by Oxford, Rain
We were high in a mountain overlooking a desert canyon. Surrounding the valley were more mountains, some of which emitted smoke. As the sun burned high overhead and there was not a soul in sight, it felt very desolate. “I am afraid the open desert is the most comfortable place you will find to rest in the fire tribe. The people of this tribe prefer the dark and scorching to the open air,” Emrys said.
“Where’s the water?” Dylan asked, sitting down on a large boulder. He was sweating and clearly needed to rest. I split the rest of the water between him and Sammy. I was not suffering at the hands of the heat.
Even after several minutes of rest, he was still very flush and looked even less responsive than before. Sammy was also sweating and wiggled with discomfort in the harness. “We need to get out of the sun. Flash us to another tribe.”
“Are you sure? It can be very draining on everyone’s energy.”
“Do it before Dylan gets heat stroke.”
This time the flash revealed cool, clean air. I nearly cringed. When Dylan’s seat disappeared, he hit polished white stone and did not get back up. We were in what looked like an exemplarily cleaned castle. I did cringe this time.
Dylan’s pulse was strong, but he needed rest too much to wake. I quickly got Sammy out of the harness to cool off. Surrounding us were people dressed in draping clothing of all different colors and styles, and the women glittered with jewels in their long hair and clothes. All of them had an elegance about them to prove their snobbery. Behind them, their castle gleamed with white stone and painted glass and I had seen enough. As soon as Dylan woke, I would demand we leave. The creature inside me agreed, and I would count that in the vote, because the creature would gladly eat people if his wishes were ignored.
Emrys spoke the foreign words that unfroze the startled people. Immediately, I had water presented to me by three young girls. While the water appeared pure to me, I made sure to check it with both my magic and by smelling it. It smelled alright, so I tasted it, finding it more pure than the bottled water Dylan had before. I gave some of the water to Sammy and made Dylan drink the rest of it. Luckily, he didn’t choke on the water as he slept through it.
“They are preparing quarters for you to sleep in that will be ready in a short while,” Emrys said.
“Where are we?” I asked. “This looks different from the other tribes.”
“We are in the mend tribe. These are the people who control healing and balance. They are healers of body, mind, and spirit.” A woman went to his side. She had long, dark brown hair, dark green eyes, and a friendly face. Green jewels sparkled in her hair and in her long black dress. “This is my mate, Madia.”
“Is that like your wife?” I asked.
“Yes, she is my wife. Guardians call our companions our mates when we plan to spend our entire immortal lives with them. Madia was gifted by Madus to link her life with her chosen companion. As that is me, she will live as long as me.”
“What about that woman in the water tribe?”
He shrugged. “I chose Madia as my mate, I cannot control what other women do. I can refuse them, but I cannot make them leave me alone. Madia understands that my power attracts women in most tribes. Here, in the mend tribe, at least I get some peace. Madia is what you would call a queen, and can banish people who try to steal her spouse. Unfortunately, my love is not fluent in any foreign languages, so I must translate to you.”
She seemed to be waiting for the moment, because she started speaking in her language. Too late, I went to block Sammy’s ears. As his eyes glowed, I only had hope that he would keep quiet about it. All I needed was for Dylan to be mad at me that I allowed Sammy to learn a seventh language. Maybe Dylan wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from the water tribe’s language.
“She says that she knows the healing you both have done to our world and is thankful. Our daughters prepared a room for you to use for as long as you would like. Dinner will be served shortly, but food will be saved for you if you cannot attend. She also said she hoped you did attend, because others would like to thank you and ask you about your adventures.”
“I will see if Dylan is up to it when he wakes.”
Dylan woke just enough that he refused to be carried, but not enough to walk without help. When we were introduced to our room, he tumbled straight into the bed and stopped moving.
The room looked like the rest of the castle, with tall white walls, painted windows, and layers of furs blanketing the stone floor. The bed, which consisted of a large cushion on a wooden platform that was covered in fur blankets, was the center of the room. Other features included delicate wooden furniture with intricate carvings or jewels embedded. To the far side of the room was a large window overlooking the ocean, which would slide open like a door to a balcony. The wall to my left consisted mostly of a large fireplace. To the other side was a door that slid open like most of Duran’s, as opposed to the ones on Earth that pushed or pulled open.
We were left alone. Sammy was ecstatic when I gave him his stuffed dragon and let him run around; the poor child was probably so sore from the papoose. I really didn’t realize I was tired, and I hadn’t meant to take a nap, but when I laid down for just a short break, I fell asleep.
* * *
I woke to Sammy laughing and rolled over to see Dylan and Sammy playing with small blocks.
“Four plus two,” Dylan said.
Sammy grabbed one of the blocks and put it in front of himself. “One…” he said. He took another one and another until he counted out four. Then he took two more while starting his counting over. Then he counted the blocks he had in front of him to get six.
“Are you teaching him math?”
They both looked at me. “Aren’t children supposed to learn addition and subtraction before they’re in school?” he asked.
“Not before they’re two years old.”
“He can count, why shouldn’t he be able to add and subtract? Three plus three,” he said to Sammy. This time, the baby didn’t grab blocks or count, just look at them.
“Six,” he declared with confidence.
Dylan grinned proudly. “Vi’s gonna have the smartest kid in pre-K of all time.” I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but Dylan had other plans. “I’m hungry.”
“Get over it,” I said. I felt a block hit me in the head and turned. Dylan had a startled look on his face.
“No hitting, Dada!” Sammy said, but I knew by Dylan’s face that it was Sammy who had thrown it.
Sneaky little brat.
We followed the sounds and smells of food to the dinner hall, where the feast was well underway. A variety of meats, vegetables, fruits, and drinks were laid across the table. We were given a warm welcome, plates, and cups. The eating utensils were similar to Earths; metal with little prongs on one end. Dylan had taught me to use them on Duran, but Sammy just played with his. He ate his food with his hands, but he was not the only young child there.
People were excited to ask us about Duran and what it was like to do more than one kind of magic. Dylan explained that he grew up on a world that feared magic and didn’t know he could even do it. I saw several young hearts break as he told the enthralled girls about Divina. When he said that she was a very powerful in magic, they all gave up hope.
If Sammy didn’t yell at every woman who even looked in my direction, I may have had a better night. Luckily, no one understood what he meant when he called me “mama.” That would have been too difficult to explain when I myself couldn’t figure it out. Hopefully, he just couldn’t pronounce “Mordon,” but that seemed less likely the case with every word he said.
“So how are you related to dragons?” a young woman asked me. She hadn’t spoken a word before, but her Sudo was fair. “Are you a shifter?”
“No, I cannot shift into a dragon. I am sago. My only relation to dragons is my strong ability to control fire,” I said. Dylan snorted in disbelief. Disturbingly enough, so did the entity.
“But your eyes… they
are shifter eyes,” she said.
I started to look away, but I needed to know more. “What do you mean? Shifters are not native to my world.” I hated having two different eye colors, but at least when I shifted them they were both matching black.
“It is our belief that people who are born of two different bloods are born with two different eye colors. Everyone’s eye color on Malta reveals what magic-user they are. If someone is born from a land-user and a water-user, they would have one blue eye, one green, until their own magic becomes dominant.”
“Both my parents were pure sago. I was told by doctors that it is caused by a traumatic childbirth. In my case, it was just a simple imbalance of chemicals.”
“That makes since, I suppose. That color does not even occur as an eye color on Malta.” She went back to eating.
After we ate, we went to bed. I was woken up some time in the night as Dylan went to sleep on the floor. He explained that sleeping anywhere near me was like sleeping in front of a fireplace; you got roasted on one side and frost-bitten on the other. Sammy did not seem to mind, and didn’t even wake up during the commotion.
* * *
I was woken up for the second time, but at least it was proper morning. Unfortunately, it was by the sense that someone was approaching. I opened my eyes as a woman I vaguely recalled meeting shut the door. She looked like a slightly younger version of Emrys’s wife, but so did three other girls.
She leaned against it and smiled. “Good morning,” she said.
“There are no locks on the doors, then?”
“I can get around any lock. Your friends are eating breakfast and I had heard once that the Duran people greeted each other by praising the morning, so I thought I should find you to do so,” she said as she approached the bed. I started to sit up, but she climbed onto the bed and settled on my lap. “I can make it a very good morning.”
“I believe you can, but I will pass.” I sat up, forcing her to scoot back.
If this had deterred her at all, if she had even hesitated, I might have reconsidered, but she became insistent. She put her arms around my neck and settled herself more firmly against me. The entity inside me snarled with irritation. “Every magic-user of the mend tribe make exceptional companions, because we can all feel what our lovers want,” she said, smiling… then she frowned. “Oh, I see. You want a submissive woman, a docile girl…” I was almost shaking my head before she finished. “No, you want a woman to be submissive only when you want to be dominant.”
That couldn’t have been right… but it sounded nice. I had never been interested in pushy women, or those who were too docile. But the creature inside me almost purred with the thought of a woman submitting to me. This was becoming very dangerous. The creature was becoming less of a mysterious power over magic and more like a separate life inside of me, capable of overpowering me. I was feeling thoughts and desires from it, and confusing them with my own.
“I thought you all had different powers,” I said, trying to keep my thoughts in the room. The last thing I wanted was for the girl to overpower me because I wasn’t paying attention.
“We do. Above the simple abilities we all have, I can control suppression. People come to me to help them when they are suppressing emotions or memories, or sometimes they come to me to help them release their desires that they are suppressing. Let us see what you are---”
I backed up, interrupting her and forcing her to let go. “You can suppress a part of someone? Like part of their personality?” The entity inside me was snarling and I felt my fingers start to itch.
She looked at me like I had said something shocking. “Yes.”
“Do that. There is something…” I held out my hands, which had become clawed. “Inside of me that keeps getting more powerful. Make it sleep again.”
She was staring at my hands. “You are a shifter. You want your beast suppressed?” she asked it as if I said I wanted my hands cut off.
“I don’t know what it is, just make it go away.” My fire was stirring inside me as the creature became angry. I could almost hear a growling in my head… it sounded like Blood. The girl crawled off me until she was kneeling by my side.
“I should not do this. Whatever your beast is, he only wants to help you.”
“He wants to kill people, you included,” I said, growling just like the creature.
“Lay back and try to relax. Just keep still and do not attack me,” she said. It was difficult to lay back when the creature wanted so much to claw her. When she put one hand above my heart and the other over my head, my teeth started to itch. I fought the shifting, but my fire wanted out.
I felt energy from her forcing its way into me, cold as ice. My chest hurt with the chill and it became difficult to breathe. All my energy was spent on containing the fire and anger burning its way out. I heard her crying in pain, but the coldness kept coming. When it started to overpower the fire, it stopped hurting so badly.
After a long and painful struggle, the coldness won and the fire gave way. It seemed like the fire had given up. The cold stopped hurting completely, and almost felt soothing until it faded away. My fire was there, but extremely calm and faraway. The entity, such a new addition to me, was almost gone. It was still in me, but very disconnected, more like a memory than a creature inside me. Best of all, the anger the creature felt was gone.
The young woman collapsed against me, panting.
“It worked.” I said, looking at the girl and pushing her back into a sitting position. Her clothes had scorch marks.
“Of course it did. I was wrong, though; you are not a shifter. You are something different, but that is a real beast inside you, and it is a real part of you. He will not stay suppressed.”
“Then I’ll return here and ask for your help again when he wakes,” I said. She didn’t particularly look pleased. In fact, she left as soon as she could ramble out nonsense words. The bed was covered with burn marks.
Dylan and Sammy returned a short while later and they both froze at the door to stare at me.
“What did you do?” Dylan asked. I studied the bed. “I’m not talking about the burns. Your eyes… They’re both purple.”
I wished I had a mirror. I wanted to see for myself what I was always dreaming would happen. “Really? They’re really the same color?”
“It looks weird. Really, you look like everyone else now; completely boring.”
“Fantastic. I always wanted to look more boring.”
Sammy, who had been standing next to Dylan, walked clumsily up to me. He stopped right in front of the bed and stared at me with an upset expression on his face. I reached to pick him up, but he stepped back, looking unsure.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. He reached up to touch my hand that I still held out. I jerked my hand away when his burned mine. It wasn’t enough to blister, but the skin was red. I had never been burned before, except in dreams. “What was that?”
He started to cry, so I reached to pick him up, but he ran back to Dylan. Dylan was able to pick him up with no sign of pain.
“I thought we decided it was too dangerous for you to hold him,” I said.
“Well, my powers are weakened here, so I thought it would be alright.”
“And what all happened this morning?” I asked.
He shrugged. “A chandelier broke and nearly killed us, someone lost the grip on their knife and stabbed me in the shoulder, and I tripped over a broken chair. Not so bad, really. Looks like I had better get used to it, because he’s not going to let you hold him till you get your dragon back.” I opened my mouth to respond. “Save it. Whatever you did is between you and that thing inside you. If you don’t want to call it a dragon, so be it. If it is what gave you that eye thing and your fire, you were better off with it. You are what you are, whether you are half asleep or not.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That thing was always in you, always a part of you, which is why your eyes were always the way they were.
You somehow got rid of it, but you’re still the you that you were before, just half asleep.”
“But that creature was angry and powerful and it wanted to kill.”
“Did it want to kill you?”
“No.”
“Me or Sammy?”
“No. When you two were in that cabin, it wanted to kill Davsi,” I said. Him, those people who were standing too close when Dylan healed the land tribe, and the girl who suppressed it.
“Sounds to me like it wanted to protect us. Believe it or not, you have a lot of protective instincts. I’m afraid you may have just killed something that has always been a big part of who you are.”
“I didn’t kill anything. One of the girls said that she could suppress parts of a person, so I had her suppress the creature.”
“Why did you want to suppress it so badly? Was it because it just woke up and was so new to you, or because it was so powerful and could take over you?” he asked.
I could have said either one… but when I thought about it, it wasn’t that new. I had always had my fire, I had always been protective, and I had always felt like I was searching for something. Before I could say that it was the second reason, I thought about that, too. When it first woke up, it was extremely powerful, but it did not take over. Yes, I had felt the rage and desire to destroy and I had shifted my claws, teeth, and eyes, but that was in defense, and I would have let them go if they surrendered. I never actually felt like I was out of control, more like me and the beast were the same. It was only when I was fully in control that I felt we were two different beings.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I might have made a mistake.”
“Well, if you can’t undo your mistake, you will just have to live with it. When I healed a boy who was injured by the chandelier, that was apparently an act of mend magic, so I was able to heal the tribe.”
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You couldn’t have helped; you were too busy getting your dragon sucked out. I doubt you can even shift your eyes or claws anymore.”
