Epilogue #2
That’s the way it looks, too - they’ve both clearly gained some much-needed weight in just the past week or so.
“Good. That dragon is my husband, by the way. We had a bit of a… misunderstanding before, and that’s why I was weeping my eyes out when you first saw me, Sage. He’s harmless. Well, he’s not. But he’s mostly nice. To me, anyway.”
“Okay. Is there a reason why you’re here?” Sage asks. “Other than showing an alien monster our home that we thought was pretty safe and scaring the shit out of us?”
“There is,” I tell them. “Sorry again. Yeah, he has a scary presence going on there. Anyway, this crater is nowhere near as safe as you think. Those tribes have spent some time making big hammers, and last time you saw me, Beth and Quinn and Abigail barely got away from five tribes. Thanks to that dragon, by the way. But I want you to know that the tribes have all the tools they need to knock down that obstacle in the tunnel and come take you. We saw them. They may be a bit shaken now, but–”
I stop as Rosa and Sage start looking up at the sky. “Is that yours?”
I turn and look up too. And where I expected to see a black and gold dragon diving down, there’s a silvery oval, slowly passing right above us about two thousand feet up.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re looking for you!”
“Should we wave?” Rosa asks. “What if it’s someone else? Like the Plood?”
“It’s fine,” I tell them, hoping I’m right. “We’ve got a dragon on our side. Come on, wave!” I start waving with both arms, up and down, making as much movement as I can. The two others do, too.
“I don’t think they see us,” Rosa says. The flying saucer is about to pass out of sight of the crater’s bottom.
Then I remember something.
I put my hand into my pocket, and despite the many adventures, the small disk-shaped mirror is still in there. It must even have survived being slapped against a rock during the laundry in the river.
I fish it out, find it only mildly dented and bring it to my face and try to use it to reflect the bright sunlight towards the saucer.
I don’t know if I’m even close. The saucer slowly passes beyond the crater rim and out of sight.
“It was worth a shot,” Rosa says.
Sage lowers her arms. “It’s not the first one we see. Sometimes those saucers pass over us, but they never come lower and never–”
The saucer comes back into view, and I think it’s lower than before.
As we watch it comes down, lower and lower, shining in the sun.
“It looks a lot like ours,” I say. “But maybe they’re not that different from each other.”
The girls don’t answer as the saucer comes in above us.
It gives me a creepy feeling, but flying saucers always do.
As we watch, the craft slowly settles in the clearing.
I pull closer to Sage and Rosa, hoping to see the shape of a dragon overhead.
The saucer stands there, seemingly hovering above the grass.
Then the hatch opens with a hiss and all three of us pull a step back.
A shadow sweeps across the crater as Vyrathion comes diving down and lands right beside me, hard enough to shake the ground. Now, who might this be?
I reach out to touch his scales, and immediately all my tension drains away. My husband is here, and I’m safe. Forever.
A dark shape stands in the opening, starkly back-lit in blue-white.
“Hi,” a bright voice says. “Is it okay to park here?”
She steps out. It’s an Earth girl, no doubt about that. Her dark hair is long and lustrous. She’s even wearing pants and a shirt that both look clean. And I’d swear she’s got some eyeshadow on.
But it’s not someone I know.