I stared at the closed door for a moment, getting my bearings.\u00a0 I pushed my sleeves up halfway to my elbow, and took a deep breath.\u00a0 I started shaking my head.\u00a0 A part of me thought about just passing them on the steps and heading to the car, letting them handle their issues themselves, but alas, someone here had to be the grown-up.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how that role got transferred to me, but it had.<\/p>\n
I opened the door again.<\/p>\n
“Nen, Peredur,” I said, trying to channel my grandmother’s tone of voice and her way of implying how something was utterly ridiculous and should be stopped immediately just by the way she said our names.\u00a0 I chose my grandmother because she had presence and power, and, well, it wasn’t unmanly at all.\u00a0 If I recalled correctly, she had a bit of a moustache.<\/p>\n
Peredur’s eyes flashed to me, like a spark of orange and yellow, before going back to the wee man with a hand at his throat.\u00a0 He lifted one hand as if in a gesture that said, “I’d be happy to desist, only, you see,” and I sighed.<\/p>\n
“Nen.\u00a0 If the Dragon wanted to eat me, I’d have been kibble long before now,” I said, with a sigh.<\/p>\n
“It’s not his appetite with which I’ve a concern, Door-closer.”<\/p>\n
“If it’s his breath, I’ve got mints in the console.”<\/p>\n
Wrecks cracked a smile.\u00a0 “You’ll be wanting to know why he’s here, I suppose.\u00a0 Ha’en’t you ever heard the phrase about curiosity being the death of ye?”<\/p>\n
“I’m no cat,” I said.\u00a0 “But yeah, I have to admit I’m kind of curious.”<\/p>\n
“I’ll be taking my hand off yer throat, Dragon.\u00a0 Know that the King has not lifted the ban,” Nen said, seriously.\u00a0 He backed off a step, letting Peredur go.<\/p>\n
“We do not follow any law but our own,” Peredur said, after a moment of composing himself.<\/p>\n
“So you said then, and so ye say now.” Nen shrugged. “But I am a-playin’ by the Small Kingdom’s rules.”<\/p>\n
“Good, he needs protection,” Peredur said, and his eyes glanced at me again, full of their own light in hints and pieces.<\/p>\n
“I thought a Dragon sent you to watch me,” I said to Wrecks.<\/p>\n
“Indeed,” the small fellow said.\u00a0 A little smile played on his face.<\/p>\n
“The Seven King is a Dragon?”<\/p>\n
Peredur sniffed in such a way that might have been a chuckle, or might have been something worse.\u00a0 “What memento of yours did she gain?” he asked me.<\/p>\n
I tried to think if I had left anything behind.\u00a0 Well, yeah, a pair of pants and a shirt, but I didn’t think that’s what the Dragon meant.\u00a0 “The pleasure of my company, I suppose,” I said, slowly.<\/p>\n
“Eighty parts mortal arrogance, ten lucky guess, and ten percent a certain tenacity to your chosen reality, then?” Peredur asked.<\/p>\n
“The ancient pest may have you pegged,” Wrecks suggested, with a wry grin.<\/p>\n
“Hey, only seventy percent arrogance, and I know at least three percent would totally have boned her, but the ninety-seven percent of ‘Ain’t stickin’ it in,’ won.”\u00a0 I sighed.\u00a0 “If you have to know.\u00a0 Why is everyone so intent on getting me laid by the faerie chick?\u00a0 Couldn’t you use your magic to maybe let me date a nice, sane girl?”<\/p>\n
Wrecks chuckled.<\/p>\n
“A child would have complicated things,” Peredur said, smoothly.<\/p>\n
“A child?” I think I squeaked a little.\u00a0 I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m aware of the Facts of Life, but I take precautions. I know they’re not one-hundred percent guaranteed, but I like to think there’s a good mathematical premise that people who take less chances have better odds.<\/p>\n
“A child with enough mortality and enough royalty to anchor the Small Realms closer to the real you’ve known was the prize for which the King made her play.”\u00a0 Peredur shrugged in a casual way.\u00a0 It was one of those shrugs that was amazingly graceful and dismissive at the same time.<\/p>\n
“So, now that she’s rolled the critical failure, what’s her next action?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“The King may wish Thomas’ child, but he has made a different bargain.”\u00a0 Peredur’s eyes had their own light as he glanced towards Nen.\u00a0 Part of my brain wondered how that worked, if all Peredur saw was golden and blinding, or if he used vision at all, or if it just was a neat effect or if I had his eyes they could be used to light up a room.\u00a0 That last thought was a little disturbing, even for me, and my superego quashed it with a grimace.<\/p>\n
The small gentleman shook his head.\u00a0 “Her Thomas is oracle, and that protects him.”<\/p>\n
I felt a little better, but not like my question was answered.\u00a0 I waited for them to continue.<\/p>\n
“Then she is committed?”<\/p>\n
“Not yet,” I perked up, “but I do suggest some form of multiple personalities as a diagnosis.\u00a0 Definitely spotty and a bit haunted.”<\/p>\n
Nen shrugged.\u00a0 It wasn’t as graceful as Peredur’s.\u00a0 “Dryden.\u00a0 `Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.'”<\/p>\n
I wanted to interrupt, to say that Thomas was true, not mad, but Peredur looked concerned.<\/p>\n
“Shelley said, ‘To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be…'” Peredur paused in his quotation, giving it the benefit of a segue, “‘Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign.'”<\/span><\/p>\n “All kings is mostly rapscallions,” I retorted, unwilling to be left out.\u00a0 “Mark Twain.”<\/p>\n “Then Demogorgon notes,” Wrecks says, tilting his head slightly, “All spirits are enslaved that serve evil things, but so are all things subject to eternal love.\u00a0 A kind of slavery.”\u00a0 He glanced at me as if seeing if I knew the reference (I had no clue), or possibly a warning, or maybe an opening in the conversation.<\/p>\n I took the latter option. “She said…” I wracked my brain, “that `We do not love that we are loved.’\u00a0 And Thomas had said that ‘Love we speak and love we waste,’ but Thomas spoke of the importance of it.”\u00a0 I shook my head.\u00a0\u00a0 “Does love bind the King?”<\/p>\n “Did I say ten parts tenacity? You blunder into luck, small wizard.”\u00a0 Peredur was amused.<\/p>\n It was luck that I didn’t mention that Sir Darius had called him a “dandelion fluff-head,” yet, too.\u00a0 Luck and some kind of unusual sense of self-preservation.\u00a0 Restraint, perhaps.<\/p>\n He continued.\u00a0 “I owed you three protections, and I have given you two.\u00a0 The third will pay for all, and any more will put you in my debt.”<\/p>\n I didn’t try to figure them out – he might have been watching out for me and giving me good parking and counted it as some kind of mystic interference.\u00a0 “Hey, I don’t recall asking you for any of it,” I said.\u00a0 “I don’t want you suddenly taking the initiative and then putting me on the hot seat for it.”<\/p>\n Maybe “hot seat” wasn’t a good way to put it to a Dragon.\u00a0 He remained calm and aloof in body language, but the air between us warmed up and I could see a puff of smoke from his nostrils, despite the waning heat of the day.\u00a0 “Your point is noted,” he said.<\/p>\n “Good.\u00a0 As long as we understand each other,” I said, gruffly.<\/p>\n He laughed.\u00a0 It sounded… well, I guess I had expected his laugh to be a little more human, and less of a roar of some sort.\u00a0 I found that my evolutionary niche still had instincts about such sort of sounds, as I didn’t quite cringe, but I did push myself back against the door as if I were going to duck inside and find safety.\u00a0 And if that was a laugh, it might explain why the memory of him saying, “Flee!” was something I hadn’t been able to really focus on in the last few days.<\/p>\n But the reminder came up, anyway, and the paralysis wasn’t as bad this time, even if the blood rushing in my head and the shaking in my arms started as soon as I said, “What was I running from?”<\/p>\n There weren’t enough gold stars for how proud of myself I was for saying the words aloud.<\/p>\n Peredur smiled, and his teeth were never human enough, and yet, this time I noticed there was one missing.\u00a0 I put my hand in my coat pocket, running my fingers across the heavy lump there.<\/p>\n “Third time pays for all,” he repeated.\u00a0 There was a whiff of woodsmoke, a wave of heat, and he was gone into the night.\u00a0 I thought I heard the sound of wings.<\/p>\n I banged my head into the doorframe, closing my eyes.<\/p>\n “Does it help?” Wrecks asked, sounding amused.<\/p>\n “The old joke says that it feels good when I stop,” I said.\u00a0 “I was doing something.\u00a0 I was getting groceries.\u00a0 What the heck was that all about?\u00a0 Isn’t the magic grapevine all a-light with everything that happened?\u00a0 Isn’t some arcane weekly keeping track of it?\u00a0 Doesn’t he talk to the great eagles and find out or, heck, sylphs with ears to the cellular transmissions or something?”<\/p>\n Wrecks laughed, and his laugh was pleasant to listen to, at least, except for the almost bark-like bits.\u00a0 Basis of comparison counts for a lot.\u00a0 “He wanted to see for himself where you stood.”<\/p>\n “On two feet, thanks to millions of years of evolution,” I snarled.<\/p>\n “He sees more than that.\u00a0 You were not claimed by the Seven King.\u00a0 You have not committed to any side of the war.\u00a0 He is still in your debt, Dragons-bane.”<\/p>\n “Bane.\u00a0 Is that an herb, like wolvesbane?\u00a0 Is someone having a laugh calling me a vegetable?” I banged my head against the frame again.\u00a0 “Any side, not ‘either’ side.\u00a0 How many sides are there?”<\/p>\n “How many opinions might one have about the same subject?” he asked, with a shrug.\u00a0 “Come, let us get comestibles.”<\/p>\n I closed the door and locked it behind us.\u00a0 “What,” I tried sounding light about it, “is the subject at hand?\u00a0 I thought it was a power grab, but there’s fire and passion and witches and war.”<\/p>\n He looked glum.\u00a0 “If the root cause was a simple one, there might be a simple answer,” he said after a moment or two.\u00a0 He followed me to the car.\u00a0 “There are a number of things that collided at once, and each has a claim of value.”<\/p>\n “Huh,” I said, letting him in.\u00a0 I was pleased to see that the car started after all this time, but I was going to want to get it checked out, just in case.\u00a0 I started driving, letting the silence draw out.<\/p>\n “You’re not going to tell me much more?” I kind of made it a question.<\/p>\n He shrugged.\u00a0 “I have named some of the players as your enemies.”<\/p>\n “And some as my friends, am I right?” I hoped, turning the car towards the driveway of the local supermarket.<\/p>\n “I can say that you are correct, although some of your friends are traditionally neutral parties.”<\/p>\n “Like the Questor, but not, I’d guess, his wife.\u00a0 Wizards are meddlers by nature, or they wouldn’t be wizards,” I sighed.<\/p>\n “I’m not likely to argue too hard versus your presumption,” he admitted.<\/p>\n “Okay.”\u00a0 I turned off the engine and sat back into the seat.\u00a0 “Can you do a little warmer-colder game with this?\u00a0 I know straight talk is like a terrible allergy to your kind, so let me blunder by luck into something,” I suggested.<\/p>\n “Mayhap,” he said, guardedly.<\/p>\n “Denver is traditionally fairly neutral because its location has so much at conflict,” I said.\u00a0 “Urban infrastructure versus rural memories.\u00a0 The Small Folk are at the cusp between, or you wouldn’t be as well read and snarky as you are.”\u00a0 He didn’t comment, so I continued.\u00a0 “No one seems to have an upper hand, but we’ve got more than a handful of wizards, and a whole heck of a lot of witches because they’re drawn to the confrontation of energies.\u00a0 We have Peredur’s interest, and Naul was here because of…love, I guess.\u00a0 Which is something I want to program back into the earlier conversation when I’ve got the cycles for it.\u00a0 So at least two Dragons.\u00a0 We’ve got minor vampire activity; Matana didn’t have to apply for passports or whatever the parasites use to track each other, but that’s fine because like a lot of predators they have huge territories and don’t like being around others when they can avoid it.\u00a0 I know of a few cases of slipskins, people who can take on one other form, although even they cringe at the word ‘werewolf.’\u00a0 Plus, the ones I know aren’t wolves.\u00a0 There’s one couple who shift into parrots.”\u00a0 I shook my head.\u00a0 “There’s a mad unicorn.\u00a0 There’s the -cubi.\u00a0 The Shadow King.\u00a0 A witch with a fascination for snakes.”\u00a0 I sighed.\u00a0 “There’s me.”<\/p>\n Wrecks started to say something, but was cut off at the sound of my phone ringing.\u00a0 “And my sister,” I sighed.\u00a0 I answered it; what else was I to do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I stared at the closed door for a moment, getting my bearings.\u00a0 I pushed my sleeves up halfway to my elbow, and took a deep breath.\u00a0 I started shaking my head.\u00a0 A part of me thought about 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