Chapter 10 #2
“Indeed. We do enjoy our fish.” She winked. “I hope you do as well. If you don’t, don’t tell my mate. Fishing is his second great passion.”
Mama’s his first great. Fredda’s giggles filled the air.
As it should be, little one.
“We’re going to love whatever he brings.” Riley waved a hand, the motion expansive and open. “I think that’s wild, that you have all this diversity. So are there dragons who actually live in the sea?”
“Here we can all live where we wish, really. The Majrgygr live in the sea, for the most part. Drekkith like you, are suited to the mountains and the plains. Some dragons are less social than others. The Jaki, for instance. Where they live? One needs to be very careful if one wants to travel there in the land of eternal ice.”
Brayden’s eyes lit up, and Sloan shook his head. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“It’s probably the last kind of place we’d be called to live,” Sloan pointed out.
Riley ignored him. “So tell me more about the Jaki.”
“Scary,” Fredda murmured. “Big teefs.”
“Maybe we can do that after lunch when it’s grown-up time. We can have long discussions about anything.”
Okay, that was an incredibly clear shut up to you. And he glared at his brothers.
Riley, to his credit, just bowed his head and nodded like he understood. “That sounds like a great plan. I don’t think I’d ever get tired of this view here.”
Brayden nodded, eyes on the waves. “This is such a glorious place. Thank you so much again for inviting us.”
“Yeah.” Riley grinned his best scoundrel grin. “I’m so curious to know if the fish here are like fish back in our world, or if there are whales. Do you have dolphins?”
“What are those?” Fredda asked.
Sloan tried to figure out how to explain. “Well, a whale is a massive creature that looks like a fish, but it breathes air instead of water. And they can sing.”
“Hufagufs!” Aleana’s eyes lit up. “Great Singers.”
Tyr nodded. “Yes, exactly. Here we call them the Great Singers, the hufagufs. We see them rarely, but they make amazing songs, and they’re considered to be incredibly wise. We believe they once took to the skies but decided to come back and grace the oceans. They’re amazing.”
How cool was that concept, that a whale was just a dragon who had decided to go back to the sea? He thought they were pretty magical in the human realm, so why not? And that also explained why everybody had wanted to kill them back in the day, just like they had slain dragons for their magic.
For what they could give.
People were never giving. They were just taking and taking and taking.
But now wasn’t the time for such sadness. Now was the time to get to know Tyr’s sister and her baby girl and make sure everyone understood they were trustworthy.
“That definitely sounds like whales,” he said, looking at his brothers who grinned and nodded.
“It does. So tell me about what else you eat, little one,” Brayden told Fredda.
We eats lots of fishes and lots of vegetables that come from the ocean bed, and we have a garden, and it grows things dat Uncle Tyr can’t grow in his garden, but we can’t grow some of the stuffs he grows…
Oh, she was so much more conversational like that—mind to mind.
“That’s only fair, right?” Brayden said. “The soil is different here, and the weather is, too. I can feel it. It’s more humid and a little bit warmer.”
“Hoo-mid?” she said.
“That means how much water is in the air,” Sloan told her.
“Like whens it rains?”
“Sort of like that, dear one,” her mother said. “But more like how much water is in the air every day when it’s not raining. You’ll learn about that in school.”
“We call it humidity,” Sloan told her.
“Hu ma diddity.”
“Exactly.” Riley held out his hand to fist bump, and she just sort of stared at him oddly.
“This is what he wants,” Brayden said, and he fist bumped Riley, exaggerating the motion.
Oh! Her eyes lit up, and she whacked Riley right on his knuckles with her little hand.
“You are one strong little girl,” Riley told her, and she nodded, so sure of herself.
“My daddy says so all the time.”
Tyr’s sister just chuckled and shook her head. “Please let me get you something to drink, and we’ll visit.”
“Let me help, sister.” Tyr nuzzled her cheek and then the two of them bustled around and chattered away, probably in their heads because they could see their expressions changing, but they couldn’t hear what they were saying.
That was just fine because little Fredda kept them busy the entire time with her sweet chatter.
The ebb and flow of activity in the house seemed really natural and sort of wonderful.
It had been so long since he and his brothers had had some sort of stability, any kind of home of their own.
It shocked him how easily he was becoming accustomed to this life, how he felt as if he were integrating incredibly fast. He would defend it as hard as he could against any comers.
“Did I tell you?” Tyr murmured to his sister, loud enough for them all to hear. “We were blessed with a house spirit.”
Her eyes went wide, the blue sparkling. “So soon? That’s wonderful, braedor.”
Tyr nodded happily, bringing over a tray with a pale yellow drink that seemed to shine like the sun.
“Isn’t it? He’s a tragae, and he came when Sloan was sitting in the cold storage in the underground and imagining what he wanted out of the house.
I have no doubt that Sloan will get what he wants, including a pool. ”
She raised one scaled eye ridge. “You do know anytime that you want to swim, you may come here.”
Sloan took a glass and nodded. “Of course, but I’m sure that this isn’t tropical.
In the winter, it must be super cold. I’m not a fire dragon, and I can make my own warm water, but it’s really nice to soak your bones in a heated pool in the winter.
” He beamed at her. “You could all come up there and visit us.”
“Oh, I like hot watters. We can go when the pool is there, Mama?”
She nodded. “Of course. Once the house is finished, we’ll go see Tyr and his home.”
“And the bees, Mama?”
“And the bees, my little minnow.”
“Yay!”
Suddenly, something in the water caught Sloan’s eye, something that was a brighter purple than the water, something which glinted off the sunlight. He tensed, staring. Everything in his body warned him someone was coming.
Fredda glanced at him, then at the water. Her squeal traveled straight to his spine. “Papa!”
Aleana sat up, then she beamed and waved.
“Here he comes with lunch! I was afraid he’d gotten lost playing with one of the fishing parties.
Time seems to move differently under the water, you know.
” Her laughter filled the air. “Mari, come on. Tyr is here with his mate and his mate’s brothers. You have family to meet.”
Coming, dear one. The deep mental voice was filled with laughter and bubbles, and Sloan couldn’t help but smile.
In moments, a deep purple dragon with a long tail crested over the waves, flying high up into the sunlight before swooping down to land in front of Sloan.
Everything about Mari was sleek and smooth, ergonomic, and meant to cut through the waves. He was absolutely stunning.
Prettier than me? Tyr blinked at him.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Mari’s fangs flashed. I brought lunch.
A single large emerald-green fish was handed to Aleana, the huge claws not piercing the flesh.
Fredda grinned and launched herself at her father, the big dragon catching her and curling around her, holding her tight. Then he slowly shifted to a more human shape without letting her go.
“Tyr.” The purple dragon bowed, and Tyr nodded.
“Mari. I wanted you to meet my mate Sloan, and these are his brothers Brayden and Riley.”
“Congratulations. It’s about time you found the other half of your soul. You cannot be one only with the bees. You need your own kind as well.”
“I do. I’m so happy, Mari.”
Mari slunk up to Sloan, faceted eyes staring into him. Then the mer-dragon grabbed him by one of his arms, dragged him up until their chests slapped together. “Welcome to the family, braedor.”
“Thank you.” He bowed his head, because that was really all he could do, being held like he was.
They had an amazing fish… was it supper?
He wasn’t sure what everybody considered the meals around here.
He thought maybe it was more what the British would call a teatime meal, the one that happened around three in the afternoon.
But they had an amazing fish dish, and some super interesting roasted vegetables with a salad of shellfish.
He wasn’t sure what was in it; it seemed like lots of kelp-type things, but it was really yummy.
Riley thought it was hysterically good.
Then little Fredda went down for her nap.
He thought. He still wasn’t sure about sleeping.
He had a feeling that everybody here sort of did what they used to call in the Middle Ages, having a siesta through part of the afternoon, and then getting up, then sleeping for part of the night.
They would maybe get up in the middle of the night and do a tiny bit of work and then sleep until morning.
He supposed it didn’t matter. They were dragons and not tied to a human schedule.
What was great about it was they were able to sit and discuss a few things.
“All right, Tyr, I’m gonna tell you straight up, I’m super nosy, and I need to know what is going on with your brother,” Riley said.
Tyr chuckled and shook his head. He looked at his sister. “They were guardians in their other world. They killed the unclean ones as a calling, so they’re always worried that someone’s going to attack.”
Aleana shook her head as well. “Our brother is not going to attack the village. He simply wanted more from his life than the village, or to come down here and become a fisherman, or even to stay up in the mountains and work with Cade and become a guardian. He was really rather unpleasant about it.”