Cas' Memories

The pack slung over her shoulder betrays where she should be, but no one stops her. No one even looks at her.

Under her paws, the heart of the city thrums even as her own feels still in her chest. Dark alleys, bustling shipyards, ocean beaches empty of all but a few wanderers like herself. Like a ghost, she can't stay in any one place for long. Something drives her away whenever she tries to linger.

With nowhere left, she goes home.

He's lounged out on the window seat as he usually is when he can drag himself out of bed to come downstairs. They're going to move his room to the ground floor soon. Then she'll have to sleep alone.

He pricks his head up as the door slams behind her, then flinches as a package comes sailing through the air. Food, or something. In her memories it's static.

"Got you something." She trails past him into the kitchen, trying not to look too close, but the pale patches on his blue scales are so large she can see them with her eyes glazed over, her vision fogging up with tears.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he calls after her. So responsible. Always top of his class, before he had to drop out. She can't live up to that.

She comes back into the living room, a space too grand to fit only the two of them, staring hard until he's forced to look away.

"Let out early," she answers. Lying to even him is easy.

She stands there awkwardly a moment, shifting back and forth on her paws, until he moves back and lifts his wing.

Clambering up, she scoots under, nestled between soft padding and the wing blanketing her. The sun is beating through the window, sending little lights dancing in the darkness of her closed eyes, and his core pressed against her side radiates heat.

But she feels cold. Like deep inside her is something that, with all the sunlight and fires and embraces in the world, will never get warm.

She tries not to think.