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Chapter XXVII - Short Tempers and Tulip Seeds

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The sun always shone the brightest in late fall and early winter. Never spring, nor summer. Its rays dashed down from the heavens in sharp sprints, breaking through the bitter cold air, and landing on Sir Claudius's neck of ice. How could the air be so cold and yet burn and penetrate at the same time?

It felt as though someone was branding him on the nape of his neck with a fiery stick. The man pulled his black cloak over his face; it fell across his forehead.

"Gettin' sunburnt, ey?", Athena rose from her crouching position, twiddling a gardening tool around her nimble fingers. "That's why I wear a hat." She tapped her straw hat, which draped a shadow over her entire frame, with the tool. "Would you like me to buy you one when I go into town?"

"No, thank you. Cloaks work just fine."

"They will in November when it's cold. But it won't be the same story come springtime. You will burn up in those black garments, Sir. Not suitable for gardening, when you need all the energy you can."

"I suppose." He rolled his eyes, longing to go back inside, where he could journal or read. I enjoy spending time with her and watching her garden… but I would rather watch from a window.

"Now, Sir Claudius, you see how I am planting the bulb seeds? These will grow into tulips, hopefully. I just love tulips, don't you? I think they're real' beautiful." She held out her hand. "Why don't you give it a try."

His legs stiffened, almost buckling beneath him. "Me?"

"Well, who else?"

A shaky, gloved hand reached out to Athena's slender one and took the seeds. He knelt down, as she did. He could feel the wet mud seeping in through his pants, dampening his nervous knees.

"Miss Everleigh, I do not feel comfortable… digging in the dirt with these gloves. I'm afraid they will become dirty."

"Pish-posh! We'll just wash them." She put a hand on his shoulder, gripping his firm muscles. "And if you don't want to get them dirty, simply take them off. I'll hold onto them."

Sir Claudius winced; his whole body caved in—first his chest, then his shoulders, and then everything else. "I— Alright." He laid the seeds upon the ground, commencing pulling the gloves off of each finger on his right hand, before doing the same to the left. He sucked air into his lungs, but all flames drowned out of his body, and all that remained was the stiff, freezing wind. Sir Claudius tore off the right glove. Athena's pupils dilated as she intently watched; if she were a cat, she might have stalked and pounced on his hand.

Streaks of purple veins, like rivulets, washed all across his hands. And then, in light silver—almost blending in with his skin tone—were scars. Detailing every muscle, every corner, every crevice. The man in black blinked, holding his face down. After taking off the left glove, he picked the seeds up with his bare hands and planted them into one of the holes Athena had dug.

A few minutes of silence passed between the two of them. Athena stole glances every now and then of Sir Claudius's scarred hands as he dug in the dirt. Sir Claudius stole glances too, of her curved back and the bust of her dress. Even wearing plain day clothes that her mother had made for her, she reminded him of roses.

"Athena… we are—friends, yes?"

"I assumed we were." The girl's eyes tore away from his hands and back to her work.

"And friends tell each other secrets, yes?"

Athena's stomach rose into her chest. Her eyes lit up like the morning sun. "Yes, yes they do." She turned toward him, looking into his eyes, and instead only finding the hem of the cloak.

"Would you like to know how I got my scars? The ones on my hands, the one on my eye, all of them?"

She sat, speechless, her mouth hanging wide open for several moments, before clearing her throat. "Only if you wish to tell me."

"I do." He covered the seeds with dirt and mud. "Blue eyes are extremely rare in dragons—practically unheard of in our clan before our patriarch assured my parents that it had occurred before. To this day, I don't know if he was telling the truth or just trying to convince my parents not to abandon their young *whelp. It doesn't matter anyhow…." Athena furrowed her brows, her silvery blue eyes drawing closer together. She pressed the hem of her dress down with her fingernails. "No one in the clan ever treated me with any semblance of respect," he spoke, his teeth baring and his eyes wincing and his voice deep and dark like thick mists swirling about in the night. "As a whelp, I would travel out of the cave to spend time by myself in the forest. I needed these moments of calm." He grinned, the sides of his pale purple mouth rising. "I remember the first time ever I saw humans. There was a load of them in the forest, traveling with buggies and carts. Frightened to pieces, I hid in the ferns—small enough then to fit within them. I tucked in my wings and crouched down low. I'd never seen anything like them before. The clan never hunted after them anyway—too dangerous. We hunted animals instead. But I digress. The moment I saw them with their pale skin and light hair and eyes… I felt as though I were looking at myself. Everyone in the clan had dark red or orange eyes and coarse, black skin with red scales. Everyone except me. I had bright red skin with some black and gray mixed in, as well as blue eyes.

"Upon returning to the cave, I wanted to know more about humans, so I asked some *fledglings about them. And they…" Sir Claudius groaned, flames building up inside of him. But not the hot, passionate flames he had gotten used to whenever he saw Athena—but rather, roaring, indignant ones. "They gave me my first scar." He held up a finger to his eye, where a dark pink, almost purple, cut tore down the middle—as though someone had split a perfect tapestry with a sword.

Athena forced herself to look at the scar, her eyes tracing up-and-down the thing. He wanted to show it to her, after all. For the most part, his eyelid covered the blue orb beneath. He glanced down at the ground, but there was a pain in his eyes of blue that she had never noticed before. The shimmer was dimmer, like a murky waterbed instead of a crystalline river.

"Why would they do such a thing?" Athena asked. "I thought that—"

"You thought what? The same thing all of my other apprentices thought?!" the monster within roared. Athena cradled herself, throwing her arms around her waist. "You thought that I received this scar in some grandiose battle, didn't you? Whether with a human or another dragon, I know you thought that! Well, you're wrong. None of my scars came from such interferences. There was nothing grandiose about being bullied by other dragons, and it wasn't a battle either, for I never fought back. I've never fought a day in my life. I left my home clan before I could become skilled in the practice."

"Sir… I wasn't going to say that." She huffed, breathing hard.

"Then what were you going to say?" The flames inside him died down, blowing about in the wind.

"I was going to ask how you retained your scars in human form if you received them in dragon form."

"Oh… well, there is a simple answer to that. One I've already told you. I'm not a bloody human. This form is only a façade. It was the best reconstruction the patriarch of our clan could make. I still retain all of my ailments—my scars, my dragon muscles, some of my fangs, and, of course, my fire-breathing lungs."

"Some of those things I would not consider ailments, Sir Claudius."

"Then what would you consider them? They hold me back in life."

The girl let out a small huff. "What I wouldn't give to have a partial cat form—fangs, muscles, night vision, and especially the speed."

"Well, perhaps you should go talk to the patriarch of my clan yourself and ask him to change you into a cat full-time!" Sir Claudius bared his fangs together, growling. His face twisted into a tight snarl.

Athena reared back at first but immediately got up, unafraid. "Sir Claudius, I would appreciate it if you remained calm with me. We are friends, after all." The girl squinted her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

The man turned his neck quick, facing away from her, but his cloak dropped in the process, revealing his sunburn. Athena stifled a giggle. Her cheeks became apple orchards, ripe and ready. Sir Claudius's face flushed and he yanked the cape over his head.

"You know I'm right, Sir," the girl cooed, digging her tools into the ground, but her head soon fell after teasing him. "I am sorry about your past experiences, Sir Claudius."

"There is nothing to be sorry about. It is what it is. I sometimes wish I hadn't asked the patriarch of my clan to become a human. It is almost worse being only half-way human. It's starving. I can't live my life fully one way or the other." He sighed, leaning his head back and tugging on his cloak, but not taking it off. "Sometimes I thought I was human when I went out to social events or when I went to tell tales on the streets. But then, whenever the sunset came… I was reminded that—I'm not."

"Were people… ever afraid of you, Sir?"

"Of course they were!" He swung his head around to face her. "People would call me names all the time! Saying I was a monster or a beast. It wouldn't have hurt so bad if they were wrong, but they weren't. I had to be more charming and more effervescent than anyone else in the room to be accepted, Miss Everleigh. That was the only way they enjoyed my company. If I hadn't been such a good tale-teller or writer… I would probably be dead by now."

Athena's stomach lurched at the thought. She shook her head and decided to change the subject: "You said that dragons don't really have names, so to speak. Then who gave you the name 'Claudius'?"

The man smiled a huge toothy grin. "I did." He kneeled on the ground, moving closer to her. "I left my clan as a young lad—right after I had passed the threshold into adolescence. Once I learned the language of the surrounding areas—Gaelic—I wanted to venture about and learn other languages. I had all the time in the world to do so!" he yelped, laughing. "So, I traveled to England, and it was the time of the great playwright Shakespeare. You are familiar with him, I'm sure."

"Father talks about him every now and then, and even quotes him at times."

Sir Claudius smiled again, nodding. "Well, upon viewing the play Hamlet, I was entranced. I would have probably taken the lead character's name, but it did not… fit me as well as I would have liked it to. Instead, I took the villain's name: Claudius."

"Why the villain, Sir?"

"Perhaps I felt like one—but he was no less a villain than any revered king of England, Athena. He was a man first. Perhaps that's what I liked so much about him."

Athena pursed her lips. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"We'll have to read Shakespeare together sometime and I'll explain what I mean. You are too young now to understand anyway."

"I am not!" she cried, lashing out. "I am the one who acts the most civil between the two of us anyhow. Who's the real adult?!"

Sir Claudius lifted his eyes, his thick brows breaking into his skin. No one had ever confronted him about his temperament in such a way before. "Perhaps you are more in touch with your emotions than I, Athena. But you still have a long way to go with your literary skills."

"You could have said that in the first place." She crossed her arms, frowning. She spoke in the lower range of her vocal cords, though her voice was still beautiful and soft as rose petals.

Sir Claudius smirked, his eyes knitting together once again. "Since you've been asking me so many personal questions, do you mind if I ask you a few? Merely to see how your temperament holds up?"

"Try me." The girl smirked as well.

"Very well then. Why did you really go to Dublin and why did you come back with such a changed countenance? Why did you never transform into Milly? And so on and so forth." He spoke with wide gestures, rolling one hand over the other.

Athena paused, then leaned back, fiddling with her long strands of curly hair. "There's a lot of reasons why I went. The way you continually… talked about your 'previous apprentice' who I now know as 'Henri'... frightened me. I assumed something awful had happened, which I still believe it did. I was afraid something similar might occur to me, or that villagers in the town would figure out that I was a púcaí, since I traveled back-and-forth to your castle as a cat, then transformed. I was afraid someone might see me, or that—I couldn't fully trust you…. I don't know. I just… felt so uncomfortable. I wanted to believe you, but you kept lashing out at me. One minute you were pleasant and then the next fiery—"

"The same could be said of yourself."

Athena squinted her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him. Sir Claudius couldn't help but chuckle on the inside.

"Those were several of the reasons why. I was afraid like I explained a few days ago."

"And what of Dublin? What occurred there?"

"I— At first I did not like it. It was like it had always been. My aunt and nieces were like they had always been. Conceited. High-strung. But, after a week or two… something changed. They started treating me like family, especially Aunt Helena and Rubina. Margie," she let out a puff of air, grinning, "never quite got used to my being there." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "And then, when we went to social gatherings and balls and so forth… people… paid attention to me. They listened to what I had to say. It was like a fantasy, like what I've only read in books. And there were two boys who courted me—Richard and Brandon. They were so kind to me and danced with me and told me how pretty I was." Her eyes sparkled like crystals. Sir Claudius turned a searing red—not from the sunburn, however. "As the months went on, however, I started to lose touch with Milly. I was alright at first, but soon, she wanted to come out and I had to suppress her time and time again. I began to crave home and my family. You sending that letter saying you would come was the final straw. I could not handle it anymore and knew I had to return home."

Athena's eyes fell. She twisted her fingers around in the dirt.

"What's wrong, Athena?" he asked.

"What I returned to… was not home." Her voice cracked, shivering beneath the autumn winds.

"What do you mean?"

"My father built a new house with your gold. He didn't even tell me about it. Said it was a 'homecoming gift'. It's not a gift if you're paying for it…."

Sir Claudius' eyes lit aflame. His mouth hung open and steam began to pour out of it, turning to mist in the icy temperatures. He began snorting and growling.

"Athena…" Words gurgled in the back of his throat—words she could not quite understand.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Your father is only using you. I see it now. I see it all now. Your father is using you to gain money and status—the money and status he once had."

"Sir, I have already thought long and hard about this. I agreed to work here for the betterment of my family. I knew what I was doing when I gave him the gold. He believes a new house is for the better."

"No, no, no… Did he even ask your mother or any of the other children their thoughts?" Sir Claudius grew to be more and more furious with each passing second."

"No, Sir…."

"Then that explains it. As well as the fact that he lies to your family, saying he has a new job when it's really you doing the hard work. Despicable," the man in black spat.

Athena wrung her hands, looking away. "Well, he is my father, Sir… and I love him."

"Obviously, that love is not returned."

"You don't know him."

"This is your money, for you to make your own decisions with—"

"It's my family's money."

"Fine. Be stubborn about it. Have it your way. If you don't want to face the facts, you don't have to."

"And you must face the fact that this is my father we are speaking about."

Sir Claudius frowned, crossing his arms. "You are too young and naïve to understand."

"Perhaps I am. But that does not change the fact that I want this money for my family's gain. As long as my family is content, so am I."

Sir Claudius sighed. "But you are not content."

"I am so!"

"With your new house, I mean."

"Well… no, but my father is, and that's what matters." She closed her eyes and sucked in air through her nose as fast as she could. "I do not wish to discuss this matter with you any longer!"

"Temper, temper." Sir Claudius clucked his tongue. "I knew I could break you."

Athena flared her nostrils, grabbed one of the tools, and chucked it his way, though missed—after which, both began laughing at the other.

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*whelp - a baby dragon.

*fledglings - adolescent dragons.