Been a bit more time than I'd usually wait before updating, but I've been busy :) And the site wouldn't let me on ALL DAY yesterday, so my apologies that it's late.
By the way, Mauri and Theke are about sixteen. Well, look about sixteen.
We've bee following the boy for a while, and I'm starting to get a bit overwhelmed. This whole valley is beautiful, the trees are lush green and filled with bright blue fruit, which the boy points at.
"That's nice. You should try it." He says. Thekallcius shrugs and picks one.
"No more death jokes!" I say warningly. He grins and takes a bite. He frowns, then smiles. Then shudders.
"Oh my, that's SOUR!" He places the fruit onto the ground. I don't bother taking a bite. The boy frowns at him.
"I don't taste it very well."
"Well, we're part dragon. They have very strong taste buds." Thekallcius says, and I quickly elbow him in the ribs. "Argh, what?"
"I don't think we should be telling everyone we meet about our heritage." I whisper sharply, eying the boy with suspicion. "Maybe they hate dragons or something?"
"Relax. I doubt these guys even know what a dragon is." Thekallcius tells me, looking at the boy with lazy interest, annoyingly, as usual.
"I know dragons." The boy said quickly. "They're all big and scaly and they have MASSIVE wings, like this!" He spreads out his arms and flaps them, admittedly, like a dragon.
"See!" I hiss to Thekallcius, who shrugs. This realm gets more mysterious by the minute.
The boy stops his flapping and looks sadly at the ground. "Sometimes, dragons get very angry. Sometimes, dragons fly to your house and burn it all down so daddy gets trapped inside and throws you out the window..." He clenched his fists.
"Yeah, dragons are jerks." Thekallcius mutters. "Most of them, anyway." He kneels down by the boy and puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Our daddy's dead as well." He tells him. "I didn't see it, but Mauri did." He gestures briefly at me.
"Mauri?" The boy asks.
"Yeah, that's Mauri over there. Mauricious. It means, power. I'm Theke, or Thekallcius. That means 'golden'."
"I'm Thsaa." The boy tells us. "I don't know what it means." He admits.
"Nice to meet you, Thsaa." Theke says. I have no idea how he got so good with children, we've never met any like us. Just little dragon hatchlings and Oni younglings. Oni mate for life, but dragons have several partners throughout their life, especially males. We have five half-siblings.
"Come on!" Thsaa calls, jogging ahead slightly on his little legs. Thekallcius stands up.
"Coming?" He asks. I nod and come grumpily forward. He frowns. "Mauri. What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I say sharply, walking briskly ahead. He catches up easily, or maybe I let him.
"Come on, what is it?" He asks. I sigh.
"When we got here, I thought it would be the two of us, our own life. But now we've got all these other people who are the same... 'type' as us for some reason, and I'm not looking forward to meeting them. I'm not very social."
"I'll do the talking for you." Thekallcius grins, then he drops it. "But Mauri, I never said we had to stay here. Just meet the locals, perhaps find out why they're so much like us, then build our own place. Or take the crystal to a different place."
"Oh no, the crystal!" I suddenly gasp, fear and panic flooding my mind. "Where-"
"Don't worry, I have it." Thekallcius tells me, and I relax as he taps the pocket sewn into the lining of his cloak. "And I promise I won't talk too much about where we came from, or-" But his words are cut off by a scream, a child's scream. Thsaa.
"Thsaa!" Thekallcius shouts, and we take off at a run, down the path, through the trees, until...
The forest opens out into a clearing and we see a whole village, unlike anything we've ever seen before, filled with oddly shaped houses.
A village that's under attack.
People are running and screaming everywhere, the wooden houses are on fire and there was that dangerous stench of death that we could just sense, due to our battle-ridden past.
"Look at that!" I call, pointing, and we both look up to see...
A dragon.
"What!" Thekallcius exclaims. "They, did they come for us?"
"I don't think so, actually." I tell him. "Look at them, they look different, less long, their wings are smaller, they're less muscly. These dragons aren't at war, they're just lazy and unevolved. I'd be willing to bet they don't have creation power either."
The pair of us turn our attention away from the dragons in the sky, and I see Thekallcius looking around for Thsaa. He's nowhere here.
"He'll have gone to help his family." I tell him, but our conversation is cut off when a dragon lands in front of us. I gasp and take a step back as it grins evilly at us. Automatically, Thekallcius transforms into a dragon behind me, and I attempt to do the same, but I'm so caught up in my memories and panic that I turn into an Oni instead.
The dragon is surprised, and it comes closer, frowning curiously at me, a nod of recognition at Thekallcius. That proves my theory, these dragons have never seen Oni before. And something else occurs to me. They're not wearing a battle helmet. Back home, no, back there, Oni figured out pretty quickly that they can slit dragon's heads open with their long claws very easily, and that's one enemy taken care of. So dragons combated the move by wearing heavy steel battle helmets, so that put an end to that. But these dragons have never seen an Oni before.
They don't have creation power and they don't wear helmets.
I take a deep breath, and dart forwards, slashing hard with my claws. Oni have a telepathic vision of the world, a kind of infra red, which means you can never close your eyes. So I have to watch as the dragon's head is split clean open and all it's brains and blood spill out. I revert back to my normal form instantly, stumbling away, gagging.
"You're right!" Thekallcius exclaims, reverting back also. "They don't have helmets!"
"I think I'm going to be sick." I mutter.
"Come on, pull yourself together!" Thekallcius exclaims. "These people need our help."
I take a deep breath. "I'm better in Oni form than you are." I tell him. "I'll use dragon form to get close, then attack in Oni, you use your power to get rid of all the fire. Destroy it.
Thekallcius nods, and he runs off into the village. I take a deep breath and transform into a dragon, then fly up into the sky, ready to cut some heads.
Sorry it's not very intense or anything, and just creates questions, but I haven't got much writing time, so may as well post when I can :)
By the way, Thsaa is named after the alien in Mars Evacuees.
