Arabella gulped when she recognized the city Ferdinand was heading to. It was where he was once imprisoned, tortured, in displayed in public.
She gasped and covered her mouth at the sight that greeted them at the entrance gate.
"No! This isn’t happening!"
Ferdinand’s old wings were displayed there. And beside it, soone’s lifeless body was hanged. The birds were feasting on it.
It was Ellie’s.
Her chest tightened. Arabella felt both fury and grief fill her. Ellie was such a kind person. She was so kind even to Ferdinand who was a dragon. She didn’t deserve this kind of death.
Arabella finally understood what happened. The people here went to Ellie’s place and caught her. She could figure out the reason why.
It was because Ellie helped and freed Ferdinand.
But Ellie only helped him because everyone was cruel.
What was wrong with her actions? Why did they have to kill her like this and even hang her corpse at the gates instead of burying her?!
And it was even more horrifying since Ellie looked exactly like her. It was as if Arabella was seeing herself hanged to death and displayed for everyone to see.
Ferdinand growled at the sight of Ellie’s body hanging like that. He flew to the gate and gently collected the corpse and flew back to Ellie’s abode.
He gently laid Ellie’s corpse at the front of her house and tried to nudge it several tis, as if trying to wake her up. But to no avail.
He sniffed the corpse several tis and whimpered. He circled around Ellie’s corpse and sniffed her one last ti.
His roar reverberated as he realized that Ellie; his benefactor and friend, was already dead.
Ferdinand encased Ellie’s corpse and the entire area in ice as if to prevent anything else from hurting or touching her. When he flew back into the air, Arabella realized that it wasn’t just Ellie’s abode that was frozen. The entire mountain was.
And Ferdinand was heading back to the city.
There was no ti to wallow in grief. Ferdinand was clearly out for vengeance.
Arabella gasped as the inhabitants of the city gathered around Ferdinand when he closed in. They were already ard after seeing him earlier.
’No! He needs to leave this place, or he might be captured and imprisoned again.’
And there was no Ellie to help him this ti. All the people here saw him as nothing but a beast.
She was about to tell him to leave but when she glanced at his eyes, they were no longer green but a terrifying red. His body was oozing with a dark aura too.
More people gathered with weapons to fight and capture Ferdinand, but one loud roar and a lot of them were set ablaze. He didn’t stop setting everyone and everything around him ablaze even as they began to run away instead of attacking.
Ferdinand was so furious that he went berserk and reduced the entire city and its surroundings to ashes. When he no more fire ca out of him, he used ice next.
And, no matter how she called out or tried to get his attention, he could not hear nor see her.
* * *
"Arabella. Arabella!"
She stirred at the sound of Ferdinand’s alard voice.
"Arabella, wake up!"
’Ferdinand... is he alright now?’
"Arabella, please wake up," she felt soone shake her body.
Arabella opened her eyes and was greeted by the human Ferdinand and not the dragon one.
"Ferdinand?!"
"Arabella, you were crying in your sleep and screaming for soone to stop. Are you alright? I’m so sorry I overdid it. I won’t do it again," Ferdinand apologized.
’What is he apologizing for?’ she tilted her head.
"Wait, I’m finally awake!" Arabella sat up and cupped her husband’s worried face.
"Ferdinand, I missed you so much!" she gave her bewildered husband a tight hug.
It felt like months since they last saw each other. She was with the dragon Ferdinand, but she could not speak with him, and she was a third party there.
’But what happened to the rampaging Ferdinand? How long did he stay like that?’
"You missed ?" Ferdinand stared at her and blinked repeatedly in confusion.
She looked around the room and it was the sa as when she slept. She had an awfully long dream.
’Right, it must sound weird to say I miss him so much after we spent the night passionately. To him, I just woke up.’
"Yes. Of course. I miss you all the ti," she looked away. How would she tell him about her dream? It was too long to tell. Could she even cut it short?
"Arabella, look at . What were you dreaming about? See, these are your tears," he wiped her cheeks with his fingers and showed her. "You kept saying: ’Stop. Please stop.’ Tell honestly, did I overdo it last night that you even had a nightmare about it?"
"No, it wasn’t about that. I had an awfully long nightmare. And it made miss you so much," she embraced him again.
The mory of seeing Ellie die gave her goosebumps. The Ferdinand there was swallowed by his grief and mindlessly rampaged. It was such a painful sight.
’I hope he cald down and ca to his senses.’
Arabella could feel her anger and sadness well up again.
"You can tell about it," Ferdinand offered to listen since her anxiety was noticeable.
Arabella was still so emotional after everything she witnessed in the dream, so she ended up telling Ferdinand everything. But she held back on Ellie’s na and appearance for the anti because she had sothing to ask about her later.
[Why would she dream about that? It was so long ago that I barely recall it. Yet her descriptions were so detailed. Was it because I gave her so of my mana?]
Arabella was wide-eyed at that thought from her husband. It ant he truly did experience it.
"Ferdinand, you truly went through all that?"
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