by S. J. Wist
“Loki?”
He let go of her and turned away. She stopped him before he could reach his mask to put it back on. There wasn’t much point to it anymore, as it was too late to hide anything. Any hope he had—
“What are you hiding?” Sybl asked as she set her fingers over his eyes. She felt for another mask that might explain the green, star-like markings over them. “That is awesome.”
He tried to stay cool until she finally freed him from her gentle touch, as her thoughts made him dizzy. “I didn’t paint my face.”
She laughed and checked her fingers to make sure. “Then you’re a horrible dragoon.”
Loki’s expression froze.
“For thinking that I’m so shallow. You have amazing eyes.”
Loki found himself able to move again, and fiddled with the mask in his hands. He had never taken a genuine compliment for his appearance before, unless it was from his mother or Cirrus. She snatched the mask away from him and put it on her face. Loki smiled when she brushed her brown waves back with a hand, then lifted her head higher as if bestowed with an armor of immense power.
“I should be the one wearing this, as you just reminded me that all my makeup is on the outer-side of the planet.”
He laughed as he could feel she was truly upset about not having it with her, and got up to follow her out into the main hall. Her thoughts finally slowed down enough to contemplate where the ceiling was on looking up.
Loki remembered how Serena always had a hard time navigating in the dark. He sent his Ancient to ignite the unused fireplace that had been built into the main room.
“I’m going to guess this isn’t Toria,” Sybl said as she looked at the stars and moon.
“It’s the new Toria, complete with a knight-Prince and a Fay Princess,” Loki said proudly as he set his Ancient next to the fire, to make sure it kept it alive. Then he smiled when her psi didn’t buy into it. It was worth a try. But when her energy suddenly changed to something darker, he stood still and listened for feedback from her psi to what he had said so wrong.
“So you think this too? That I’m some kind of reincarnated Goddess?”
“I…” Loki knew he had to pick his next words carefully. He walked over to her and reached to touch his mask, but she stepped back. “I think you are whoever you want to be.”
“Is this ‘Princess’ who you and your brother keep calling me have anything to do with this Fay thing?”
Loki was thankful that her psi was still untrained, as she might have been able to see into his thoughts right then. She had the right to know, but it wasn’t his place to tell her. Not like this. But there was still an angle he could shift the question towards. “What do you know about your father?” It worked as her thoughts changed direction.
“I don’t have a father.”
“Even I have a father, Sybl,” Loki said.
“So what was he like?”
“The most uninvolved dragoon a son would never ask for to be a member of his family.”
“At least you knew him,” Sybl replied, and sat down before the fire to watch its flames that danced to their own crackling.
“Did your mother never tell you about him?”
“I only asked once.”
“And?” Loki asked.
“And what?”
“What did she say?”
“She told me to forget about him because he very much forgot about me.”
“Was there ever a question in your mind that maybe your mother wasn’t really your mother?” Loki questioned.
“Look, I know who my mother is and where I come from, okay?”
“No, you don’t.”
“And you do? Next you’re going to tell me that I’m some alien, too.” Sybl stopped then, as Loki’s expression could only mean that he didn’t take to the word ‘alien’ well.
“Is that what we are to you?” He had taken it as a direct strike, and Loki turned away with a silent nod.
Sybl took in a deep breath and tried to start again. “Look, I’m sorry—”
“It’s fine. I get it. I mean, you have a whole lifetime on Earth. You don’t know me or anyone here.”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t want to know all of you.”
Loki assessed the validity of her words, and then forced himself to reset his thoughts as well. He looked up to the missing ceiling of his castle. “So how high should I build it?”
“Huh?”
“The ceiling.”
Sybl looked up as she was about to give a rough estimate, before realizing that his take on measurement was likely a lot different. “Feet or dragon feet?”
Loki looked back at her, confused. “You measure by feet? That’s crazy.”
“No it’s not. But I can’t become that tall.”
Loki somned and carefully tried to stand on his hind legs, before falling over onto her.
Sybl ducked as his spirit fell on and around her, harmlessly phased out, before he staggered back out of instinct to regain himself.
“Sorry.” He tried again with a bit more grace. Cirrus had made it look easier than it was proving to be for him. He began to stack his hands, until she started to laugh at him. “What am I doing wrong?”
“You look like a dragon mime.”
“A what?”
“Uh, it’s like a—” Sybl stopped.
“Like a what?”
“Like a mimic.”
“No, you thought clown,” Loki corrected her.
“No, I thought mime.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you thought clown.”
Sybl replied with a closed-mouth scream at him.
“Exactly what is a clown?” But when he looked back after finishing his measuring, she had taken off through one of the mouse-holes he never got around to patching up. He would have to work on those.
27: LOVE'S CONNECTIONS
Hain’s strike woke Kas into a daze. “Anything?”
Kas looked around the darkness to assert where he was, before feeling his cheek to where he had been hit. It didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as his heart did. “She is there.”
The kyrie returned to Kas’ hand and nudged its face against his in concern. He didn’t expect to find such a tame dragon at the castle, let alone one that would pass up a free meal so easily. They didn’t have time to starve a dragon out of his fortress.
“Your pet is useless.”
“Should I have asked it to kick down the entire castle?”
“It leveled a town, why not?”
Kas only shook his head and gave up arguing with Hain, as he tried to think of how to get Sybl away from the dragoon. Without sending the entire High Guard down on them.
“I can hold his Threads and psi down, but if she screams it’s game over. That and the White Death would chew his own wing off if it became a Thread in his way of killing someone, and I haven’t been able to find him yet. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he is watching us now.”
“So we will have to approach her carefully. I will be able to distract her towards me for a while, you just worry about walking that dragon away from us.”
“You don’t sound so certain of yourself.”
“Just what is to be certain of on this Continent?” Kas asked.
“Nothing. You just seem more uneasy than usual.”
“The last time I saw her we had a fight.”
“How bad?” Hain asked with worry.
“She was serious when she said that she never wanted to see me again.”
“And you believed her?”
“It did not matter what I believed, as she had left before I returned for her,” Kas added.
“What did you say to make her that mad?”
“I told her that I did not want her to leave.”
“And?”
“That I loved her.”
Hain laughed. “That’s when she more or less told you to go to Hell, am I right?”
Kas only narrowed his red eyes angrily at him.
“Your advice is late, as usual.”
“How many humans have you married, Kas?”
The Priest was stumbled for a moment by Hain’s question, before setting it straight from his thoughts.
“After joining so many people together, you would think you would know by now a thing or two on just what that implies for humans. This Sybl didn’t change into a Sylvan or a Fay on coming to Aster, as much as you hoped she would.”
“Humans are not that different from Sylvan.”
“Their spirits are small, their egos are bigger than life, and if they truly know the meaning of the word love, then they might catch up in their evolution yet,” Hain said.
“They do know the meaning of love. They feel it just like we do.”
“Like this Sybl does for you?”
“She has not been raised on Earth past the mindset of a child. I did not expect her particular reaction but did expect an unserious response.” Kas looked at the marking on his left wrist, before tracing the Threads that led to her. “I just need to be patient.”
“Don’t be too patient. I can’t keep that loon of a brother-in-law chasing me forever.”
Kas lost sight of the Threads all at once from Hain’s words.
“What? He is family.”
“Family who would kill you before they thought the same way,” Kas added.
“Nah. They love me, they just don’t know it, yet.”
Kas only shook his head when Hain began to laugh and gave up trying to argue against his ridiculous reasoning. He somned into his phelan form and shook out his black fur. Then he used his claws to pierce his paw and created a Rift to the Keol. They entered the puddle of darkness in the direction of the castle they had to conquer.
28: HIDE AND SQUEAK
Sybl giggled as she hid behind the large tree, trying to keep her focus. With just enough concentration, she could feel which direction Loki was coming from. She quietly circled the tree in turn to remain hidden. But he had resorted to cheating when his Ancient set some vines on fire. The small flame burned them away towards her like a fuse from a bomb. Why you!
The fire went out all at once as she glared at the dragon Ancient. It bolted into the foliage while she dashed off the other way. But before she could make some distance, something appeared from behind a tree she ran past and caught her mouth and nose, before dragging her underground in her struggle to scream.
When the hands finally let go of the panic she was, she scrambled with a cry back to her feet and off of the burning ground. Kas stood unmoved by the burning charcoal they were on. “Kas?” As she looked around the fiery wasteland, it was almost fitting that she would find a real version of her imaginary friend in Hell. She looked at her hands that had been burned and then down to her runners as the rubber was already beginning to melt from the heat.
“We cannot stay down here for long.”
“Where is—where did you come from?” Sybl asked him.
“I am taking you back to the Sanctus, to my home.”
“What? Now? Are you out of your mind? Let me out of here! I want back to Loki.”
“The dragons will kill you once they find out who you truly are,” Kas said.
“I didn’t ask!”
“Neither did I.” Kas somned into his phelan form as his black mist raised the ashes of the Keol around him like a dark snow. Then he bared his fangs and let out a threatening snap of teeth at her.
Sybl stifled a scream before fainting.
Kas unsomned and caught her before she could hit the ground. He pulled her over his back and somned back into his phelan form. He used his estus energy to weigh her down so she would stay on him. Before he could make a Rift out of the Keol, knowing that the intense heat would make her sick, he stopped on sensing something on the other side.
When Hain’s thoughts didn’t return to him, he sprinted off to see if he could lose that which was on his trail. The heat and weaves of Animus Thread were volatile and constantly moving, as the lava and fire was the blood of Aragmoth. The Great Dragon was constantly moving under their world, even if the stars above them never did. But this tracker who had found them wasn’t lost in its tangle. Kas decided to make it more difficult for it to follow, and broke into a full run.
29: LASHINGS
Simera stop! None of this was his fault!
But the King wasn’t listening as his light blue eyes turned as bright as flames. He grabbed Nafury by the back of his shirt, before dragging him off against his struggles. He reached the smaller corridors and finally the room where he would break the Prince from his disobedience through excruciating lashings and psi strain. There was no telling at the time what Simera would do to his son for the crime of Dreamwalking, or just how far he would go.
Simera! Cirrus cried as he struck his head against the barriers of the Caverns that wouldn’t allow his Cursed size to pass. Nafury.
The Prince let out an agonizing cry as his dragon form could do nothing to protect him, as the room was too small to somn. The King caught the Prince with the unstoppable force that he was, and began to break and tear fear into his body with his own hands.
But Nafury wasn’t Simera’s son. He had never been. As Cirrus remembered all of the blood, it began to make a sick kind of sense how he could have tortured Nafury in such a way. He was never the King’s flesh and blood to begin with.
They all wanted to believe that Nafury was Simera’s, as it was unquestionable to think their King would have taken Nafury in, otherwise. Simera had too much pride. But as much as Serena respected him, she never truly loved him. It was nothing but Simera’s wish for it that led him to accepting Nafury, who Cirrus would later help craft into a monster. After the Prince’s body was found in Mer City, days after being taken by the plumas at the Canyon, Simera hadn’t shed a single tear at his funeral.
A monster. Cirrus remembered back to when he had taken Nafury through the Eternal Waters to complete his Trial of Somn.
“I’m willing to bet the Prince comes back a bright pink.” Kayla laughed as they started to pick on Nafury. The Prince had been made the star for the day, for he was now thirteen and of age to take the Trial of Somn.
“Not happening,” Cecil assured her. “Serena has brown hair and Simera’s is dark mauve, which means his will be a blue. Or a purple... Then there’s the possibility he comes out looking like a nasty bruise, in which case I’m going to find a sand dune to hide under somewhere on the Third Continent.”
“I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” Nafury whined as he rubbed his arms.
“It’s about time you grow up. Do you know that Simera made me do my Trial of Somn at ten? I couldn’t even draw a dragon yet, let alone find a real one at the bottom of the ocean,” Lintrance recalled aloud from his memories, as he looked around for Simera. But he was the only one at the time who expected the King not to show. “Just don’t do what Kayla tried during hers—the mer are not edible.”
“Oh, but you didn’t hear him sing. So go on and gloat, cause I know you’re just jealous.” Kayla raised her chin higher to level out with her pride.
“Naf you best come back, because I still want that mer song my sister gave you.”
“So you can torment the poor daoran with it day and night no doubt?”
“Why else?”
Kayla sent a backhand to Lintrance’s arm, as her brother was just too mean at times.
“No eating the fish, gotcha.” Nafury smiled at Kayla and then looked to Loki.
“If you find yourself drowning, just turn around and go back. Not everybody gets their somn on their first try,” he offered in advice.
“Yes, like my daredevil son,” Crystal said, as she hugged the shorter dragoon from behind and kissed the top of his thin, light green
hair.
“What my mother really means is don’t use all of your air too fast, even if your head is nothing but air.” Lintrance smirked and his younger brother chased after him with their sister, so they could beat him down into the sand on the other end of the beach.
Nafury was caught by surprise when Rose hugged him and whispered him luck, but he didn’t hug her in turn.