Chapter Text
No one had told Rayla how hard it’d be to have to leave every day to fulfil her duty as a dragonguard. How much it pained her to have to wake up early and leave Callum and Sarai, even if she knew that she wouldn’t be gone for long. Luckily for the most part, Sarai had seemed to adjust to it well by the time she was a toddler. Lucky as in the fact that she could not care less that her mother was there when she was around her father. Rayla wasn’t jealous, not really. She loved seeing how much her daughter loved her father, how she looked at him every day like he had hung the moon for him. Callum would make sure to wake her up early in the morning so that she could say goodbye to her mother before she left. For years, Sarai was the same until one early morning when Rayla was getting ready to leave, and it was like something had clicked in Sarai’s toddler brain. When Rayla knelt down to give her daughter a goodbye hug, and Callum told Sarai to “Give Mummy a big hug goodbye,” the little girl started instantly bawling, her face turning a bright shade of red.
“Hey, it’s alright, moonbug, I’ll be back,” she said, her words doing nothing to soothe the toddler. Sarai’s hands balled into little fists as she slammed them against Rayla’s chest, and Callum was about to intervene when Rayla shot him a quick “Let me handle this” look.
“No! No! Mummy, no leave!” Sarai wept, Rayla reaching down to take her daughter’s hands into hers.
“Mummy’s gotta leave so she can go do her job, ye get to stay with Daddy until then,” she said, none of her words getting through to Sarai. “Hey, hey, ye want to hug?” She asked, Sarai immediately nodded, and Rayla picked her up into a tight hug, the toddler practically burying herself into her mother as her sobs continued. They didn’t let go of each other for a while, Rayla feeling Sarai’s heartbeat calm down as it began to mimic her own. “Are ye upset that I have to leave?” Rayla asked, feeling a small nod against her shoulder. “Do ye not want to stay with Daddy?” She asked, waiting for an answer.
“No,” a small voice said from her shoulder, muffled slightly from Rayla’s shirt.
“You want Mummy to stay?” Callum asked, his hand coming to rub Sarai’s back. A big nod followed immediately afterwards.
“I want to stay moonbug, I really do. But I have to go and do my duty,” she replied, Sarai sitting up slightly in her mother’s arms. “Ye know how Uncle Ez has Uncle Soren and Uncle Corvus to help protect him?” She asked, Sarai nodding as if she understood. “Well, I have to go and be that protector for Zym, so that he’s safe and I can keep ye safe,”
“But Zym’s a big dragon, he can shoot lightning like Daddy,” Sarai said, both parents trying their hardest not to laugh because technically, she was right.
“That is true, but sometimes even big, powerful dragons like him need someone to protect them, just like Daddy and I do with ye,” Rayla said, Sarai, sitting up in her arms as she made some distance between the two of them. “Hey, ye know I’ll be back. And when I get back… ye can show me all the books that ye and Daddy read, and we can make some mummy and Sarai necklaces together?” Rayla pleaded, adding a few tickles to Sarai, which she knew would get a laugh out of her. There was silence between the three of them for a while, letting Sarai process all of it.
“Ok,” Sarai replied. One simple word from an almost three-year-old, but at least she was happy with the suggestion.
“Can I get one big hug before I put ye down?” Rayla asked kindly, Sarai already extending her hands wide as she gave her mother a surprisingly tight hug from a toddler, but the slight inability to fully breathe was satisfying enough for Rayla, as she hugged not quite as tightly. Once Sarai’s hands had exhausted, she pulled away, before Rayla put her down slowly. A little part of her hated this, the leaving. It reminded her of when she was younger, when her parents had left to protect the egg, and here she was, trying not to find one more reason to stay here at home with the love of her life, the one she’d held after her birth.
"She’s going to be so strong and brave, and creative, and clever
And good"
And indeed, Sarai was all of those things, all of those things that Rayla had dreamed for her when she was born, and she was so much more. “I love ye so much, moonbug, ok?” Rayla said, before standing upwards again to face towards Callum, her lips pressing into his before she had to pull away.
“Love you, stay safe out there,” Callum said, his hands reaching out to take Sarai so that she didn’t bolt after her mother.
“I will, don’t worry,” she smirked as she gathered her things to leave. When her hand reached the door, Rayla looked back. Callum was already distracting Sarai with promises of making her favorite breakfast of crackle bird eggs and moonberries. She stared longingly at them, like she was watching a scene in which she should be involved. No, they didn’t make so many sacrifices for nothing. When Aaravos was gone… truly gone, and that Luna Devorans and Claudia were gone too, both of them knew that they needed to help make the world a little safer for her. It's what they had discussed when she was pregnant with her. So, if Sarai had to deal with her mother being gone and protecting Azymondias as her mother and father had done before her, it was a small sacrifice she was willing to make. With a turn of the door handle and a slight push, she stepped out of the house; the only thing keeping her grounded was the fact that she knew she’d get to come back home.