Pieces

by Shannon Pemrick

Ryoko looked at Shva’sika with pleading eyes. “Can I call you that?”

  Shva’sika nodded. “Sure. Elven isn’t easy for most to learn. It was hard enough getting Laz to get the concept.”

  “Since when can my niece speak anything but common?” Zane asked. “I remember it was hard enough getting her to speak that.”

  I leaned my head back and looked at him. “Since two elves made me learn.”

  Shva’sika laughed. “You make it sound like we bullied you.”

  “Because you did!” I defended. “You and Xye would constantly speak to in your tongue as if I knew it, refusing to speak common in the least. Not to mention, you would force me to learn how to read your tongue by giving me books to read with a deadline, and if I didn’t meet them you’d come up with some sort of extra chore or training time.”

  “That’s how you were able to read that note in your bag when you had emptied it out after you came back?” Ryoko asked. “It didn’t look like any language I’d seen before but you were looking it over as if you could read it.”

  I nodded. “There wasn’t anything special about the note, like a self-reading enchantment, and as you noticed, none of the words were in common.”

  She raised the back of her fingers to her lips as if she was pretending to think about the memories. “Oh yeah, that’s right.”

  I rolled my eyes and then blinked when Ryoko bolted to her feet and dashed over to Shva’sika. She grabbed Shva’sika’s mouth and pried it open. “You do have a tongue piercing! I thought I saw it.”

  I smacked myself on the forehead. “Ryoko…”

  Shva’sika laughed and pushed her away. “She reminds me of Valene and you.”

  I chuckled and flashed my sharp teeth at her. Her eyes widened in wonder. Then, before I knew it, she was on her knees, and her hands were prying open my mouth to inspect my teeth.

  I laughed. “No kidding. She had that weird obsession with my teeth when she was a child.”

  “Your teeth are so sharp! Like a tiger! Or maybe a raccoon.”

  Shva’sika laughed. “She really was a strange child.”

  “Who’s Valene?” Ryoko asked.

  “Laz’s daughter,” Shva’sika explained.

  “Daughter?” Zane asked.

  I grunted. “She’s not my daughter. Not biological, at least.”

  Shva’sika rolled her eyes. “Biological, adopted. Who cares? She’s still your daughter.”

  “Hard seeing Eira as the parent type,” Blaze remarked. “Let alone the adopting type.”

  “She has a son,” Ryoko reminded him. “And she does a good job with him.”

  “I suck at parenting,” I remarked.

  “You do fine,” Ryoko argued.

  I snorted. “I’m never around for my son, and I kill for a living. Yeah, I get the parent-of-the-year award.”

  “You did well with Valene when Velessa died,” Shva’sika pointed out.

  Ryoko looked at Shva’sika. “Was that her real mom?”

  Shva’sika nodded. “She was sick, and when she died, Laz took Valene in since she had become so attached to her over the years.”

  “Daren took care of her,” I objected. “He adopted her long before I came around.”

  Ryoko sighed and then looked at Shva’sika again. “You don’t come off as the type who would go out and get her tongue pierced.”

  Shva’sika smiled. “I had gotten it when I was younger as a test. It didn’t work out so well.”

  I snorted. “Younger? What do you mean by younger? Fifty years or two hundred years?”

  She laughed. “I was only one hundred and seventy-five.”

  Blaze choked on his drink. “Only? You say that like that age is so insignificant. How old are you?”

  “Only six hundred,” she replied with an innocent shrug.

  “And here I thought Zane was old,” he muttered.

  “I told you two and a half centuries wasn’t old,” Zane remarked.

  Shva’sika laughed. “You’re only a child to us.”

  Zane laughed. “I’m not sure what’s worse. Being old to a nu-human or a child to an elf.”

  “I suppose it’s a compliment on our end,” Shva’sika observed. “I’m more or less a young adult.”

  “Don’t look like it,” I teased.

  Shva’sika glared at me. “Don’t make me shock you.”

  I laughed at her threat. She may have appeared around Zane’s age but she was beautiful and seemingly ageless, and I doubted it’d change anytime soon.

  “Six hundred…” Blaze mused. “Sound like a lot of time to have fun.”

  Ryoko grunted as she sat back down on the couch. “There he goes again. His mind goes right down into the gutter without fail.”

  I grunted in agreement.

  “The answer is no, Blaze,” Shva’sika said.

  He stared at her. “Seriously? I didn’t even get the chance to ask.”

  “Laz told me all about you,” she explained. “And my answer is no.”

  “Oh c’mon. It’ll be great,” Blaze urged. “I promise.”

  “Drop it, Blaze,” I told him. “You’re not going to win.”

  “Give me one good reason you won’t,” Blaze said.

  “I’m chaste,” she replied as she relaxed on the couch.

  Blaze blinked and then looked at me. “What the hell is with you and your friends being virgins, Eira?”

  “Who said we all were?” Ryoko said. “Pretty big assumption if you ask me. Just because we don’t sleep around with people we don’t know doesn’t mean we haven’t been with someone in the past.”

  Blaze looked at her funny. “Well I know Eira hasn’t been with anyone. She scares them all away.”

  Pain twinged in my chest and Ryoko glared at Blaze. “Why do you have to be such a dick?”

  “Why are you taking such offense to this?” Blaze asked. “I’m just stating a fact. She scares away any guy that shows remote interest in her. And then there’s you.”

  “Me? I have had a boyfriend before,” Ryoko said.

  “Oh yeah? Why have we never met or heard of him?” Blaze shot.

  “Because he’s dead, jackass!” she yelled. “You think you know everything, but you don’t know what happened in our lives while we were in the military. You were too busy living your comfortable civilian life and sleeping around with any woman you could get your hands on to know what happened to any of us. You don’t know who we’ve been with, who we’ve lost, what we’re not willing to go through again, or why we’re so selective with those we give our time to. You don’t know jack shit!”

  I sighed internally. He would push her to this point. It didn’t help, that any time Zeek came up, she got upset. This was only going to get worse now. Or so I thought. Blaze was actually quiet now. There was this weird look in his eye as if he understood he’d crossed a line that should have never been touched.

  He then stood up and walked out without a word. That was not what I was expecting from him. It wasn’t like him at all. Which part of Ryoko’s outburst had put him in this state?

  As I watched him leave, I realized Raikidan wasn’t in the room. Thinking about it, I hadn’t seen him since I slapped him. It made me wonder where he was.

  “So you said you got your tongue pierced as a type of test,” Ryoko said, reinitiating the original conversation in clear attempt to get her mind in a better state. “What was the test?”

  “Being a lightning shaman, I wanted to find new ways to utilize my abilities, and since metal is a conductive I figured I’d give it a shot to see if it would help me to shoot lighting from my mouth.” Shva’sika laughed. “It didn’t work out. I wasn’t able to transfer the charge from my hands to my mouth. I never found a reason to get rid of it after.”
>
  “What compelled you to have that sort of idea? Ryoko asked.

  “I saw a dragon do it once,” she explained.

  “Dragons don’t exist anymore,” Argus argued. “You couldn’t have seen one.”

  “I’ve seen a few in my life and met three face to face within the past century,” Shva’sika objected. “One was within the past decade.”

  “That’s impossible,” he replied. “They died out decades ago.”

  “Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they don’t still exist,” Seda remarked.

  “We were told they were all dead,” he objected.

  Seda chuckled. “Do you always believe so blindly?”

  Argus blinked but couldn’t manage a good comeback, so he remained quiet. I wanted to laugh but I knew it wasn’t his fault. The stories said they were gone now, and they didn’t know about Raikidan’s true identity.

  I yawned real loud suddenly. I needed sleep. My energy was still low from the loss of blood, and shopping all day with Ryoko didn’t help me one bit. I stood up and headed for my temporary room. I flopped down on the hard bed and grunted. I wanted my own soft bed back, but thanks to my vision, I wasn’t going to be able to get that yet so Raikidan’s bed would have to do.

  “You didn’t have to hit me so hard.”

  I sat up. Raikidan stood in the far corner, in the shadows, with his arms folded. His eyes were expressionless, giving me no hints if he was angry with me or not. So this is where he’s been hiding.

  I fell back on the bed. “Well if you had just listened to me in the first place I wouldn’t have hit you.”

  “You broke my jaw! You didn’t have to go that far.”

  I bolted upright. “And you left the city when I specifically told you not to unless you spoke with me! You deliberately put everyone’s lives in danger so you could grab a stupid bag of gold.”

  “Well if you had waited to let me explain why I did it, you would understand!”

  “You were taking forever to say something. Obviously you didn’t have a reason.”

  Raikidan threw his hands into the air. “I did! I was trying to figure out how to word it so you wouldn’t be mad.”

  I snorted. “I was already mad.”

  “No, really? I wouldn’t have figured that out from my broken jaw and painful healing session. You’re lucky Shva’sika could heal that with her shaman healing. I thought I’d have a bad jaw for the rest of my life because you can’t control your anger.”

  I folded my arms. “Then tell me, why did you leave?”

  He relaxed against the wall again. “I overheard Zane talking to Argus. He said that thing you call a tax was being raised and you’d be short on a lot of money soon. So I thought I’d grab some gold from my hoard to help.”

  “That’s it? That’s your reason?”

  Raikidan looked at me in confusion. “Yeah, that’s my reason. Why is it that you don’t sound happy about it?”

  I wanted to choke him again. “Why? Because you put everyone’s life at risk to get money! We were going to be fine, Raikidan. We’ve dealt with shortages before and it wasn’t like we weren’t going to have any money.”

  “You act like you knew about this tax.”

  I sighed. “Of course I knew. Zane told me about it. It’s why I’ve been working so hard at the club. It’s the sole reason I’ve forced myself to attempt to flirt with every guy that walked into the club to get extra tips. It’s not like I actually like having to act so desperate.”

  “But why are you so mad at me? All I’m trying to do is help!”

  “Because you risked everyone’s lives for something that wasn’t going to be an issue! The least you could have done was talk to me about it first. If it was going to be a problem, I would have shown you a way out that would have been safe! That way, there would have been no risk of anyone being hurt.” I fell back on the bed and rubbed my palms over my face. “Forget it.”

  I was tired of fighting with him. It was all I seemed to do with him anymore. This human-dragon barrier was really starting to get tiresome. Was it worth it anymore? Was he going to learn that the others’ safety was primary over anything else? Should I cut my losses and tell him to leave now? He was a great asset, but if he was going to risk everyone’s lives then was it really worth it?

  Raikidan sighed. “You obviously don’t get what it means for me to take gold from my hoard and give it to all of you.”

  I curled up and closed my eyes. “I’m not a dragon, so why would I?”

  When he didn’t reply, I became curious and took a quick peek. I figured he’d at least have some sort of comeback, even if it was a hurtful one. He still leaned against the wall watching me. I didn’t get it. Why did he watch me so much? Was I honestly that interesting to him?

  Raikidan pushed off the wall suddenly and shifted. I was surprised by his size. Was my room really that much bigger than this one or was he choosing not to take a smaller dragon shape?

  I sat up when he curled up and rested his head down on the bed and I looked at him with curiosity. His eyes were closed and his breaths were slow and deep as if he were already asleep. With my legs close to my chest, I watched him in hopes that some sort of answer would jump at me, explaining what was going on. I knew he wasn’t asleep so I assumed at some point he would open his eyes. I was wrong. I waited and waited, and yet he didn’t open his eyes, and still I knew he was still awake. Sighing out of boredom, I curled up on the bed, or what was left of it, thanks to Raikidan’s giant head, and closed my eyes.

  My eyes snapped open only moments later when something heavy pushed on my back. I turned my head to find Raikidan’s tail pressing hard against me. I pulled myself a little closer to his head thinking that would help but his tail moved in the same direction and still pushed against me.

  I looked at Raikidan, whose eyes were now open and watching me. I raised an eyebrow at him and he responded by pushing me with his tail again. Playing along, I moved closer to him until I was only a few inches away from his face. He stopped pushing me then and let his tail drape over the side of the bed. Confused, I eyed him skeptically and lay back down.

  I wiggled a little bit to get comfortable and closed my eyes. Raikidan exhaled and inched his face closer to me until I could feel his nose and hot breath on my leg. I grunted with a slight smile and let my mind go blank. I had no idea what he was doing but I also didn’t mind. It felt like he was making a protective circle around me, but as I thought it, it didn’t make any sense for him to do so.

  I snuggled deeper into my arms. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t in his nu-human shape and trying to sleep next to me, so it wasn’t a big deal. Whatever he was doing was his own business and if I really needed to know he’d tell me in the morning. Right?

  Chapter 27

  The stench of blood and burning flesh filled my nose. No more than a few hours after I had fallen asleep, Raikidan and I had been woken up. Team Two had been caught during an assignment and now needed backup. As I scanned the situation from my temporary hiding spot behind a dilapidated building, I attempted to figure out the reason for the failure.

  This was the third failed assignment and Team Two was a good team. They were always cautious and made sure they were doing everything right. It didn’t make sense for them to be caught. Had they just been unlucky and messed up this time or was there something on the military’s side giving them the edge?

  I exhaled slowly when a dud rocket landed several feet away from me. Aiming my gun, I shot at several approaching soldiers, but it did nothing to stop them. Raikidan then came out from his hiding place on the other side of the street and exhaled a blast of fire. This stopped the soldiers and they screamed in pain.

  This had been a major issue throughout the battle. These soldiers were oblivious to bullets unless it was going through their head, and ev
en that sometimes took more than one to take them down. Fire and other elemental attacks were the only real effective way to take these soldiers down and only some of them would feel the effects. I wasn’t sure why either. These weren’t the new experiments everyone had warned us about. I knew that for sure but their pain tolerance was abnormally high. It was like they were dead or had no nerves.

  I sighed and put my gun away. Spitting fire into my hands I formed the fire all around them and pushed away from the wall. I threw the fire as large balls and watched the soldiers scatter. Those who were hit continued on moving.

  “This is getting stupid,” I muttered.

  “I’m starting to think these guys are using some sort of pain suppressant,” Rylan called in. “I had a guy survive three shots to the head.”

  “If they were foaming at the mouth, I’d say they were rabid,” Ryoko complained. “Some of these guys are trying to bite in self-defense.”

  “Do you think a psychic has something to do with this?” someone from the other team called in.

  “It’s a possibility,” I replied as I threw more fireballs. “In the end, we’ll never know, and it doesn’t matter. We either have to keep fighting or fall back.”

  “I’m not failing this mission!” the commander of the other team shouted.

  “Sometimes you have to take a loss to win,” I replied.

  “Running is for cowards,” he shot back.

  “Living to fight another—”

  “Eira, look out!” Raikidan shouted.

  His cry came too late when the building I was hiding behind exploded. I fell to the ground and pain raked up my body.

  “Eira!” Raikidan ran over to me as I struggled to get up. “Eira, are you all right?”

  “Peachy,” I muttered through clenched teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t see the tanks until it was too late.”

  “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. I should be paying attention to the battle and not arguing with some nitwit who is too stubborn to see the benefits of retreating when needed.”

  He chuckled and helped me drag myself over to where he had been taking cover. Soldiers shot at us but Raikidan retaliated with blasts of fire. He set me down and checked me over.