Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Outside we found Alistair and the dragons from the day before.
I had to wonder how the man didn’t freeze.
Maybe the dragons huddled around to keep him warm.
Or could he be something a little more than human?
After all, having thought over what had been said, I got the impression, he might be old.
Very old. And he’d tangoed with a dragon! Like, how did that even work?
“Good morning,” the subject of my thoughts said. “I will assume you’ve been told to gather by the ancient one.”
“Mr. Lacks Boundaries demanded we do his interview right now, so where is he?” I glanced towards the ocean, the area closest to the peninsula sheeted in ice. I didn’t spot the mega beast. A glance at the volcano proved useless as nothing could be seen but spewing ash, smoke, and steam.
“He is close by,” Alistair murmured.
Brace for my arrival. A word of warning, do not run and scream, or I might mistake you for a snack.
Please let that be sarcasm. And why would we run and—
The skin of ice on the ocean crackled, splintering apart and rising in jagged stems as something massive emerged slowly from the cold depths. The slight haze in the sky filtered the sunlight, yet the monstrous dragon glistened as water sluiced from scales bigger than me.
“Holy fuck.” Joslyn exclaimed, aiming her camera, trying to capture everything.
Leviathan kept coming, his head rising into the sky, tilted slightly to the left as if to offer us his best side.
He stretched his arms out to the side, as if posing like the messiah.
When he stood, taller than any building, big as a mountain, he snapped open his massive wings, casting us in his shadow.
Making us feel insignificantly small. I didn’t blame Vernon for dropping to his knees, hands clasped, exclaiming, “Dude.” As eloquent statements to mark an epic moment went, it actually captured the feeling quite well.
I gaped in awe. Struggled with shock. Froze in place, utterly terrified. Good thing I peed before coming outside.
The urge to run hit me hard, but my feet remained planted. As for screaming? I lacked the ability to even part my lips.
Leviathan remained posed for at least a minute while the sun shone through the thinner membranes of his wings, a kaleidoscope of colors, beautiful and mesmerizing.
When he folded his wings, I finally dared to heave a breath. My trembling eased as he slithered down, reducing his ominous looming. I bit my tongue when Leviathan’s forearms—not uselessly short like the T. Rex kind—crossed on the ground, and he rested his chin atop them.
“How was that?” The question, voiced aloud, didn’t sound much different than in my head, but my ears rang from the sheer volume of it. “Majestic enough?” The question went to Joslyn.
“That was a seriously perfect entrance. The way you did it in slow motion? Riveting.”
“Not my preference,” Leviathan admitted. “However, all other options would have created rather large waves that would have washed this entire area clean.”
“You protected us?” I couldn’t help a surprised exclamation.
“You can’t exactly conduct an interview if you’re a bobbing popsicle now, can you?”
It wasn’t just Vernon who snorted. Abaddon shook with mirth as well.
“I wish I’d had a drone to capture it from above,” Joslyn ignored the dark humor for what mattered most. The best shot.
“So strange to me that you would name little flying machines drones. Drones are usually extensions of a leader. Servants with one purpose. Eons of evolution and yet only the bees seem to be resorting to that most efficient of systems.”
“What you’re saying is you see yourself as a Queen Bee?” Noah posed the question, and I just about hit the ground at his temerity. Poking the giant dragon, who appeared to have a very alpha personality, didn’t seem prudent. I didn’t need Leviathan getting pissed before the interview even started.
Leviathan uttered a low rolling chuckle that vibrated the ground. “Aren’t you amusing. A comedian. And here I didn’t think you’d have any use. You live… for now.”
I jumped in before Noah could get him to change his mind. “While I still find it hard to believe that you learned everything by listening to the wind and shit, I have to ask, did you get images too? Like, do you even know what a drone looks like? Or a plane? Or anything modern for that matter?”
“I see what you see in dreams.”
“Meaning, if someone dreamed it and you were there, inside with them, you’d know what it was.”
“Yes. Has the interview begun?”
I pinched my lips. “No. Which means I should save these questions for once we get going.”
“Don’t worry, I was recording,” Vernon stated. “You know, in case we wanted to splice it in when we format for the show.”
“Good man.” No need to ask Joslyn if she’d been doing the same. I knew my crew.
“Do you have any of the machine drones?” Leviathan completely changed the subject.
“Not with me. I had one back at McMurdo, but it’s probably gone by now.”
“Then you shall acquire more.” Ordered as if it were the most natural thing for Leviathan to do.
“As you command, oh, mighty master.” Joslyn quipped.
“You are interesting, female. And since I shall require portraits that people admire me, you live, for now, as well.”
“What about us?” the little orange dragon chose to speak despite the others trying to hush him.
“I’ve yet to decide what to do with you.” An ominous warning Tigger ignored.
“What’s there to decide? We’re family. So, what do we call you? Gramps? Grandpa? Grandfather? We already have a Tutu. Pops?”
“You will not address me at all,” huffed Leviathan. “Now be quiet. I am participating in an interview.”
My cue. I stared up, way up. Couldn’t even see Leviathan’s eye, putting me at a disadvantage and giving Joslyn little to work with
“I don’t suppose you could rest your chin on the ground.” Ballsy of me to ask, given the situation, but I should at least try and treat this like any other interview and give it my one hundred and one percent. Could this interview possibly kill me?
Yes.
But it was also the moment of a lifetime. If I was going to die, let me go out in the most dramatic and memorable fashion.
“Are you demanding I lie my head directly on the ground?”
“We can’t see you at all. Which is fine, if mysterious is what you’re going for, but the people watching are really going to want to see the full picture. Your face, to be precise.” Or at least an eyeball. I still hadn’t forgotten my reaction the first time it opened.
“You are lucky I still have use of you because otherwise—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’d eat me. Whatever.” I interrupted and waved my hand. It seemed the way to deal with Leviathan was to not act in awe. To treat him… like he was just a regular Joe. Or so it seemed, thus far. I guess we wouldn’t know if we’d gone too far until he followed through with his threat.
“I can only blame myself,” he exhaled on a long-suffering sigh. The cryptic words didn’t get any explanation as he slid his arms away from the peninsula and rested his chin on it.
“That’s somewhat better, I guess.” I could at least see its eye now, if I craned way up. Pity we didn’t have time to build an icy ramp, like in my dream.
“You’re still down too far.” The purple dragon minced over to me and glanced around. “You need to get higher.” Before I could say anything, Persephone gripped the shoulders of my jacket in her claws and hoisted me into the air.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked, afraid to thrash, lest she drop me.
“Putting you on a podium.” AKA the roof of the station.
I caught my balance on the slight slope and tried to not gulp. No sliding, or that fall would likely break something. But on the positive, I could now look Leviathan in the face. “Thanks. This actually works. But I’ll need Joslyn and Vernon, too.”
Unlike me, they grinned goofily as Abaddon and Pollita grabbed and deposited them on the roof.
Noah didn’t join us. He went inside, likely to grab a first aid kit for any impending fall.
Vernon handed me a wireless microphone, and I did a few test phrases before turning to Levithan, who was surprisingly quiet during our setup. “Okay, before we start, there are a few ground rules.”
“I am already on the ground.”
“I don’t mean it literally. The way this works is I am going to start off by speaking. Introducing myself, telling people where I am, and giving them an overview of what’s happened.”
“I thought this was an interview.”
“It is, but people need context. I can’t just say, ‘look I found a city-sized dragon.’ They’ll want to know where you came from. How you escaped the mountain. Those kinds of things.”
“When do I get to speak?”
“After I’ve announced I’ve found proof of dragons, we’ll pan to you.”
Joslyn interrupted to give instruction. “You’ll want to give us your most regal look meaning no looking dopey or cross-eyed.”
“And try to keep your voice at its current decibel so we don’t blow the mic,” Vernon added.
Nice to see we all managed to treat this just like any other job.
Did any other show ever have my knees shaking, though?
Maybe that time I wore hip waders to wander the bog at night to dispel the stories of a boggart haunting a town.
It turned out to be a serial killer who went after me for being a meddlesome bitch. His words.
This bitch had taken jiu-jitsu, though. I put him in a hold that had him crying for his mama and brought Vernon and a camera-wielding Joslyn to the rescue with some cops.
The images from that turned into some pretty wild memes. Woman named Velma with glasses unmasks a serial killer? To be expected.
“Ready when you are,” Joslyn announced, aiming her lens at me.
Vernon gave me a thumbs up despite fiddling with his equipment.
A death grip around the microphone, plus a few deep and steadying breaths, flipped the switch in me from normal freaked out person, to cool under fire reporter.