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She was a child with no sisters or brothers but two loving parents.
Or was.
The red dragon's tail was wagging with a pencil in hand and the papyrus paper on a table. Agnar was innocently painting her dad, sitting in a woven chair. She was barely a teen when it happened.
His death.
She always loved her Dad, she always played with him when he was back home. Well... In the past. A question came over her as she made sketchy outlines of her father in the drawing.
"Ma." She was a pipsqueak back then. Her mother hurried with a hot pan in her claws. She always made delicious food for the three of us.
...Why did he leave us?
"Hey Ma... Why did our dad die?" She didn't know why she asked that but her mother paused. Her older skin shed memories, talking about him. Her grey-blue eyes hid a sadness.
Mother was suffering when he died.
"Oh, that... He died working." Agnar knew as a child already that dragonoids had it hard. Be it the farm life or whatever else. There was this constant fear of them prematurely dying.
But she never realized that it could ever happen to her.
"Why did he die working...? Aren't they supposed to take care of Dad?" At this, her mother choked on tears.
Her mother kept it quiet to protect her from the ugly world. This cruel, necessary lie. She was trying to keep the morale high every day.
Even though this city took him too early.
"...Sometimes, It's not that simple, dearie...-"
Agnar realized.
...the memory of it was... distant.
"So... when will I meet Dad again?"
An odd flavor of red in her mouth.
..Just the emotion was left.
"Sometimes life is a struggle and no one can help you."
She used to eat crayons.
...Dad probably died the same way as her now.
"...He died fighting?"
Agnar wanted her family back.
(..He died a traitor too, didn't he?)
"No... No."
Agnar wanted to...
(...Is this what my mom tried to hide from me all these years?)
"He died for us to keep living a life."
She wanted to turn back time. Go back; To when she was just a silly kid with her two bright parents.
(That my family were a bunch of traitors?)
Days later after her mother's death. They were beside the graveyard because traitors don't get buried but burned. She didn't get much of a funeral. Katten prepared the disillusioned dragon candles.
Katten didn't know her mother but he could see the pain on Agnar's face. It made him feel wrecked inside. Why was he so sympathetic to a stupid dragon?
It didn't matter.
He took two wooden planks and rammed them into the earth and Agnar wrote with red crayons their names.
"It's unfair." She muttered to him as he nodded to her.
Katten placed flowers Agnar picked from the nearby forest. It seemed to matter a lot to her. Katten gave her a look of silent empathy.
"I could've done something." She whispered to herself.
She cried while holding her face and Katten kneed to respect the dead. His voice echoed in her mind.
"Don't be like this, dragon girl. Not even the gods could've saved your mom."
"...I am willing to lend you a hand after all I did steal from you before."
"I am willing to let you stay."
...
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The day after.
Agnar was an emotional wreck.
Katten watched outside carefully while a familiar dragon with blue eyes watched as the ceiling never changed color. She felt hopeless, maybe distraught. It has been days after her death.
The cat let her crash at his place but that didn't fix her problem. If her family were traitors it wouldn't take long until they want her too.
"Agnar."
The thief watched her descend more and more into herself. He saw that look and how she barely carried herself out of the bed.
"...You can get outside, you know."
"Agnar-..." She didn't accept it yet.
"You don't get it, they all lied."
She had to accept it the way she died. Maybe that's why, when he felt pity, he let her crash at his place for a time... It was... a snap decision on his part. He hadn't thought anything through when he said the magic words.
He sighed and was tormented by his own stupid decisions.
"I am willing to let you stay."
...
Agnar had been going through it now. Heck. When was the time she wasn't thinking about it?
"I know that look. You are thinking about her."
"Look... I found a job for us."
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