Dragon Born: Book I of the Tendaaren Chronicles
Chapter 27: I dream of you

Alyenna’s heart soared, her heart pumped rapidly against her will. Her whole sense of self-began to evaporate. A warm gentle hand clung to her cheeks framing her face. Then in the fog of her awareness, she heard the bouncing metallic clang of a sword crashing to the ground. It shattered her reverie. Her sense of awareness slipped instantly back from its momentary euphoria.

A heightened sense of alarm ricocheted through her veins. Instinctively her fist balled up and slammed into Cameron’s chin delivering a powerful uppercut which whipped his head back on impact.Cameron clutched his chin and he stumbled backward. His aquamarine eyes watered with the force of her strike.

“What in Satan’s frozen balls, was that for!” She shrieked.

Cameron still clutching his chin watched dumbfounded as her rage continued to escalate. Alyenna stood over him glaring. Mortification slowly crept into his expression and tension choked the air. Cameron watched Alyenna helplessly as the realization of what he had just done continued to pour down on him.

Abruptly, a hearty and familiar laugh erupted from the entrance of the cave. The deep belly laugh inadvertently brought joy to Aly’s heart. It was Aagi’s laugh a smile touched her lips for a brief moment before icy realization hit her. Her mind shot back to the clang from moments before. She spun and met Baellnar’s soul burning expression. His face was contorted with a multitude of illegible emotions.

Aagi chose to be the one to break the tension. He rubbed the back of his neck and announced: “well dis is awkward.” He looked at Baellnar with pity. “Sorry, maybeh next ’ime?”

Baellnar wordlessly stormed from the mouth of the cave. Alyenna bolted in pursuit of his retreating form, as an awkward silence blanketed the room.

Celeste came in moments later with the bedraggled team of horses. “Cameron! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Come here and give me a hug.”

Clearly overwhelmed, Cameron took a moment to let everything sink in. Finally, realization grasped his features and a huge smile broke out across his face. “Aagi and Celeste! I’ve missed you both! You crazy gingers come here!” He held his arms wide and they greeted each other exuberantly.

“Do you have any beer?” Aagi yelled pushing Cameron back while grasping his shoulders. His expression deeply serious.

Cameron chuckled. “How do you think I live up here in this Gaia forsaken mountain. I brew my own it’s quite spectacular.” He winked and grabbed the horses. He lead them to a quiet corner of the cavern and had them settled with hay, water, and then pulled out some grooming utensils. The familiar task of caring for an animal easing his frayed nerves. “Help yourself, It’s in the back there in the wooden cask labeled ‘special occasions’.”

“Don’ mind if ah do!” Aagi said marching off into hidden tunnel.

Alyenna ran behind Baellnar calling his name. He continued to move gracefully ahead of her as she stumbled around on renegade rocks and snow drifts. She tripped on a particularly large branch and rubbed her swollen ankle in defeat. She called out to him one last time in hopes he would turn around.

She was furious with him. She was furious with herself even though she didn’t understand why. Yet, no matter how much his ‘matter of fact’ nature chaffed at her she missed him. “Baellnar! Please!” She cried out.

Abruptly Baellnar spun to face her. His light blue eyes swirling. The trees around him rustling aggressively. Alyenna froze literally and metaphorically. A chaotic whirlpool of emotions erupted within her. She felt as if she really saw Baellnar’s face for the first time, in what felt like a lifetime. His eyes had dark terrible circles under them. His skin was unusually pale, and his normally kempt hair was a rats nest of knots and twigs.

As she absorbed his bedraggled appearance and the anger in his eyes, her emotions spiraled uselessly within her struggling for control. Finally, the emotion that mirrored his won its place for dominance. “Look I am sorry I didn’t follow orders; but, he was getting away!” She growled at him. “Me disobeying you certainly doesn’t justify this crapshoot of a hello.” She picked herself up and stepped toward him. “What is your problem?”

Baellnar stormed up to her. He stood nose to nose with her but remained silent for several breaths. His words were crippling. A simple three syllables filled her with endless guilt that she did not know she had.

“How could you?” He seethed.

Pride accompanied her anger now. “How could I what? Get captured? Paul had friends and a toxin of some kind.” She trailed off struggling to remember exactly what happened before she went lights out. “Look you are being ridiculous.” She stepped back shaking off the adrenaline that shot through her veins. “Seriously Baellnar what is your problem?”

He took an exaggerated breath and said “Forget it.” He turned away from her and stormed past her towards the cave.

Flabbergasted she glared at his retreating form. “Quit being such a girl!”

She smiled as he spun around. Shock etched on his delicate features. “What?”

Smirking she strode up to him. “That got your attention. Look I don’t know what your problem is but it’s clearly there, so this ‘forget it’ nonsense is not going to fly. Why are you being such a loathsome toad!”

“It’s nothing.” He insisted and turned towards the cave again.

She skidded around to the front of him. “Liar.” He remained silent and kept walking past her. His eyes refusing to make contact with her. “Baellnar, getting captured was not 100% my fault can we talk about this.”

“I am just happy you’re okay.” He said softly

“You have a very strange definition of happy.”

“I am an elf.” He shrugged and continued to walk into the cave.

“What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

“The what in the where?”

“Never mind it’s an earth saying. You being an elf does not make you entitled to change the definitions of emotions or act like a first class lily-livered hedge pig”

A flash of red appeared in the corner of her eye. “Haha, I missed ya girlie! Put him in his place he’s been a right pill since you went and disappeared!” Aagi had heard her yelling and popped out of the cave in hopes of keeping the peace. He leaned casually against the wall eyeing Baellnar with reproachful amusement.

Cameron came out now. The two men looked at Alyenna and then back to each other. Cameron was the first to speak. “I am sorry brother, I didn’t know.” He paused wringing his hands together. “She just looks so much like Eleanor.”

“No, I don’t!” Alyenna was furious that people were talking about her as if she was not even there.

“Actually now that you mention it,” Aagi pinned Aly’s face in his fingers his whiskers brushed her skin. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Will everyone get out of my face!” Alyenna was fuming her own eyes were swirling in rage. “I am me, I have always been me, Eleanor’s dead get over it.”

Cameron piped in. “We never found her body.”

“Guys she would be over 170 years old! It’s been a tough couple of weeks but I have not aged 140 years overnight and while she may be immortal I am not.” Alyenna was beside herself with humiliated rage. What is wrong with everyone? then a small voice started questioning her own logic. Am I immortal? She knew that her time with Cameron was much longer than she had realized and she had not aged much. Surely that was simply because 10 years is hard to tell when you are in your twenties?

Celeste popped out. “What’s all this yelling?”

Aagi decided to fill her in. “We have a bit of a doppelgänger in our midst apparently.” They all studied Alyenna as if seeing her for the first time.

This time Baellnar’s airy voice broke the silence “how did I never see it?” He turned to Cameron. He approached Aly and stood uncomfortably close to her as he examined her face. He stepped away his expression pensive. “I can vouch for the fact that she is not Eleanor I watched her grow up through the crystal.”

“Interesting, but to have her be the same species and look nearly identical,” Cameron’s face was frozen in thought. The silence was poignant and all eyes were on him as if he may be working on the answer to the riddle. “How was she born?”

“It took us a while to replace her. We did not see her until she was five. But that was well over one hundred years after Eleanor disappeared.”

“See I am not Eleanor. I just look like her. It’s probably because I am a Dyrklow. Some sort of strange family resemblance. Heck to me most elves look the same!” Baellnar ignored her jab.

Cameron came closer to Baellnar duplicating his uncomfortable proximity to Aly. He completely ignored her statement instead he continued to focus on his conversation with Baellnar. “How do you know she is Dyrklow?”

Celeste jumped between them slightly pushing Alyenna away and winked. Alyenna was relieved to have some of her personal space back. “Oh, you missed it was this awesome moment! The great tree picked her up, and she was glowing and now she has awesome rainbow eyes.” She shouted over to Alyenna “So jealous by the way!”

“See I am not Eleanor I was a baby long after she died and I have rainbow eyes.” Alyenna was still confused idea why she had to defend her own identity to her friends and to herself. Their conversation had her doubting everything she had come to understand about herself.

Baellnar’s eyes were soft now as he saw Aly arms folded and shoulders slumped. Her discomfort with the situation incredibly apparent. He approached her and rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “Aly, do you still have the nightmares every night?”

She watched him suspiciously. “They came back recently.”

“What are they about?”

She felt her muscles tighten in defense. Her adrenaline pumped as she scrambled for anything to push away the sinking feeling rising within her. “What does a nightmare have to do with anything?”

“Absolutely everything,” Cameron whispered. He too approached her. “You used to scream every night in your sleep, why?”

“You know it’s really creepy you are watching me sleep.” Alyenna added sarcastically trying to dodge the question

Celeste eyed Baellnar. “I never heard her scream in her sleep?”

Baellnar put his hands in his pockets sheepishly. “That’s because it was before you met her. I played every night not just because I enjoy it but because it wove a protection spell that kept her nightmares at bay.”

“You have been putting a magic spell on me every night!” Alyenna hurled several snowballs in his direction and stormed off. “You two-bit creepy knife eared prick. I never asked you to put a spell on me!” She yelled at him as she walked away.

Hatchling! Calm yourself. The firm and gentle voice of Roxanne echoed through her mind.

He violated me with magic!

Hatchling he was protecting you and us. We were in the woods with enemies everywhere your dreams could have gotten us killed.

Alyenna stopped. Still refusing to turn around. She could not look at them. She was already too deep into this conspiracy to ignore it. She finally answered them. “I am falling and my heart gets ripped out. Sometimes there’s a back of a guy with brown hair who is holding my heart and it’s on fire. It looks like dragon fire.”

After that, she continued to storm forward desperate for some time to herself. This was all just too much. She disappeared into the snowy lost of the mountains her denial fueling her footsteps.