OC Backstory Prompts: Crystal

Drowning, sinking, dying.

The surface glimmers dark above, her last exhale sending bubbles swimming towards the faint light. Her arms reach up, but she can’t touch the sun. Pressure in her chest, like her heart is bursting. Like she’ll be torn asunder from within.

Behind a cracked-open mouth that sucks in black-gold water, she silently pleads for someone to save her. But no one is coming for her. And before she knows it, her limbs stop moving and the air has run out.

She wakes up screaming, like she’s using up all the air that failed her, abusing it, wasting it. Her claws made rivulets in the spongy ground and she pressed her snout hard into it. She’s still sobbing, and she’s too old to cry like this, but relentless tears dampen the mossy floor anyway.

Crystal didn’t realize someone else was there until her hoarse whimpers finally trickled out, but the warmth against her side and the wing wrapped tight around her back had always been of little comfort until the thrashing stopped.

Now she could barely feel it, but she pressed into him anyway, waiting for the storm to pass.

Several more minutes passed like that. The worst was over quick, but her racing, aimless thoughts and shaking limbs could take hours to finally quiet down. But he waited with her, the paw pressed over hers to still her flailing remaining there like a comforting weight.

It was nearly dawn when calm finally seeped in like the cooling wind drifting down through the mushroom-trees. And all of a sudden, it was over. Slowly sitting up, she swiped the lingering tears off her scaled face. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“What for?”

She dared a glance at her twin brother, staring with genuine confusion in his wide-eyed gaze. That was Spyro for you… "Keeping you up every night.” Voice lowering, she turned away in embarrassment. This was the third night in a row.

Understanding, his gaze softened. “Doesn’t matter,” he said casually, though he couldn’t hide the worry in his eyes.

Staring up at the moons poking through the mushroom-tops, she didn’t have a response. Her face was shadowed from the twin planets beneath a scaly canopy. Quietly he ventured, “Nightmares?”

Crystal hesitated. “I… don’t know. I don’t remember.”

That wasn’t quite a lie, but the glimpses she was getting were faint, and more like memories than dreams. All she really remembered was that moment of waking up, the terror she’d never even conceptualized that was now her reality.

“Don’t tell Mom and Dad.” She didn’t mean to say it out loud, but there it was.

Spyro blinked, drawing back in hesitation. When Crystal said “Don’t tell our parents”, it usually wasn’t good. But this time was different. “Why?”

I’m scared. That was the real answer, but she didn’t tell him that. Curling her wings around herself, she turned her gaze to the marsh pooling around them. In the standing water, a murky reflection stared bleakly back. “I just don’t want anyone else to know.”

That was true enough – if her brother wasn’t such a light sleeper, she wouldn’t have told even him.

Spyro still looked uncertain, so she reassured, “I’m fine.” Seeing his unchanging expression, she wavered, desperate. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

Though she wasn’t sure why, no one else could know about the nightmares. She knew Mom and Dad would try to help, and even Sparx wouldn’t make fun of her if she asked him not to. But this was something she wanted between them.

For a few seconds, it seemed like he might refuse – maybe their parents could figure this out, or maybe there was something wrong. If he didn’t do anything…

But she’d never asked him for anything like this. Sure, she’d made him keep quiet the time she nearly broke her neck trying to fly out of a tree, or – after months of begging – showed him her favorite hiding spot for when Sparx was “it”. They had their little secrets.

Nothing like this. This was something serious. Something real, far away from their idyllic little world. And he couldn’t bring himself to say no.

Finally, he relented. “I won’t tell them.”

She looked back. “Promise?”

Stepping over, he settled down beside her, staring up with her at the stars fading against a lightening dawn. He wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do… But he would keep her secrets. That’s what brothers were for.

“Promise.”

That was their first secret. It wouldn’t be their last.