Dragon Envy

by Kelly Armenta

  Uh huh.

  “You can touch it if you like.” She added with what she likely thought was a reassuring smile.

  “Ah, does it do any other tricks?” I asked, glancing between what appeared to be a two inch cube, the shiny metal and the Keeper.

  “What…safekeeping a lifetime’s worth of history isn’t enough?”

  I couldn’t help smiling at her sardonic tone and had a thought, my eyes drawn to the wall behind her. “Oh….” I muttered and my gaze circled the room, taking in the shiny little cubes neatly stacked one shelf upon another. The cubes completely covered the walls. All lined up perfectly in their tiny little niches. Wow I thought, as the information filtered into my amazed brain. I wouldn’t say I gaped; well maybe there was some gaping going on. But the number of little boxes was staggering. How did one tell one from another?

  “It’s my gift, because I’m cursed.” Immy responded to my unspoken question. I was certain my eyes were big as saucers as I dragged them away from staring at the walls. She looked a little sad for a moment then smiled brightly. “But that’s a story for another time.”

  Imagine that, a gift that was also a curse. I could totally relate to that and spared her a wry smile. I glanced around again wondering if all of the boxes contained just dragons or were there other races here too?

  “Just dragons.” Immy replied to my unspoken question. “Both living and deceased. When the individual dies, assuming they had a soul, the Ataxite turns a light grey and loses its sparkle but the essence still remains, here in the Dragon Chamber. Other lifeforms have their own chambers.”

  So what makes me and my sisters more dragon than elf? I wondered.

  “It is their abilities that define them. All but one will remain here in this chamber. The fourth will not be able to shift and will therefore be moved to the chamber for Elves.” She told me. “I brought them all here as I wanted to share them with you. Since we both know you contributed your magic to the miracle of their inception.”

  Oops, was that wrong? I wondered and felt the need to fidget where I sat. I mean, seriously they were in the processing of practicing when I assisted.

  “Yes indeed they were.” Immy agreed with a small smile. “I merely record the history. Though I would not be telling the truth if I told you I was unhappy with your seemingly innate ability to foster new life. The Fey people have been too long without a patron of fertility. I’m actually hopeful you’ll assist with filling many more boxes in the future.”

  Hmm, okay, whew and yeah whew! No pressure there. I thought and smiled back at her. Of course I must have done something wrong, because one of my sisters was going to have it tougher than the others. I’d have to keep that in mind I thought idly. In my distracted state I reached out and plucked my cube off the table. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the heat that exploded into my fingers nearly caused me to fling it across the room. Only my immediately dropping it back on the table prevented it from landing on the marble floor. Immy looked alarmed and reached for my hand, which I had curled in against my stomach in simple reflex.

  “Are you harmed?” She asked, her hand cupping mine and gently prying my fingers open so she could see what manner of damage I might have done to myself. Her wings fluttered in agitation as she reached for me.

  Somewhat shocked, I allowed it, abashed at my reaction. The response was unexpected, and hadn’t really hurt. At least not me, I wasn’t sure the cube could be saved. Where I’d touched it, it was no longer shiny. It appeared my fingerprints had managed to etch themselves into its surface. Good thing I hadn’t actually touched the Ataxite! Goddess alone knew what that might have done to me. Or worse, me to it!

  Immy’s fingers traced the smudge still visible on my palm. My bracelet caught her attention and her fingers moved to hover over the miniature black dragon charm shaped like Tdem lying upon my wrist. The charm had apparently been added by Kit, though I hadn’t noticed its arrival. She hesitated, smiling briefly, then seemed to stop herself. She closed her fingers without touching it, almost reluctantly.

  I glanced down at the little black, wondering if that look held some mysterious meaning and should I be worried about it? “I take it that wasn’t supposed to happen?” I asked as we both glanced back at my fingers, and more importantly the crystalline residue covering the parts of my hand where I’d come into contact with the cube. One moment the residue was there, and then in a blink of an eye, it disappeared into my skin. Its absorption left no visible trace. I swallowed and glanced up to see Immy chewing her lower lip.

  “Well that was odd.” Immy muttered, “No, that wasn’t supposed to happen to Widmanstatten. Ah, do you feel any different?” She asked, her dark eyes staring back at me intently.

  I did a quick internal evaluation, “No, am I supposed to?” I asked, wondering what had just happened and if there were going to be consequences. Had I just changed history? Please don’t tell me I just changed history, specifically MY history. I thought, trying not to hyperventilate. Inside me Goldy cracked open an eye, and then rolled it. Her tongue flicked out and she made a harrumphing noise and settled back into her sleeping position. Ah, okay maybe I was over reacting slightly. Taking a deep breath I pulled my hand back and primly folded it into my other. “A meteorite did you say?” Clearly my touch had done something to the cube as it now contained what appeared to be cross sectional mini patterns. It looked like the surface had been etched with fine lines in geometrical shapes. And what was the cube made from? Ah, windmansta-whatever she called it?

  Immy took a breath and pushed herself back from the edge of her seat, her wings spreading out of the way behind her. She looked nearly as rattled as I felt. “Yes, it too is from a galaxy far far away. The ore used to fashion the cube is harder than diamond, mined and carved into boxes by Dwarfs from Siopia. It amplifies the essence.” She sent another piercing look at me then her eyes moved to the now changed cube. Reaching out she plucked the cube up and immediately pressed her lips together. Her eyes closed and I could see them moving quickly back and forth beneath her lids. They popped back open a few seconds later, pupils completely dilated and oddly reflective.

  I bit my own lip in worry as she blinked several times and shook her head as if trying to rid herself of an unwanted thought. I held my tongue as she took a deep breath, seeming to come back to herself and her surroundings. It was almost like watching someone coming out of a seizure. A thought that reminded me of when I’d entered training to be a Hunter. At that time, I’d shared a room with a werebitch that had developed seizures after a particularly brutal beating at the hands of one of the other students. The other student, a vampire, had caught her alone after she’d bested him in one of our combat exercises and left her for dead. She’d never fully recovered and I’d been with her on two separate occasions where I witnessed her fall victim to uncontrollable loss of motor skills and violent shaking followed by a period of unconsciousness that left her exhausted. Unfortunately she’d been removed from the program. I’d last seen her walking out the barracks, her pack over one slumped shoulder. She’d been kind to me, and I would have liked to have helped her stay. But at the time it was all I could do to hide my true identity and my healing abilities were not strong enough to fix her. However I had taken revenge upon the vampire that had injured her to start with. Too little, too late for the permanently injured were, but I’d lost no sleep knowing one less vicious vampire existed in the world.

  “I…remember. You waited months. You asked Mi how to capture liquid sunlight and you…slipped the lighter into his pack. Everyone thought it was a freak accident. But we know it wasn’t.”

  “I did what I thought needed to be done. It is what I was trained to do. And I am not sorry.”

  “Yes. I’m sure no one could accuse you of shirking your duty. It is, I fear, how you find yourself in your current predicament.”

  Indeed, I thought with some exasperation. Duty seemed to be a thread that had woven itself through the very fiber of my being. Duty to my Moth
er had kept me camouflaged for the majority of my life. It had forced me into a life as a Hunter to perpetuate her agenda, and caused me to subvert myself to the lie that I would be hunted and used as a lab rat if I revealed my true self. More recently I’d surrendered my will and life to the pursuit of repopulating the Dragon race. Not the life I would have chosen for myself, I thought with some dismay, but sometimes one didn’t have a choice in these matters. Yeah, duty and I were the best of buddies. We were peas in the same pod, the proverbial noose around my neck strangling the very life out of me. Or I would have thought that, had I actually taken the time to reflect on it. Duty wasn’t something I was raised to turn my back on. I’d sooner stab myself in the throat with one of the damn heels that Kit and Owen forced me to wear, than betray those that were depending on me.

  Apparently I was a sucker for someone that truly needed me. I’d sighed dramatically, and then winced at my own pity party. Really, what was the point? It was what it was. Lately I was happy not to find myself in a constant heap on the floor, screaming in agony because I’d skipped a sex session. If that wasn’t grim, I’m not sure what was.

  Somewhat disappointed at my internal ramblings, I glanced over at Immy to see she had her chin resting in her hand and was watching me intently. She seemed to have recovered from the shock of my breaking my cube, assuming that’s what I’d done. The thought made my fingers twitch and I glanced down at my palm finding the skin its normal golden color with no hint of the smudge left. Apparently I had absorbed whatever it was. Hopefully that wasn’t going to cause a problem later.

  Immy glanced from me to the cube and licked her lips. “Widmanstatten only occurs when metal heats up to several thousand degrees then cools down at an extremely slow rate.” She looked down and pointed at the etchings marking the sides of the cube. “Usually over several million years, it is proof of its extraterrestrial origin because the temperature required to heat it does not occur except when a planet goes supernova.” She glanced around the room at all the little boxes lining the walls and back at me. “I’ve never seen a soul box change so dramatically. Not in the several millenniums I have served as Keeper. It is, somewhat disconcerting.”

  “I’m sorry.” I said. “I didn’t mean to be disconcerting.” Yeah, usually that just happened naturally. I glanced down at my hands in dismay.

  One side of her lips quirked upwards. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not broken…let’s just call it…seasoned.” She said, and then chuckled. “Obviously you’re unique. I supposed expecting you to conform to the norm would be unrealistic. I must admit I can’t help wondering what you’ll do next. You can’t imagine how boring the life of a Keeper can be at times.”

  Lifting one eyebrow, I wondered how life could be boring when you had the means to know everything about everyone…basically….well, everywhere. My thought caused her to chuckle again and she slumped back into the couch gracefully. I noticed the tip of her tail flicked like Mi’s. Of course Mi’s only twitched when I’d annoyed her and she was, I assume, thinking up new and interesting ways to deal with me. I was really hoping that was not going to be the case with Immy.

  Not wanting to pursue that thought, I glanced around again then turned my eyes back to the other four boxes on the table. Hmmm.

  Immy smiled then waived her hand and said, “Ah yes, your soon to be sisters.”

  Yeah, that was a relief. What with all the practice I’d been getting in recently, it had occurred to me that these boxes might have contained future mini-mes.

  Immy’s smile froze and her eyes widened slightly. She turned her head slowly and looked around her wing toward a section of the wall that spanned floor to ceiling. The boxes looked empty. Their lids not sealed.

  I followed Immy’s gaze and stared at the clearly empty boxes for half a second then glanced back at her, then my eyes widened. Oh HELL no!

  “I’m afraid so.” Immy told me gently. I imagined her tone was one a negotiator might use to talk a cray cray person off a ledge.

  No, no no no no no. I chanted squeezing my eyes shut as if that would block out the scary huge number of little empty boxes. That just wasn’t possible. The logistics alone were staggering. Should I endeavor to fill every box with a new life, I’d have to live to be a few thousand years and be pregnant during every freaking one of them! This wasn’t what I signed up for….was it? I felt like passing out, good thing I was sitting down already. Goldy peaked open an eyelid and glanced at the wall. The speculative gleam in her eye and rather smug look did nothing to reassure. I wanted to scream, or throw up, or maybe just curl into the fetal position and stay there for the rest of my unnaturally long life. I’m not entirely sure which would have made me feel better.

  Shock, I was in shock. Images of me with swollen ankles, stomach out to the next county, ratty hair, a hundred snot nosed brats hanging on my barf covered ragged old sweat suit covered self, flashed in technicolor behind my eyelids. I heard myself moan and flopped back in a boneless heap on the couch, throwing an arm over my eyes as if to block out the vision that was seared into my brain. I don’t even like kids. I thought in utter despair. They’re needy and loud and gross and is that all I had to look forward to in my future? Me, destined to be the mother from Hell….literally? Well, partially anyway. I liked my men, and the sex was….fantastic but was it that good? Maybe I could just sequester myself on some deserted isle and become a hermit. I could swear off sex. It wasn’t too late…right?

  Immy coughed, clearing her throat delicately. “Yes well, that’s certainly one possibility.” She told me. “I merely stocked the self here in the event you actually use up all your viable opportunities. Do try and remember I’m the Keeper of History, not an Oracle. I might know the total number of eggs you carry, but that’s no guarantee they’ll all hatch.”

  Part of my brain heard her. While the other part, the gibbering sniveling woe-is-me part wanted to find a hole and crawl into it and hide forever. Goddess above! I couldn’t even consider giving up sex unless I wanted to spend eternity shuddering and convulsing. Not if I wanted to live amongst members of the opposite sex. GAK could this get any worse?

  “You know, you really should carve out some time in your oh-so-busy schedule to actually learn about dragons.” Immy chided. “You might discover something like; in the history of forever, no Queen has ever raised her own offspring once they emerge.”

  I dragged my arm off my face and cracked an eye open to look at her. Her pursed lips and raised eyebrow sort of stiffened my spine a bit. It helped that Goldy nodded agreement then proceeded to ignore me and my party of one, heavy on the pity moment. Okay so maybe we could just eliminate the whole bad hair and clothing scenario. But seriously, hundreds and hundreds of years being pregnant still excited me not even a tiny bit.

  “You might also learn that on their home world the Queens produced clutches. In good years it wasn’t uncommon for a single Queen to produce hundreds of offspring at a time.” Immy added, “Something you might want to consider, when the time is right.”

  “Seriously?” I croaked, not certain what was worse, me being pregnant for the next several hundred years or me repopulating the species in one fell swoop. And just who would be raising the masses? Did I even want to know? Would it be like Immy’s hair, and some kind of scary fairy spider would rush in and carry off my young?

  Immy just laughed at me with a twinkle in her eye. “You seriously need to look into that research.” She told me. “Obviously only one of us has done her homework on the subject. And you are going to need to know your options. But I didn’t bring you here to discuss the repopulation of the dragon species.” She continued then looked thoughtful, “Well not exactly.”

  “So what did you want to discuss?” I asked, swallowing painfully. I was all for changing the subject since I didn’t want to even think about it. I couldn’t help wondering at that last comment, and if I really wanted to know. But I was way too unwilling to ask. She watched me as I took a moment to pull myself together, reaching
up to shove a wayward strand of hair out of my face and my Circlet back into place. Honestly I didn’t think I was ready for more surprises. However my reluctance hadn’t exactly prevented them from stalking me down the particular rabbit hole, into which I seemed to have fallen head first.

  Immy chuckled, “Yes but you’re no Alice and this is no fantasy is it?” She chided.

  Depends on your point of view, I thought sourly. My stomach, ever with a mind of its own, took that moment to announce that it was past time for sustenance. From the sound of it, a full out assault was about to be launched on my backbone, it being the only thing close enough to gnaw upon.

  Immy looked startled for a second then sort of waived her hand and a huge bowl filled with fruit appeared on the table in front of us. Next to it was a platter heaped with various cheeses and crackers. Beside the platter, two glasses filled with something I suspected might be lemonade appeared. “Hopefully this will do?” She asked, before adding, “It’s difficult for me to eat something I remember being born.”

  I’d never really thought about that, but I could see how it might cause indigestion. “This is perfect.” I told her, thinking that it didn’t help that baby animals were born cute. Something the rest of us tended to forget as they got bigger and tastier. “You keep the history of animals too?” I asked as I reached for an apple. I had ignored the age old warning yesterday, today I didn’t particularly care to have my brain rooted around in like a laboratory by my Mother’s doctor. Hey, I take all the help I could get. Besides the apple was good and I was hungry.

  “Hmmm, yes Lord Mithrandir,” Immy agreed while selecting a pear for herself. “Beautiful, but so very consumed with his work. He is, the proverbial Nutty Professor of the Elven community. And he is completely fascinated by you.”

  “I feel I should thank my Mom for raising me outside the Sidhe.” I agreed. “And I’d feel bad about her being pregnant and concerned for my sisters. Except I’m fairly sure Dad isn’t going to let the Earl use them as his own personal test subjects.” Then I thought about the fact that one of my sisters wasn’t going to be able to shift.