Spike Quits His Job and Goes on Numerous Quests

by B_25

28 – "What Do You Feel Upon Waking?"

~28~

"What Do You Feel Upon Waking?"

The exuberant hues of brilliant yellows and warm oranges fell directly onto the eyelids of the purple dragon laid a slumber on the wooden draft drifting throughout the sea. He groaned as the burning sensation began to sting his eyes, forcing him to shield his eyes with a numb claw.

“Why is the sun so bright?” Spike’s sleep addled-question went unanswered as his upper-body lurched up, unintentionally popping the kinks developed during his long sleep that released his pent-up tension. His eyes gazed around the orange blur that filled the void he currently resided in until his eyes dilated to the color wisps that soared across the sea.

“What the…” His thigh tensed under the weight of lifting the rest of his body up, relaxing once both his feet came to settle upon the logs of wood that constituted the raft. ”Where...where am I?”

“Awake, are we?” Spoke the voice afar from the dragon’s back, causing him to turn and see in the distance to see also the thing formed by swirling words alone. “Tell me, my sweet and dearest dragon, what do you feel upon waking after such a great nap?”

Spike began to blink in coloration of his mind trying to comprehend the boundless space he now occupied; the floating creature before him whose body was superficial, and more importantly, what exactly it was he felt at that exact moment.

“Nothing.” The word left his lips not as a justification of his state that required contemplation, but rather on the immediate impulse of his primitive instinct that knew him well within the course of a second and assigned the lone word that encapsulated his being. “No tension coursing through my body, or my mind wrapping in loops for questions I can never answer.”

The worded being released a small chuckle as it leaned back. “Do you feel that’s a good thing or a bad thing?”

Spike’s emerald eyes trailed down to his claw that he held before his face, examining every purple scale that protected the bone underneath his talon. “Not sure. It’s just a thing, to me, I guess.”

The Count threw its shoulders forth in a closer inspection of the oncoming raft, fulfilling the glint of curiosity in its scrambled eyes. “Your case is most compelling, Spike the Dragon, so much, that I’m willing to propose a deal.”

The dragon gazed past the blurred contour of his talon to the soon approaching Count.

“If you can recall all of your fears upon entering the Orange Sea, and reciting them with the same care when you first asked me about them: I shall give you the answer you honestly seek for each one of them.”

Fuzz began to consume the Count’s form by the dragon’s blinking eye, who retreated for a moment into his subconscious to search for the things hidden away in its depths, so that they may no longer trouble his conscious mind.

“I remember being awake, and scared.” He said just above a whisper as the memory was pulled out from his mind and through his mouth without any processing. “Like I was possessed by an indescribable emotion for but a moment that destroyed the dam sealing away my fears that then began to flood out like a current.

“It made me exhausted, and just recalling it makes me want to go back to sleep.”

The Count excluded an aura of familiarity by its scribbled hooves glided upward. “Tell me! Do you still seek the answers you’ve sought all your life, or has my body become but mere lines to your eyes that successfully have sealed away the look of silent desperation?”

The suspended claws before the dragon’s eyes fell downward, getting caught in a swing halfway that led them to his sides. “I can still sense that they’re there, somewhere deep within me, but I no longer feel their combined weight that was once tight around my mind.”

Spike's eyes climbed the logs of the raft up to lock eyes with the Count which he now saw so clearly his true form, unable to describe even the emotion cast upon him from witnessing such a spectacle. “Nor does an ember remain from the fire that once fueled all my attempts to find my answer.”

Chuckles began to brew within the confines of the Count’s mouth, slowly began to spew past its tight lips, until it broke the barrier with laughter that rocked even the currents of the orange sea. “Fantastic! I see now not a single mistake in bringing you into our realm, but the folly of those who gave you up because of their ignorance.”

The particles responsible for creating the perfect form of the Count began to imbue itself with a long reserved light, brightening the Count’s image that it washed over the hues of the Orange Sea.

Spike became blinded by the sight that made his limbs go limp and his mind numb, becoming susceptible by its tiredness to accept anything as truth because it no longer had the energy to think for itself. The drake fell forth as his heavy eyelids began to drift close, though his body was caught in the waiting hooves of the Count.

“It’s about time, Spike, that you and I become one.”

Comments

[RadicalDishonesty]

Yeah, the whole "remove Spike's emotions" seems a lot like bullshit that's there so they can get some use of Spike.

Now Spike simply doesn't care about anything!

And that's awful.

[Poputrash]

7852048 That's the cusp of what is to be an Agent, it seems. Count's form depends on what others feel and love, and Falcon's image of Count is nothing. Hence why he was called the best Agent. Also, a cup is of no use when filled to the brim with something else.