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| Details |
| Author: | Saaron |
| Summary: | Therald comes back home after training. He finds an unexpected interlocutor, there to give him an ultimatum. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Therald comes home to his apartment in Ironforge and throws his helmet onto a nearby couch. He sighs out loud, wiping his face with his hand. His nostrils clench at the terrible smell inside. He raises his arm, sniffing his own armpit, which makes his head jerk back. Yup, the smell is definitely him. That training session was intense. At least he doesn’t smell like he did after his excursions under the sea with Nesselos.
“I need a shower,” Therald whispers to himself.
“Indeed,” says a feminine voice from behind him. Therald unsheaths his swords and turns to face who he thinks is an assassin sent by Sirie. Instead, the blade reaches just short of Lyra’s face as she sits elegantly on one of the kitchen’s counters. A proud grin reveals the whelpling’s fangs as Therald’s eyes widen. “First you subject me to your terrible smell, and then turn your blade against I? Not what was expected of the mortal who has been so caring until now.”
“Since when have you been able to talk?” he asks, shaking his head slowly in confusion.
“Oh, from the very beginning! Why?” Lyra tilts her head.
“The beginning?” Therald stares unblinkingly, still pointing the sword at her.
“Well, yes. I don’t wish to go into details because we may have to get philosophical to get anywhere close to an answer,” Lyra says before yawning, her jaw agape as if ready to eat that sword and snap it in half. She bends and stretches her front legs on the counter. “What came first? The egg I hatched from or the dreaming whelpling inside of that Emerald Forest?” She chuckles. “And given that time in the Emerald Dream is a mere suggestion, well, we’d have to take a lifetime to debate when and where my being was fully formed.” Lyra moves around the tip of the blade, shakes her wings, and takes flight, meeting Therald at eye level. “You simply have to know that, through that eggshell, I was already able to understand everything I had to understand.”
Therald keeps staring at her, dumbfounded that this fully sentient being has been living with him for almost a year, and simply decided to never say a word until now.
“Is this news upsetting to you?” Lyra asks, seeing as he keeps his silence.
“Kind of,” Therald stares at her, absentmindedly putting the blade back into its sheath.
“Don’t trouble yourself with such interrogations. There are far more dire issues I have to bring up today,” Lyra goes back to the kitchen counter a little clumsily. Now that she wraps her wings around her back, Therald finally notices that one of her wings is not as long as the other. “I wish to see my father again.”
“I don’t know anything about green dra-” Therald starts, but he’s interrupted.
“Who said anything about a dragon?” Lyra raises her head up high. “I’m speaking of the one who took care of me as an egg and in my early days. Your son, Sandy.”
Therald is hit by those words as if they were a punch in the gut. His breath is short. “I- I can’t. Can’t take you there,” he manages to articulate. “And he’s not your father.”
“Oh, so he raised me but is not my father because we are not of the same blood? What does that make Ekorenine to him, then? Would you rather he consider Sirie his mother?” Lyra scoffs. “You can and you will,” she answers. “This is not a request, this is an ultimatum. Your cowardice is hurting more than one person I consider family. Sandy, you, and Bubble.”
Therald decides to avoid the rest of what Lyra said. There are conversations he’d rather not have, especially with what he considered an infant until now. “Bubble… The rat?”
“Yes, Bubble the rat, one of father’s companions,” Lyra glares at Therald. “I was able to keep in touch with Bubble and Dragon. Do you know how long is a rat’s lifespan?”
Therald shakes his head.
“Bubble is old, for a member of her species. Very old,” Lyra sounds a little choked up. “And she told me she can feel your son is going through some unpleasant experiences. She dreams of seeing him happy again before she has to leave this world.” Lyra extends a paw towards Therald. “He needs you, Therald. If you’re not doing this for him or you, do it for Bubble.”
He stares at her in silence, trying to find how to answer, what to say, what to do.
“Oh, I almost forgot! The ultimatum is that I //will/ go to him on my own if I have to,” Lyra smiles. “And who’s to say what could happen to a rare, expensive, and defenseless whelpling with crooked wings?”
Therald comes close to the dragon, kneeling to stand at her height, his eyes teary. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to lose him like I lost Sirie,” he says before letting his head fall onto the countertop. “I- I need time… I need time.”
“Don’t all mortals do?” Lyra asks, looking at the back of his head. “You spend your lives desperately looking for time while dreading the second it reaches up to you.” Lyra pats that head with her paw. “There, there, Therald. You’re stronger than you realize and I’ll be by your side until you realize it.”
Lyra curls up beside him, and strangely, the dragon’s scales feel warm and comforting. Therald’s shoulders begin to shake. Lyra briefly retches at his odor.