by S.J. Drew
like, 'when did you get a roadie,' and I didn't really know.”
“Hey, I thought something was weird,” Leah said proudly.
“Did you think it was Ryuu?” Nora returned sharply.
“No, but hey, at least I caught on something was off. Wait, that made sense, right?”
Nora shook her head.
“If it is powerful,” Maryann said, trying to re-focus the conversation, “That means spirit sight may not help a lot."
"No, not if it's not a spirit. Even if it is, it could be powerful enough to hide from my spell," Isabella agreed.
"So we have to hope it wants to talk to us?" Nora asked dryly.
"We've got the emergency kit," Leah said.
"We can't beat him up!" Maryann said.
Leah shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to be prepared."
"Let's try to talk to him in the morning. And just talk. Remember, the divination said he's afraid of something. We don't want to startle him into doing something we'll all regret," Isabella said. "But let's leave some reminders just in case he casts another spell on us or something."
They all made notes in their various devices and went to bed.
Ryuu did not join them for breakfast. He texted them to let them know he was going ahead to the festival site to scout out the stages. They gathered up their gear and headed out to the festival site. The weather did not look very promising. The wind was whipping in from the ocean and the skies were cloudy.
Ryuu walked up to them. "Okay, so the manager says the festival is still on but he's watching the weather reports and hopefully we'll be able to get through this. Um, is something wrong?"
"We need to talk," Isabella said. "Come on."
He looked apprehensive but followed the band back to their van.
Maryann, who was the designated spokeswoman because everyone agreed she was the nicest, stepped forward. "Ryuu, we think you're a great roadie, but we also think you've been lying to us, and we'd really like you to tell us the truth."
"Lying? Lying about what?" he replied nervously.
"Ryuu," she sighed. "None of us remember asking you to be our roadie. None of us remember exactly when you joined us. There's something funny going on with our memories. We're not mad at you..."
"Not yet," Nora thought.
"...but we do want to know what's really going on here, okay?"
He sighed. "I'm sorry. I have been lying to you. And I used a spell to make you like me and hire me as a roadie."
"Would you kindly dispel that?" Nora asked in her most coldly polite voice.
"Oh, sure, sure," he said, and waved his hands. The spell broke and suddenly they remembered that Ryuu just showed up and declared he was their roadie and they went along with it.
"Why did you do that?" Maryann asked. "We wouldn't necessarily mind having a roadie. You didn't have to enchant us."
"Well, I was afraid you'd figure out something else was going on if I didn't."
"And what else is going on? What are you afraid of?"
"I kind of ran away from home and I think my family's looking for me," he said. “I'm afraid they're going to find me soon and make me go home.”
"Why did you run away?"
"Because my family wanted me to just stay home and learn the family business. I knew there were other worlds out there and I wanted to see them. My kind aren’t usually terribly curious."
"Your kind?" Leah repeated with a raised eyebrow. "You're not human?"
"No, not really. Not even close, actually. I just took this form so you wouldn't be afraid of me. But anyway, I wanted to see some of the other worlds. The Great Storm touches most worlds, so I just had to find a weakness in the Barrier. I pushed through and found myself here. I observed this world for a little while and realized the best way to really see this world, and hide from my family, was take human shape. Then I thought I should join with a group of wanderers so I wouldn't be alone. I liked your band and your music and thought if I made myself useful I could stay awhile."
"The Great Storm? The Barrier?" Nora repeated. "What are you, Ryuu?"
He gave a short laugh. "I, um, actually told you. I'm not really hiding it that well. It's the name I took, you see. You can look up the meaning."
"Are you the reason for all this weird weather?" Nora asked as the others consulted their favorite search engines. "This weather is not normal."
He looked at her and blinked. "You would notice such things, as would she," he said, glancing at Isabella. "I'm not doing this, exactly. I think my family's figured out which world I ran away to and they're probably coming to get me. But I don't want to go! I like being out on my own. There are more than enough of us to bring the storms."
"Dragon!" Leah exclaimed. "You're-you're a dragon?"
He nodded. "That's the closest description I could find in this world's languages. I think I'm more of what you call an Eastern-tradition style dragon which is why I picked my name. My world is the Great Storm and my kind are what you can call storm-dragons."
"So you're kind of an elemental creature?" Maryann asked.
"I suppose if you want to look at it that way." His eyes started to change to a dark, stormy blue color. "We are shepherds, if you will. We herd the winds and rain using lightning and thunder and take the storms where they must go. Sometimes the storms get out of control. Sometimes there are bad shepherds that like bringing devastating storms."
"Did one of your kind have some sort of vendetta against Buffalo a few years ago?" Isabella asked.
He cocked his head to the side. "Maybe?"
She handed him her phone, which was showing an article about the freak blizzard.
"It is possible although I can't say for sure. There are many entities that try to control aspects of the Great Storm. That is why we watch over it."
"But you don't want to," Nora said.
"I want to do something else with my life!" he snapped. "Why should I be bound to one task my entire life simply because of how I was born? There are whole families of storm-dragons. One less shepherd will not be a noticeable loss." He sat down in the back of the van with the band members looking at him thoughtfully. "I decided to travel with you because I could hear in your music you know where I'm coming from. Your parents had other expectations of your lives and you had the courage to defy them and try to live your life on your terms. Surely you understand where I'm coming from?"
Nora could feel the anger of the sea and looking at Isabella, she knew Isabella could feel anxiety in the winds.
"We do understand," Maryann said sympathetically. "But we didn't run away from home. We told our parents what we were going to do. Your family must be worried that you're lost or hurt and need help."
"They don't care," he said sullenly. "They don't care as long as I get back to work."
Isabella was now looking at a weather forecast. "If your family did come to get you, exactly what would that mean for us? Weather-wise, I mean?"
"Well, they are angry at me so they would probably not be too careful shepherding the Great Storm. I imagine the weather here could get quite destructive."
"Here's a problem. We're on the West coast at the wrong time of the year to be in the path of a storm that's not supposed to be moving eastward anyway and here it is on the radar. I know this storm is not natural. Right now it looks like the meteorologists aren't sure if this is going to turn into an all-out hurricane, but I'm going to guess it is because of what you just said to us. There are a lot of people who could potentially get hurt if this storm system turns in to a hurricane, Ryuu."
"I don't want to go back!"
"You don't have to go back forever," Maryann said. "But you need to make sure your family knows you're safe and not hurt. Otherwise a whole lot of people, including us, are going to get hurt."
"There's not enough time for us to evacuate to safety," Isabella said. "It's moving too fast."
As she said that, one of the festival
organizers appeared. "You need to get out of here. We're canceling due to the storm." He handed them an emergency management brochure. "Try to get to one of the storm shelters." Then he darted off.
"See?"
"But I don't want to have to go back," he said again.
"Here are your options," Nora said firmly. "Your family has nearly found you. If you run away again, they'll find you again. And if you run away now you'll leave the State of Washington to deal with the mess and risk a whole lot more people getting hurt as you keep running and running. And if you really don't care about the lives of anyone on this world, well, we can't make you care and we can't stop you from running."
"It's not like that," he said. "I like you girls a lot or I wouldn't have been lifting heavy stuff for you for the past few months."
"I'm glad to hear that. And here's your second option. Take responsibility for your life. That may mean you have to go back home until you figure out how to deal with your family. I'm not saying you have to stay," Nora said quickly, "But you need to let them know you are safe and don't need their help."
"All this really means is that they do care for you," Maryann said, gesturing at the very angry sky. "If they really didn't care, they wouldn't have come looking for you. They would have just written you off and continuing working."
"And we've just been upgraded to hurricane warning," Leah interjected. "Just so you know."
Ryuu really looked miserable. "But it's not fair!"
"No one promised any of us that life would be fair," Nora replied. "You've been around humans long enough to know that your kind aren't the only ones that tell
