by Jen Pretty
“Thank you,” Aldridge said from a makeshift podium. His voice was shaky and one of the soldiers from the king’s army held him upright, but the crowd hushed and listened. “I won’t speak long, but I wanted to thank you all for being here and Queen Lex for coming to rescue me.” He gave me a crooked grin and I gave him one back. I didn’t know Aldridge well. Besides our trip across the shifter land, we hadn’t spent any time together, but I knew enough to know he would be a good king.
“I want to thank the elves and unicorns for their efforts and sacrifices.” He frowned and the crowd murmured condolences before he continued. “I would like all the shifters of this world to reunite now that the witch is dead and I ask everyone here today to help me in welcoming them back into our land. We will have a party in Kingsville once everything has been repaired. Thank you.”
The crowd exploded in cheers and the music started up again as the people of the world celebrated.
Aldridge locked eyes with me one last time and nodded before he was helped down off the stage and disappeared into the writhing crowd.
The hunters had set up camp on the edge of the clearing and I crawled into a tent. It wasn’t my tent, but I didn’t care. Daisy found me a few minutes later and waddled inside, but waited at the door.
I lifted the corner of the blanket and he quacked softly before wiggling in beside me under the blanket like a silly quacking mole.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep it together,” I said cuddling into his feathers.
He gently booped my nose, making me laugh. The silly duck always made me feel better. He had become a touch stone and I was thankful for the day he waddled onto that table and stole that green bean from my plate. “Where would I be without you, Daisy?” He quacked sleepily and tucked his beak under the blankets.
I mostly tossed and turned the rest of the night, but finally managed to fall asleep for a little while.
Red. Everything was red. The walls. The floor. The ceiling was sprayed like an abstract painting. As I crept down the hall, there was no sound except the thrum of my heart racing in my ears. It pounded out a staccato that was much too fast or maybe my feet moved much too slow. As I rounded the final corner, a figure hovered over another. The man looked up at me except his eyes matched the walls and the floors and he stood over my father’s lifeless body like a spider over a fly. The vampire rose, smirked, and said “timekeeper.” His bloodstained teeth flashed in the low light as he suddenly appeared right in front of me.
I woke up screaming in a cold sweat, my heart pounding in my throat. My eyes flew open in time to watch Daisy transform into a dragon, destroying the tent which gave me an excellent view as all the unicorns and wolves in the camp shifted and the hunters and elves came running, their swords unsheathed. They couldn’t slay this demon though, because he was all in my mind. I had already killed the monster who slaughtered my whole family and hadn’t had a single nightmare since.
Until now.
“I’m sorry,” I called to the army and the shifters. “It was just a nightmare.”
“Oh, shit, Lex,” Armond muttered. He was the only one here who had been around during the time I had nightmares. I thought when he helped me kill Joshua we had ended my bad dreams for good.
This was the last thing I needed right now. I just wanted to curl up with Roman and stay there forever.
“Can we just go home?” I muttered. Armond was helping Daisy out from under the ruined tent as the silly duck had shifted back and was hopping around and flapping his wings to try and free himself from the canvas material.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Puck said from behind me. “Enough of this. I can’t sleep anyway.”
I wanted to destroy the doorway before we left the area, but with no magic, I had to leave it. I would have to hope that the people stayed away from it and out of that godforsaken land. Personally, I never wanted to go back there.
Puck picked me up and shifted so I was astride him, but didn’t start racing away like he usually did when he unceremoniously grabbed me. He just stood and waited for the rest of the crew to get their things gathered. We were leaving most of the elves and unicorns behind as they didn’t need to come racing through the early hours with us, but a few of the other unicorns volunteered to travel with us so we could move faster than on foot.
Roman was bound to the back of another unicorn and the sight made me sick. He was paler than before and his skin looked thinner, like it might tear.
Grant said goodbye as did Clive and Jazzy who were going to stay behind and solidify relations with the unicorns.
Ready to go, Daisy surprised me by flapping down in front of me and curling up on Pucks withers. He hadn’t once tried to ride with me while I was on Puck’s back, but I had kept him up most of the night and his sleepy eyes said he wasn’t happy about it.
The decay covered nearly to my elbows at this point, but luckily, I had a sweater, and I pulled my hands into the sleeves before wrapping them up in Puck's mane. I didn’t want the constant reminder.
I scooted forward as we got moving so I could balance Daisy and make sure he didn’t tip off and then everything was a blur. The still shadowy landscape flew past as we raced towards the rising sun and hopefully some answers. The longer Roman was dead, the less hope I had that I would be able to bring him back. I had a fleeting thought that I should just let him go as I peered back at him, careful not to let go of Puck's mane.
The intense speed whisked away my tears before I had the chance to wipe them away. I took a deep breath and forced the thought out. I was not going to let the darkness take over and I didn’t need magic to keep me grounded. I was going to prove to Roman that his faith in me was not misplaced. For all the times he stuck by me even when I made questionable decisions, I would not fail him now. I forced myself to keep my eyes forward as we travelled. The solution was not behind me so it had to be in front.
By mid-day my ass was sore and my fingers were numb from being twisted in Puck’s mane. We stopped at a stream and I slid off Puck’s back. My knees gave out and I collapsed to the ground. Puck shifted back into a jerk human and snorted a laugh at me. Then he walked over and gently untied Roman, taking him off the back of the other unicorn.
Puck looked at me like he was going to bring Roman over, but I shook my head once and he turned and laid him in the shade of a tree. With the blanket that swaddled him, he covered Roman’s stark white face.
I stood up on shaky legs as Armond walked over and slid his arm around my back to steady me, and we walked to the small river.
Daisy didn’t bother to wait for the rest of us to get a drink before he took a running leap into the water and began flapping around.
“Daisy, you’re making the water murky,” I complained. “I don’t want to drink your dirt.”
He just quacked loudly in offence and moved downstream a bit to continue his flapping shenanigans.
I had a few mouthfuls of the cold water before laying on my back to rest on the shore. The sun shining through my closed eyelids reminded me of homeland. Sitting in the grass and waiting to find my magic beneath the tall trees in the meadow. I missed Evan and Luke. Tears spilled out through my closed eyes and rolled down the sides of my face, despite my best efforts. A heavy weight landed on my chest and I opened my eyes to Daisy peering directly down at me.
“Jesus, Daisy, I am not a nest. Get off my chest.” He bit my nose, hard. I waved my hand at him and he backed up a step, his heavy feet hurt.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked him angrily. He had occasionally bit me when he was feeling grumpy, but this was an awful lot of violence from my feathered friend.
He quacked, hopped off and grabbed my hand in his beak and pulled on it.
“Daisy, what the hell?”
By now Armond and Puck had come over too.
“Why is he doing that?” Armond asked.
“I don’t know. Ever since we came down off the mountain, he has been kind of weird. Maybe he has post-traumatic stress.”
The idea of riding a dragon had never occurred to me since Daisy hated being a dragon, but I wasn’t going to turn him down.
Armond stepped closer and Daisy blew smoke out his nose again, narrowing his eyes at the fae hunter. I wasn’t sure why he was acting this way, but I had never had a reason to doubt Daisy and I wasn’t going to question him. Not after all we had been through together.
I slid onto his scaled neck and moved down till I was on his back, between his small wings. He stood up and started lumbering away from camp. The guys scrambled to pick up Roman and keep up with us. Riding a dragon was like riding an elephant. He was big and lumbering and his strides tossed me around on his back. I held on to his scales for dear life, but we didn’t travel far through the forest. I saw the shape up ahead and couldn’t believe where Daisy had brought me. It was a portal, but one I had never seen before. It wasn’t the one back to earth.
Daisy snorted more smoke out of his nostrils at the door, then he lay down, and I took the hint and slid off again. He stood up and blocked the guys from coming any closer.
“Daisy, you have to let us come with you. What if you run into danger? Lex has no magic. Can you protect her alone?” Armond said.
Daisy huffed again and didn’t move.
We were in a standoff. It was apparent Daisy didn’t want them to come, but they didn’t want to leave me alone. I was trying to hang on to myself, but I was slipping. I knew I should have had an opinion about whether they came or stayed, but I couldn’t find the energy to care.
Armond looked at me for my reply, but I just raised a shoulder. The tension in Armond’s face made him look ancient.
“Let Daisy take care of her, Armond,” Puck said, handing me a water bottle. Of everyone, Puck was the last person I thought would back Daisy, but they had some weird history I didn’t know about.
Armond’s shoulders slumped and he looked the dragon in the eye. “You better bring her back in one piece.”
Daisy booped Armond in the chest, nearly knocking him down. Then he huffed out some more smoke before standing and waddling towards the door. He stopped and looked back at me, shifting back into a duck. I took a deep breath and followed Daisy into the unknown new world.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The first thing to hit me was the temperature change. It was cool in the werewolves’ land, but this place was hot. I took off my sweater and left it by the door. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need it here because I didn’t have a backpack to put anything in.
The ground was bare dirt with scrub brush, but up ahead in the distance I could see some small trees, beyond that, mountains were cutting up into the crystal blue sky.
As we walked along, I peeked down my t-shirt and saw that the rot had spread up my arms and was halfway down my body now. Whatever we were doing, I hoped it would help with my magic situation. Quickly.
“So, where are we going, Daisy?” I said to break the eerie silence. He was waddling along like a duck and I hoped we didn’t have to travel far because this was a slow way to go.
He quacked in reply and we continued walking.
Several hours later, my water bottle was empty. The air was so hot here that my mouth had gone completely dry and grains of sand were crunching between my teeth.
“Daisy, we need to find water,” I said, my voice so harsh and gritty that it startled both of us.
He didn’t even look at me. He simply took flight, flapping his wings and flying high into the sky. Hopefully he was going to find water and not just ignoring my complaint. I trudged along for a while alone as he flew up above and then watched as he veered to the right and dropped out of the sky. I turned towards where he landed and sprinted the last couple hundred feet. Then I crashed to my knees at the edge of the small stream, gulping the water down and splashing it over my head. It wasn’t cool like a stream, in fact, it was warm, but at least it was wet.
Daisy took a few small sips and then ruffled and shook dust from his feathers before he walked away again. It was strange to see him walk away from water and not flap about in it. The warm water would be a nice temperature for a bath, but Daisy had lost his joy somewhere between the mountain and here. I refilled my water bottle and caught up with him. The sun was setting beyond the mountains and the sky was slowly turning pink. I watched the horizon, completely zoned out and just putting one foot in front of the other until I saw a shape slide along above the peaks against the setting sun. I stopped dead and glanced down at Daisy, but he kept waddling along.
That was a dragon. Then I saw a couple more, soaring through the sky above the mountain range. It dawned on me that we were in Daisy's homeland. I had often wondered why he was alone, why I hadn’t seen another dragon anywhere in my travels. But I had seen Daisy as a dragon, and there was no way his little wings could fly like that.
He ignored the fact that I stopped and kept waddling towards the oncoming dusk, where the dragons soared, so I jogged to catch up to him.
My mind raced to figure out what the heck I was missing. Daisy hadn’t been himself since I came down off the mountain, full of the evil magic. He had seemed angry, though he still wanted to be with me. I had to assume he had a good reason to bring me to this place but seemed to have lost his joy completely.
If this is where he was from, why wouldn’t he want to be here?
My answer arrived with a bellowing scream and a puff of smoke. A massive dragon with enormous wings landed before us, and Daisy curled into a ball at its feet. The duck looked ridiculous before the dragon, particularly when I knew he could quickly change into a dragon too. But he chose not to.
The dragon flicked Daisy with his nose, launching my ducky across the dirt like a tumbleweed.
“Hey, fuck off!” I yelled.
The dragon just snorted smoke at me and took flight, spraying dirt on Daisy and me with the power of the wind his wings created.
I ran over to Daisy as he righted himself and shook off the dust.
“Are you ok?” I asked, kneeling beside him.
He turned on me and bit my hand as I reached out to him. I snatched my hand back and he marched away. He was still heading towards the mountains and whatever destination he had to take me to. I hoped this was worth it, because whatever he was doing, he was definitely not here because he wanted to be. I stood and dusted my pants off before following along behind him.
The way he hunkered down as soon as the dragon landed was like a dog who had been beaten enough times to expect it. If this is where Daisy came from, I was glad he left and even more glad he had found me that night in the small village.
“We don’t have to be here, Daisy. We can go back.”
He didn’t reply, just kept walking. I followed along silently. I had my knife, but it wouldn’t do much good to protect us from these dragons. I prayed we didn’t meet any more.
As the last rays of pink faded from the sky, Daisy stopped by another small pond and we both had a drink before he led me to a small grassy area. He stomped around, flattening it into a nest.
I sat down in the middle as he continued to make the nest more comfortable. He had never done this before, always choosing to sleep in my bed with blankets, so it was intriguing to watch. He pulled grasses into the area and used his feet and beak to make our nest into a bowl shape. I tried to help for a little while, but when he kept moving the grass I had spread out, so I gave up and let him do his thing. When he seemed satisfied with our cozy place, he curled up in the middle, and I curled around him, falling asleep quickly this time, no tossing and turning.
The next time my eyes opened, the sun was peeking over the horizon. It lit up the sides of the mountains, and I could see all the scrubby trees and creatures moving around -- Large, dragon-shaped creatures.
; They looked so much like Daisy, apart from the wings.
We got up and had another drink from the pond. I filled the water bottle, and we started off towards the mountains again.
We heard a few loud calls that made Daisy hustle instead of his usual waddle, but we were left alone as we walked through the scrubby trees and rocky terrain. By late afternoon we were close enough to the mountains that they blocked out the sun, but we were still miles away from the base.
The loud shriek of a dragon filled the evening air, and Daisy stopped dead.
“What is it?” I asked, stopping beside him. He ruffled his feathers before cautiously walking on. He kept looking to the sky.
I glanced up too and that was when I noticed they were watching us. Like vultures circling a dying deer, the dragons were in formation above us, flapping their broad wings in a graceful fashion.
“Why don’t you have wings like that, Daisy?” I asked staring up at the sky.
With no warning, he bit my pant leg and pulled, tripping me. I fell to the rocky ground, stopping myself with the palms of my hands and scraping the skin.
I pushed myself up to my knees and looked at the duck. His eyes were on the ground and he cowered down like he expected me to hit him. My heart broke. What the hell? I sat down in the dirt and finally put the pieces together; Daisy should have been like the other dragons. He should have had wings and been able to fly like them.
I reached out, scooped him into my arms, pressing my face into his back, and I pet his sweet head. My poor duck. The sadness at the injustice of the situation tried to take over, but anger pushed it out of the way. If those dragons came down here now, I was ready to stab them even if it wouldn’t kill them. Those assholes had no idea who they were messing with. Daisy was my duck, and I wouldn’t have them screwing with him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into his feathers. He wrapped his neck around mine and put his beak in my hair, nibbling on it gently.