I am flying. It may be a new feeling, but I was already addicted.

I unlace my boots and slip off my socks, leaving them beside Cade so he doesn't think I disappeared in the night. I didn't need to take off my clothes, having learnt that much already.

The pain wasn't agony this time, but my bones still broke one by one, and my gut still twisted and filled to fit in into the hollow space of my long body, an extra heart branching off of the second, to supply my larger lungs with the oxygen they need.

The wings sprout from my back like branches of a tree and unveil themselves behind me, lifting above my head and propelling me into the air in one graceful beat.

The swoop of my wings  resonated through the clearing with a great thrum.

It blew in the direction of the two others, but stops short at the tree line, the trunks becoming too thick. Good thing they were outside the treeline.

Cade starts awake, his eyelids blinking rapidly, growling, unaware what has waken him.

I smirk above him with a curled lip as he spits at me and growls.

"And what was that for exactly?" He grinds out through clenched, razor-sharp teeth. I ignore him and rise higher in the air. I suppose my plan to make a quiet temporary getaway has disappeared with my brother's old happy go-luckly morning person vibe, well, I suppose you couldn't say it was morning. Oh well. We have to leave soon anyway. I can think over what my parents had done then.

"We need to leave as soon as we can to get back to the academy. He-" I bob my hesd to the garnet coloured Dragon,"will help you past the barrier," I state, turning to watch my brother's friend come round as I mention him.

The red Dragon comes around slowly, but once he was awake, he was wide awake and moving.

Grabbing the bag he had packed, he picks up my boots and socks with his talons before he places them in the brown rucksack he holds in his mouth. He seems to sniff them slightly before they are no longer visible. This guy just gets weirder and weirder.

My brother, however, wasn't being particularly helpful.

He was spread out, lying on his scaly back, flattening the grass while scratching his less armoured stomach with a long, silver talon.

Our dragons weren't identical, just as we weren't in human form. While his scales and talons had hints of silver, I was completely gold from horns to my back talons.

We do look very alike, except for those details and the fact that we were the opposite gender, of course.

~~#~~

We were finally ready to go, after a lot of work getting Cade up and running. With a lot of nipping from my end and a lot of snapping and growling on his. But we were ready, albeit with one emmensly grouchy Dragon standing beside me, in the middle of the two of us, just in case he decides to drop down to the trees for a midnight nap. This was quite likely to happen, with the way things were looking.

As we take to the skies all at once, the trees are bent back with the force of the large draught made by three pairs of colossal wings.

My mind still simmers and stews as we fly through the starry sky, towards the academy, and most likely towards my family. The first thing I plan to do is, of course, unveil that Cade had returned, give them a hug and then confront them. Not very politely may I add. Not very politely at all.