by Virlyce
Alora slapped her face with her paw. “Those are elementals, Uncle Vernon.” She came out from behind Vur’s grandmother and walked up to Vur before sitting on her haunches. “Hi, my name is Alora. It’s—”
“You can’t have him!” Tafel shouted from atop Vur’s head, glaring at the sky-blue dragon in front of her. “He’s married and has a child!”
“Huh?” Vur asked, his eyes widening as Sera and Vernon stared at him with heated eyes. “T-Tafel?”
Tafel placed her hands on her hips and lowered her head to meet Vur’s gaze. “Snuffles is your son, right? I didn’t lie.” She held out one hand as if she were weighing an imaginary object. “You’re married.” She held out her other hand. “And you have a child.” She brought her hands together and clasped them in front of her chest. “See? Married with child.” She freed her right hand and turned it into a fist that she shook at Alora. “I don’t care how handsome you think he is; don’t try to make him your mate!”
Alora scratched her head as her face scrunched up into a weird shape. “That’s like, um, totally wrong. And gross. We’re cousins, you know, related to each other?”
Tafel’s face flushed red, but instead of backing down, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, that didn’t stop his aunt from trying to steal him from me.”
“Wait, what?” Vur took a step back as his parents took steps forward. His eyes shifted to look at Alice and Mr. Skelly. “Did Tafel hit her head on the flight here? I thought I flew smoothly.”
“Don’t try to make me look crazy,” Tafel said. “I’m talking about Lulu, the sister of the dragon that you call Aunt Leila. You should be calling Lulu Aunt Lulu! Did you know that she still sends me magical letters asking me to rent you to her?”
Vur rubbed his chin. “I never really thought about it like that before,” he said, knitting his brows. “Lulu really is my aunt. But she doesn’t act like an aunt. How can my aunt be younger than me?”
Tafel snorted. “She’s not. She’s probably like ten or twenty times your age, you know?”
“Hmm.”
“Let’s stop standing around outside, shall we?” Vur’s grandmother asked. Though it was phrased as a question, it was more of a command. Alora stiffened and bobbed her head up and down before retreating back behind her grandmother.
“I think I’ll wait outside, Vur,” Alice said as she slid off of Vur’s head, taking Mr. Skelly with her. “For some reason, I think it’s safer out here.” She gestured towards Tafel. “Are you coming too?”
“I’m staying,” Tafel said, taking in a deep breath. “I’m Vur’s wife. I can’t back down from meeting his grandmother.”
“Your legs are shaking,” Alice said, a blank expression on her face.
“I know that!” Tafel glared at Alice before crouching down and nudging Vur’s forehead with her palm. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”
“Why are you nervous?” Vur asked Tafel as he lumbered after the dragons towards a cave near the base of a cliff. “Didn’t you become a phoenix?”
“Phoenix or not, it’s the size difference,” Tafel said. “Think about it. What if a really huge bear that was a hundred times your size compared to your dragon form charged at you? What would you think?” Tafel paused. “Wait, no. I forgot normal analogies don’t work on you. You probably thought it’d just be more to eat, right?”
Vur nodded. “Well, yeah.”
Tafel sighed. How many dragons did she have to meet? Maybe she’d have to meet Grimmy’s parents. Then Prika’s parents. Then Vernon’s parents. And, heck, she’d probably have to meet Nova’s parents too since dragons practically lived forever. “I said this earlier, but your family really is too large.”
“Did she just call us fat?”
“You are fat.”
“Hey! Rude. I’m wide-scaled; it’s not fat.”
***
Alice sighed as she and Mr. Skelly stood outside of the cave that the dragons had entered. She flinched when Mr. Skelly poked her ribs. She glared at him, but Mr. Skelly grinned in response and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to go inside?”
“I won’t,” Alice said and snorted. “I’m an outsider, and dragons don’t exactly see eye to eye with humans, you know?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Skelly said. “Humans are too short for that.”
Alice stamped her foot. “I’m not short!”
“I didn’t say you were short,” Mr. Skelly said and chuckled. “I just said humans, in general, are short.”
“Then what? I’m not a human?”
Mr. Skelly rubbed his chin and made a humming sound. “Never mind. You’re short.” He collapsed into a heap as Alice slammed her shield against his spine, shattering him into pieces. A sigh escaped from the pile of bones as it reformed itself. “You know I’m spending your mana to rebuild myself, right?”
“It’s worth it,” Alice said as her shield shrank.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in love with me?” Mr. Skelly asked, his skull contorting as his brow rose. “You don’t hit someone you love.”
“They’re love taps,” Alice said. “Besides, you can’t feel it anyway.”
“Nonsense, skeletons can feel pain,” Mr. Skelly said with a sigh.
“Wait, really?” Alice asked, her eyes widening. “How? You don’t have nerves! Or a brain! There’s no way you can feel any pain.”
“I can speak without vocal cords, can’t I?” Mr. Skelly brought his hand to his chest. “Whenever you hit me, I feel pain”—he tapped to the left of his sternum—“right here. In my poor, poor broken heart.”
Alice shattered Mr. Skelly again with her shield. She snorted as she dusted bone powder off of her hands before snapping her head to the side as something drew her attention: a walking ball of meat. “Is that … a person?”
The ball of meat flinched and froze. A second later, a childish head popped out of a hole at the top. The meat-person’s eyes were large and round, pooling with tears. Like a penguin, it waddled over and tackled Alice, hugging her thighs while sobbing.
“You never fail to see new things while traveling in different lands,” Mr. Skelly said as he grabbed his spine and reattached it to his pelvic bone.
Alice lifted the little girl up and held her out with her arms extended. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“That’s not how you’re supposed to hold a crying child,” Mr. Skelly said. He held his arms out towards the girl. “Let me show you.”
The little girl wiped away her tears and turned her head to the side. Mr. Skelly’s grinning face appeared in her vision and seemed to grow larger and larger as her eyes widened to the size of saucers. An ear-piercing scream split the air as the girl thrashed around before twitching once and passing out, her head dropping forwards.
Mr. Skelly scratched the back of his head. “Or not. I forgot how excited kids could get when they meet someone they admire. It’s not every day you see someone as charming as me, eh?”
Alice sighed. “You’re terrible.”
2
“Did someone just scream?” Alora asked, turning her head towards the exit of the cavern. The gaggle of dragons—and Tafel—were sitting in two rows: one row with Vur and his parents, the other row with his cousins and their parents. Vur’s grandmother had wandered off to do something that she insisted on keeping a secret while her descendants chatted. “I swear I heard someone scream.”
“It was the wind,” Sera said. She nudged Vur’s shoulder before gesturing towards the dragons across from them. “That’s my sister and her husband, your aunt and uncle. You can ignore them.”
“You’re pleasant as always, Big Sister,” Vur’s aunt said and rolled her eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, Nephew! Call me Aunt Emma. This is Uncle Will.” Emma gestured towards her husband. There was no response. She turned her head to face him. “Uncle Will?”
A snot bubble extended from one of Uncle Will’s nostrils, inflating and deflating in time with his breaths. He was sitting upright with perfect posture, and hi
s eyes were wide open, but they were glazed over like the surface of a frozen pond. Emma frowned and popped the snot bubble with the tip of her claw, but there was no reaction. She sighed and smiled at Vur. “Sera’s right. You can ignore him.”
Sera nodded and gestured at Vur’s cousins. “And these are your cousins: Alora, …Ju—? Jane?” Sera shrugged and patted Vur’s shoulder. “I forgot the rest of their names, but I’m sure you’ll learn them in time.”
“Aunt Sera, you can’t be like that!”
“That’s right! That’s right!”
“Grandma! Aunt Sera’s playing favorites again!”
Alora lifted her snout into the air and snorted. “You three are just jealous of me.” She crossed over to Vur’s side and sat beside him, wrapping one wing around his back. “You can call them the annoying trio. I’m the only important dragon on this side of the family. They’re just there to add commentary when necessary.”
“Rude!”
“Alora’s so mean.”
“That’s right, that’s right.”
Vur tilted his head before asking Alora, “Is that really alright?”
“Yeah, totally,” Alora said, her head bobbing up and down. “I’m the oldest too. Which means I’m the favorite child and most important. They’re a triplet born fifty years ago, and that means they’re practically babies and completely uncool to hang around with. I used a genie to wish for a friend my age, and you appeared! I didn’t think the effect would happen so soon.”
“Genie?” Tafel asked, sitting up straight on Vur’s head. “Genies are real?”
Alora made a strange face as she pointed at Tafel. “So, uh, what exactly is this featherless phoenix? A pet?”
“She’s my wife,” Vur said. “Her name’s Tafel.”
“That’s not important right now,” Tafel said, her eyes gleaming. “You said you used a genie to make a wish, right? Do they actually grant wishes?”
“Uh, yeah?” Alora asked, raising an eyebrow. “But they have limits, you know. You can’t make impossible wishes like wishing for the world to explode or wishing for your favorite author to write faster or things of that sort.”
Tafel lowered her head to meet Vur’s gaze. “We have to go genie hunting, Vur.”
Before Vur could respond, his grandmother’s voice echoed through the cavern. “Who wants cookies?” A large mithril tray with hundreds of plate-sized cookies on top of it came into view from a tunnel in the back. Vur’s grandmother’s head poked out from behind the monstrous pile, a wide smile on her face. “You want some, don’t you, Vur? Grandma’s cookies always taste the best. Come try some; I won’t take no for an answer.”
***
Alice frowned at the little meatball girl that was lying down across her lap. She pursed her lips as she brushed the sleeping girl’s hair back behind her ear. “It’s like someone wanted her to be eaten by wild beasts. Who would let a child wander around looking like this if that weren’t the case?”
“Didn’t your father say he dressed you up as a baby griffin?” Mr. Skelly asked. “I don’t see how it’s any different. Perhaps this girl really likes meat.” He laughed as he leaned forward and lifted a raw slab of thinly cut meat off the girl’s arm. He put it into his mouth, and it passed through the bottom of his jaw, dropping to the ground. “Tastes like salt and pepper.”
“You can taste things?” Alice asked, raising her eyebrow. Did that mean skeletons really could feel pain? What if she was torturing Mr. Skelly every time she punted his head off? She swiped her finger across the girl’s back and licked the sauce. It was salty with hints of spice. “…Seriously?”
Mr. Skelly chuckled. “I’m just kidding you,” he said as he waved his finger underneath Alice’s nose. “There was so much salt and pepper left behind on my fingers. It was easy to tell what it’d taste like.”
Alice glared at the skeleton, but before she could say anything, a rustling sound caught her attention. Mr. Skelly grabbed the meatball girl as Alice turned the shield on her wrist into a tower shield. Two women came into view, wearing clothes made of woven grass. Their eyes lit up upon seeing the meatball girl and Alice. One of them smiled and approached her. “Are you two the new sacrifices?”
Alice shifted her shield to the side. “The new what?”
The woman didn’t answer as she stepped even closer. “Honey, salt, and pepper,” she said, staring at the little meatball girl. “It seems like she came from Hornet Village. And only Sterben Village would adorn their sacrifices with human skeletons. But it seems like the dragons already ate all the meat on it? That’s odd; they usually never do.” The woman stepped around Alice and reached out to grab the little meatball girl. “Poor girl. She’s so young too. I wonder what her elders told her.”
As the woman’s arms wrapped around the little meatball girl, Mr. Skelly grabbed onto the woman’s wrist. She screamed and jerked back, falling onto her butt. She scrambled backwards on the ground like a crab, but Mr. Skelly didn’t let go, letting himself get dragged along while cackling. The woman’s shrieks filled the air, and her companion ran away while screaming her head off. A moment later, Alice’s shield slammed down onto Mr. Skelly’s spine with a loud cracking sound, pinning him to the ground. “Stop with the skeleton shenanigans!”
Mr. Skelly’s cackling stopped as he sighed. “But terrifying people is one of the only ways to enjoy life as a skeleton, you know? You can’t taste things; you can’t smell things; and you can’t even feel things. If I don’t terrify people, what’s the point of living?”
“You’re not living,” Alice said with a snort. “Do some good for the world. Instead of creating terrified faces, try making people smile. Sheesh, look at how badly you frightened the poor woman.” She crouched down and pried Mr. Skelly’s fingers off the woman’s wrist. “Are you alright? He’s a skeleton, but he’s just a big doofus; he won’t hurt you.”
“I-it’s a moving skeleton! I-it talks!”
Alice sighed and pursed her lips. “That’s right. It’s a talking skeleton. You can think of it as my familiar,” she said as she helped the frightened woman to her feet. “My name is Alice. Who are you? What was that bit about sacrifice to the dragons?”
The woman stared at Mr. Skelly, who waved back at her, before averting her gaze while swallowing her saliva. “You’re not a sacrifice?”
Alice shook her head. “No. Are people regularly sacrificed to dragons around here?”
The woman’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, but the dragons don’t actually eat the sacrifices. They said we taste bad….” The woman shook her head once and took in a deep breath. “Every time a new sacrifice is offered up, the dragons would leave her alone, and we’d pick her up to bring back to the village.”
“Back to the village the sacrifice came from?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow. She lifted the little meatball girl, who was still unconscious, and frowned. “Wouldn’t that ruin the village’s purpose of sacrificing someone in the first place?”
“No, no,” the woman said. “We bring her to Sacrifice Village. We live in a little valley to the south. If we try to go back home, we’d be sent back here with more sacrifices to appease the dragons that we escaped from even though the dragons don’t care…. If we try to enter a different village, the same thing happens.” She shrugged. “That’s why Sacrifice Village was established. We have several hundred women living there.”
“And all of you were sacrifices,” Alice said, her expression blank.
“Yes.”
“You’d think people would learn,” Mr. Skelly said, scratching his head. “Why do villages offer sacrifices? Is it like a protection fee? The dragons threaten you to pay or something along those lines?”
“No,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Dragons possess great amounts of mana. As long as they are happy, the mana that passively radiates out of them is filled with abundance and life. The crops grow well, and the sky is full of rain. But if the dragons are sad or angry, the crops wither as drought plagues the la
nd. And with the constantly rising taxes, the villages need more and more crops to survive.”
Alice turned her head towards Mr. Skelly. “Is that true?”
Mr. Skelly shrugged. “I’m not an expert on dragons. But even if it’s not true, it makes sense. If villages are short on food, they can sacrifice people to have less mouths to feed. Brilliant.”
“That’s not something you should be praising,” Alice said with a snort. “I don’t like the ruler of this land already—raising taxes so much that people are being offered to dragons? I wonder if Vur will overthrow them if I asked him to.”
“Why not do it yourself?” Mr. Skelly asked. “Are you forgetting who your husband is? I’m a great commander.”
“But you don’t have your army.”
“Then we can just make one.” Mr. Skelly wrapped his arm around Alice’s shoulder. “Rally the people around you. Become a leader for the peasants to follow. Engage in warfare and overthrow the evil king. Let’s do it. It’ll be fun. Didn’t you say you enjoyed your time at war with me?”
Alice bit her lower lip. “I did…, but—”
Mr. Skelly slapped Alice’s back. “It’s decided then! Let’s start a war.”
The woman stared at Mr. Skelly and Alice as if they were crazy.
***
Tafel swallowed and stared at the cookie in her hand. It was larger than her face, and the chocolate chips embedded inside were as big as her eyes, but she didn’t have any issues with eating it. She was already on her third one. With every cookie she ate, her mana pool increased and she swore her body became a bit sturdier. “What are these made out of?” Tafel asked, raising her head towards Vur’s grandmother. “They’re really good.”
Vur shoveled pawful after pawful of cookies into his mouth nonstop, eating five to seven at a time. The annoying trio were staring at him with their eyes wide open, their lower jaws hanging to the ground. They exchanged glances with each other before bowing down towards Vur. “Cousin Vur’s the greatest! We can’t compete with his bottomless stomach!”
