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Seruno: Look, Cobalt is trying his best with the situation he's in, cut him some slack.
Things to remember, when caring for a six-year-old:
One: They're always hungry. Always. They might eat nearly as much as a dragon does. Granola bars and hot pockets will not cut it.
Two: They have no impulse control, especially when you kidnapped her. You must always be watching after her. Do not leave your knife on the table when brushing your teeth, or she will use it to break open a window and try to escape.
Three: They cry a lot. Holy shit, whatever you do, she will cry over it. It doesn't matter what it is.
Four: They hate you. They hate you so much. Especially ever since you 'lost' her yellow dress. Apparently a nice yellow shirt is not the same thing. Suck it up child, you can run better in overalls than in flouncy bullshit.
Four A: Despite this hatred, they will ask you to carry them when their feet get sore. Just do it and spare yourself her complaints.
Five: Do they need sleep? Are they nocturnal? Is that what's happening?
Six: They might not have long term memory. They will forget everything. Clothes, backpack, the Vipers that you keep reminding her will kill the both of you unless you keep moving. You'd think that the Order of St. George would discipline their children better, but apparently not.
"Dragon, sir?"
Cobalt stifled a growl, eyes flitting to the girl sitting on the floor. Credit to her, she was very polite, when she wasn't trying to break out of the car that he had locked her in while making a grocery run, reminding him that the Order would find and kill him, or complain about literally everything that he did.
"You can call me Leandro. What's the sitch?"
"Why do you do this every night?" she asked, point up at the motion detector that Cobalt had been working on setting up. "It makes noises all night."
"It's a motion detector. It will tell me if the Vipers are coming. That way, if they come, I'll be awake, and they won't be able to catch us off guard. Because if they do…" Cobalt didn't finish his sentence, but he heard Madison gulp nonetheless.
"Murder," she said softly.
"Yup."
There was a silence between that. Cobalt ground his teeth and stood up on his toes to try and get the camera adjusted properly. He wasn't short by any means, but he needed three more inches to do it comfortably.
"But why do I have to do it with you?" she asked softly, a hint of a whine in her voice.
"Because last time I left you unsupervised in the motel room, you broke the window, and we had to move ahead of schedule. You still have the stitches to prove it," Cobalt said. "Just a few more weeks, hatchling. Then you can go back to the Order, and I can…" die, probably.
He did need a long term plan, eventually. Either Talon or the Order controlled most of the globe; Talon had North and South America, the parts of the Central Asia, and Indonesia, while the Order had North America, the other parts of the Central Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. That meant that he could go to East Asia, Antarctica, or Russia and be relatively safe. Antarctica wasn't possible, for obvious reasons, and Russia was also a no go, because no matter how much he hated the jungle, he didn't know how to handle cold climates. He had gone through two missions in Siberia, and he had gotten frostbite both times. That meant the only realistic option was East Asia But, frankly speaking, Cobalt didn't want to. He didn't know anything about those countries, or any of the languages that they spoke, or what they were like. And he didn't think that the Eastern dragons would accept him, anyway.
So he might as well stay in the States. Or go down to Mexico. And…
He didn't know.
"I want to go back now," she mumbled.
"I know, hatchling. Trust me, I want you home, too. I just want to be able to get you home without getting killed," he said and finished setting up the motion detector. "Come on. You need to get to bed. We're going to be moving again tomorrow." Madison huffed and stood. "Hey, try to think of it this way: free tour of America. I'll take you to Wayne National Park, if you want. Or… a beach, or something."
Madison didn't reply. They entered into their motel room, Cobalt flicking on the lights and checking to make sure everything was how he left it. It was a dump in the backroads of North Carolina, where Cobalt hoped that Talon wouldn't look for him— Cobalt had never been a fan of the Southern States, and everyone in the organization knew it. Some people could put up with mosquitos the size of vultures and air the consistency of soup, but he was not one of those people. There was a reason that he tried to avoid rainforests ever since he turned sixteen. At least in the rainforest he could get away with shifting.
"Brush your teeth and change into your pajamas," Cobalt said as he checked over his weaponry. Madison didn't object, thankfully. She knew the bedtime drill before Cobalt even did; he usually just collapsed into his bed whenever he could, whether it was 7:30 or 3:00 in the morning. But Madison tended to get drowsy around 9:30, and she was obviously more comfortable with her situation when she had a routine to follow. Probably her Order upbringing shining through.
He needed to invest in some parenting books, or something.
Cobalt ran a hand through his tangled hair and grabbed his own toothbrush, using the vanity outside the bathroom as Madison changed. He could feel sympathy for her— she hadn't been outside a Chapterhouse, let alone outside Canada. She didn't know him. She still had the Order's view of dragons in her head. Everything being considered, she was holding up surprisingly well. He needed to give her a bit more credit, no matter how much she cried.
Madison walked out of the bathroom and climbed into her bed without a word between them, and Cobalt breathed a sigh of relief. He got through another day. Neither of them were dead. They hadn't run into any Vipers. Yet. He was incredibly lucky. All that he had to do was find the Chapterhouse in Mississippi and drop her off without getting his head shot off, and then he'd only have to look after himself.
Cobalt heard a sniff from behind him.
Goddammit.
"So… are you crying because you're tired, you're scared, or you're upset?" he asked and washed off his toothbrush.
"I'm not crying."
"Uh-huh," Cobalt rolled his eyes and turned around. She was, in fact, crying, even though she was trying pretty hard to hide it. Cobalt sighed to himself and sat down at the foot of her bed, far enough away that she wouldn't find the need to scoot further away. He had been the one to take this six-year-old on a road trip. It was his job to make sure that she wasn't completely traumatized by it all.
"What's wrong, hatchling?" he asked again. Madison sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Can I make it any better for you?"
"I miss home," she whispered. Cobalt closed his eyes and felt his shoulders slump. He kept telling her just a bit longer, but he knew that it couldn't help, because just a bit longer wasn't now. And he couldn't make it any faster for her, either. "This is all... I just want my family back. Mom— Mom told me and my sister stories before bed, and now everyone's probably so worried about me." Her jaw trembled. "They will kill you when they find me."
"Okay," he said softly. There wasn't any point in denying her claim about his death— if that was what she needed to keep warm at night, then so be it. He was okay with that.
"It's hard to sleep without bedtime stories. We had a routine," she sniffed. Cobalt briefly considered trying to spin a story— he had learned about common folklore from his basic education in Talon, so he could probably think of something— but he wasn't a storyteller. And he wasn't going to try and act as her parent. If he started doing that, he'd get attached, and he couldn't get attached. She had parents. She wanted them. Not him.
"Did you have a family, back in— in Talon?" Madison asked softly.
Cobalt blinked. Madison had asked plenty of questions over the past few days— where they were going, why he had run away from Talon, why he wasn't acting evil when she knew the truth about dragons— but she had never asked something like that. As if he was a person with life experiences, instead of her warden.
"No," Cobalt shook his head. "Talon doesn't want their dragons to have any loyalties other than the organization. So I never knew my mother, or any siblings… I did have a friend, though." Cobalt swallowed. "Her name was— is… was Stealth."
"Do you miss her?"
"Nah…" Cobalt shook his head. "She wasn't a very good friend. Neither of us were. We mostly just… got each other out of tight spaces. She saved my life a few times, I helped her complete one of her missions, we'd sometimes keep each other company when we were in medbay. But she'd kill me in a heartbeat if Talon told her to, and I'd be just as quick to defend myself."
Madison looked down at the covers of her bed. "So… you don't understand what it's like? To want to go home?"
"No."
Madison sniffed, eyes watering again. Just when Cobalt thought that he was done for the night. "You're gonna let me go home, right?"
"Of course, Madison. I promise this is temporary. The only reason that you're still here is because I can't find the Mississippi Chapterhouse."
"I miss my mom."
"I know, I know. I'm not going to pretend to understand, but I know you miss everyone. If I could make it any easier…"
"Can— can you tell me a story, so I can sleep?"
Cobalt froze, thrown completely off-guard by the question. It was a simple request, asked by a child who was grasping for some semblance of familiarity in a terrifying situation. But he wasn't her mother, he wasn't her family, and he couldn't pretend to be, either. For both of their sakes.
"I'm not a minstrel, hatchling," Cobalt said after a few beats of silence.
Madison sniffed again. Cobalt winced. He did know folklore. A few stories had stuck with him, and one or two were probably child-safe. And he was so, so sick of making Madison cry.
"I do know a ghost story, though," he offered lamely.
Madison wiped her nose and blinked at him with bloodshot eyes. Cobalt already regretted what he was about to do. He was a basilisk. Basilisks and children weren't made to get along. He wasn't this kid's parent. Still, he scooted closer to her, leaned up against the headboard, and tried to figure out how to craft this story into a slightly less horrifying tale than it was while still keeping it interesting. Of course the first story to come to mind was the legend that he had actually been afraid of when he was younger.
"This is a legend that's told all over the south. Some people say that it took place in Mexico or the other Latin American nations, others say it was in the Southern United States. No one knows exactly what happened, or when, but every child in the south has heard a version of what happened. This is the story of La Llorona."
This was an awful idea. But Madison dried her eyes and stopped sniffing, so he'd count that as a win.
"So. The story of La Llorona goes back to colonial times, when the Spanish had first discovered the Americas. These were hard times for everyone, especially for the indigenous tribes that already lived there," Cobalt began. Madison looked vaguely confused, and Cobalt couldn't tell if it was because he was talking too fast, or because she didn't know what 'indigenous' meant. Probably the latter. "Indigenous means native. These people had established entire empires before the Spanish came in, but the Spanish really wanted their land, so they took it by force."
"Why?" Madison asked.
"That's… a very good question to ask your parents when you get back home," Cobalt said. "I'm sure there's a kid-friendly picture book somewhere. Anyway. The Spanish came further and further inland and began to set up towns. They even interacted with the indigenous people for trade and..." slavery "Stuff. And at one point, one of the indigenous women became comfortable enough with these Spanish people that she fell in love with one of the men. The legend never tells us their names, because they've been forgotten in time. They had three children together, and they were very happy." Cobalt took a breath. Of all of the ghost stories to tell, it was going to be this one. "But then, one day—"
"Oh, is this where the dragon comes in?"
Cobalt stopped, opening and closing his mouth. "What?"
"Mom always tells me nice stories, but my sister tells me ghost stories, and dragons always end up eating the children."
"Your sister is a very interesting person," Cobalt said. Madison gave a shaky smile. "But there's no dragon in this story. One day, the man's wife came to the town. He had never told his current girlfriend about her, but he had been married when he was back in Spain. His wife had prestige and power within the Spanish Empire, which his girlfriend didn't have, so he broke up with the woman who he had the children with."
Madison gaped, her tears forgotten.
"The woman was heartbroken. She was angry with the man for not telling her that he had a wife, and for leaving her alone with three children that wouldn't be accepted by neither the Spanish nor her own people. In a bout of rage and grief, she went to the river and drowned her three children."
"What? Why? That can't be right!"
"That's what the legend says!"
Madison scooted closer to Cobalt so she could put her chin on his arm and stare up at him, eyes wide. Cobalt stiffened. She was so small. So fragile. And for the first time ever, she was willingly being close to him. What if he broke her?
"She had done this act out of sheer wrath, and when she realized what she had done, she was even more distraught than she had been before. She threw herself into the river to be with her children, and she died."
Madison clutched at his arm.
"Of course, this is not the end of the story. I promised you ghosts. This woman was barred from the afterlife for the crimes she committed, and a curse was placed upon her soul, so she would never know rest until she could find her children. Her children, which were already buried under the silt of the streambed. Within time, as he wandered the streams, she was driven insane by her search and her restlessness. This woman became La Llorona, the weeping woman, who haunts the rivers and streams. Sometimes, when you're in the south, you can see a woman wearing a white dress, screaming and wailing for the children that she killed. And they say that if any young children cross her path, she grabs them," Cobalt grabbed her arm, and Madison jumped, "and she drags them down to the bottom of the river to replace the children that she lost." Madison's eyes were as wide as the moon. "And that's why you never, never play by the river bed at night. And if you hear a woman crying at night, run. Run in the opposite direction, and don't look back."
"Have you ever seen her?" Madison whispered.
Nope. Ghosts aren't real. "Once, when I was young," Cobalt shrugged. The story of La Llorona wasn't complete without someone claiming to have seen her. "I lived down in the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico. I went on a walk around dusk, and I didn't realize that it was getting dark until right had already fallen. I heard this crying out in the jungle, near the flooded out river. I just thought that it was one of the townspeople that got lost, and I was curious. Keep in mind, I was very young, and I had never encountered a human outside of Talon before, so I was already cautious."
"What happened?" Madison breathed.
"I approached the river, trying to keep myself out of view, and I saw this woman. She was floating on top of the water, and her face was covered by her hands. A felt the air grow cold as I watched, and she continued to cry. I could hear her say Mis Niños, mis niños, perdió, perdió, perdió. And then, her head snapped toward me, and her hands dropped. Her eyes were completely black, her face was grey, and she was suddenly in front of me. She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the water before I could try to run."
Madison gasped, and Cobalt repressed the urge to smirk.
"The river was flooded at the time, so the current was very strong. She was screaming the entire time, her nails digging into my skin, and I still remember what she called me when she tried to force my head underwater." Cobalt paused. "She called me mi niño. My son. I had never been called anyone's son before, so it managed to shock me out of my stupor. I shifted into my true form and clawed my way out of the river, half drowned, coughing up water. I stumbled back to my compound, and the next thing I remember, I woke up in bed."
"It was a dream?"
"Well, I tried to convince myself that it was a dream for a few days, but I had this dark bruise on my wrist where she grabbed me, and then my trainers asked me how I had gotten lost that night, and why I was back so late. So what I saw was real. If I had been human, I'd probably have been killed."
Madison's eyes widened even further than Cobalt thought possible.
"Six weeks later, I visited the to see if I could find her again and prove that I wasn't crazy. But she didn't appear, and I never saw La Llorona again."
Madison was practically clinging to him.
"Well, good night!"
"Wait, wait wait wait, you can't just leave me! I asked for a story so I could go to sleep!"
"We're sleeping in the same room, hatchling, I won't be leaving you. Besides, she can't get you here. We're not near a river."
"So? I bet La Ya—Yore—"
"La Llorona. You roll your tongue on the r."
"I bet she doesn't show up on your motion-detector thingies. And— and what if I have a nightmare?"
Cobalt sighed. He had probably oversold it. He was specifically trying not to traumatize the small child. But the story of La Llorona wasn't complete without someone saying that they saw her. And he had, in fact, had that nightmare when he was younger.
"If you have a nightmare…" He had really dug himself in too deep. "You can come over to my bed, if you really think it will help. Okay? Now give me back my arm."
She pouted, but Cobalt could pull his arm out of her grasp and went to turn off the lights. He collapsed into bed, already half conscious. Madison huffed and shifted in her bed, but she wasn't crying. At least there was that.
After about five minutes, Madison sat up in bed. Cobalt glared at her as she padded over to his bed, but he didn't protest when she laid down next to him, settling under his arm. For a moment, he considered telling her to go back to bed, but he wasn't heartless. He could deal with a clingy human for one night.
"G'night, Leandro," Madison whispered. Cobalt blinked in surprise. It was Leandro, now. Not dragon.
"Night, hatchling."
Not that he was attached, or anything.
A/N: The story of La Llorona is a legend from the American Southwest and Latin America. No one knows exactly where, or exactly what happened, but I found the story fascinating, and exactly the type of thing that Cobalt would use as a bedtime story, because he doesn't know how parenting works.
Yet.
Please review if you enjoyed it!
