Ravyn's mind turns again, and in his slumber tosses him into the midst of a vast jungle. He is now a mere four years old, and he silently crawls into shelter at the base of a large tree. The young feather dragon whimpers and hopes a way from the wild jungle will find him.

In an unfortunate way, perhaps it does.

Rustling and hissing come from above, and when his little eyes turn upward, they're met by those of an enormous python.

FWUMP

The animal gives him no time  to react or even attempt to make an escape. In an instant, over a hundred pounds of hungry reptilian mass falls upon him, and the smooth scales begin to wrap in layers around his helpless body.

His attempt to hide having failed him, Ravyn now instead attempts to scream for attention in hopes anyone might save him. This does nothing for the little boy but waste his precious breath.

His shriek is loud and sharp, forced out faster than he expected by the tight grip of the snake. Less and less of his body becomes exposed to the outside air as more and more of the animal wraps around him. The grasp is so tight he can't manage to take another breath in.

SNAP

Something gives in his arm. Sharp pain sears through him as muscle tears, clinging to separated halves of bone.

CRACK POP

More of his body gives out to the overwhelming pressure exerted from all sides by the snake. A quiet hiss is the only acknowledgement it gives of the boy's anguish.

His pelvis is fractured, his legs are giving out, and his chest is being crushed in on itself as more and more ribs break.

CRUNCH CRACKLE

He winces and tries to prepare himself for death as his ribcage gives out. He's too young to really understand the fine details of his most important organs being pulped, but he knows if his chest gets flattened he won't survive. He can feel each rib snap and give up its duty of protecting his heart as his body compresses in the tight coils.

Just before he gives out entirely, the tension releases all at once. Some parts of him slide approximately back into place, others don't. It almost hurts more now that the pressure is gone. The innocent child is given only a brief moment to form any hope.

OUMPH

And it's quickly dashed as the animal's maw slides around his mangled legs.

Slowly, some form of that pressure returns and works its way up Ravyn's body. The little dragon can't even move at this point. His body has been damaged well beyond any ability for him to control it.

Slowly, he disappears down the snake's gullet, until eventually the outside world disappears. The sky and trees are replaced with warm, constricting flesh. Sunlight is replaced with complete darkness.

GLRRRGGGGGGLE GWRRRRRRRR

He feels his confinement moving as the snake slithers through the underbrush in search of shelter to digest its meal in. The animal's guts groan around him as he's worked into its stomach.

The acids lick his skin, and Ravyn resigns himself to wait in miserable, painful stillness in his broken, ruined body for the animal to melt him away. Even then, however, he doesn't get the chance to go silently.

SCHLLRRRK GURRRGGGGLE SCHLICK SHLK

Thick tendrils protruding from the interior of the snake make themselves known by prodding against the little boy. Soon, they've worked their way inside him through his mouth and rear. He can't even squirm in retaliation; all he can do is sob.

GWRRRRGGGGGG CHURRRRRN

The tendrils slowly work in and out of him, giving him an intense feeling of violation. More begin to writhe across his skin.

As this happens, the acids slowly dissolve his flesh. His own melted body pools beneath him.

His eyes slough out of their sockets as a semi-fluid slurry, and immediately two more tendrils pierce the new holes. More are finding their way inside of him from all around.

His body pierced plenty times over, broken and mangled in the belly of an animal that sees him only as lunch, Ravyn's body finally begins to give out. It's another long few hours of gradual melting away and vicious penetration before he finally perishes, but at last he fades away.

No fanfare accompanies his death. He'd already been limp; his predator doesn't even notice. The snake simply lounges in a sunny spot and continues digesting its meal.

Ravyn is three years old. He rests peacefully in a crib on the second story of a building, sucking on his thumb. Downstairs, he can hear his parents talking to some people he doesn't know. He can't really tell what they're saying, so he doesn't pay it any mind.

Eventually, though, they seem to come to an agreement. There's silence, then the sound of a door.

Curious, Ravyn sits up in his crib. The window is above him, so he can't see the street below. He can see the glow of headlights against the side of buildings, though. They remain in place just a moment before accelerating away down the street.

The little boy assumes whoever his parents were talking to must have left.

As the door swings open, however, he's proven wrong.

Three large men enter the room. They're all canines: a bulldog, a wolf, and a Borzoi. They eye him hungrily as they approach his crib.

"Real juicy, ain' he~?" the bulldog barks to his companions.

"Worth every penny," the Borzoi replies while licking his chops.

Ravyn looks up at the intimidating men with fear in his helpless little eyes. He begins to cry, only to be met with a hard slap from the bulldog.

SMACK

"Cryin' ain' goinna save you~" he's forcefully lifted from his crib by the bulldog.

The other two are sat on the floor, waiting for the dog to join them. He doesn't keep his friends waiting.

Ravyn is plopped onto the ground in the middle of the men, who seem to drool over him. He tries to find some way out, but he's surrounded. Backing away from one bumps him into the legs of another.

They soon prove themselves to be as much bite as they are bark.

CHOMP TEAR

The bulldog takes the first bite, ripping a chunk out of his arm. Strings of sinew follow the hunk of muscle and skin like strings of spit after a kiss before snapping one by one. He gropes over the boy's chest with his other hand as he chews. The dog's cock is dripping pre.

Ravyn screams in pain. Blood pours onto the ground from the gaping hole in his arm.

"Hey, don't hog 'im," the wolf rips Ravyn from the bulldog's grasp. 

The dog relents, content with his current mouthful. Ravyn's struggles and cries go unacknowledged.

RIIIIIIIIIIP

The wolf holds up the toddler like an oversized sandwich and sinks his canine teeth deep into his side. He tears out a giant chunk with vicious hunger. His teeth tug out skin and muscle through the gaps between the lower of the boy's ribs, simultaneously taking a chunk from his midsection below.

Blood drips from the wolf's maw as he pulls away with his bite of Ravyn's body, and a few globs of loose, minced viscera cascade into the bloody puddle below from the gaping wound and the hungry maw alike. The dragon is left with parts of his ribcage and intestines both exposed to open air.

He can barely get air into his straining lungs before agonized screams force it all back out. Tears and snot flow down the boy's anguished face. The wolf meanwhile hums in satisfaction as he masticates his mouthful and squeezes the boy's butt with a free hand.

He doesn't get much longer to enjoy groping the boy while he chews, however. In the next moment, the Borzoi is pulling Ravyn away to get his own fill.

The long-faced dog takes a moment to look over him. He clutches him by his sides, one hand in the fresh wound left by the wolf before him. The dog doesn't seem to mind the blood soaking his fur. He just breathes heavily for a moment before finally going in for a bite.

OMPH RIIIIIIIIIIIIP

He bites into the boy's upper arm opposite the arm where the bulldog had taken the initial bite. His teeth sink deep just below the shoulder, and ultimately his maw covers the entire breadth of his arm. 

The hard bite splinters bone, and when the Borzoi rips out the chunk of flesh, he takes the boy's entire arm off in the process. Ligament rips and snaps as Ravyn's arm is forcefully removed, and the canine finally snaps off most of the upper arm to chew on before tossing the rest of the arm to his bulldog compatriot.

"Hell yeah~" the ravenous dog begins eating the severed limb like a chicken leg while Ravyn chokes on his own tears and struggles to cry any harder.

A deep lust has been building inside each of the dogs as they've torn the boy apart. It reaches a tipping point now, and the wolf is the first to act.

He grabs the bleeding, agonized boy and pulls him onto his lap. Leaning back, the wolf begins to rut up into Ravyn's undeveloped young pussy. Ravyn barely reacts beyond his sobs now being broken up by the forceful thrusts. He's suffering so greatly already it's hard to parse the pain of being violated by someone so much bigger than him.

PLAT PLAP PLAP

The two dogs start to jerk off, lubricated with Ravyn's blood. 

"Come fuckin' get some~" the wolf invites.

While the wolf holds him steady and satiates his lust with the little dragon's body, the other two descend upon Ravyn.

CHOMP RIIIIIP TEAR

The dogs take bite after bite out of the helpless boy, each keeping one hand free to stroke off. Not entirely unlike piranhas, they rip chunk after chunk out of him, exposing organ and bone as they desecrate and devour his young form.

In a few long, horrible minutes, they tear up the rest of his limbs and strip most of the edible flesh from the trunk of Ravyn's body.

Without much left to eat, the wolf leans forward, getting onto his knees and holding the boy like a fleshlight while ramming violently into him. Ravyn is a mess of organ and bone with viscera still clinging to his mangled body. Beneath him the remains of his separated limbs are piled. He's unfortunate enough to still be alive, but not for much longer.

PLAP PLAT PLAP SPLRRRRRRT

The wolf fucks him with vicious intensity as the light slowly fades from Ravyn's eyes. As he finally gives out, the canine rapist shoots his load deep inside of him and the dogs both gush ropes of cum across his bloodied face.

When the brutish dogs are finished, they leave him in a bloody heap on the ground, barely recognizable as anything resembling a person anymore. They laugh and catch their breath and slowly return to casual conversation as they return downstairs, having satiated themselves at expense of the boy's life.

Ravyn is two years old. The young dragon boy is on all fours in a sturdy glass case. He bangs curiously on the side of it with one hand and looks all around him.

He's in a well-lit wooden room. Numerous short pedestals are scattered throughout. Some have valuable objects on top of them. Others have fellow small children, many of whom stare at each other through the cases. Some cry.

Ravyn is confused, but not yet distressed. He isn't sure where he is, though for such a young boy that isn't too unordinary. 

A set of double doors open on the side of the room, briefly allowing the sound of much chatter from beyond to flow in and reach Ravyn's ears. The feather dragon gets a glimpse of big, red curtains behind the door as two men in fancy uniforms enter.

The men are both pigs, and their hooves tap on the ground as they move otherwise silently through the room. They get their hands on a pedestal with a very young girl sat atop it and begin to roll it away on tiny wheels. They take it out to the room with the big curtain, and the door closes.

The little boy sits in bemusement for a while. There's a comfy cushion beneath him, at least. He wonders what kind of place he's in.

Some time later - really what feels like an hour to the youngster, though is truly only a few minutes - the men return. The pedestal and little girl are not with them.

Ravyn presumes he's just being moved somewhere else when they get their grubby swine hands on his place of confinement. This will soon be proven false.

He's wheeled into the room with the big curtains, which if he were a little older he'd recognize as stage curtains right away.

The curtains pull open, and bright lights briefly blind him as they click on.

Hundreds of people must be in the audience before him. He only grows more bewildered by the proceedings as someone with a loud, fast voice starts talking.

"Up next we have Ravyn! This soft feather dragon is only two years old, and he's a sensitive one!" the voice seems to come from everywhere at once, and it's too quick for him to process what it's saying.

"Starting bid to command his showing is five hundred dollars, can I see five hundred dollars? Six hundred- Seven hundred!" the auctioneer responds as audience members hold up paddles to place their bids.

The price rises, not that Ravyn can even tell what's happening. It reaches the thousands and keeps climbing, until...

"Six thousand dollars! Going once... going twice... sold to the gentleman in the top hat at the back! Come on up, and remember you get fifteen tops to have your way!"

A man emerges from the dingy back of the room. He's canine... a coyote, with a strikingly familiar face. He arrives to the stage and shakes hands with one of the pigs, who removes the glass case over top of Ravyn and steps away.

"Oho, I've awaited this~" the coyote says with a devious grin. He reaches into his long overcoat and retrieves a pair of enormous shears. The massive loppers are polished to a shine with fine red handles and menacingly sharp blades.

"Duh- Uwha-" Ravyn tries to stutter out a question as he stares in horror at the violent instrument. His attempts to plea soon turn to sputtering, useless sobs and wails of fear.

"Now now," the canine says, "Crying makes for quite the show; so please keep at it while I dismember you~!"

Indeed, the audience seem to be watching with excitement as the coyote positions the boy. Ravyn isn't wont to remain still in such circumstances, but the cruel man is well prepared. One long leg steps up to place itself on the boy's chest atop the pedestal, holding the little dragon down.

The metal jaws of the shears line up with the boy's arm just below the shoulder.

SHING SPLATTER

A spray of crimson blood splatters against the back wall as the coyote squeezes the handles tight. The little boy's arm falls limply to the floor as he lets out a shrill scream in shock and pain.

The coyote meanwhile removes one hand from the handles and bends over to grab the severed arm from the ground.

"Now, observe~" he taunts, "This boy... is quite full of himself!"

SCHLRRK

He jabs the broken bone and open gore of the limp limb into the little boy's undeveloped pussy, right below his tiny pair of balls. The deep filling visibly bulges his belly out, much to his horror.

Despite Ravyn straining himself to cry harder, only cheers come from the gathered audience.

The man certainly doesn't stop there. In the next moment, he gives the pedestal a spin to access his other arm. A similar process unfolds.

SHING SPLAT

And off his remaining arm is lopped.

The boy's wild cries of anguish go unheeded. He can hardly even hear the taunts of the coyote over himself.

SHLK

A brief pause is formed in his wails as his other arm is stuffed inside of his pussy with the first, hard enough to knock the wind out of him. His sensitive lower lips are stretched grotesquely, and two pairs of unmoving little fingers droop out of it.

Working on his tight schedule, the coyote gives no time for rest before moving along to the little one's legs. He eyes the exposed boy's lower body and lines his shears up with only as much precision as is required.

SHING SPLATLTLT

The boy's leg is ripped clean off and falls to the ground. Half of a finger roughly removed from an already limp hand sticking out of him lands beside it.

The coyote collects the partial finger before taking hold of Ravyn's removed leg to continue his brutal show.

SCHLRRRF

With no room left in the boy's strained sex, he instead moves one hole down and forces the leg inside Ravyn's rear as far as it'll go. Tender innards scrape and tear from the force, but truly nothing could be of less concern to the boy now.

Ravyn is no longer wailing. He chokes on his own tears and lets out horrible, gurgling sobs that are subtle compared to his prior display. He feels light headed from the blood pooling out of his open wounds.

He barely feels the twin blades aligning with his remaining leg.

SHING SPLATTER

The coyote simply whistles a jaunty tune as he slices off the last limb. He finishes filling Ravyn out by stuffing it inside him with the former leg.

Only pathetic choking sounds come from the boy in his agonized death throes, yet the audience erupts with applause. The gentleman on stage with him doffs his hat and takes a sharp bow.

The coyote steps back into the audience as the curtains close. Behind the scenes, the last light fades from Ravyn's eyes, and he's paid no mind by the workers as they wheel him off. One man pushes the pedestal away out a door opposite the one he was brought in through, and the other gets hastily to work cleaning the stage of his blood.

Soon, another little one will be brought out in his place.

Ravyn is one year old. He's just a small baby boy, albeit one with feathers and scales. He rests in a crib outside a grocery store, and with his small form curled up comfortably inside, he doesn't even realize when his mother steps away to use the restroom.

He's half asleep and entirely vulnerable.

The little boy doesn't even stir as the stroller jolts back into motion. He doesn't realize he isn't being taken back to his mother's car. He doesn't realize a strange man is wheeling him into an alley.

He finally opens his eyes back up when he notices the raspiness of the breathing coming from above followed by a cruel voice.

"C'mon an' lemme in, will ya~? I found one right outside~"

The little boy looks up to see the crooked feline face of his captor. He's a tabby cat, but something feels off about his expression, even though he feels familiar.

A door opens up in the alleyway. It's in the side of the store he'd just been in with his mother, where she'd returned to in order to use the restroom. It doesn't lead into the store, though.

The stroller is pushed roughly up the stairs into what can only be described as a den, though for what, not even an adult Ravyn would be able to say. The walls resemble soil stretched over with disgusting webbing, and the ceiling drips some sort of fluid occasionally onto an earthy floor.

The whole room stinks of rot, and when little Ravyn looks to where he'd been brought in from, he doesn't see any door leading back out.

A grey-furred cat greets the tabby. 

"Finally, just when I was gettin' hungry~" the grey cat licks his chops.

"You can have 'im, you can have 'im, just let me have my way with the brat first," the tabby replies. 

He grabs the dragon from his stroller as he speaks.

"What, egg season for ya already?" the grey-furred cat asks. An uncomfortable clicking underlies his voice.

"As a matta a' fact, it is!" the tabby replies as he hugs Ravyn to his body with one hand and removes his pants with the other.

Ravyn is sniffling and about to cry, now in such a vile and unfamiliar place. He's never felt so far from home.

SCHLLK PLAT PLAP

His whimpers and sniffles abruptly turn to wails as a host of sharp pains rip through his genital region.

The orange cat is forcing his sharp, barbed cock deep inside of Ravyn's dickhole. His tiny, undeveloped sex is stretched grotesquely to fit the torturous shaft inside, and the man's tip probes into his tiny balls.

CHOMP

"Yous that impatient?" asks an indignant tabby to the grey cat.

The grey cat replies through a mouthful of red viscera, "I'm fuckin' hungry, aight? You can keep fuckin' the kid; he doesn't need arms for that."

The tabby grumbles as he presses into Ravyn again and again. He's shredding the boy's sensitive urethra with each thrust, but he doesn't seem to care. The man doesn't even acknowledge the boy's screams.

PLAP PLAT PLAP OMPH TEAR

A second bite takes off the lower half of Ravyn's left arm entirely. As much as the rough amputation hurts, though, it's hard to focus on it with what's being done to him lower down.

The small, undeveloped orbs hanging from Ravyn's crotch bloat out. It's not a liquid like he may have expected, though. His testicles are filled with firm, rounded objects. 

Each one slides out of the tabby's cock in succession. His cock stretches slightly around the eggs, and consequently they force the barbs deeper into Ravyn's already ravaged genital flesh as they move.

"Little thing makes one helluvan incubator," the tabby comments as Ravyn's balls balloon out.

RIIIIIP GULP

"Don't taste half bad, either~" replies the grey cat as he helps himself to the boy's remaining arm.

The boy's testicles stretch out further. Soon, they're each the size of his head.

Ravyn only breathes in sobs and wails. His balls feel like they're going to explode, but they remain a sturdy hammock for the eggs. He's offered no reprieve.

PLAP PLAT PLAT

"Think 'at's about all of 'em," the tabby says with a relieved twinge to his voice, "Twerp sure feels nice~"

Ravyn's testicles alone are larger than the rest of him when the last egg slides into them. He's stopped screaming only because he lacks the energy to make much noise at all. Blood loss has made him light-headed already.

"That mean you're done with 'em?" the grey cat asks.

SCHLLLK DRIP DRIP DRIP

The tabby cat pulls out of the boy, leaving his shredded cock dripping blood on the ground.

"Knock yourself out," the tabby replies, handing him over.

Ravyn gets just a moment to look up at the grey cat holding him in his arms. He can barely see through his tears and is too weak to say a word, but his face does all the pleading for him.

HOUMPH ULP

Pleading that is promptly ignored.

The grey cat wastes no time forcing Ravyn's head into his maw. The feather dragon's muzzle slides into his esophagus and slowly moves down one gulp at a time toward the pred's stomach. When his chest has gotten all the way in, though, the cat stops.

CRACK

Ravyn feels something moving inside of his testicles where they hang limply past the grey cat's chin. The eggs are beginning to hatch.

The ruined flaps of skin that used to be his cock are disturbed anew as freshly hatched kittens crawl out from where they'd been briefly incubated. The tiny cats spill out of him and onto the floor of the den. They don't yet have fur, and their skin is coated to varying degrees in Ravyn's blood.

CRUNCH RIIIIIP GULP

Several of the hatchlings are coated in further fluid as the pred bites down hard over Ravyn's midsection. A horrible sensation tears through him as the jaws shut tight. Skin tears roughly, and his guts are sheared, then after a moment, the upper half of the little boy is swallowed up.

GURRRGGGGGLE GLRRRRF

Ravyn splashes down into the acidic pit, relieved of everything below the waist. A tight, caustic bath is all that awaits him.

He can only clearly hear the rumbling of the stomach around him, with all other sounds muffled outside. There's a whole chorus of faint mewling beyond the stomach walls, but Ravyn only catches a few muffled peeps.

He doesn't move in the cat's tummy. Everything hurts too much. All the little dragon can do is wait for death to claim him.

GULK ULP SPLASH

He's informed of the last of the eggs that were inside of him hatching by his lower body splashing down on top of him. His testicles are still distended with a filling of egg shell, though he can only observe this externally, now that his lower half is no longer attached.

GLRRGGG GWRRRFFFG SLOSH

He isn't given long to dwell on it. Soon, his horrible prison begins to jostle as the cat moves. In his dying weakness, with his lower half holding him down, he has no ability to keep his head above the acids.

Perhaps it's a mercy that he drowns before blood loss or digestion could've killed him instead. Truly, however, it's hard to call anything that's happened to him today a mercy. Mercy isn't something his troubled dreams are wont to grant him.

Ravyn is a newborn, not a day old. It's unusual, then, that he'd be in such a wretched place.

The infant dragon is adrift in a slue of mud moving slowly below the earth. Tendrils curl into the walls and pulse like veins. Perhaps he was abandoned at birth, but his unconscious mind no longer makes an explanation for his situation. In such a state as this, looking through eyes that have never seen the Sun, he's not to question it regardless.

He cries and flails his helpless, stubby limbs as the mudslide carries him through the cramped caverns. Rocky outcrops pass below and scrape his skin, some briefly catching him before the current tears him free.

The earthen rapids bring him through a winding network, and the only light comes from the bioluminescence of unnatural, fleshy growths about the tunnels.

Finally, his subterranean float trip comes to an end as he finds himself delivered to the clutches of something firm. His wails wane for only a moment before the thing that has him becomes more terrifying than the mud river itself.

A mass of red, pulsing tentacles presses out from the floor of the cave. It's rooted into the rock and soil where the mud river tightens, placed not unlike a spider web over a window.

The infant dragon is gripped tight by numerous thin tendrils. They wrap his limbs and constrict the trunk of his body with countless more menacing appendages to spare. He's silenced by one snaking its way down his throat.

The choked child can only just breathe. Any other action is far beyond him. He'll have wish he could have saved his panicked wails for what's to come.

SCHK STAB SQUELCH

Sharp tendrils jab deep into Ravyn's body. His soft, infant flesh is pierced in a dozen different places, and the responsible appendages push their entire lengths into the fresh wounds. They burrow into him like hungry worms until their entirety is beneath his skin.

SCHLLLK SHLK

The tendrils inside of him move in a sensual manner, sliding themselves in and out of the passages they've made. Meanwhile a dozen more of the sharp tentacles stab inside of him.

Before long, most of his skin is alive with writhing, worm-like shapes moving sickeningly smoothly beneath. As though the tight grip on him weren't restraint enough, now the very muscle binding his flesh is constricted by the violating tendrils that bore into it.

SCHLK SHLLRK

Ravyn doesn't get the chance to bleed as the tendrils work inside of him; there simply isn't any room for the blood to escape with every wound still penetrated. Even the blood that emerges covering the sickly flesh of the tendrils themselves is barely visible with their innate red coloration.

Slowly, they work deeper, piercing through muscle and organ to gradually fill the infant's entire body. It isn't a tall order with how small he is. Soon, his damaged skin becomes tight against his bloated form. The mass beneath his skin is more tentacle than it is his own flesh and bone.

And yet, he isn't given the luxury of even crying out in pain or flailing in desperation.

SHLK SCHLRRK SLRRRSH GLRP

After some time of penetrating his entire young body, Ravyn feels himself becoming even fuller. Now with fluid. It's not a viscous or especially dense fluid. If he were able to look down at himself, he'd see a rancid yellow trickling out of his bloating injuries.

The tendrils secrete urine into the boy's helpless body. So much mass has been forced inside of him that he feels as though his skin has detached from the muscle, inflated like a balloon, though this is at least slight exaggeration.

SCHLRRRK SHLK

The tendrils begin to stiffen as they approach a tipping point. The harder rods hurt more as they slide in and out of Ravyn's body, tearing wider tunnels to account for their less flexible shapes. More pain is something he can hardly comprehend now, though.

They move faster, jab harder as if trying to probe even deeper. As if there were anywhere deeper to probe.

Then, finally, all at once they grow still, all fully sunken into his body.

SPLRRRFT SLOSH GLRRRSH

The tendrils ejaculate white fluid into the boy's body, which squirts out briefly around every hole along with a deluge of escaping blood and urine. Ravyn isn't even afforded a moment to process it.

RIIIIP TEAR SPLATTER

Satisfied, the tendrils escape all at once, and not in an elegant manner. They tear him open from within as they all stretch outward simultaneously to remove themselves from their victim. His tiny, innocent body is utterly demolished from all angles, sending chunks of flesh and bone and organ around the cave. They splash into the stream below.

The bulk of his mutilated carcass appears almost inverted and is hardly identifiable as more than a giant chunk of viscera with bone clung tightly to it.

SPLASH

It too is discarded back into the mud river, and the tendril mass relinquishes itself to a state of rest once more.

Utter darkness descends upon Ravyn. He can't think. He can't move. He doesn't have a body. He-

"Ravyn? Ravyn... love..."

Ravyn startles awake. He jolts upright in bed, and several realizations hit him in rapid succession.

First come the immediate sensations. His body is drenched in sweat. His throat is sore to the point of being hoarse. He's sat on a soft mattress with covers loosely draped over his lower body and heaped up against his chest where they've fallen off the rest of him.

Then he recognizes himself and his surroundings. He's not a child. He's not an infant. He's not dead. He's alive, in his own adult body, safe in his own room.

"Ravyn, darling?"

And the warm hands of his loving husband are holding him steady.

Finally in relative lucidity, Ravyn breathes for a moment before turning to the comforting presence beside him. His husband, a fellow dragon with gorgeous white feathers and long, flowing hair, is illuminated by the soft glow of a desk lamp on the night stand behind him.

"Are you alright?" Ravyn's lover asks.

"I-I'm okay-" he responds on impulse with the first words that make it to his mouth.

"Are you?" replies his husband with concern.

"...No."

Ravyn leans into him, and in the next moment the pair are clung to each other tightly. Ravyn sobs into his shoulder. And he holds him close with soft, unyielding comfort.

It's a few minutes before Ravyn catches his breath and his tears stop flowing. He's handed a tissue from the night stand by his doting partner, which he gratefully accepts.

"I-I'm sorry-" his voice is audibly strained, "J-Just one of those dreams again... I didn't mean to wake you up."

The white dragon pulls Ravyn in close and gently lowers him into a more comfortable position in bed.

"Shhhh," he says, "There's no need for sorries, sweetheart."

Gentle arms wrap tight around Ravyn's chest, but not uncomfortably so. His soft body forms a comforting wall against Ravyn's back.

"I love you, Ravyn. Vaster than the stars in the sky, and with passion that burns brighter than any of them."

Ravyn takes a moment to respond, breathing deep and slowly allowing his tensed body to relax in his lover's arms.

"I love you, too. So much."

A twinge of unease at returning to the land of dreams is washed away by the warm, gentle breath rolling across his neck. Held close in his husband's arms, Ravyn allows himself to rest and fall back asleep.

And he knows his dreams will be far more pleasant.