by Sariah Skye
I took a step back slowly, while looking at the floor. I stumbled a bit over my feet but I caught my balance by grasping the fridge handle next to me.
He stifled a laugh. "I’m sorry. I guess…I got carried away."
"Oh, no. Don’t be sorry," I insisted. "I just don’t do people well. Or dragons or anything else. Kit is really the only person I’ve ever gotten along with."
He frowned slightly. "I am sorry about that. I wish you had lived your life knowing how wonderful you were supposed to be instead of ridiculed by everyone."
I shrugged. "Eh, well…what are you going to do?"
"But I guess that makes you more, human," he said. "That happens all too often over here." He said this with an undertone of shame in his tone.
"Something you know about, huh?" I said, as I started to empty the dishes from the dishwasher and put them away.
"Maybe," he said. "I never got along very well with people much either. Growing up the only person I really was friends with was my brother. It was hard to explain to people that instead of football or soccer I had to be at home learning magic spells and conjuring in the woods. Someone saw me while they were on a camping trip, doing magic but not seeing any like, fireballs or anything. But, I was chanting. Rumors started going around school that I was a freaky wizard and…well, you can imagine the rest…" he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders, picking at some leftover bacon on a plate.
I turned to him and frowned. "I’m sorry, I know that feeling well."
He chuckled. "Thing is; they were right basically. I’m a sorcerer, not that I could ever admit to it. Perhaps if I could actually throw some fireballs at them, they’d shut up. But obviously I can’t do that, so…I got bullied quite a bit. My brother who actually was smaller than me for a while decided he needed to be my protector. That was humiliating in its own right but, I don’t blame him for that. He started running and weight training and he had a huge growth spurt. He beat up quite a few kids in our school days for calling me names. Finally, in high school, it stopped but no one was really nice to me. I was just ignored. I didn’t get to go to Homecoming or Prom or anything normal kids did."
"Well we didn’t have anything like that back home," I said. "No dances or anything. Dragons aren’t big on fun."
"What did you guys even do, then?"
I shrugged. "Well, we do dinners, and dinner parties though usually they consist of talking and sometimes drinking. Though dragons don’t really get drunk, but it might make a few of us laugh a little. Well...they can if the liquor is spelled by a witch but, we don't generally have a lot of those lying around. Ha. The younger dragons would do stuff together. Flower picking, swimming in the rivers, flying and setting things on fire, you know…pretty typical stuff."
Gabriel snorted. "Yeah, setting things on fire, so typical."
I shot him a pretend dirty look, but grinned anyways. "But of course, since I didn’t have any friends or anyone that even liked me I just sat in my room just reading books and listening to music. Sometimes if I were lucky we’d get movies. Everything was about ten years old or so by the time it migrated to us so, my taste is a little behind the times. I didn’t even get to finish the series until I came here. All I could get a hold of there was the first and second books. I watched all the movies over a span of like, two days when I came over here for good," I said with a chuckle.
"Well, you’re ahead of me, then. I haven’t even seen the last one."
My mouth fell open in an "O" of shock. "You haven’t? How could you see part one and not see the second one? I mean that’s like…" I trailed off, and just made a weird sound and gasped.
Gabriel laughed.
"You don’t have anything else to do tonight, right?" I grabbed him by the sleeve of his sweatshirt and dragged him over to the sofa. I pushed him down and said forcibly, "Sit. You must finish Deathly Hallows. Right now."
He raised his eyebrows playfully. "Wow. Pushy."
I glared at him, as I reached for my stack of Blu-rays on a shelf next to my TV. I pulled out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two and put it in the player.
"Am I being held hostage?" he asked with a joking tone.
"At least until you finish the movie," I said, sitting down opposite him on the sofa with the remote.
"Yes, ma’am," he said with a mock salute.
We were about ten minutes into the movie, when I heard someone pounding on the door.
"Who could that be? Kit?" I mused, hitting the pause button on the remote and standing up. The pounding came again, a bit louder and much more forceful then Kit would do (actually, Kit would ring the doorbell). "That’s not Kit…" I said, heading to the door.
Gabriel rose, and motioned for me to sit. "No, let me. If there is some screwed up warlock out there searching for magic, I don’t really want them to find you. I don’t know what they are capable of."
"I’m a dragon, I’ll just eat him," I said, with a shrug.
Gabriel gave me a stern look. "Okay, I know I’m new to this Knight thing but I’m pretty sure allowing some nasty warlock to get a hold of your magic would be a bad idea. You may or may not be able to be possessed, I don’t know. You haven’t honed your magic fully yet; you may be vulnerable. Besides, you can’t shift in here anyways I would imagine without you tearing up the entire room so if you will…" he motioned to the sofa for me to sit.
Gabriel opened the door, and I heard a familiar voice, "Who the hell are you?"
I rolled my eyes, and pushed past Gabriel, who was having a visual stand-off with my brother, Braeden.
"Gabriel, this is my brother, Braeden," I said, to him, and Gabriel softened his glare.
"Ah, yes," he held out his hand with a genuine smile, "I have heard about you. I’m Gabriel O’Donnell."
Braeden snorted, you could almost see smoke puff out his nostrils. "Gabriel? Funny, I haven’t heard crap about you," he said, shoving past Gabriel and making his way inside, glaring at Gabriel the entire time, his eyes never leaving his.
"Oh lord," I said to myself, under my breath.
A high-pitched, girly giggle broke the silence. Kiarra appeared from around the corner. "Oh! Leo! It’s so good to see you again!"
Now it was my turn to glare. I forced a cheerful smile instead. "Kiarra. How lovely to see you again," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
She shoved past my brother and Gabriel and wrapped her arms around me for a big hug.
"Kiarra," Braeden said, in a warning tone.
"Oh!" Kiarra pulled away, putting her fingertips to her lips and smiling sheepishly. "Oops! I’m sorry, Brae here tells me you’re not much of a hugger. He said if you’re ever going to like me, I should…hold off on the hugging."
I cocked a brow. "I would appreciate that." I gestured for them to come in, and I shut the door behind them.
"What the Hell are you doing here?" I asked, as my brother and Kiarra sat next to each other on the sofa. And when I say next to each other I mean not an inch of space between them, Kiarra’s legs draped over his lap. Very unusual behavior for dragons who are not known for public displays of affection. I sat on the recliner and Gabriel leaned against it casually.
Braeden gave Gabriel one crabby gaze, and then allowed his face to soften. "I caught word that Earth—specifically here—had some really, really bad weather. I needed to see for myself that you were okay," he explained.
"Um…cell phone?" I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket and wiggling it at him. "Or e-mail or whatever. Would have been quicker."
Kiarra piped up. "That’s my fault, really. Braeden and I were talking about you, and I was afraid I came off too strong and said some bonehead things," she explained, "I wanted to come apologize to you in person. I know how much you mean to Braeden here, it’s really important that you feel comfortable with me—with us," she said quickly, with a laugh. "I know you are worried that I might ‘take him away’ from you but I’m here to tell you I would never do that."
"Well, that’s good to know
," I said, not even bothering to smile this time.
"Um, why would she think that you would take him away?" Gabriel asked, confused.
"Remember, I told you about our ways earlier?" I explained, with an eye roll. "We don’t normally…court like this."
"Wait—what? Who is this? What have you told him?" Braeden stood up, pushing aside Kiarra (she kind of fell back on the couch from the force of him, and I couldn’t help but snicker a bit at the scene).
"What have you told her?" I stood up myself, crossing my arms across my chest, staring him down.
Braeden backed down some. "Look, she just wants to get to know you, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Not like telling this perfect stranger about…well, you know."
I rolled my eyes. "First of all, he’s not a perfect stranger. I’ve known him for a few weeks now, we talk when he would come into the shop a little. Then I learned that he...well, he's a friend." I added that last part, feeling lame. I didn’t want to divulge his whole purpose.
"Friend?" Braeden guffawed.
Gabriel rose. "She is right. I’m a part of an ancient organization that has worked with your kind for thousands of years. Most specifically, we would assist dragons like your sister with their magic and helping both our races."
"You worked with us? Oh come on!" Braeden laughed uproariously. "Leo, he’s feeding you a line of bullshit!"
"Oh? Is that so?" I reached for my backpack that was next to the chair and rummaged for the book Grandfather gave me. I handed it to him. "Open it."
Braeden took it, reluctantly. "What the hell is this?"
"It’s this crazy little thing called a book, genius," I retorted snidely.
I heard Gabriel stifle a laugh, I shoved my elbow into his ribs as a warning to knock it off.
Braeden snorted, and gingerly leafed through it. "Well it’s old and…a bunch of nonsense," he said, stopping to look at one page. "Except…this is interesting. This sort of looks like your mark," he said, pointing at the tribal symbol on one of the first pages. "Where did you get this?"
"Our grandfather," I replied smugly.
"What?"
"Also…" I nudged Gabriel, "Show him."
"Show him—oh." He frowned. "Um, Leo, I don’t know— "
"See? He’s a liar," Braeden challenged.
"Ha!" Gabriel lifted up his shirt and exposed the tattoo on his chest. "This is the symbol of our Order. I got it when I was officially a member when I was eighteen. It just appeared on my birthday unlike the rest of this ink I had to actually pay for. If that book belonged to your grandfather—how the hell would I have known about it unless I’m telling the truth?"
Braeden snorted. "Oh, there could be a million reasons for that. Humans are quite sneaky."
"Really? You don’t believe me?" Gabriel opened his palms and closed his eyes a moment. A fireball sparked in his hands and floated there.
"Whoa—what the—" Braeden’s mouth opened in shock.
Kiarra let out a little yelp. "Oh my…" Her eyes widened.
"How did you do that?" Braeden demanded, bewildered.
"All the Knights are sorcerers," Gabriel explained. "A pink dragon and a Knight of the Order would work together to amplify magic to help out."
"Help with what?"
"According to Grandfather, years ago humans and dragons lived together as we all already know—happily. We would work together to build houses, take care of farms, ward off famines, stuff like that," I explained.
"Wow…I had no idea," Braeden said, relenting in his fight and sitting back down.
"Not something they teach in Dragon school is it?" Kiarra said, in a near mumble under her breath. It was so grumbly and uncharacteristic to her normal cheeriness (at least based on the one time I met her) it barely registered in my brain that it was her.
Gabriel closed his palms together and the fireball dispersed in a puff of smoke, looking smug.
"That’s pretty cool, actually," Braeden was impressed. "I didn’t know that humans had any sort of magic."
"Apparently, there is a lot of things we do not know," I replied dryly.
"No, you don’t," Gabriel said. "Pink dragons have the ability to amplify—or disperse—magic. It’s actually quite a valuable ability to have. There are records of humans trying to abuse that magic—or even other dragons."
"And that seems to be about the time dragons separated to their own realm," I explained.
"So, why now?" Braeden questioned. "Why you?"
Gabriel just shrugged. "No one really knows," he said. "But as far as we know Leorah is the first pink dragon born in—"
"Nine hundred and ninety-eight years," Kiarra muttered.
I raised my brow. "That long, huh?"
Kiarra quickly switched her surly frown into her normal cheery smile. "Well, you know I’m kind of a dragon history buff. I mean, you know the best way to keep bad things from happening is to learn about them, right?"
"And we don’t want me going insane like Cyril, right?" I crabbed, narrowing my eyes.
I swear I almost saw Kiarra wince at that, but she just giggled. "Oh stop, Leo—"
"—Leorah!" I insisted. I heard Gabriel cough under his breath, stifling a laugh. I elbowed him again.
"No it’s not that of course. I have a certain fascination with humanity too," Kiarra said, with a smile. "That’s something we have in common, you know?"
"I don’t have so much a fascination with them as much as I enjoy just blending in and not getting tortured, you know?" I quipped.
Braeden coughed then, pointedly in an attempt to make me stop glaring at his fiancée. "That’s actually part of the reason she wanted to come here. We don’t have weather like tornadoes and stuff, she wanted to see it for herself."
"And of course, make sure you made it home okay," Kiarra said, reaching over and tapping my knee.
I couldn’t help but let out a guttural growl of anger in annoyance at the blue dragon sitting here in my living room.
"Well, I’d take you on the tour of misery but most of the damage has been cleaned up by now," I said.
"I’m just glad no one was really hurt," she said. "So I could really enjoy the scenery. There was a little damage in the woods by the portal but otherwise you’re right, not much left. Like it never really happened, almost."
"Yeah, almost," Gabriel said, his arms crossed over his chest. He offered a friendly smile. "We humans are pretty hardy, you know. And the tornadoes ended up being kind of small, coupled with a great weather service and we managed to keep safe. Thankfully, right?"
"Right!" Kiarra let out a peal of cheery laughter. "Well I suppose we’re intruding; we should get going. They look like they’re about to watch a movie," she said, pointing to the paused picture on the TV. "Looks like Twilight, right?"
I felt the heat rise in my face. "Harry Potter." Was all I said.
Braeden rose to his feet, pulling Kiarra with him. "Well we can go now. Leo here takes her movies really, really seriously. You want to get on her good side…don’t ever mistake Twilight for anything but Twilight," he said with a short laugh.
I crossed my arms across my chest and narrowed my eyes at them.
"Oh! We can try that little coffee house we drove by on the way in!" Kiarra said giddily.
"On the way in?" Gabriel questioned. "Your coffeehouse isn’t on the road in from the portal, is it?"
I shook my head. "No, it’s not. How did you know about that?" I challenged her.
"Oh well—we saw it, you know. Maybe it wasn’t on the way in but I swear—"
"—and was open?" I asked, knowing fully well obviously that it wasn’t.
"Well, yeah, why wouldn’t it be?" Kiarra said, with a confused shrug.
"Huh. Interesting, because I’m the manager at that coffeehouse. My best friend, Kit, owns it. It’s been shut down for about two days now due to storm damage. You can see the blown-out windows from the street," I said, rather snidely.
Braeden appeared confused. "Yeah, I don
’t recall passing any coffeehouse, you must have been seeing another building," he said patting her on the shoulders as he was trying to coax her towards the door.
"Oh, yeah maybe. Too bad, coffee sounded good," she said, with a whine in her tone.
Gabriel and I exchanged looks. I mouthed "Told you" to him and he nodded.
I rose and went to my brother’s side. "Give Grandfather a hug for me, okay?" I said, grasping his elbow.
Braeden released his fiancée momentarily and nodded. He gave me an earnest smile and said, "I’m glad you’re okay. Really, I was worried."
"You could have called?" But I knew even that sometimes wouldn’t work, connections from Earth to Anarach were unreliable at best. "Well, email? Facebook?"
He chuckled. "I know, but Kiarra was really eager to come Earth side, she hasn’t had much of an opportunity to do so. We were going to come see you and then just wander around. Maybe go out to Minneapolis or the big mall."
I nodded. "Have fun with that," I said with a cringe at the idea.
He laughed, gave me a brief hug and ushered Kiarra out the door, as she giggled and talked the entire time. I think she was trying to say good-bye but, I wasn’t really listening. Nor did I care.
"Uggggggggggggh!" I screamed in frustration, shutting the door behind them. I put my hands in my hair and started yanking it out of its ponytail.
"Whoa there!" Gabriel was there, pulling my arms down and down to my sides. "Breathe, Leo. Just breathe," he said, demonstrating by taking a long, deep breath and exhaling.
I attempted it, but I ended up exhaling in a growl.
"Wow, Leo—chill!" He said, shaking out his hands. "You almost sparked a fire in my hands!"
"Huh? How is that possible unless you were making fireballs?" I asked, puzzled.
"Well sometimes when I’m angry, they have been known to…happen," he said, with an innocent laugh.
"Angry?" We sat back down on the sofa, I was trying not to growl the whole time. "Am I right though? There is…something about her!"
"Well, when she started talking about the coffee house, that’s when red flags started going up for me," he explained. "There is something off about her, I can’t place it."