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"Don't wander too far ahead, Isral!" a dragon called after a smaller orange hatchling that was bounding ahead with flowers in his mouth.

Instead of the replying, Isral, the hatchling ,stopped and turned his head around, staring at the two dragons behind him with bright blue eyes, wagging his sickle tipped tail. The yellow flowers in his mouth that matched his underbelly were called the Derim flowers. Derim flowers were commonly left upon gravestones as a sign of respect and love for the departed, but they were also valuable ingredients for healing as their stems had a special cell in them that allowed wounds to heal faster.

"I won't father!" Isral said with the flowers in his mouth. As such, it must have made him sound like some sort of mutant or freak. His mind immediately wandered to what he would look like if he turned into a mutant. Would he grow an extra set of wings, a third eye...oh who knew what he would turn into? The possibilities were unlimited.

He did wish for the extra set of wings, though.

Once the two dragons caught up, Isral took off again, approaching a small stone entrance leading into a hill. Looking back once more, he awaited his parents before bounding down the stairs on the other side. There were about thirty before he hit the bottom; he counted them. When he hit the bottom, he sneezed from all of the dust.

Inside was...kind of scary if he was honest with himself. The remains of his ancestors and other nobles surrounded them, each in a diamond tomb. If he looked hard though, he could see the body on the inside. If most weren't skeletons, he would have thought that they were all sleeping peacefully. Maybe they were. He'd never know until it was his time.

Shifting away from the tombs, he looked around him to see everything around him. The white walls and ceiling, although cracked in some locations, were polished and made to be as neat as possible. The floor, however, was a different story. For some reason, the place was built with no floor, instead giving it a very earthy feel due to the fact it was dirt. A small spider skittered across his claw; it tickled.

After a bit, he slowly grew used to this place and realized how depressing it was. He didn't like it. Yet, he persivered, making sure his parents were behind him after a bit. Maybe he would drag a female down here to scare her. Maybe he'd bring Xania, a Kiral female lizard. Kiral, from what he learned from his parents, was someone who stood on two legs. Isral himself was Tiral, meaning he walked all fours.

Eventually he reached a sapphire coffer, one of the few in the catacombs. He could tell it it was the right one because of the same last name; Verk. From what he was told, Verk meant something important, but Isral could never pay attention long enough to remember.

"It's been three years since your grandfather passed away and your father and I took over the kingdom," his mother, an orange scaled dragon with a black underbelly, started. "Had you been a little older, I'm sure you would have liked him. He was much like you even to his final hours..."

"One day you will also be here, Isral." his father put a blue scaled claw on little Isral's shoulder, who had placed the flowers on top of the coffer. "Just as everyone else will. Here you will join our ancestors and friends in the world beyond, starting adventures unknown."

"If you're dead, how can you still have adventures?" Isral frowned.

"Death is nothing more than a new beginning," his mother answered, "What happens beyond is unknown, but everyone and everything must make that journey. It is up to you to shape that path. You are too young to understand it now, but when you reach your twilight, you'll understand."

"I don't WANT to grow old, though!" Isral pouted. "I don't want to be wrinkly!"

"No one does," the blue scaled dragon chuckled. "No one has found a fountain of youth and only a select group of Shaman can freeze their age. However, as your mother said, you are too young to comprehend it all. You still have a hatchlinghood to live out before you even become king, and when your time comes to take over from your mother and I, I am positive you will make a great king."

Isral remained silent until his mother spoke. "So I heard you have been spending more time around Xania."

"Whoever told you that is a liar! She's weird!"

"So I'm a liar?" his father jabbed at his side. Isral batted his white wings at him.

"What does it matter if I have or not?" Isral grumbled.

"Oh, I was just wondering if she was going to be your queen. After all, you are quite attached to her..." His mother also nudged him.

"NO!" Isral ran a few yards away. How dare they assume he had a crush on her?

However, in his thoughts, he didn't notice the rumbling that surroounded him until it was too late. The roof shook and the ground split, sending Isral plummeting below. He flapped his wings, but thanks to some illness he had when he was born, they were far too weak to carry him. Grasping a rock, it merely caused something in his claw to snap.

On the plus side, he didn't fall very far, but it was very dark. He couldn't see where he was or even his own scales. Reaching up, he felt something smooth and cold. Taking a deep breath, he let out a small jet of flame...and saw a horrible sight.

Directly in front of him, milimeters from his nose, was the body of a rotting corpse. The eye was fixated on him, and he swore he saw the jaw move.

Isral screamed.

---

Seventeen years later...

"What do you see, Isral?"

Isral sat down across from an ink blot, staring intently at it. At first he saw nothing, but eventually his eyes registered it to be some sort of insect. His breathing labored, he looked up see a young, brown, bipedal female jackal in a white coat leaned on her wooden desk.

"A butterfly." The dragon replied slowly, his eyes drifting to the window.

Outside it was a beautiful autumn day; trees swayed softly in the wind, the sun gave him warmth through the glass, and patients walked around the court outside, some with doctors. Glancing back to the silvery white office, he noted that the doctor was scribbling down notes.

"Good, good...you aren't seeing any more flashes of the undead." She noted, unconsciously sending a shiver down Isral's thorny spine. Then, she faced him with concern in her eyes, "I can see it clearly, but I need you to tell me how you are holding up."

Isral took a look at his withering white wings and yellow scaled underbelly once more before letting out a sigh. "I actually gained a few pounds since we last met, Doctor Ordel." He gave a small smile, scratching his elegantly curved bone-white horns.

"Improvement there as well!" Doctor Ordel exclaimed with enthusiasm, "At this rate, you can head back home." Isral let out a small gasp before turning away again. Her shoulders slumped at the reaction, "Sorry...but everyone is looking for you."

"I know they are. But...do they want a king that checked himself in a mental hospital?" Isral taloned the small gemmed bracer around his left claw. It was a sign of royalty, yet while some inmates had pieced it together, he was largely under the radar.

"Takes a strong dracidon to admit he needs help." The doctor said soothingly, getting up to pat his muzzle. His eyes instinctively closed at the touch, "You're making tremendous progress and I think that you can be allowed back to the town for a bit with supervision."

"You sure?" he asked in a pleasurable daze. Getting his muzzle scratched was something that he adored even as a hatchling.

"Of course. However, I also feel that the touch of a friend would do wonders. She is actually coming here, having figured out where you went and contacted me numerous times to see you. Wait in your room; she should be here in the next ten minutes."

Nodding Isral pulled himself up with difficulty and walked out of the room, each step becoming less of a struggle. The sickle at the end of his tail scraped along the ground along with his wings. A few of the patients looked at him with annoyance on their faces, but there was nothing he could do about it other than mumble small apologies.

Down the long brightly lit hall, he stopped by a dorm numbed '313' and opened it. It was a small room, but more than enough space for a wool bed, a maple desk, and a floating amethyst. Tapping the gem, soft music began to fill the room. Shutting the door with his tail, he sat down on the bed and grabbed a picture.

It showed him as a young drake with a pumpkin in his jaws between his parents. His face contorted at the picture, but he didn't cry. Rather, he just held it close to his chest and listened to the music.

His mind raced, wondering who was going to visit him, much less how he or she found him. He was careful to not leave any signs of where he was; it must have taken a long time to pinpoint him considering he went to the opposite side of the continent.

The music stopped, a radio announcer going over the news. Something that mildly caught his attention was that a city named Leviana was nearly torn apart by someone named Krucifi. He didn't pay attention to the details too much after hearing that it was across the ocean. He had no desire to rule anymore as a king, and despite being in a mental hospital, life was reasonable well. The lack of responsibility and having the fact that he was a noble drilled into his skull never got old.

The door opened, Isral cracking an eye to identify the intruder. Once he did, both eyes snapped wide, sitting his body up as far as it could.

There, at the doorway, was a Tiral black female lizard wearing matching leather armor. Her four green horns, two on each side, were long and narrow. Her fangs were long and venomous, the tips stained with a sickly yellow/green color. The tip of her tail was barbed and filled with the same venom in her fangs.

"Isral..." her features went soft as she stepped forward, reaching at him with green claws filled with poison. Then, her face grew stern. "I should beat you to death after the turmoil you gave the kingdom."

"What do you mean, Xania?" Isral attempted to hide behind the pillow. It was as effective as hiding behind a blade of grass.

She approached his head, talons twitching in a hint of rage before she calmed herself. "It's been five long years without the royal family. After the..." Xania looked to the side, "accident, you went and disappeared. The kingdom was torn apart to make sure you were found, and when you didn't turn up, there was a state of emergency. Hell, the regent king that was appointed was all but certain that bandits had kidnapped you and launched attacks on their bases in order to find you."

Isral remained silent, taking in what she said. Her words hit him with the force of a two ton hammer. He had a dim feeling that this would happen, but he still vanished. He needed to escape.

"I...I'm sorry..." he whispered. Xania peered at him with emerald eyes, her tail twitching. "I just needed to get away. I couldn't be around that place anymore. If I had told you where I went, you would have simply dragged me back."

"Do you think we were all stupid?" Xania growled. "No, we knew that you needed to be alone and at least I was going to give you as much space as possible. Of course, you had to be incredibly thick..."

"Yes, I know!" Isral shouted, his heart pounding in his chest. "I know I made a mistake but...if you're here to drag me back, I'm not going. I can't just show up after five years and make everything go back to normal! Plus, I don't want to deal with the questions."

"Oh for..." Xania sat down next to him, staring into his eyes. "Can you stop acting like a hatchling for one minute and listen to me?" When Isral nodded, she continued. "Yes, I did come to drag you back. However, now that I have spoken to the Doctor and learned of your condition, I have changed my goal. Yes, I am still here to take you back, but not to put you back on the throne. There is another asylum within the castle walls and they offered to take you in, no questions asked."

Isral blinked, the gears in his mind starting to turn at this information. There was never an asylum before; the closest one was ten kilometers away. Still, he did like the whole 'no questions asked' part. In fact that was what he was most afraid of.

"No questions asked?" Isral asked in confirmation.

"No, not from them anyway. Of course there are still going to be some who are going to ask where you have been, but the only one you really have to answer to is Clarius, the one who has been on the throne." Xania stood up once more and started to pace. It was there that Isral noticed that she had a few files in her claws...each relating to his stay at the asylum. "Schizophrenia and PTSD..."

"Hey, those are confidential!" Isral attempted to snatch them away. Xania merely turned away.

"I know, but I am part of the Spec OPS that your father set up before his death." Xania explained. "It is my job to find out information about my target, and this helps me understand you and is currently the only thing stopping me from injecting you with my venom and dragging you back across the continent."

"Wouldn't that be exhausting?" Isral asked. She didn't look like she could carry him, Spec OPS or not.

"You weight about a hundred and ten...yeah that will be a bit tiresome after a while, but you are not the heaviest thing I have had to carry." Xania said with a suggestive wink. Isral went silent, feeling a sudden urge of jealousy rising up in him. Her smile merely encouraged it. Of course, this changed when he realized that she was likely trying to get a rise out of him.

"Alright, I'll go back." Isral said with a defeated sigh. "However, I am going to get a cloak to hide myself when we get closer. I'd rather not be noticed and have everyone flip out on me."

"I'll grab you one when we are about to leave. I'd like to leave in the night if possible; less attention drawn to you and I'd blend in a lot better to counter any attack made against you." Xania gave a relieved smile. "Say goodbye to whoever you wish; you still have a few hours."

Isral nodded, leaving the room and walking down to the Doctor's room. Glancing behind him, he saw that Xania was right on his tail. He didn't question it, in fact expecting her to follow him wherever he went. It was likely her orders to do, and if he was honest with himself, seeing her again made him feel much better about himself. Not any stronger just...happier.

Peering inside, he saw Doctor Ordel writing down notes. Knocking softly, she turned over to see him and opened the door. "Isral! I didn't expect to see you again so soon. How was it with your friend?"

"She's still here." Isral motioned to Xania, was leaning against the wall behind him. She gave a small wave. "However,...I'm going to be leaving with her. She's taking me back to the Kingdom."

The Doctor's enthusiastic face slowly turned serious. "Are you sure that you want to leave? I mean, you're at the right level to be discharged, but I'd much rather see you consistently stop having nightmares."

"I have a copy of the notes you did on him." Xania held them up. Ordel's expression then turned to confusion. "I'm going to make sure he is put in the asylum back at the city, or at the very least have a personal doctor he can call whenever he needs him or her."

"I see..." Doctor Ordel placed a claw under her chin. "Alright, but I want to talk with who is taking care of him as soon as possible. I'll run up the transfer files and send them over. The only reason why I am allowing this to go on short notice is because I have a dim feeling that it is important that he returns as soon as possible."

She then turned to Isral. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I really do hope that I don't see you again. At least, not in these terms. If I can, I'll see if I can drop by and check up on you."

Isral grinned. "I'd like that."

Doctor Ordel nodded before ushering him out. "Go, I'm sure your kingdom needs you."

With that, Isral turned and left, looking down the blue-gray halls for the final time. Never again would he see the walls he had walked down countless times in the past five years. It was kind of sad to see everything he knew vanish. With a sigh, he returned to his room and grabbed the picture of his parents. Realizing he had no place to put it, the bag having ripped two years ago, he turned to Xania.

"I'll take care of it for you." She offered before he could even ask. Gently, she plucked it off the desk and placed it in a pouch around her waist. "You were lucky to have that doctor; she seemed nice and sounds like she still care for you even if you are quite the distance away. Hopefully the asylum back home will be similar."

Back home. The words she chose sent both a ray of hope and a stab of sorrow into his heart. How much would the place have changed? Would it be alien or be largely similar? The excitement was starting envelop him and for the first time in years, he felt the mold of misery that he had formed around himself start to flake away. It was like a whole new chapter of his life was just starting, and although it was one asylum to the other, he felt like he could manage his problems better.

Maybe even take the throne back...