Boom. Alphabet soup for the dragon's soul. Or something. Some of my alliteration is just plain ridiculous in these. XD
Shout out to Phoebe Miller for beta reading!
Fact #49: Dragon alphabet soup is best enjoyed in the company of friends.
Season: 1-3
A is for Apex
"Look at me, Danny. Does it look like I'm scared of anything? I'm an apex predator, like a T-Rex."
"And riddle me this, Steven, where is the almighty Tyrannosaur today? Have you seen him ambling down the streets, people bowing and awing in his wake? No? That's because even though he was an apex predator, he still got annihilated!"
"Why are you so against this?"
"Why? Because one day, there's going to be an even bigger apex predator that you, Mr. Apex-aquatic-action-man, won't be able to apprehend. Lions still get axed by other lions. Circle of life, babe."
"But you admit that dragons are apex predators."
"Yes."
"Then why did this conversation start?"
"Because you're an archaic Neanderthal."
B is for Boiling
Danny blatantly stared at Steve. Both of them were working, barely, in his office at the Palace. Long days, bad hours, and bad coffee had buried their resolve to push through and finish their reports. Now, Danny was watching as steam literally came out of his partner's nose.
"Can I help you?" Steve raised a brow at him, turning to look away from his computer.
Danny blew out a breath. "What is it with you and the steam? You were doing that back when the tunnel fell in on you."
Steve blinked slowly. "Steam?"
"Yeah, you know, that constant trail of vapor blowing out of your nose when you exhale? I thought that Amphibians and Arboreals didn't have chambers like that."
Steve wiped his bleary eyes and sat back. "Boiling chamber. Some Amphibians have it, but you find it in Arboreals more."
Danny's head bobbed. "So you, what? Swallow water and then boil it away into steam? What's the point of that?"
"What's the point of baking a piece of wood until it smokes?"
"Touché."
"It's a bad habit."
"Bad habit? How?"
"If I do it with saltwater I get mineral build up on my teeth."
"Regular old tea kettle, huh?"
"Something like that."
C is for Cuisine
"Nuh uh, no way, count me out. I do not trust whatever that is one bit," Danny shooed Steve away.
"Come on, man, it's really good," Steve cupped the small bowl in his hand and offered it to him again.
Danny couldn't help it. "What is it?"
His fears were confirmed when Steve held up a hand to the cute Chilean chef behind the cedarwood bar counter so she couldn't answer. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
"Okay, you see, that right there gives me zero confidence that this isn't some kind of insect or something equally gross," Danny said.
"Can't stop eating it once you try it," Steve put the bowl to his lips and slurped whatever it was down.
"Hey, brah, you guys get some chow?"
Chin and Kono wandered up to them from off of a path that cut away from the main comings and goings of the dragon market. Chin had a small bowl in his hand and Kono had what looked like a Chinese takeout box.
"Danny here doesn't seem to comprehend what fine cuisine is," Steve set the bowl down and thanked the young chef.
"I know what fine cuisine is. The Italian place a block away from my old precinct was a prime example. This is some crazy concoction that only you, you who has an iron stomach, could actually manage to chew. No offense to you, babe."
The chef smiled charmingly. "None taken. But, you don't really chew this dish."
Danny cringed while the others snickered.
"Here, try mine," Kono planted her chopsticks in the noodles and handed the box to him.
Danny scooped a few noodles and meat into his mouth, chewing slowly. He nodded and handed the box back over to Kono. "The noodles and the sauce taste normal enough, but the meat isn't chicken, is it? I knew it! I can see it all over your faces. What was it?"
"Crocodile," Kono grinned.
Chin offered his bowl. "You can finish mine off, brah. This one really is just chicken and rice."
Considering his options, because they needed to get going back on their case, he accepted the bowl. He was the only one that hadn't come up with something to eat yet, and he was half-starved. He had to concede that he couldn't afford to be so picky anymore.
A fork full of chicken and rice was already in his mouth when the chef behind them clasped her hands together and did a little bow. "My condolences, amigo."
The explosion of spice in his mouth caused a tear to slide down his cheek. Swallowing, he coughed and caught Chin with a severe expression. "You guys suck."
Chin laughed. "But it's good, right?"
Through the tears that were continuing to pour from his eyes, he had to confess that it was indeed some of the best tasting curry he had ever eaten. Fine cuisine indeed.
D is for Dagger
"Dragons, during the Dark Ages at least, were despised by many people," David, the same curator for the Mo'o Hall at the Bishop Museum from when Grace's class had toured it, said with a gesture at the partially destroyed tapestry protected behind a glass display.
"Is there anything from during the Egyptian times?" Steve asked. He spared the dangling fabric a brief glance and scowled at the slain dragon that was still visible.
David directed them to follow him to another exhibit. "There were many serpent gods and goddesses associated with Egyptian mythology. A few accounts tell of legged serpents walking among men and it is believed those may have been dragons."
"And this definitely doesn't look familiar to you?" Danny held his phone up again.
David carefully stared at the dagger on the screen before shaking his head. "It's not part of any dragon history that I know of, but you're right, it does have an Egyptian vibe to it with the scarab on its hilt. I, however, think that it's not an artifact, but a Frankenstein's monster."
"What makes you say that?" Danny asked.
"It shows disregard to cultural continuity," David came to a stop at another display case. "You see these daggers? They're called kris. These ones here are all from Indonesia."
Danny and Steve both leaned over and examined the daggers inside the case. Most of them looked decorative, but a few looked like they had been used daily in various activities with their nicks and dings.
"Though that dagger has a scarab displayed on its hilt, it more closely resembles these," David said. "They're very distinctive with their wavy blades."
Steve stepped back. "But why use an Indonesian dagger? Most of the Asian cultures deemed dragons as gods and good luck charms. They revered them."
"No disagreements here, which is why I am highly confused," David looked between the both of them. "What did you say this dagger was used for?"
Danny sighed and let one hand dance out. "A dimwit sacrificed a mixed blood to some deity that we can't figure out and left a disturbing note about dragons being despots and destroying humanity and other crazy talk."
David's face drained of color. "That's awful. To defile such rich cultural customs by using a lookalike dagger to murder someone, someone that these cultures would have held in high esteem, that's…that's…"
"Deplorable. Despicable. Delusional," Danny listed.
"Yeah, that," David agreed. "I wish I could help you gentlemen more, but I can't give you a definite answer as to any rituals or customs that would match this crime. It's barbaric. It's closer to the Dark Ages than anything else."
"Definitely," Danny said. He shook David's hand before he and Steve departed. "Thanks for the help."
"Anything, Detective. Commander," David nodded. "Please, just catch this deranged lunatic."
E is for Era
"And then, she explained that the Era of the Dragon was over," Grace said.
"Exactly who was this, again?" Danny asked.
"Ms. Ellingham, Lana's mom. She came in today to talk to the class because we're studying about eras and she works at the natural history museum," she said. "She showed us this extremely cool fossilized egg."
That elicited a confused expression from Danny. "I thought you said you were examining dragons, not dinosaurs?"
"Both, I guess. Ms. Ellingham said that the Era of the Dragons started after the Era of the Dinosaurs, and then lasted until the Dark Ages," she expounded.
"Huh," Danny eyed his daughter sitting on the couch in his office at the Palace.
"What?" she asked.
"I just thought that when an era ended it meant that whatever it was had died out," he said. "Like the Era of the Dinosaurs ended when they all died."
"And dragons aren't all dead," she nodded seriously. "I thought it was kind of weird, too."
They grinned at each other as her stomach rumbled.
"How about the Era of the Pizza starts now?" she suggested.
Danny laughed. "Excellent choice."
F is for Flight
Forgiven or unforgiven. Cursed or blessed. Flightless, forsaken, and far too alone. Flat lined by his own foibles. For the last few months, he had been thinking. Pondering. Mentally fingering through his failures. Failures as a man. Failures as a husband. Failures as a father.
Forging ahead through his mental fog, he wondered whether his incarceration was forgiving or not. The physical fetters kept him, forced him, to fall back on the natural ebb and flow of life. Flight had been torn away from him. Forever gone, never to return, not after the elevator car had severed his wing.
Duncan's brows furrowed. Precariously perched on a metal fixture in the upper half of his cell, he sat in human form and flipped through the pages of the book of his life.
"The fables of dragons lie," he murmured with his deep and refined voice. "Fantastically fierce beasts that can never be faulted or found guilty of their sins or that of others, residing far above humans."
He dug his fingers through his hair with a frustrated hum.
"Humans and dragons, man and beast, we are both fallible. The wisdom of the winged is finite and falls far under the fanciful dreams of those that don't know. Those that don't comprehend. They falter when they realize that the fame of dragons is founded on fearful rumors and fatal lies."
With a fragile touch, he felt along his left arm to the scarring on his elbow. His frenzied flying along with the fearsome ups and downs of his emotions had finally ceased. Gone were the days of being able to forget his mental fallacies by winging into the night.
Here, in these four walls, only his mind was left to take flight.
G is for Gold
"Get a hold of yourself there, Rookie," Danny warned.
Kono's eyes were glued to the sight before them. After the gloom had been lifted in the basement, the heaps of gold artifacts glimmered and gleamed in the spotlights.
"Brah, it's like El Dorado," she gazed around the nearly solidly gold room.
"Or a dragon hoard," Chin muttered.
"What was that? I know that you didn't just make the incorrect assumption that dragons hoard gold," Danny pivoted on his feet and looked at Chin with a certain glint in his eyes.
Chin shook his head. "No way. I'd never do that."
"Come on, Danno, don't tell me you've never given some serious thought to having a hoard," Steve grinned at him.
Danny's hands swept out in a grand gesture to encompass the golden room. "Babe, if I had a hoard like this, I'd retire. And, if we're being honest here, you'd be the one to gather things into a hoard, not me."
"What?" Steve's brows went up.
"You. You already have a hoard," Danny said.
"Give me a break."
"No, you see, this is one of the things I gleaned from staying at your house. You hoard weapons."
"I do not."
Danny ticked off his fingers. "You have guns, grenades, shells, bullets, knives, a machete, a sword–"
"Okay, okay!"
"And that's just in your garage."
Steve grunted. Danny grinned.
Steve made a circular motion with his finger at all of the gathered treasure. "I'll tell you what, I bet this hoard is worth more than mine."
"He just admitted he has a hoard. You heard him," Danny gestured at the cousins. "He finally agreed with me! This is golden."
H is for Hoax
"I hate this time of year," Danny huffed.
"Yeah, I know, brah. I'm not a huge fan of these kinds of hoaxes, either," Chin agreed.
The pair of them were headed to what may or may not have been a horrible crime scene waiting to happen. Here, even in cheerful and sunny Hawaii, disturbed people creeped out of the shadows around Halloween.
"As if the boneheads coming out to party aren't enough, it's still so hot and humid here," Danny complained. "By the time it's Halloween at home, it's nippy and you have to have a jacket on when you go Trick-or-Treating."
"Hey, at least here you can always see all the kids' costumes," Chin said.
They pulled up to what looked like a haunted house in Kahala. The front yard had headstones and a life size headless horseman in the grass with skeletons hanging from the branches of a huge tree.
Half-way up the sidewalk of hewn stones a big hairy dog hurried to greet them. It had a bandanna tied around its neck and had a bloody handprint on its head.
Danny pulled his gun from its holster and Chin followed suit. The heavy oak door to the house was flung open with red splatters trailing inside. The dog barked and made a high pitched whine.
Chin heaved a sigh at the presence of claw marks on the door and its frame. "So much for this being a hoax."
I is for Icicles
Danny cursed incoherently as he was mercilessly clonked on the head. He inclined his head up to the eves of the house and glared at the icy stalactites.
"Ma! How come Pop hasn't melted this ice off yet?" he stepped off the sidewalk into the snow covered yard and turned to look at the icicles dripping off the roof.
"Your father's been busy and hasn't had the time," his mom said from the doorway. "I keep telling him they're going to impale someone."
"One almost impaled me," he indicated to the shattered ice scattered on the salted sidewalk.
"I'm sorry, baby," she said. "I'm going to have to get onto Eddie."
"Don't worry about it, Ma, I'll take care of it," he waved her off.
"You don't have to, honey. It's late and you're on vaca–"
"Please, Ma, just go get ready for bed. I've got this," he shooed her back inside the house.
The night was inky and only a few residual Christmas lights illuminated a couple of white yards. This was as best a time as any to deal with this issue. Scales appeared over his hands. He cupped them and blew a heated breath into them, causing a cloud of steam to rise. With his hot hands, he started grabbing the largest icicles and breaking them off.
"I'm pretty sure there's an easier way to do that."
Danny glanced at his sister Bridget. "If you know an easier way, than how come this waited to get done until I got here, huh?"
Bridget joined him outside. She showed a particular kind of indifference to the icy air with no coat, gloves, or even a scarf. Had to have been the Cliff blood in her veins. With an impish laugh, she presented a broom. "Just like when we were in high school, right?"
Danny barely jumped out of the way as his slightly intoxicated sister took a swing at the icicles. There was an impressive crash as the majority of them all fell on the sidewalk.
"Are you insane? Now we have a different mess to clean up," he gestured at the shards of ice.
"Come on, Danny, admit it," Bridget gave him the infamous smile that almost always got her out of trouble. "You miss having to deal with winter."
He gave her an irked look.
J is for Jackasses
"This better not turn out like the thing with the jockstraps and the jugs."
"Are you joking? I thought Aunt Jackie was going to kill me. Won't catch me doing that one again."
Danny eyed his brother Matt suspiciously. "If this blows up in our faces and the guys at the Academy find out–"
"It's not going to blow up, just trust me, bro."
"Last time I trusted you–"
"Hey, no, that thing with the jump rope wasn't–"
"Oh, yes, it was, and if I remember correctly–"
"No, no, it was our cousin Joey's idea–"
"But you–"
"No, we went along–"
"I was coerced–"
"If you weren't such a jerk–"
"Me? I had a job to worry about and–"
"Come on, Danny! This is going to be fun."
Danny rolled his eyes with a snort. They said never judge a book by its cover, but he could judge this one. He'd already read it and seen how it ended, and it didn't end well for the pair of them. But, it was his brother. What was he going to do?
"Okay, okay, fine. Just, make sure we have helmets."
K is for Kaput
"No one's ever going to believe us."
"Nope."
"I was there and I still don't believe it."
The team was kicking back at a picnic table in front of Kamekona's shrimp truck. Their day had been a bit crazy.
Danny rubbed his thumb over his bloodied and bruised knuckles. "I've seen kleptomaniacs before, but this was kind of ridiculous, huh?"
"A kleptomaniac kickboxer with an illegal pet kangaroo?" Kono laughed and shook her head at the absurd alliteration. "It's going to make for a killer report."
"I would like to be a fly on the wall when the Governor reads it," Chin said.
They glanced over at their boss, who had his head resting on his folded arms. Danny nudged his knee under the table. No response. Only a soft, sleepy snore.
"I thought he looked about ready to keel over," Danny made an encompassing gesture at Steve. "Remember this day, guys. The day that Super SEAL finally went kaput."
L is for Lantern
Kamekona walked under the canopy of the large old banyan tree. Bottles of various shapes, colors, and sizes dangled from braided strands of twine and leather. Each was lit by a small wick fed by a little pool of oil. At this time of night, it looked like a thousand fireflies lazily drifting through the prop roots.
At last, he spotted a familiar person lighting a wick in another bottle. "Hey, sistah."
She turned and smiled. Her formal attire that she wore while standing guard at the dragon market had been left at home and traded in for a pair of jeans and a loose fitting shirt. Once the wick she was trying to light was lit, she shook out her long match and moved to greet him with a hug.
"How's it, Kame?"
"I'm still walkin'," he pulled away with a grin. He looked up at all the bottles, some of them being recent additions. "Makoa told me you'd be out here."
She leaned against him and cast her eyes up to the lanterns with a heavy sigh. "Twenty-two."
Kamekona let that number sink in. It didn't take long to figure out what was significant about it. "One for each dragon off of those ships Five-0 took out."
"Twenty-two lives. But there were more before them. So many more," she whispered.
Kamekona wrapped his arms around her and held her close. This tree of lanterns, this tree of lamentation, this tree of legends, had come to host thousands of bottles with tiny flames burning within them. Each with a different story behind it, each marking a tragedy or the end to a life. It didn't matter, though. No matter how many lanterns were already there, adding even one more was a lance to the heart.
"Don't worry, sistah," he said in a low voice thick with emotion. "We'll get them all up there. We'll get them."
M is for Monster
Many men had had the crap scared out of them by Steve McGarrett. Danny included, though for different reasons. Whenever he would mutter and complain that his partner was acting more animal than man, Steve would make a massive leap directly into danger. That's what scared him. The fact that Steve had it in his head that the McGarrett men showed no fear.
Moving ever so slightly in the shadows, Danny could see the reason criminals were scared of his partner. Why the meatheads tucked their tails, the mob bosses lost their cool, and the meticulous schemers unraveled.
Though mostly shrouded by shadows, his partner had caught their bad guy's attention. White teeth flashed and a murderous growl muted the man's string of curses at being cornered. The man started to beg for mercy quietly at first, but it mutated into a cry of terror.
Steve, when fully shifted into his dragon form and in a foul mood, was a manifestation of a nightmare. He was a master of intimidation in human form. The many bared fangs and the sideways sliding nictitating membrane across his dark, currently malevolent eyes were far scarier than even his Super SEAL glare that could peel paint. Match those up with his mass that he could maneuver with a malignant vibe, and there it was. The answer.
Men were terrified that the McGarrett Monster was going to eat them.
To be continued...
It was kind of big as one thing, so I split it up. It also gives me an extra week to get chapters written. They're already breathing down my neck again, darn it.
Next week on "Dragons", the alphabet continues with N-Z, again containing bantering, fluff, whump, humor, and a smidge of angst.
Thank you for reading, reviewing, faving, and following!
