Chapter 5 #2
“True, and it’s a bit late to go last-minute shopping.”
“They really don’t need anything else.” Except for some common sense and survival instinct, and that was not going to be on the shelves in any store.
That would take another year to kick in, apparently.
He was wondering if it wouldn’t be better for the rookery to hang onto the hatchling until they were less…
well, dangerous to themselves and others.
Sinner lay down in front of the fire, her black fur gleaming. “I will make sure they do not get into the stockings early.”
She was a very much-needed extra set of eyes on the hatchling.
Even though she griped about them sleeping in her cat bed, and climbing on her cat tree, and eating her kibble, she liked playing with them and would often take an afternoon nap with them, all three of them curled up in the sun on the end of Edra and Jordan’s bed.
“Thank you, Sinner, you need to wait for your stocking too,” Edra said as she licked her front paw as if ignoring him.
Hand in hand, they crept upstairs and got into bed, Jordan checking his phone to make sure no one was trying to get hold of him.
They could go weeks without a late-night callout, and then the next two weeks would be absolute Hell for no good reason, but tonight everything was quiet.
Edra did not expect to get woken up by Sinner bounding onto the bed. Jordan rolled onto his back, and she jumped onto his chest.
“They are in the stockings, aren’t they?” Edra asked, trying to shake off the remains of sleep.
“No, it was too quiet, so I got up to check on them. They aren’t in bed, and their window is open.”
Jordan picked Sinner up and sat, setting her on the bed as he got up and grabbed his phone to track the hatchlings.
“If the window is open, they are on wing.” Edra shifted, not waiting for an answer.
“The app is showing them still in the house.”
Edra snorted and ambled down the corridor, claws clicking on the wood. Jordan padded behind him. He flicked on the hatchlings’ bedroom light and retrieved their pajamas. “No sign of the anklet, which means they’re still wearing it. They are here.”
Or they’d shifted and then taken it off. They’d never done that before, as they didn’t want to get lost or be returned to the rookery because no one knew who they were or what to do. They were old enough to understand that getting lost in the big city was bad because some people were bad.
Edra hopped onto the windowsill and then jumped out.
His wings spread as he looped over the backyard before flapping higher.
He’d been wanting to nail the window shut for a while, but Jordan called it a fire risk.
Which he could agree with; however, it was also a flight risk at this age.
How have they even managed to get it open?
But while they were the size of human toddlers, they were older and more dexterous, and their developmental milestones were different. Jordan had bought several books about how to raise humans, and so far, they had been more entertaining than useful.
Snow and Sky spoke English, and their Tarakian was almost to the point that he couldn’t have conversations with Jordan in it without them understanding too much.
They spoke dragon and could shift and fly and climb.
Things that human two or three-year-olds didn’t do, but they were almost six in human years.
The rookery had provided a list of milestones—though he doubted that learning to hunt before they turned ten was an important life skill—and they had spoken to the humans at the education department to figure out when to send them to school.
Because at the moment, they were much smaller than their human peers, and next to an ogre, they were tiny.
His tiny hatchlings were out in the dark and cold. As long as they remained in their dragon form, it wouldn’t be so bad, but if they shifted to human…they would be naked and vulnerable.
He flapped his wings and looped over the roofs and yards of the nearby houses, panic gripping his chest. It was only as he swept around the front of their house that he glimpsed the two tiny dragons on the roof curled up tight against the chimney, sound asleep with the plate of cookies between them, as if hoping that Santa would wake them up when taking his cookie.
Clever.
But they couldn’t stay there as it was far too cold for them to be on the roof without an adult to keep them warm, and he was not staying on the roof all night, not when he had a nice warm bed waiting for him. He was too old to be sleeping on the roof.
He landed on the windowsill and clicked in Dragon, letting Jordan know they were on the roof, and that the trackers hadn’t lied. They were technically on the house if not in it.
Jordan ran his fingers through his hair. “At least they didn’t go far. Are you able to bring them in, or do you need me to get out the ladder and get up there?”
Edra tilted his head. “I’m going to wake them up so they can fly in.”
He watched as Jordan processed the clicks, and realization dawned on his face. “Okay.”
Edra gave a nod and launched back out the window.
He didn’t land quietly on the roof. His claws scratched on the tiles, and both children woke, sitting up, their silvery scales shining in the moonlight.
They looked so small and fragile. He wanted them to be bigger and stronger so they’d be safer, but for all the difficulties of raising lesser dragon hatchlings in the human world, he couldn’t imagine never knowing his children the way his parents had never known him.
“Come on back inside. Did you really think Santa was going to try and take a cookie while you were guarding them?” he clicked in Dragon.
“He might,” Snow replied.
“Because we’re dragons, not humans, and we know about magic,” Sky added.
Edra blew out a breath. He couldn’t fault their logic, but he really didn’t want a conversation about how to choose the right god to pray to depending on the situation, and that Santa was a human myth based on a Tarikian god. He needed to talk to Pan about this.
“It’s not polite to sneak up on magical beings. Would you like it if people tried to watch you shift?”
Snow grumbled.
Sky gave a tiny growl. “I’m cold. Can we have a hot chocolate and cookies? And then we will go to sleep.”
“Please,” Snow added.
They did not deserve more hot chocolate. “Fly down and put your pajamas back on.”
Snow picked the cookies up with one foot, and Sky picked the plate up in the same manner, then they dropped over the edge of the roof.
Edra paused for a moment before following.
They were safe and hadn’t gone far. According to Jordan, staying up late and watching for Santa was something all human children tried to do.
It was fine.
He took another breath to allow the panic and fear to subside. When he flew in through the window, Jordan was already helping the hatchlings, now in their human form, into their pajamas.
“You said they could have a hot chocolate?’
Edra snorted and locked the window. Tomorrow, they needed to discuss ways to make it dragon-proof until they were older.
“I didn’t agree.” But he hadn’t said no either. “How cold are they?”
“They are fine.”
Sky shook her head and shivered dramatically. “No, I’m so cold I won’t be able to sleep.”
Jordan smiled. “I’ll make the hot chocolate, but you need to stay in bed.” He glanced at Edra and spoke in Tarikian. “I wonder where they get it from?”
He was not dramatic, though he did feel the cold and a hot chocolate in bed would be nice… “I’ll get dressed and finish tucking them if you make me one.”
“Of course I was going to make you one.”
Edra clacked out of the room, shifted, and pulled his pajama pants on. When he returned, the hatchlings were in one bed, with the plate of cookies between them. Clearly, Santa was going to need another plate of cookies.
He looked at his children and sat on the end of the bed. “You can’t leave the house without your Dad or me.”
“We didn’t,” Snow said.
“We were on the house.” Sky nodded.
That was a technicality. “We’ve talked about this, okay? We could’ve sat up there together for a bit. With blankets and a hot chocolate.”
Sky frowned. “Dad would’ve missed out because he can’t fly.”
“Then we could’ve sat out in the treehouse. The point is, you can’t just fly off and not tell anyone. You don’t want me to ask the big dragons to guard the house, do you?”
They both shook their heads. While the greater dragons wouldn’t eat them, they were big enough to be terrifying.
“We didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Snow said. “We were going to come back.”
“I know. But things go wrong, even though you can fly. So please, tell one of us.” He heard Jordan coming up the stairs. “Right, have your hot drink, and then go to sleep. Some magic isn’t meant to be seen.”
“Here we go, three hot chocolates, for my dragons.” Jordan handed out the three cups, and Sinner jumped onto the bed.
Jordan scooped her up and sat next to Edra with Sinner in his lap. He leaned his head against Edra’s shoulder, and Edra put his arm around him.
Snow giggled, and Sky wriggled her legs beneath the blanket as she dropped cookie crumbs in the bed—that was a problem for later—not the least bit sleepy.
He was going to ask Jordan how long this belief in Santa persisted, and if they’d be dealing with mischievous hatchlings every year.
But at the same time, it was moments like these when they were all together that made his heart full to bursting.
It was a life he couldn’t have dreamed of before the collapse.
Now it felt like everything he’d ever wanted…and more.
Want more from the Mytho world?
Go back to the collapse with the Mytho Collapse series, starting with Minotaurs and other Magic.
Come for the minotaur and stay for the magic.
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