I almost asked the two of them if I was in some way required to open the door, but that was only because I was exhausted. \u00a0Let me parse that a different way: I wanted an excuse not to open the door, so I almost begged the two fey who hung out with me to find me a way to say, “No,” to a Dragon.<\/p>\n
That might be a measure of just how crazy my life had gotten that I was treating them like they were reasonable folk. \u00a0Fair, you might even say. \u00a0Yes, I’m snickering.<\/p>\n
Did Peredur even look up at Zach when they crossed in the parking lot? Would Zach recognize a brush with Dragonkind? Or did the Dragon fly over to the roof and climb down, doing some kind of parkour-style flip onto the threshold? I didn’t hear a gate open, so he probably didn’t rip a hole in reality and crawl out the other side, but I was stalling.<\/p>\n
At least he had knocked. He almost always knocked.<\/p>\n
I opened the door.<\/p>\n
He was again in the shape of the man I knew him as, his eyes still that strange reflection of fire in the distance, a combination of red and brown and the iron grey of smoke. The saffron of his hair on top, the deepness of a glossy coal beneath, and the same jacket, red and velvety thick, the color of spilled blood. I had a sudden urge to ask him if he ever changed clothes, or if that was just part of the metamorphosis. \u00a0Did he have black scales, splattered with the red of a crime scene, or red ones and a black belly? \u00a0I didn’t remember anything but his teeth and his eyes and the smell of smoke from that night. \u00a0You know the one I’m referencing.<\/p>\n
He breathed out smoke, a faint, thin exhalation of burning wood. It wasn’t like having bad breath, actually, because it had that nostalgic, “Roasting marshmallows,” kind of feel to it. Not that I was likely to kiss him, and I blamed Zach for the thought even popping up in my head. I still felt weird about it. Not really uncomfortable-weird, just generally off my game.<\/p>\n
I totally needed a date. Heck, I just needed to get out more.<\/p>\n
“Good evening?” I made it a question. I was very aware that both Nen and Rayya had tensed up, and I didn’t want a repeat (an “again”) from Nen putting the squeeze on the Dragon’s neck.<\/p>\n
“Good evening,” he repeated to me, and there was a hint of a smile, but whenever he opened his mouth it opened way too wide, as if a portal in itself.<\/p>\n
“Eh. Back to Freni-Fawr wit’ ye, monster,” Nen pointed at Peredur. His eyes were narrowed and his accent thick. “Ye haven’t an appointment. Just tryin’ to mess with the boy’s head again?”<\/p>\n
“I have business with the Closer,” Peredur said, primly. “Are you to protect him against me?” he asked and again I was surprised that he was a few inches shorter than myself. I’m not that tall, really, average height for a man, and I was about to amend the coined phrase to, “Scary things come in small packages.” He gestured towards his chest with one hand and the challenge in his expression was easy to see. “I would be happy to try the son of Ashya.”<\/p>\n
“The son and daughter of Ashya,” Rayya said, quietly.<\/p>\n
It was very tense for a moment, and Peredur looked down at Rayya, jutting his chin out as if just barely deigning to acknowledge her.<\/p>\n
It struck me as funny for a moment that I realized Dragons showed more recognizable human emotion than the Spriggan sibs. I suppose Dragons are known for their passions. Darwin said that facial expressions were residual actions of more complex behavioural responses, but I know that it was only a small set that are convincingly recognizable, probably seven or so, happiness, disgust, fear, that kind of thing. I don’t know if subtle signals like sarcasm are even cross-cultural.<\/p>\n
Of course, I also don’t know if sarcasm is a subtle signal. Contempt sure isn’t.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, although I wasn’t really apologetic. “You’ve come at a bad time. If someone had an open door, the best I could do is ask someone else to kindly get it before they let out all the cold air. After all, we can’t cool off the neighborhood.” For November, we were still having some pretty hot days. Oh well, with global climate change, the idea of “seasonal weather” was kind of being thrown away anyway.<\/p>\n
“I do not have the time to coddle your delusions,” Peredur said, looking away from Rayya and at me with the directness that reminded me just who and what he was. Well, what he was, anyway. I had looked up the Wikipedia on the name and didn’t understand the reference. I’m sure it was something awfully clever, I just didn’t have the background in Welsh mythology to really appreciate it. I wondered briefly how he related to Y Ddraig Goch. That wasn’t any kind of scrawny wyvern, Of course, that put him in some kind of contest with the White Dragon. Who wasn’t Naul. Who was probably some other Dragon I didn’t want to contemplate for fear it would interfere more with my life.<\/p>\n
“You know, I was just about to have dinner,” I said. Hadn’t Peredur already said I was pretty defiant? I could only be roasted to death once, and as exhausted as I felt, with the beginnings of a sore throat and extended psychic pain in all my limbs, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be an improvement.<\/p>\n
“I will not beg for you, Closer.” I saw something, then, something in his face. I probably could have pushed it. He would beg for me. He would, because whatever it was, it was causing him some kind of pain.<\/p>\n
I didn’t like that look. I particularly didn’t like that look on women, to be honest, but I didn’t like that look on a Dragon’s human face, either. So it wasn’t all that misplaced chivalry that’s really misogyny under a prettier guise. Not all of it, at least.<\/p>\n
I sighed. “You just missed someone who is far more focused than me, and probably better at the whole game. Why not choose him?” I asked. I needed to know. I know, “Why me?” is so whiny, but, really, now that I knew there was another, maybe a couple of others, I wasn’t the only game in town.<\/p>\n
Of course, maybe I was the only game open to being played, however you wanted to parse it.<\/p>\n
“He is not… what you are,” smoke drifted from Peredur’s mouth, faintly, and it sounded just as strange and movie-oracular as ever.<\/p>\n
“What am I? Gullible?” I snapped. I sighed, and wiped my face with my hand. “Nevermind.” I already knew the answer to that question. “Fine, let’s go. Do you throw me across time and space again, or do we take an Audi RSQ-1 or something fancy?”<\/p>\n
“Y’ canna be seriously thinking to go with that beast?” Nen stepped closer, as if getting between us.<\/p>\n
“Do I void your bodyguard warranty or something that way?” I asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t read the shrinkwrap.”<\/p>\n
“Eh,” he made a noise and ushered my nonsense away with a wave of his hand. “We do not go with you if you go with him,” he said, and he sounded very solemn, his strange arrangement of features drawn and pale.<\/p>\n
I considered. I even considered saying, “Well, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” but discarded it because it always seemed to be used in reference to one’s toilet. I couldn’t explain to Nen that I kind of owed Peredur. I mean, I didn’t. And yet, my guilt said I did. Because I had hurt a Dragon.<\/p>\n
Because I’d lost Doloise.<\/p>\n
“I have to do this,” I said. “Go ahead and hang out here if you’d like. Only touch the Rocky Road if it looks like it’s getting freezer burn, otherwise, it’s mine.” How long would I be gone? A year? Seven? Peredur wasn’t giving any clues.<\/p>\n
“We will fly,” Peredur said, answering my question a bit belatedly. Or maybe he was just waiting to interject during the byplay.<\/p>\n
“Nuh-uh,” I said, backing away and putting my hands in front of me. “No way. Not lifting off the earth. Just call me Antaeus, if you must,” I remembered the name belatedly. “This magic man does all his stuff on sweet terra firma.”<\/p>\n
Rayya coughed delicately, hiding a laugh.<\/p>\n
I glared at her. “No comments from the peanut gallery,” I said. “Look, my fear of heights kicks in at two inches above the surface. I’m a white boy and I can’t jump.”<\/p>\n
“We will fly,” Peredur repeated.<\/p>\n
“Look, I understand you Dragon types have infinite cosmic powers, but apparently listening isn’t one of them,” I said, ignoring the fact that ‘infinite cosmic power’ meant ‘able to chomp me in two with a single bite.’ No, that was wasting energy. \u00a0He could just swallow me whole. \u00a0“No flying. Look, you tell me where we’re going, and I’ll drive. You can take shotgun. Heck, I’ll even let you control the stereo.”<\/p>\n
“Third time spoken, my Closing friend. There is a limit to what I will allow of your peccadilloes,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Fancy word from a lizard,” I muttered. If he heard me (heck, we’d already discovered his auditory skills were suspect) he didn’t say anything. “So, I climb up on your neck or something? You know, I don’t think I could get my leg up on your shoulder without a boost.”<\/p>\n
He laughed, and I realized he wasn’t going to just eat me… well, at least for the moment. “Let us be free from your walls, and you will see.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, let’s do whatever kind of transmogrification you’re going to do outside. I mean, you might shoot out slime, or your wings might mark the walls, or maybe there will be fire, and I don’t think homeowner’s insurance will handle it.” \u00a0I looked at Rayya, then I looked at Nen. Then I made sure I had everything I wanted in my pockets.<\/p>\n
“I ken where th’ key be,” Nen said.<\/p>\n
“And the password to the network, I presume. \u00a0Don’t give away the homeworld,” I said. “And if I’m not back for Thanksgiving, make sure Ed doesn’t eat all of the rolls. \u00a0Steal two before the basket gets to him. \u00a0Trust me.” \u00a0I sighed, then turned to the door. “Lay on, MacDragon.”<\/p>\n
“So dour, Closer. \u00a0Much more becomes your life than the leaving of it. \u00a0Follow, and feel it like a man.”<\/p>\n
I knew that was a quote, and I resolved to look it up. \u00a0I didn’t know Macbeth as well as I might like. \u00a0It wasn’t used on Iron Chef America that much. \u00a0That wasn’t as much of a non sequitur as it sounds – I learn a lot of vocabulary from Food Network. \u00a0Who knew mascarpone was a soft cheese rather than a new dance craze? \u00a0I no longer suffer as seriously from kitchen lethologica, although it’s mostly in deciphering the secret codes of restaurant menus that I shine. \u00a0(“Oh that? \u00a0They mean a bean and cheese burrito. \u00a0It’s just fancy-talk.”)<\/p>\n
I closed the door behind me, while Nen and Rayya communicated in glances and sibling telepathy. \u00a0They were discouraged that I somehow found the company of a Dragon sufficient to guard my back, nevermind that I only saw one weird anemone-alien creature come after me ever, and had to take their word that they were beset night and day or at least once every blue moon on my behalf. \u00a0Honestly, I want to say I couldn’t think who carried that kind of magical grudge against me, but, you know, then I use my brain and I come up with a heck of a list.<\/p>\n
“Well?” I asked, moving into the parking lot area.<\/p>\n
Peredur grinned at me, a thousand teeth and a fire in his eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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