After a mostly silent, uneventful hours-long hike, you and Fizzle have finally arrived at your old camp, where you had encountered Fizzle himself as well as the other three dragons. Aside from the now-damp campfire and some loose leaves covering the ground, it didn't look any different as when you left.

"It's been too long since I've been here. Almost felt homesick because of how long I was gone for." You sarcastically mutter to yourself, earning a quiet, nervous chuckle from Fizzle, but nothing more. He watches you as you go over to where the campfire was, semi-mindlessly kicking the ashy remains and sighing.

"We're only gonna stay here for one night and one night only. Then we'll go to the final camp area for a couple of days." You explain. He nods and shyly clicks his claws together, looking as if he wants to say something, but not having a single bit of courage to say it.

You do your best to ignore it and begin to unpack your stuff. Ever since you woke up this morning (totally not cuddling him again of course), you've noticed that Fizzle has been significantly more quiet than what you've been used to. He hasn't even made direct contact with you at all. Not like he did much to begin with, but he did so now and then whenever you said something nice or interesting.

...maybe it's all because of something I said? Or did...? You begin to wonder. Of course, you've never intentionally tried to come off on him in a negative way, but you can't help but feel that this has something to do with you, in one way or another.

You look back at Fizzle, who's also trying to keep himself occupied by looking for firewood to use for later tonight. You smile a little, appreciating his helpfulness despite it all.

He's also still wearing your jacket around his body. As a matter of fact, you haven't really noticed that he's still wearing it until now. Not that you really mind, it's not too cold now that it's midday.

Plus, he did look kinda cute wearing your jacket like that. You knew it was quite comfortable, but it looks like you're gonna have to buy a new one once you go back to Canterlot. You doubt that Fizzle will want to give that up, you think to yourself with a smile.

"Hey Fizzy! Do you think you have enough firewood for tonight?" You call out to him. You see him jump a little when he hears you, snapping him out of whatever train of thought he had. He looks down over his shoulder and nods, looking quite flustered.

White scales aren't exactly the best in terms of wanting to hide a blush, but hey, you weren't complaining.

...But you sure were curious.

Figuring you'd give the poor little dragon an anxiety attack if you asked him about what's wrong, you continue to set up the tent. As you do, you notice that the footprints of the dragons from several nights ago are still here, looking relatively fresh despite the rain from last night.

When Fizzle isn't looking, you slowly pull out your folded shotgun and take a second to examine it, making sure that it doesn't have any sort of dirt or other things that could harm the inner mechanisms. After you do, you begin to rack the shotgun several times, ejecting the non-lethal shells one by one, then beginning to insert the regular 12-gauge shells.

You take another look at the footprints and finish loading the shells in.

...Just in case.

You fold up your shotgun, double check the safety and store it back inside of your pack. You then continue to set up the tent and finish up after a few minutes. You stand up, stretching your arms out a little bit as you admire your handywork.

You then turn around, seeing Fizzle adjust the firewood and place some new stones around it, in order to keep the fire more controlled. You sigh to yourself quietly and walk over to him.

I'll find out... tonight.

After you two conducted another short patrol around the perimeter of their camp, (mostly because you were somewhat paranoid that the other dragons would somehow be stalking you). you both finally begin to relax for the night. Fizzle blows his fire breath onto the firewood, as the light blue flames begin to expand.

You stare at the fire for a moment, finding the unique light blue flames quite relaxing to look at, before snapping out of it and preparing the food rations. You hand Fizzle both of them as he blows onto them, quickly setting your can beside you and letting his cool down as well.

The night comes relatively quickly as you both begin to eat in relative silence, the only sounds being the crackling of the firewood and crickets chirping now and then.

You look up at Fizzle, noticing that he still looks quite unsure and very nervous. More so than usual. He's barely taking small bites out of the food. You sigh and look at him for a moment with a worried, unsure look. He's still avoiding your eyes, but he definitely notices.

"...Alright Fizzle. Tell me... what's wrong?"

Fizzle's eyes dart around nervously when you ask him this, he also begins to sweat a little bit, "H-huh? Nothing! N-n-nothing's wrong, Anon! I'm j-just... uh... tired! Y-yeah," He lets out a fake yawn to try and convince you, "C-cause of all the hiking we did... a-and the organizing and fire...wood... collecting... yeah... heh..."

You raise an eyebrow and cross your arms.

"Y-y-you know how tired dragons can get! W-we always like to sleep in a lot, a-and we fly a lot and stuff b-because we get sore feet easily a-and... uh... imnotconvincingyouamI"

You smile a little and shake your head, taking a more serious look now, "Nope. Not buying it at all. I've really noticed that you've been acting more shy and evasive than usual today, Fizz..."

Fizzle looks down guiltfully, frowning at himself. You reach over, very carefully placing your hand over Fizzle's soft claw. He jumps a little at this, but doesn't pull away, looking up at you indirectly.

"Listen, Fizzle... I don't know what happened, but if it was something that I did, I want to know. I really don't mean to hurt you or anything. I just want to know what I may have done so I can try and help fix it."

Fizzle looks at you as if you just backhanded him, before he shakes his head rapidly, blushing as he tries to stutter out a response.

"N-n-n-no! Y-you didn't do anything wrong, Anon! I-I don't see why you w-would..."

You sigh in relief, but you're still left wondering, Then what's making Fizzle feel this... upset?

"I-it's just... I... y-you..."

Fizzle looks at you directly, his mouth opening as he tries to form a coherent response. You feel him shake a little as you both stare at each other for what seems to be an eternity, but in the end Fizzle just lets out a small whimper and his claw slowly slips from your hand, as he looks down blankly and sadly, looking as if he's on the verge of crying.

You just look down at the disheartened, saddened dragon before you, then back at the campfire. After a couple of moments of just thinking about what to do, you softly smile and proceed to put out the campfire with your water bottle.

Fizzle hears the fire being put out and turns around to face you again, confused and nervous as to what you're planning on doing. You tell him to wait there, the soft smile still planted on your face as you walk towards the tent. Fizzle rubs his wet eyes and sniffles a little as he watches curiously. He sees that you're pulling out your sleeping bag, as well as Fizzle's own makeshift bed, with the blankets and pillows as well.

You begin to gently lay them down onto the flat forest ground, making sure they look as comfy as can be. You then look over at Fizzle and motion him to come over, which he does so with a bit of hesitation.

When Fizzle comes over and sits on his makeshift bed, you stretch your arms a little and gently lay down on your back, looking up at the incredibly detailed night sky, with no trees obstructing the main view, but forming a loose circle around the edges of your peripheral vision.

Fizzle looks down at you, a bit confused, before looking up as well and letting out a very tiny gasp. Your smile grows wider when you see Fizzle instinctively smiling a little bit as he also begins to lay down, taking the full view of the clear night sky.

After a few moments of silence as you both stare in awe, you break the silence and begins to speak quietly to Fizzle, while still looking up at the night sky, "...You know, I used to do this kind of stuff all the time back in my home world. When I was a kid, I'd always climb the roof of my house and just lay there for most of the night, every chance that I got. Just staring and getting lost in the stars, and with my own imagination."

"It was actually one of the main reasons why I became a Border Patrol officer back then. Since I could patrol the desert, which meant less light pollution, therefore made the night sky so much more... beautiful. Like how it is right now."

You begin to chuckle a little, "Although, I did get in trouble for just sitting around and gawking at the night sky on the job more often than not."

Fizzle smiles and giggles a little at the thought, feeling himself relax, his having been perked up the entire time as he listens to every single thing you say.

"It's also why I took the job here as well, so I could look at the stars as much as I wanted, and from different locations with little distractions. I mean, don't get me wrong, Canterlot is a very nice place, but it's quite noisy more often than not."

"...Hey, Fizzy?"

"Mmhmm...?"

"How many stars do you think are up there?"

He puts some thought into the question before answering, rubbing his chin a little with his claw, "Hmm... Maybe uh... A couple hundred thousand?"

You chuckle a little, making Fizzle blush a little as he tries to laugh it off, "Pretty good guess, but believe it or not, there's actually hundreds of millions of stars out here, in this small part of the night sky alone."

"A...are you serious?" Fizzle asks, curious as he looks over at you for a second, genuinely surprised.

You nod, "Yup. Although, we humans can really only see about two to five thousand of those stars, 'cause of moonlight and all. I don't know how good dragon eyesight is... but honestly? It seems like a lot more than that out here..."

"Yeah... It's just so... So... Shocking..."

"...Back in my world, there was an old, famous saying, which was, 'that there are more stars in the universe, than there are grains of sand in the beaches of the world."

Fizzle clearly has a hard time trying to grasp how such a thing could even be true, but he still looks quite astounded.

As a couple of silent moments pass by before Fizzle asks you a question for a change, "...How big do you think it is up there, Anon?"

You think for a minute before shrugging a little, "I dunno. Even my kind doesn't truly know how bit the universe is. Although the most widely accepted theory is that the universe is infinite and always expanding, if that makes any sense."

Fizzle stays quiet for a few minutes, taking it all in before asking another question, "...So, somewhere... Up there... Is your home world?"

"Mmhmm. For all I know, I could be staring directly at my home planet."

"Wow..." He softly as they stargaze in silence, with Fizzle moving ever so slightly closer to you, which doesn't go unnoticed, but you don't bring it up. Fizzle tries to hide the noises of his movement by yawning, stretching, or making other cute dragon sounds.

"...H-hey, Anon?"

"Yeah, Fizz?"

"...If...If you had the option... w-would you return back to your world?"

You take a moment or so to respond to this sudden, personal question, before finally shaking your head once, "...Nah. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still do miss it sometimes..."

"...But I feel... At home here. Happy, even."

"...I wouldn't trade where I am right now for anything in the world... heh, or universe..." You add quietly, letting out a soft sigh and looking at Fizzle with a smile.

Fizzle quietly hums to himself as some of his tail wraps around your leg. He looks back at you with a much more calmed, relaxed and... content look, as he smiles back at you.

"...neither would I."

"..."

"..."

It's only when Fizzle realized what he said that his face turns into one of the brightest shades of red you have ever seen in your life. His wings begin to flutter open and his pupils are beginning to dilate, looking as if he's on the absolute verge of a panic attack.

You roll your eyes and laugh a little, quickly reaching over and pulling Fizzle close to you, so that you're now both pressed comfortably against each other.

"I-I-I-I- a-ah! W-w-wh... Wha..." Fizzle begins to stutter and squeak, completely lost and afraid as to what he should do and why he said what he did. He then feels a finger press against his lips, hearing a soft, 'shhh' from beside him. He looks up at you, not expecting to see you peacefully smiling down at him... that perfect, adorable smile of yours that just sets all of his worries and nervousness aside.

Fizzle looks back down at himself and you, taking a moment to realize that you're really holding him, before he lets out a choked, happy whimper and immediately wrapping his arms around Anon's torso and letting his tail wrap around Anon's leg completely.

Your smile grows wider as you protectively hold Fizzle with one arm, while making sure he's all covered up and warm by his blanket and your jacket.

Fizzle begins to nuzzle softly into your chest and neck, one of his wings fluttering rapidly for a split second when he feels you kiss his forehead.

Author's Note

Pretty much the song that played in my head during most of the chapter. X3

Hope you enjoyed! Next chapter will be quite... heated.