Vincent smiled, nodding knowingly as Ennie told him how tired she was. “Understandable,” he said, feeling his own exhaustion seep through his refusal to acknowledge it. “I hope you sleep well.”

“Soldraleo,” he murmured as his friend entered her room. “Oh, like solgaleo and dragon combined. Clever.” His abandoned phone was picked up from the couch where he had left it as he sat back down and decided to try the name. Sure enough, it was free, and once he had set up an account he was greeted by a character who offered him a choice of an orange lizard called ‘charmander’, a blue turtle called ‘squirtle’, and what he could only describe as a cross between a cat, a toad and a plant called ‘bulbasaur’. After some thought, he went with charmander.

The next half hour or so was spent setting up his game, dressing his avatar, and finding an adorable fox-like creature sitting right in his apartment called ‘vulpix’, as he sipped his now-cold tea. He decided to call it a night after successfully catching the fox, calling quietly to Misty as he made for his bedroom. She was perched on top of her tall cat tree, gazing out the window it was up against. “Are you coming, girl?” The cat gave a ‘murrr’ as her answer and gracefully leaped down, trotting to the sun dragon’s side as he stepped into his room.

After brushing his teeth, momentarily considering brushing his hair out again so it didn’t tangle and deciding he was too tired to do so, and taking his medication with a sip of water, Vincent laid in his bed, wrapping himself up in his comforter and settling comfortably on his side. Misty situated herself in the crook of his legs, pressed against him and curled into a ball. He found himself drifting into slumber much faster than usual, and would later attribute that to the painkillers.

---

Vincent awoke around 11:00 am, much later than he was used to sleeping in. “I suppose last night really got to me,” he mused, sitting up and stretching in his bed. The movement prompted Misty to awaken as well, daintily jumping down from the bed and nosing the half-shut door open so that she could get a drink. Another moment of stretching later and Vincent was off to the bathroom to get himself ready to start the day.

The sun dragon looked at himself in the mirror and instantly regretted not combing his hair before he slept. He actually smirked at how silly he looked with it tangled up and stuck as weird angles. No one to blame but myself, he said inwardly as he prepared to spend the next twenty minutes de-tangling it.

Another ten minutes spent brushing his teeth, taking his medication, and getting dressed later, and he was out of his bedroom around 11:30. Next time we’re not going to bed with damp hair, no matter how tired we are, he decided as he was greeted by the cheerful (and insistent) meow of a particularly hungry maine coon.

“ι ωαѕ ησт gσιηg тσ ѕαу αηутнιηg,” Helios replied, “вυт ιт ωσυℓ∂ нανє вєєη α gσσ∂ ι∂єα тσ ∂σ ѕσ, уєѕ.”

Hush, you. Vincent huffed, padding into the kitchen.

After feeding Misty, he felt the familiar growl of his own stomach reminding him that he also needed to eat. Noticing that Ennie was not up yet, he decided to start making some breakfast for the two of them. “We have fresh fruit in the fridge that will need to be eaten before we leave unless we want to waste it, which I do not.”

“ι ѕєє ησ ѕєηѕє ιη тняσωιηg ιт αωαу,” the dragon agreed. “нσω αвσυт мαкιηg ѕσмєтнιηg ωιтн ιт?”

“Good idea,” the blonde-haired man agreed quietly, opening a small cupboard that housed an assortment of cookbooks. He selected the one that contained recipes for breakfasts and lunches, opening and flicking through the pages until he got to the section with pancakes, waffles and the like. “Do you think Ennie and Astley like crepes?”

“ι ¢αη ιмαgιηє тнєу ωσυℓ∂,” was the response from Helios.

Satisfied with his decision, Vincent got to work gathering everything he needed to make some fluffy crepes. First, he combined the dry ingredients-- the flour, sugar, and salt, and then added them to the mixture of wet ingredients, which consisted of eggs, milk, and vanilla, meticulously whisking it until the batter was free of lumps.

Keeping a careful eye on the first one as it sizzled away in the pan, he began to wash and cut up some fruit to top them with. Vincent wasn’t too sure which fruits Ennie preferred, but the selection would include strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and bananas, along with a jar of nutella and whipped cream. He would wait until Ennie woke up to whip the cream, as he didn’t want to disturb her sleep by turning on the mixer.

A few crepes had been piled onto a platter, with a bit of the mixture still left to cook and one cooking in the pan. The fruit was placed into small separate bowls so that they could top their crepes with whatever they preferred. As he worked away, he realized that he hadn’t really dreamed the last night, or, if he had, it had been nonsensical white noise. I suppose my mind decided to give me a rest, he hummed thoughtfully. Usually, even if it isn’t a nightmare, I dream about something.

Vincent had purposefully made extra batter, knowing his friend would probably be hungry enough for a whole stack of them after last night. Even he was still tired after the paces they’d both been put through; what with him getting shot and Ennie having her home destroyed, the Hunters had really managed to make their cruelty known. They truly saw dragons as inhuman monsters, while being more monsters themselves than any dragon Vincent had ever known.

His own first experience with Hunters had been directly after bonding with Helios. He had awoken with a terrible, searing pain in his arm, and a wicked headache. After paying a visit to his friend, who had happened to be a doctor, and describing what had happened, he learned all about dragons-- and that his friend had been one since before they’d met. They had spent an entire afternoon going over the basics, everything the other man had learned from experience, including the people who hunted and unjustly slaughtered people like them. The next day, he had returned for more ‘dragon lessons’, to find that Samuel’s home had been broken into, and a Hunter grappling with him in his office. Apparently, Vincent’s involuntary transformation had alerted the Hunter, who had been tracking Samuel anyway. They had both nearly died.

After that, they went on the run, moving from place to place and never truly settling down. It was forty or so years later when they got too comfortable, lulled into a sense of security by the lack of Hunters chasing them down. That had cost Samuel his life. Vincent had watched as the gale dragon fought valiantly to defend him, and both the Hunters and the dragon had perished in the battle, leaving the sun dragon with the agony of losing his only friend.

The blonde-haired man chuckled lightly at Ennie’s shock. He didn’t often cook from scratch for breakfast, but this morning had brought company with it, whom he was more than happy to cook for. He sat down across from her once the last of the batter was used up with a plate of his own, a handful of crepes topped with fruit and whipped cream. He cut off a piece and popped it into his mouth, noting that his first attempt at crepes in a long time had certainly been successful.

As the rainforest dragon described the majority of her life, Vincent considered thoughtfully. He had always desired to live among others, even if he avoided forming close relationships with most people he knew he would outlive. It made sense, he supposed, that some dragons would remain in the wilderness, especially in Ennie’s case. Silently, he was grateful that she had chosen to move here; it had been a long time since he had truly had a good friend.

He nodded, finishing up his plate as she relayed her plan. “We don’t have to leave forever,” he said, “just for a few weeks or so, until the Hunters get bored of searching the city for us. I’m going to look online and find somewhere a good distance away that we can lay low for a while. I should have come up with something and be ready to leave by the time you return. Oh, and I will contact that Reito fellow as well. It would probably be in his best interest to hide out for a while too.” As much as the moon dragon’s eccentric chatter and constant arguing with his other half set him on edge, Vincent had to acknowledge that Reito was the most likely out of any of them to be caught, and the last thing he wanted was for him to be killed.

Vincent stood then, pushing his chair in and collecting the empty plates and cutlery from the table. After a quick rinse in the sink, they were neatly placed into the dishwasher along with everything he had used to cook their breakfast. A detergent pod was popped in, and he turned it on. That finished, he wiped down the table with a damp cloth and put away the nutella. There was a bit of fruit still left, namely a couple of strawberries and a slice of banana, so he gave the banana to Misty, who had been sprawled out on the living room floor. She liked the soft texture, he supposed, and a tiny bit of banana wouldn’t hurt her, despite being a carnivore.