A/N: A typo in chapter one caught my eye that i am now unable to fix, is that Julius introduced himself as Julius Iron, but I have since been stating their surname is Blackthorne. To verify what the mistake is, is that Julius' middle name is Iron, and I failed to write Blackthorne in after it. My own mistake. And, Lilith's maiden surname was Archanus, the same as her mother's.
Four days had past since the meeting with Syndra. Black had been keeping busy with her job, of course, but she couldn't help but crave Lilith and Julius' company with each passing day. They had been in contact, everyday, of course, but the unintended gap between visits was giving her a slight edge.
"Black? Are you alright?"
With a sharp intake of air, Black was startled out of her reverie by Glasha's concerned tone breaking the silence of the break room, and she hastily straightened herself upright from her slouched over position at the table.
[Sorry, I zoned out.] Black quickly signed before standing up. [Is something wrong?]
"There's a customer asking for a tamer's input about their home's enclosure in their yard, I came to find you." Glasha explained, tapping the tips of her index fingers together, slightly off-put about startling Black like she did. "Sorry for scaring you like that..."
[It's fine, I'll be right behind you. Lead the way.]
In moments, they were greeted by the customer, who immediately caught Black's gaze as someone very similar to Julius. Healthy tanned skin, strong jawline, well kept appearance overall. A human male of the upper class.
"Ah, are you the tamer on staff?" He noticed her appearance within seconds, and turned his head and attention towards her.
[I am, yes.] Black signed, and right away the man raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"My apologies, but is she deaf?" He asked Glasha, who shook her head.
"Goodness, no! Black is mute, she can hear just fine. I can translate for you, if you would like, sir."
"Very well. Now, to business. I have an enclosure prepared for a new pet I'm in the process of getting licensed for owning, I was wondering if an experienced tamer could offer some insight into the design and parameters of the enclosure for me."
[I need to know what type of pet he's going to have first.] Black signed to Glasha, who nodded before turning to offer the translation.
"She needs to know exactly what type of pet you intend to place in the enclosure."
"A Greenback Drake. Male, still young." He replied.
[And how does he intend to show us the enclosure? I don't feel comfortable doing a housecall with him, Glasha.]
"How do you intend to show us the enclosure you've prepared for the Drake?" Glasha chose to omit the latter part of Black's sign language, rightly so, as she decided to be cautious.
"I have a Seeing Crystal prepared, I completely understand the necessity to see things in person whenever possible." He reached into his suit jacket and produced a small pink gemstone between his fingers and presented it to Black. "I take it this sort of magic is new to you, judging by the wariness on your face. Just hold it up to one eye and you'll see the enclosure through it as if you were standing in it yourself."
Black took the stone and did as instructed, peering keenly through the surface and was greeted by a wilderness that appeared stationary despite the movements of her hand to examine her surroundings in the area.
After several minutes of careful examination, she removed the stone from her gaze and returned it to the man before signing to Glasha. [I need to check one thing about Greenback Drakes, I'll be right back.]
"She just needs to verify something about the particular species of Drake you're going to have, she'll just be a moment." Glasha translated, and the man nodded without a word.
Black quickly went into the back of the shelter and went to the archive of books on the creatures that inhabited the continent, and went right for the section on Drakes, the lesser cousins to dragons.
After consulting the encyclopedia's detailing about Greenbacks, she concluded that the man's enclosure wasn't sufficiently sized and lacked key environmental features for such a large reptile species. Since Greenbacks, although native to the country, required a lot of water in their territory since they had a diet of mostly fish and meats from smaller prey. His enclosure had a small pond that even she herself wouldn't bother having a bath in during her hunting trips in the forests around the city.
Snapping the book closed with one hand, she returned with it tucked under her arm before handing it over to Glasha to begin signing to her.
[The enclosure is too small, needs a lot more water, Greenbacks are mostly fish and small game hunters, what he's designed is insufficient. Even I wouldn't have a bath in that tiny pond if I went hunting in there.]
Glasha clutched the encyclopedia to her chest as she turned to the man, and relayed the summary. "She's determined that the enclosure needs to be enlarged, as well as the amount of water in the enclosure needs to be enhanced as well. Greenback Drakes are fish and small game hunters, and rely on a large, well stocked water source for food."
"Very well, I shall rectify the design, and take in your declaration. Thank you."
He offered his hand to both of them to shake, and when he shook Black's hand, she locked eyes with him and felt a chill go up her spine. His gaze felt far too sinister for the situation.
After work, Black decided to spend the evening with her father. She hadn't been to visit him since meeting the Blackthorne's, and figured that the news she was in a relationship was news to share with him.
But, there was one detail she wasn't exactly willing to share with her father, and with a sigh of relief she removed her buttplug, since her habit of discarding all clothing during her trips to the forest was known to her father, so the sight of the large sapphire almost literally shoved up her ass would raise some questions.
Before she left though, Black decided to at least message Lilith and Julius that she wasn't going to be near her phone for several hours at the very least. Within a few minutes, they both gave affirmations, and Lilith even asked if she was going hunting, to which she replied yes.
"Then I wish you good hunting, my dear." The text made her blush, since it was the first time someone had ever said that for her going hunting.
And with that, she left her phone at her beside to charge, and made her way to the roof to fly off to the forests that she prowled to hunt.
Upon arrival at her usual landing spot, she made quick work in removing her clothing and hiding the hastily folded bundle into a hidden gap underneath the roots of a tree.
Now that she was free, she let out a groan as she stretched luxuriously before adopting a quadrupedal stance and made her way through her territory.
It took her a short time to adapt to the smells and sounds of the forest compared to the city, and in that time she purposefully ventured to a specific cave just on the edge of her territory...
"You're earlier than usual, my child."
The rumbling, baritone voice came through the darkness of the cave. In the black space loomed a pair of brilliantly green reptilian eyes, pushing forward until the great black visage of her father, Emerald, almost seemed to melt out of the darkness of the cave mouth as she relaxed at the sight of him above her.
His ram-like horns curled around either side of his head, scratched and marked from centuries of use, his scales, each as large as her head, were encrusted with battle scars of blade and claw from battles long past. Compared to her, he was the size of a city bus, with his wings folded by his sides as he finally emerged from the darkness of his home within the cave, sending out a localized tremor with each footfall.
With a small sideways tilt of his head and a steady staring into her eyes, their respectively piercing gazes stayed locked in the silence of the forest around them as an unseen spell rippled into life between them coming from Emerald's gaze.
"Good evening, father." The Telepathy spell took full effect, and the first thing Black said into her father's mind was to greet him.
"You seem excited by something, I take it you wish to share some news of life in the city with me? Come. Let us hunt in the meantime."
Falling into step alongside her father, prowling on all fours, they ventured off into the trees.
"Since she's occupied in the woods for the time being, I've begun to consider something... different." Julius spoke up to Lilith, who was still in the midst of messaging Black.
"Different how?" Lilith asked without looking up from her phone for a moment as another message dinged in from Black.
"We've been doing the contract for ten years now, and you and I both know that by now things would begin shifting, or questions would be raised. But Black's... different." Julius idly tapped at the screen of his phone, his gaze focused on his finger.
"Meaning?" Lilith lifted her own gaze to stare at her husband curiously.
"I mean she isn't taking to the contract the same way the rest of them have. And we both know how we feel about her, I'm starting to think that maybe we've finally found our girl. She isn't jumping onto us at the first chance she had, and I assure you we've both given her more than a few chances to do so. She's almost... treating this like a real relationship, which was what we've been seeking with this whole contract system."
"So what are you thinking?" Lilith slid her phone away, tilting her head to the side slightly, and her ears perking up with her interest.
"I don't really know just yet. It's too early to make any decisive moves yet." Julius shook his head slightly, still staring at his finger. "I think... for now we should wait to see how she handles things."
"I can work with that. We'll see how things play out from here... for now." Lilith tapped her cheek with her index finger, cradling her elbow with her other hand under her bust, a sly smile on her face.
By the time night had fallen, Emerald and Black had found themselves waiting in the darkness, with him laying down in the brush, and her situated on a tree above him, both lying in wait in silence.
Given her father's size, remaining stealthy as night fell earlier was nearly impossible, but now that they were stationary, their naturally black scales gave them a natural night camouflage. And they both knew it.
And so they waited for over an hour until a herd of late deer wandered into their established killbox, and the both lunged into action.
Emerald's longer reaching neck allowed him to snatch an entire deer into his jaws at the same time that Black got the drop onto her chosen target and viciously grappling with the panicked creature. She started tearing her claws and teeth into the sides of it's neck, coupled with her feet claws tearing at the rump, mixed with stubborn heel jabbing kicks to try and knock the deer off it's erratic panic fueled sprint.
The screaming of the creatures around her were of no concern to her, too focused on the taste of flesh and the scent of blood in her nostrils as she managed to get her hands around the creature's neck and viciously wrenched it to the side with a dull crunching of bones, snapping the deer's neck in a cry of pain and a thudding crash as she tumbled off the creature's back and landed a few feet away near a small pond or very large puddle of water.
With her kill claimed, she rose in a low bipedal stance, one hand still reaching slightly towards her father, who was nonchalantly feasting on his own deer. The rest of the herd had long since bolted to safety, and with that she shoved her claws into the dead deer's flank and started feasting. It was an unspoken agreement between them that when they hunted together, she ate what she could from her kill and left the rest to him. But the entire time they were having their telepathic discussion about her new relationship to the Blackthorne's.
"I understand very little of this 'polyamorous' relationship nonsense, but I at least understand that you're betrothed to them both. Then I bless your mating, and that you bear healthy offspring with the male, Julius."
"Our relationship hasn't reached that point yet, father." Black replied. "It will come with time, which you and I both know can change at any given moment."
"You speak of that... human boy from your education years, do you not?" Emerald questioned, which earned a flash of anger from his daughter in their telepathic link to each other. "Ah... you do."
He was of course referring to her first ever relationship, back in her high school years, with a human boy that eventually ended in bad terms and caused a large degree of bullying during the latter half of her high school career. She had since refused to get involved with any romantic relationship for the five years since then... until now.
"You already lived past that incident's consequences, you needn't dwell on the past like that anymore, let alone such a negative event itself." Emerald spoke sagely to his daughter, since in his perspective, she was still in the early stages of puperty, despite being old enough to be 'legally' considered an adult in the city, she was still incredibly young to him, and thus necessitated guidance and wisdom.
"Enough, father." Black actually turned to stare at him for that comment, chunks of flesh in each hand and halfway to her mouth, still heavily dripping with blood.
"I have said enough, indeed. You should dwell on those words, my child." Emerald replied, idly chewing on his own deer carcass without stopping, despite locking eyes with his nearby daughter, paused in her feasting to glare at him.
Before Black could offer any form of counter argument to her father's words, she felt a faint tremor, which the nearby water rippled in reply to. And immediately the two of them turned to face each other as they waited for the follow up rippling in the pond so they could determine direction at the very least.
The moment the second ripple came, it came from their front, in comparison to them both, but was immediately followed up by another, then more.
Whatever it was... was approaching. And fast.