The wind came first, of course. There was always wind as a harbinger of disaster for them. This storm had no warning breeze or flash of lightning, either.
It simply was there and lifted Neko from the ground. Neko howled with anger and saw Reggie the Wolf leap upward into the maelstrom that had already tried to catch him. In a heartbeat, they were both flying, and Reggie disappeared into a mass of cloud and debris. A heartbeat later, Silver Cloud swept up past him.
"Dragons!" Silver Cloud shouted.
Neko, already losing his battle, followed and hoped to catch up with his friend. He didn't like flying and would much rather ride. Besides, Silver Cloud was heading for trouble. Dragons? He couldn't say it worried him much.
He caught hold of his son's tail and began climbing. Silver didn't notice the inconsequential weight of something no larger than two of the scales Neko climbed across. The magic he used to hold on went unnoticed as well.
Not that it would matter. Something large -- some things large -- swept through the clearing sky. They were so high that he dared look down only once. After that, he held on tighter and tried to focus on the trouble they headed toward.
It didn't help.
Dragons in a dozen rainbow hues swept through the sky. Neko shivered at the sight and gasped in surprise.
No. Gasped because the air was thin and shivered because it was cold enough to freeze his whiskers. He admitted the dragons didn't really surprise him. Life had been that way lately.
If Silver intended to battle the dragons, it might be wise to let him know he had a passenger. Neko scurried up toward the top of the head and leaned close to the right ear. He feared the others had seen him, though.
"Silver Cloud," he said, trying hard not to gasp.
"Honorable Father! I did not realize cats can fly!"
"Caught your tail and climbed. It is too cold!"
"Cold," Silver agreed. "Let me talk to them."
Then came a long stretch of whistles, pops, and low-sounding growls. Neko couldn't decide if things were going better or not. Some of the dragons left, but there were at least six still circling in the air around them. A couple of times, Silver became agitated, but nothing unusual happened.
As long as he didn't consider flying in the air with dragons to be unusual. Neko pulled himself into a crevice between Silver's ear and head, which was slightly warmer than out in the open. He rested since there was nothing else he could do at the moment. Silver, who, after all, was not a baby, seemed to have a serious discussion with the other dragons. None of them seemed overly upset, and since there was nothing Neko could add, he decided just to nap for a while. He was a cat, and there are certain requirements of napping that he'd been missing lately.
The others continued to talk until dusk, when a few dragons showed up. Neko thought they might be the ones who had left earlier. There followed a flurry of noises that he realized must really be speech. He thought he heard Maude's name, which got his attention again.
"Honorable father," Silver began. "They have been studying Maude and her prison. She is still fully asleep, of course, but there does seem to be some problem. She has dreams… Although I think we would call them nightmares. They're getting stronger, and my friends here, some of them may leak out. They're putting a watch on the hill, and might take Merlin back with them if he is interested. The rest will stay to help keep watch here until such time as they can end the nightmare threat."
"Won't having so many dragons around draw attention?" Neko asked with a worried glance around the area. "It seems as though we are concentrating a lot of power in a place that shouldn't have any at all."
Silver Cloud talked to his companions while the world went dark around them. It was then that he noticed Reggie gliding along with them. He had the sparkle of ice on his feathers, and that looked dangerous. He asked Silver what Reggie was doing there.
"Mostly, he is working as a messenger," Silver Cloud replied. "And he also answers questions. Reggie and you both served as familiars to Maude. You know things the rest of us, who only saw her in passing, never noticed. Once they have sorted through Reggie's memory of her, they will ask you some questions."
Neko didn't look forward to it. He had done his best to forget most of what had happened in his years with Maude. It hadn't worked, of course. However, he had made an effective wall to keep the worst of it out of his thoughts. He already felt the chill that did not come from the cold of the air around them.
Dragons were a lot warmer than he had expected.
They were also very quick. Silver Cloud spun once, pointed his nose straight down, and headed toward the clouds below them in the land below that. The other dragons did the same, and somewhere nearby, Reggie gave a cry of delight and swept downward with his hawk wings folded back.
Nice to know someone was enjoying themselves.
Then he thought about the conversation to come, and darkness swept through him again. That was Maude's thought, trying to take hold of him, and he would not allow it. He did his best to shiver aside for a moment; he feared he saw her there in the darkness, reaching for him.
Only a nightmare, he told himself. Time to let his friends try freeing him, even from this nightmare that was not quite his own.
He heard her laugh and looked around, frantic to find where she was now. Or was he inside her nightmare?
"Gotcha," she whispered at his ear.
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