by Sam Hall
“Ash, that you?” he said, his eyes going wide. I couldn’t answer, a lump the size of my head was blocking my throat. I tried to swallow and failed, my eyes starting to fill with tears. He’d taken a hell of a beating for me, been flogged to the point of unconsciousness, broken bones, bruising, internal damage. Now was not the time to have a crying fit, I’d given my sister my bloody mash-up of superpowers because, for some reason, it was really important that she save the day. Had I just sent another person I loved in to get their arse kicked? Warm, strong arms surrounded me as I turned to watch her stalk towards the prince, spear in hand, and I sank back against his hard chest, feeling something I hadn’t realised that had been screwed up tight until he held me, release. “Gotta admit, as hot as you were as GI Jane, I’m glad to see you back in your own body, Ash,” he murmured into my ear. I lifted my head, so it rested momentarily in the hollow of his neck, breathing in that woody, motor oil scent of his.
“Me, too.”
“God, was I that fast?” I asked, watching Tess attack like a whirlwind, her spear spinning, forcing the prince to stumble and scrabble to escape her blows. She paused when he reached his men, waiting for him to get to his feet, then started again. The storm still grumbled above us, building in power and intensity, the light of the bright-green flames that engulfed almost all of the prince’s lands growing to a bright poisonous green under the purple of the sky. The prince was desperate, swiping at her with increasingly unsteady motions, arms starting to shake with fatigue, red splashes of blood all over his body. She met him head on, taking advantage of his clumsy mistakes and forcing more with the viciousness of her blows. “She’s close,” I said, watching the prince clamber back, one of his legs now struggling to keep him upright. She’d smashed the butt of her spear into it and his muscles were struggling to do as he asked as a result.
She was going to kill him. I watched her play with him, fresh, strong, and fast; everything he wasn’t. I looked at the now almost broken form of the prince and considered what that would mean. Back home, neither of us would ever consider killing someone. It’s not something most law-abiding citizens would consider. But this world, like many worlds I assumed, had men in it that made death seem like the only alternative. For some reason, some men and some women raised their sons to believe that the bodies of others were somehow their domain, that being a man meant ignoring the sovereignty of others’ bodies, and that they were only following their God-given natures when they forced themselves onto others. Rape isn’t about sex; it’s about power, the ultimate expression of power. You take sexual pleasure from the complete inability of another’s to stop you from doing what you like to their body. You use your superior physical, psychological, or economic strength to debase someone, reduce them to a series of holes for you to empty yourself into. I should have risen above it, should have been nobler and cried out for Tess to hold back, to beat the prince to a bloody pulp and not flick the plasma blade to life on her spear. Instead, I remembered his iron fingers, digging into my wrists, tugging down my jeans, and I remembered Gabe’s battered body, so I watched, silently as my sister’s plasma blade flicked on, striking the prone form of the prince, the blade splitting him neatly into two.
Mellors’ face was a mask, of rage, of disbelief, of grief. It took a few minutes for him to register what had happened and then he threw his head back, howling at the sky. The storm began to shift in earnest now, lighting smashing down into the green fire-scorched land, the smattering of early rain beginning. “You fucking bitch!” he growled, snatching up his sword and running at Tess. “Oh, fuck!” I gasped, but as he ran, we were all startled by the bugling call that echoed around us, coming from the sky. Flying through the clouds was a great red dragon, his scales glowing. He screamed out his displeasure at Mellors, but the wolfman paid him no mind, approaching my sister as her attention was completely fixed on the dragon. “TESS!” I shouted as Mellors raised his sword, ready to thrust as soon as he got within range. Whump! The dragon swept down, flattening the green flames with his momentum, snatching up the wolfman and then back winging rapidly to gain height, the figure thrashing between the dragon’s jaws growing smaller and smaller before being tossed, spinning head over tail until he landed like a stone into the green flames.
“We have to leave now,” Tess said, her voice strangely accented, but the desperation was still evident. “I can no longer hold back the flames. We must all get on Miazydar’s back the moment he lands. He will take us home.” The dragon gave us no chance to discuss the matter, dropping almost cat-like between us and the gate. I felt an ache in my heart as Tess ran over and buried her head in the massive beast's neck, he curling around her, allowing them a moment, before jerking his head up, great golden eyes regarding us.
“C’mon,” I said, tugging at Gabe’s arms.
“What about them?” he asked, pointing towards the prince’s men who were becoming increasingly agitated, not willing to run towards the dragon that killed their leader and not wanting to be taken by the fire.
“Run!” I shouted, knowing full well there were plenty of instigators and abettors of violence amongst them. I didn’t have time to play judge, jury and executioner then; I just wanted to get bloody home. We took my advice, the four of us legging it to the beast’s side. The flames followed us and if the screams behind us were anything to go by, some of them got caught up in it. Gabe jerked his head back and then grabbed my hand, hauling me along and then up onto the back of the dragon when we reached it, Tess already seated astride the animal's shoulders.
“Take hold of the spikes with all of your might!” she said when we were all on board. “This is going to be a complex ascent.”
Apparently, complex was dragon rider for feeling like your gut was being pulled through your nose as the dragon seemed to jerk itself upwards into the air, its great wings beating hard, trying to get some distance between us and the manor grounds. And we needed it, the flames that had wreaked havoc on the grounds suddenly went about consuming the rest and then inexplicably, burned out. I looked up at Natty who was seated in front of me, claws digging hard into the spines that grew on the dragon’s back. “Must have done its job,” he said, looking quizzical.
“The storm, too,” I said, as the sky cleared to a much less sullen washed-out grey.
As a kid, riding on the back of a dragon was right up there in my top ten things I would have loved to have happened. The reality? Turns out it wasn’t quite as awesome as I’d thought. I was so scared I was going to slip off the smooth scales and fall to my death, a horrible ache started to build in my body from all the muscle tension. The wind whipped my eyes, so I was forced to keep my head down and my eyes squinted because I couldn’t wipe away the streaming tears. Bugs hit us with frightening regularity; I was pretty sure I was going to get off this dragon looking like the front end of a car after a long road trip. I didn’t have long to find out because we landed back in Bartertown less than an hour later.
“Come, I’ll help you down,” Tess said, standing by the dragon’s side and holding out her hands. I forced my fingers away from the spike I had been grabbing and wasn’t afraid to admit I needed my sister to carry me off like a big baby. It was kinda nice, seeing her being all take charge-y.
40
“Oh, God,” I said, falling to the ground and rubbing my cheek against the quite dirty cobblestones. Cobblestones that had evidently had their fair share of horse shit splattered on them if the smell was anything to go by. “I’m never going to take terra firma for granted again.” I sat up, feeling the ache in my thighs and lower back, groaning when Gabe helped me to my feet. “Holy shit, how glad are we that we aren’t in that dump anymore? I swear, all my nightmares are going to feature white walls with fussy gold moulding from now on.”
“You’ve come from the prince’s manor?” a tall deer-looking guy sporting a beautifully embellished blue uniform said. “With a dragon?”
“Correction, we escaped the prince’s manor and the prince is no more,
” I said, feeling a big smile spread over my face.
“Your Excellency,” Natty said, bowing low, “Let me present to you, the ladies, Ash and Tess McKinnon. They have indeed freed the land of the stain of the Damorican Royal Family. He was killed by Lady Tess. Ladies, Chief Official Kona.”
“A dragonrider? I hadn’t heard the Aravisian court had an interest in the domestic affairs of Damorica,” Kona said, his ears swivelling as he regarded us with a steady gaze.
“I am not actually Aravisian,” Tess said and I could hear the regret in her voice. She forced a smile on her face, letting her hand rest of Miazydar’s side. He shifted his head, bunting her lightly with his muzzle. He's talking to her, through that mental link, I thought, with a pang of jealousy. It was a beautiful, intimate thing, something I hadn’t really appreciated at the time, being able to reach out and link your mind with an amazing beast like him. “I merely have taken the form of one for today,” she said. When the Chief Official raised a furry eyebrow, she said, “It is a result of my grandmother’s magics.”
“Hmm, very well. It appears we owe you much gratitude. The problem of what to do with the prince, without alienating those that still harbour royalist sympathies, was a thorn in the side of the government.” He turned when he heard the sound of many feet running towards us. People had begun to appear on the street, having a sticky beak, but the group that approached were obviously the military if the weapons and uniforms were anything to go by. Most were the wolfish-looking canids, something that had me flinching back against Gabe. The chief official held up his hand, stopping the soldiers from coming any closer, so they fell into neat lines, hands on weapons. “The Prime Minister will want to speak to you. Come to the palace; we will put on a feast to celebrate your achievement and our freedom.” My heart sank as he said the words.
This was Tess’s moment, Tess was the one that wanted the adventure, not me. “I just want to go home,” I said. The Chief Official, Natty, they were all going to argue, I could see it in their faces, but I was done.
“Our portal is over there, our home is through it. We’re going,” Gabe said and of course, because he was a big burly guy, people seemed much keener to listen to him. “Your offer is kind, but the girls have endured enough.”
The Chief Official nodded, then turned to Tess, “And the dragon? You will return with it to Aravisia?”
We all turned to look at Tess, as everyone was wondering the same thing.
“I will stay here until morning,” she said. “Our grandmother’s magic only lasts a day. I will turn back to what I was, Miazydar . . . will disappear.” The silence stretched out between the group members. I watched my sister curl herself into the curve of the dragon’s neck; his head move to encircle her.
“Tess, you sure? We can stay, keep you company,” I said.
“No, go, I can see you’re desperate to get home. Right now, I can become anything I need to keep myself safe, so it’s OK, I’ll be fine.”
That old familiar part of myself, the part that saw myself as Big Sister #1 did not want to turn around and go through that door, and when I met Tess’s slightly alien Aravisian gaze, I knew she saw it, too. She took in a deep breath as if waiting to see what I would do, as if preparing to have that fight yet again. I smiled, went to her and wrapped my arms around her, conscious of the dragon’s breath on my back as I did so. “I’ll see you when you get home. Stay out of trouble.”
And then I walked away, not bothering to say goodbye or anything because the words weren’t going to come out, my throat was choked up with the tears I didn’t want to shed in front of her. No one stopped me as I went over to the alleyway our portal was in, nor when I activated it with the dopey Tai Chi moves Merlin had shown us. Gabe’s hand rested on my shoulder as the blue light zipped along the edge of the doorway and he and Flea followed behind me as we went in, then closed the door behind us.
It was night time when we got home, the shop silent and after fixing the shop alarm, we caught cabs and went home. “Do you think Flea is going to be OK?” I asked as we drove away.
“Not sure. He went to save the girl and the girl saved herself. I think he’s probably both glad and kinda wondering where he fits in the picture right now,” Gabe said. I turned to face him, his smile came a little too quickly and I wondered if he was talking about Flea or himself.
Home was blissfully familiar, same smell, same crap everywhere, though I should have done the dishes before I left. I ran the water and left them to soak and then went into the bathroom. Gabe and I stripped in silence, his eyes on me. Me, I wasn’t able to meet them just yet. In the silent intimacy of my flat, the undigested lump of all we had gone through prevented me from making that connection. He stepped into the shower cubicle, waiting until the warm water washed over us, holding his hand out for the soap when I grabbed it–silently asking permission to do the work for me. I looked into his eyes for a moment and then nodded, placing the lemon-scented soap in his hand.
I closed my eyes as his hand worked over my body in sure, strong strokes. He lifted my arms like a child, I allowed him to manoeuvre me into the positions he needed to do the job properly. And then they came, the tears. This was too like my application of the medicine on Gabe’s wrecked body, me hugging his limp form as he slept on in his coma. For a while, the water took care of them, the sliding salty tears meshing with the warm water, but as his hand slid over my shoulder, he felt the twitch of my body as the real sobs began. I don’t know what happened to the soap, his arms went around me and I was cocooned in his arms, the water sliding between us. I cried for his beating as he tucked my head in against his chest, I cried for having had to talk myself out of being raped, I cried for the brutality and powerlessness of being in a realm where beings who had a very different idea of what was reasonable and there was nothing we could do about it, I cried for the memory of his poor broken body.
At some point, the sobs died away, leaving me feeling empty and curiously light. I shifted my head, my lips grazing his neck and he went very still. I placed a deliberate kiss against his skin, then another and another, until he dropped his head, pushed me back against the tile and kissed me–lips hard and demanding, tongue flicking out against the seam of my lips and mine opening to let him in. We clawed at each other, fighting to shove our bodies closer, to not allow the water to fall between us. His hand trailed up my thigh when I curled one leg around his hips. He didn’t stuff around, rubbing his hand between my folds before pushing two fingers inside and curling. His cock followed soon after, our cries that came with each stroke sounded much the same as sobs. When the final pleasure came, it was a slow prickling thing, which made its way from one end of my body to the other, like I was being wiped clean, to be rewritten again.
Gabe carried me to our bed, dripping water and God knows what else, only stopping for a moment to wipe ourselves down with stale towels before dragging me into his den under the sheets. “I love you,” he said to me, staring down at me in the dim light. I pushed the sheets back, feeling a little claustrophobic all of a sudden and as he reached out to me, I could see he was trying to stop me from getting out of bed and taking off. Instead, I settled my body over his, the completeness, wholeness something I’d never take for granted again. I placed my hand over the little spiky heart tattoo and said, “Gabe, I love you, too.”
And I did. It was a huge weight in my chest, yet I was glad to bear it. I’d avoided this my whole life and now here I was, with a guy who seemed like something that had walked out of the pages of a romance book. I watched him long after he’d fallen asleep and as the night grew darker and colder. I needed to make sure, that he wouldn’t disappear like my grandmother’s magic, but he stayed, snoring quietly.
We made it into the shop late, Jez’s head jerking up from where she was cataloguing the stock, her eyes going wide when she saw us. “Oh, my fucking God! Where have you been? What happened? You look completely trashed! Are you OK? Where’s Tess?”
“Here,” we both turned around
to see her standing in the doorway, in her old floofy dress. It was looking a little worse for wear now, she had to keep tugging one sleeve up to stop from flashing us all.
“Hey,” I asked, coming in slowly, in case she wanted a hug, but not assuming she needed one. “How’d it go with Miazydar?”
“About that,” she said, and a very large Red Setter-looking dog pushed past her, coming to sit in the centre of the shop floor.
“Good morning, sister of Tess,” the dog said.
Epilogue
I walked into the front door of Gabe’s very nice house, box in hand, setting it on the counter like all the others. I looked around the kitchen and living room. It was a California Bungalow, updated but not super recently, so it wasn’t all gleaming chrome and exposed brickwork. Instead, it looked like . . . home and that sat a little weirdly with me.
“God, Ash, you’ve got too much shit,” Jez said, dumping a box near the front doorway. “Can’t you just Marie Kondo this into a skip somewhere?” She came over when I didn’t reply. “What’s up? The whole place isn’t filling you with joy?”
Did it? I’d love not having to face grumpy old Mrs Hughes in the morning, especially when the bedroom gymnastics had gotten particularly enthusiastic. This time, if we broke the bed, the only people we would inconvenience were ourselves.
Tess came in next. “I think this is all your cutlery and cups,” she said, putting the box on the floor beside the pale-grey coloured kitchen cupboards. “What’s happening?”
As Jez filled her in, my view of the place dropped away, my chest beginning to tighten and my breath coming in shallow. Tess slipped her arm across my shoulders
“No,” I said in answer to Jez’s forgotten, flippant question, “I think it’s just the opposite.”
