Chapter 14 #2
When the first base is ready, I churn it while the second one chills.
Transfer it into a bowl—my first attempt at this is frustratingly messy and I scream again at how much ice cream I waste before performing my focus kata so I can do it right—take the bowl to the ice house, retrieve the next base.
Dispel the focus kata when it’s time to churn again and let wrath carry me, my own power dropping fast as I burn through the dregs of it after the already eventful day.
Repeat.
Churn churn churn.
I’m a flurry of motion.
Time passes. How much time?
Is there a time limit past which I won’t be able to wake him?
I don’t know, and it scares me, and now I’ve filled the six biggest vessels I can find—large bowls, the biggest pots and pans—and I decide this will have to do.
If he needs more ice cream, I’ll make more, but first I need to get this in him.
The kitchen is a disaster. I find a pack that Nomi left us and load it up with ice cream bowls and a giant spoon.
(How am I supposed to feed a sleeping dragon?!)
Back across the meadow, into the temple, where Zan is just as I left him.
Which I expected, but I still shiver, and not from all the ice cream I’m carrying.
I unload all the ice cream first and consider the dragon.
I scoop an enormous bite onto the serving spoon—which still looks tiny next to his dragon mouth—and bring it to his mouth.
No response.
I bring it up to his nose, like maybe he’ll be able to smell the delicious dairy sugar before him and his eyes will snap open and he’ll devour it.
No luck.
I try pressing the spoon against his mouth, hoping he’ll open it reflexively and I can shove the whole scoop inside.
This doesn’t work either.
I poke his mouth with the cold ice cream, but immediately realize this isn’t going to work either—he normally hibernates on an icy mountain, cold isn’t about to disturb him.
Grimly, I set the spoon down and crack my knuckles.
Then I put my hands on either side of his jaw and try to pry it open.
Even as I strain, it doesn’t even budge.
I step back and perform a kata for strength. It takes three tries before I’m confident I’ve increased my strength enough to matter.
Then I try again.
I pull with all my might, and finally, I am just beginning to see movement and internally exult—
Only to hear a crackle from his jaw.
I let go immediately, my heart pounding.
Zan still isn’t moving.
I feel all around his dragon face and can’t find anything different even as my fingers tingle with the touch, and let out an exhale of relief.
Thank goodness. I was worried for a second there I’d broken his damn jaw.
But this leaves me at an impasse.
I can’t get the ice cream in his mouth unless he opens it. I thought he needed to get the energy in him first before he would wake up, but—
Maybe I’m going about this wrong.
I contemplate my fingers.
I consider Zan.
He was able to shift back into human form multiple times after his dragon transformation, which I know isn’t normal.
Zan has been reluctant to touch me but also clearly wants to.
Every time we touch, I feel something that isn’t just physical, but that sensation has... calmed, with exposure.
I’ve never heard of a dragon being able to feed off magical energy, but it sure as fuck seems like that’s what’s been happening.
And if so, maybe there’s another way I can wake him up.
I fall into another form and take a breath, letting clarity activate my wrath.
Zan may still be here physically, but he’s not really present. He can’t hear me to challenge me or laugh at my jokes. He can’t taste my ice cream. He can’t pick blackberries with me or hold me.
I am not losing getting to be really with him without a fight.
This is a kata I learned long ago but have never needed to perform.
This is the kata for a beacon: a cry for help when all seems lost.
I’ve never needed it before. Never been outmatched.
But what it does is bring whatever magic I have left in me to the fore.
My aura emanates a brilliant, powerful magenta.
If the Order didn’t know about me before, they sure as fuck would now.
But I don’t care about them. This isn’t about them.
This is for Zan.
And for me, too.
I step forward, and touch my hand to Zan’s snout.
His ears twitch.
I dare to hope.
But... nothing else happens.
Furious, absolutely unwilling to have let all this be for nothing and following instincts as old as time, I seize his damn face in both hands and press a kiss against his face.
And finally, finally I feel it—the rush.
And then Zan’s eyes snap open.
I stare for a second.
And then I reach down, grab the dang spoon, and shove it against his mouth. “Eat, damn it!”
Looking vaguely startled, Zan opens his mouth and I feed him the ice cream.
He swallows, and I feel his magic increasing.
It’s working.
I grab the whole bowl. “You said you don’t get brain freeze. Now’s the time to prove it.”
?Yora?? Zan’s voice in my head is tiny; confused? ?You... made this? For me??
“Yes, you absolute twat,” I say acidly, my relief somehow coming through at the same time. “And you are going to eat every bite if I have to shove it down your dragon mouth myself.” I push the ice cream bowl onto his snout. “Eat it, you fucking liar.”
Zan—wisely—does not respond to that, and starts lapping up the ice cream.
Hours of my labor devoured in seconds.
Without a word I grab the next bowl and shove it under his face too.
Okay, this is maybe a little funny—me furiously shoveling ice cream into a dragon’s face as fast as he can eat it.
It would be funnier if he hadn’t scared me so badly.
Zan finishes all but the last bowl, because before I bring it to him, his form shimmers.
And then he’s back in human form.
Just like that.
Zan reaches for me, and only then do I realize that at some point my magenta aura faded—or was sucked away.
I place my hand in his anyway, and he tugs me to him.
I don’t resist. I’m mad at him, but this is what I went to all the trouble of bringing him back for.
But Zan doesn’t just wrap me in his arms.
With one hand, he tilts my face up to his.
And then he kisses me.
And I feel everything, like a conduit has opened between us.
I feel his fear and his frustration and his gratitude.
And I feel how drawn he is to me, body and soul.
I don’t know if love is the word. I’ve never felt love before.
But whatever it is, I feel it just as strongly.
Zan’s mouth on mine sends warmth cascading through me, setting me on fire from the inside out as I melt into him.
When we finally separate—for air, I realize, though connected to him it doesn’t feel like I need it—he rests his forehead against mine as we both breathe in each other.
“I’m here, Yora,” Zan says.
“You’re here,” I agree softly.
In this moment, this close, our eyes hide nothing. Somehow I know he’ll have felt as much of me as I did of him.
And surprisingly, given that I’ve spent my entire life hiding who I really am... I am absolutely fine with that.
With Zan, I’m safe.
I bring one of my hands up to cup his face, and he leans into the touch.
Then he lowers us to the ground, with me more or less cradled in his arms.
Protected, for once in my life.
Utterly wiped out, I fall right into sleep.