by Elle Casey
“Othello is my dragon-partner,” Ish said, ignoring my interruption. “He and I have been together since I was very young.”
“Y’all have dragon-partners here?” Finn hissed out a long breath. “Great. Another fae I gotta be jealous of.”
Ish’s face went dark. “I am not fae. I have said that already two times. I prefer the fairer sex in my chamber.”
Finn just blinked at him.
I walked over and patted Ish on the shoulder. “We got it. You’re all man. Where we come from, fae doesn’t mean what it means here. It means we’re different. Not like ordinary humans. It has nothing to do with who we have in our bedrooms or whatever.”
He nodded slowly, understanding dawning. “It is true that I am not like ordinary folk. No one from my village is a rider. We are nearly extinct.”
I shrugged. “You’re probably fae. Our kind of fae.” I swept my arm out behind me at my friends. “Most of us were regular old humans up until a year ago. Then Jared found us and helped us figure out who we really were.”
“Who is Jared?” Ish asked, scanning all the faces before him.
Jared raised a hand slightly for a second. “Me. I’m Jared.”
Ish walked over and stopped just in front of him, staring him down, but not in challenge; more with curiosity if I was reading him right. “You see into the souls of others? You are a seer?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. Probably not in the way you’re thinking.”
Ish looked at all of us. “We have a seer in our village, but he is often wrong. He saw that I would be lost to this world by my twentieth cycle.”
Jared stared at him. “Are you twenty yet?”
“No. But I am a rider, and I have survived many perils. It is not likely I will die with Othello at my side. My cycles will end when my hair begins to gray and old age takes me. Dragons are loyal. More loyal than a human could ever be.” He said the last bit with pride, his chin going up a little.
Jared shrugged. “Hopefully you’re right.” He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, by the way.”
Ish frowned at Jared’s hand and then held his own out, putting it behind Jared’s hand and bumping the back of it with the back of his. “I am happy to make your acquaintance, Jared of the fae.” He smiled a little and I had to believe that he was thinking Jared of the gay in his head. Same sex love meant nothing at all to the fae, but apparently it was a big deal here. So much for hoping this was an advanced society. I had been entertaining the idea that Ish’s people wouldn’t be too freaked out to meet us, but now I wasn’t so certain. I sure as hell didn’t want to get burned at the stake or whatever they did to fae around here.
Scrum stepped up next. “I’m Scrum. It’s very nice to meet you, Ish. Thanks for taking care of Jayne when I wasn’t able to.” They bumped the back of their hands, this apparently being our new secret handshake.
Ish looked at me. “He speaks for you? He is your protector?”
“Nope.” I jerked a thumb in Spike’s directly. “That’s my man over there. Spike.”
Spike walked over and banged hands with Ish. “Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Good to meet you.”
Ish nodded. “It was my duty. She is a woman in need. I am bound by my code to aid her.”
Becky smiled. “So romantic,” she said in a breathy voice. She walked over smiling to beat the band, her hand held out. “I’m Becky. I’m a water sprite. Do you have any lakes around here, by any chance?”
“Yes, we do.” He banged hands with her, although I could see he didn’t like doing it. Maybe chicks were supposed to curtsy here or something.
“We could go there,” she said, looking at all of us. “I could try and talk to some of the sprites if there are any.”
“Huh-uh,” Finn said, stepping up next to her. “No life partner o’ mine’s gonna go jumpin' in no swamp monster’s lair without backup.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jayne can go with me if you want.”
My jaw dropped open. “Wow, thanks for volunteering me to become fish bait. No thanks. I think I’ll pass on that one.” A flashback of her getting sucked into the depths of the lake by a siren during our changeling trial came back to me and sent a shiver down my spine. No thank you. Not gonna watch that happen all over again.
Tony interrupted us with his own introduction. “Ish, I’m Tony. It’s really great to meet you, and I want to add my thanks to the pile. We’re really grateful you came along and helped us out. And Jayne.” He put his arm around me. “She’s pretty special, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.”
I elbowed him in the ribs. “Shut up, baloney head.”
Felicia came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to look but she suddenly wasn’t there. She was on my other side holding out her hand to Ish. “I’m Felicia.” She gave him her extra sparkly smile, and he melted under the attention.
“Uhhh…juuuuu…,” was all he could get out.
I poked her in the back. “Let him go, Felicia. He’s innocent and not gayfae, as he’s already said several times. He’s too easy a target for you.”
Tony ignored the game she was playing. He was used to it, knowing it meant nothing to her. Something about her succubus nature forced her to bend people to her will at least once a day. I was glad Spike wasn’t like that; I wasn’t so sure I could be as charitable as Tony was about the whole thing, now that Spike and I had decided we were in a dedicated, monogamous relationship that did not include him sucking on the energy of other girls.
Felicia shook Ish’s hand our normal way, holding onto it for a little too long. “Nice to meet you.” Her fingers slid away, but his remained where they were, frozen out in front of him. As she walked away, she leaned down and whispered in my ear. “I’ve still got it, even in this realm.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whaddya know … men fall for psycho barbie succubi in other realms too. Who would’ve guessed?”
She tweaked me in the ribs, making me jump, and I acted like I was going to stab her by grabbing the hilt of the sword, but she just laughed.
Ish blinked a few times and his regular expression slowly came back, thankfully just in time to keep him from drooling on himself. “You have a very strange way of expressing your friendship, but I do believe that is what I am seeing.”
Tim flew out from behind my head and stopped in the air in front of Ish, hands on hips, his hair thrown back. It was quite a look with that green face of his. “I am Tim!” he said in a loud pixie-booming voice. Of course Ish heard none of it. “But you may call me Sir!”
I flopped my hand out as if presenting my roommate to a crowd of adoring fans instead of just Ish. “This is Tim the pixie, but he said you can call him buttnugget if you prefer.”
Tim spun around and glared at me. “Fix that! Fix it right this instant!” He spun back toward a confused Ish, his head high again, but not quite as perky as before.
“I’m sorry. I misunderstood. He didn’t say buttnugget. He said Fluffy. You may call him Fluffy instead of Tim if you wish.”
Tim dropped his head, shaking it slowly. “I will dust you and then dust you a second time, elemental. I swear it. I swear it on my wings, I’ll do it.”
I sighed. “Fine. You’re no fun anymore.” I switched my focus to Ish. “His name is Tim. That’s it. Just call him Tim.”
“And you hear him speaking?” Ish was fascinated, reaching out a hand toward my roommate.
Tim immediately zipped over and slapped Ish’s hand before leaving us all behind.
“Unfortunately, yes. And other things.”
“Don’t you dare, Jayne!” Tim yelled from wherever he was hiding.
I left the revelations about Tim’s digestive problems for another day, turning to face my friends instead. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Tim, never one to be ignored for longer than two seconds, appeared from somewhere behind me and tried to land on my shoulder, but I waved him away. He continued to try and approach, but I ducked left and right as I spoke.
/> “My theory is that every realm has to have an entrance or a portal to the Otherworlds, since this seer in the village is predicting deaths and stuff, which means no one here is immortal.” I looked to Ish to confirm, and he nodded.
“We are not immortal. Only too mortal, I am afraid.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume they go to the same Overworld and Underworld we go to, or their heaven and hell are at least connected to ours in some way, since I’ve been to those realms and seen some crazy shit that wasn’t going on in the Here and Now — it was probably creatures from here or even another realm we don’t know about I saw.” The pixies spinning stinging buttwebs around those dwarves in the Overworld came to mind. “So if that’s the case, and they do have dragons here, then I think our best bet is to find the portal and talk to the dragon that guards it. Or see if Biad or Heryon are there, if they have the same portals as we do. They’ll know what to do.”
“What did the prophecy say?” Tony asked.
I hated that I couldn’t answer his question. I should have listened closer, and knowing that made me pissed off at myself. “I have no idea.” My frustration came through in my tone. “I told you, I don’t remember.”
“I could use a retrieval spell,” Sam said. “Maybe.”
“You are truly a witch?” Ish asked.
She just stared at him.
I held out a hand to calm her down. “She’s more than a witch, okay? She’s a witch plus a bonus Fate.”
“Don’t,” was all she said to me.
“Fine. Whatever.” The conversation was really starting to piss me off at that point. I was about to blow my top at them when Scrum stopped me.
“Jayne?” He pointed to the space behind us. Where a troll used to be was a bare patch of earth and a few squashed bushes.
“Oh shit,” I said, looking around. “Where’d he go?”
Silence reigned for about five seconds and then we heard yelling and saw a cloud of dust off in the distance.
Ish’s face went white. “Oh no. Not the village.” He took off running and we went after him, following the trail of broken trees and trampled bushes that led back in the direction I’d come from when I left his little hut.
Chapter Twenty-Three
WE CAUGHT UP WITH THE troll on the edge of the village where he’d found a group of children playing by a well. What we’d thought were screams of pain turned out to be shrieks of laughter and joy. The smallest one of them all, a tike about the size of a four year old, was sailing up in the air, fifteen feet above the troll’s head.
“Me catch! Me catch!” he yelled, his giant, meaty hands opened up beneath her.
“Oh my god, he’s playing with his food.” I didn’t stop to think, I just did what I thought needed to be done to keep an innocent child from being eaten like a piece of popcorn. A shot of pure New Green energy left my hand and hit the girl, putting her in a bubble of protection that stopped and floated just above the troll’s fingers.
“Me catch?” The troll looked at his empty hands in confusion. Then he noticed the bubble and his finger came out.
“No, don’t!” I yelled. But it was too late.
He poked it.
The bubble shot off like it was a rubber ball he’d whacked with a bat. It only stopped when it hit a tree, but then it zoomed off in another direction, going even faster.
The group of children who’d gathered to play toss-the-baby-villager watched with awed expressions their faces, not saying a word.
“Jayne, stop it!” Tony yelled in my ear.
“I’m trying!” My own voice came out as a desperate whisper-scream. It was only a matter of time before the grownups in the village came to find out why it was so quiet; I’d babysat enough little brats to know that when they went quiet, shit was going down. Oh my god, they have no idea of the shit that’s going down right now! We were going to be burned at the stake as soon as they saw, I knew we were.
I couldn’t control it. The New Green bubble I’d created was a thing of glory, made of some kind of super-rubber that bounced off everything. It hit Scrum and still managed to ricochet, even though he was slammed to the ground and stunned by the impact.
“Need some help?” Sam asked, stepping up to my other side.
“Please!” Both of my hands were out in front of me waving around like crazy; I was trying to grab the bubble and rein it in, but it had well and truly escaped me. I was like the idiot in the tetherball game who kept swinging the racket and missing not just the ball but the string it was connected to as well.
Sam started muttering under her breath, one of her hands out. The bubble got bigger.
“Not sure that’s helping,” I said nervously.
“This place has powerful magic,” she said, her voice slightly strained.
“Tell me about it,” I growled. The bubble bounced on top of another kid, but instead of slamming him to the ground like it had Scrum, it sucked him inside. Now there were two kids in there, both of them with their hands pressed onto the sides, screaming with laughter. We couldn’t exactly hear their voices, but they were clearly having a ball in there.
“At least they’re not crying,” Becky said, trying to be helpful.
“Me! Me!” A little boy started yelling. He was jumping up and down, pointing at the bubble that was bouncing off another tree.
Like the damn thing had heard him, it zigged over and bounced on his head, snatching him up too. Three kids were inside now, two of them laughing and one starting to look a little green around the gills. The first bubble girl had reached her limit, apparently.
I panicked. “Troll!” I yelled at the beast.
He looked at me and then pointed to his bellybutton. “Me troll.”
“Yes! You troll! Get the bubble! Get the bubble!”
“Me eat bubble?”
“NO! No eat the bubble. Catch the bubble!” How in the hell do I describe how to catch a bouncing bubble in caveman-troll speak? I had no idea, but did that stop me from trying? Of course it didn’t.
“Stop bubble! Hold bubble! Love bubble!”
His eyes perked up. “Love bubble?”
“Yes!” I shrieked. “You love that bubble, troll! Go get that bubble you love. Cuddle that bubble!” Oops. Shit. What did I just do? “But not too hard. Soft easy cuddle of the bubble!” Obviously I was losing my mind. I could just picture all those angry mothers calling for my head when their squashed babies came tumbling out on the ground. It was like my childhood moments on the playground all over again. Not many moms liked me there. It might have had something to do with me encouraging kids to go down slides backwards and upside down.
The troll started running around with his hands out. “Love bubble! Me love bubble! Come bubble! Me love bubble!”
Just when I thought it was all over, when the bubble was bouncing toward the village and sure to expose us for the wannabe stake-burned fae we were, the troll leaped up into the air like Michael Fucking Jordan and snatched it out of the sky. He landed on his feet with a loud boom and a shaking of the earth, gathering the glowing green mass into his arms and cradling it against his chest.
“Me love bubble,” he said, petting it and leaning in toward it. I didn’t realize his intention until he was already in the middle of it, his lips puckering up and his eyes closing. The minute the slobber from his troll kiss touched the Green bubble, it popped, and all the kids inside tumbled out and landed on the ground in a heap.
There was a five-second pause when no one said a word and not a single breath was taken. And then the troll let loose.
“Wwaaaaaahhhhaa hhaaa haa!” he wailed. “Me love bubble! Bubble die!! Waaaahhhaaa!”
Ish looked at the village, his complexion going even whiter than it already had. “The parents of the children. They are coming. You must go!”
I ran over with the intention of grabbing the troll’s slimy hand. I managed to latch onto his pinky using both hands. “Time to go, troll! Come on!”
“Me hungry.
Me sad.” He started walking with me, dragging his feet like a recalcitrant child.
I hauled on him as hard as I could, grateful when my friends went behind him and started pushing on his legs and butt to hurry him along.
“I know, troll. I’m hungry too. Let’s go find you a deer or a dragon egg or something. I’ll make you a great, big omelette.”
“Faster, Jayne,” Spike grunted out. “They’re going to see him.”
“Troll, run!” I said. “We run, Troll!”
“Me run?” he asked, possible signs of enthusiasm coming out in his tone. I probably should have been worried but I wasn’t. I was more relieved than anything that I seemed to be pretty good at this troll communication thing. It was handy when you had a spare troll hanging around causing trouble.
I nodded, pausing for a breath. He was friggin heavy as shit to encourage along. “Yes. We all run.” I pointed to my friends.
He nodded, his bottom lip bouncing with the effort his head was making. “We run. Troll run. All run.”
“Yes.” I was about to say something else, I don’t remember what, but it never happened. I was swept up into the troll’s arms along with Spike, Jared, Scrum, and Tony, and suddenly we were moving. I found myself with my face squashed into the belly button of the troll, and he was running faster than I would have imagined possible.
“Oh my god,” I mumbled past the stink, “I’m going to die.”
Tim was suddenly buzzing by my ear. “This is why we call karma a bitch, Lellemental.” He giggled with the glee of his revenge, which was his second mistake after his first, which was getting too close to me. He was too distracted with his own awesomeness to recognize mine when it was in motion.
I snagged him from the air next to my ear using my kickass ninja snatching skills and held him right next to my face, grinning like a madwoman as the breeze fluffed my hair. His face went pale green with fear and the regret that he wasn’t nearly as badass as I was. “Why yes it is, my little buttnugget. Yes it is.” I forgot that I was buried up to my neck in troll belly button lint and laughed like I hadn’t in years.