Based on characters from Fablehaven© by Brandon Mull. The original characters and plot details are my property. No copyright infringement intended.
"Where's Grandma or Grandpa?" Kendra asked Seth.
"Grandma is in the house with Mom. Grandpa is out with Dad and Dale doing routine maintenance stuff and looking for Raxtus," Seth said, still awed by Raxtus' change. He was looking over his friend's new appearance trying to get use to Raxtus the regular guy instead of the little dragon.
"Oh, we should let everyone know that we found you," Kendra said.
"No! Not yet," Raxtus shook his head, suddenly guarded. "I'm not ready for everyone to know I've been found." He realized the way that Seth greeted him that the less people who knew about him the better. He wasn't ready to reveal that he was the avatar of Raxtus the pathetic dragon. At the moment he was just a normal person. It felt better this way.
"I'm sure lots of creatures saw you and me fly over just now," Kendra declared. "All the fairies in the garden saw you. I'm surprised that they aren't all over you? Where are they?" She looked around the yard and couldn't see a fairy anywhere.
"But they only saw the dragon," Raxtus' voice lowered into a whisper. "Maybe a few fairies saw me change, but they will only come tell you guy's. Right?
"Look, I want to understand some things first before we go announcing that I'm found and the spell worked. I'd like to keep it secret for a while that I have a human avatar. Can't I be just one of your friends for a while?" Raxtus asked pleadingly.
"Sure that would be okay with me," Seth answered enthusiastically, ready to perpetrate a hoax at any time. "What is the smallest group that needs to know? Me and Kendra… cause we already know. Then who else can know… Grandma and Grandpa? Bracken? The Fairy Queen?" he listed off names watching Raxtus face for clues.
"I'd like to keep the list short, maybe just you two and Bracken. You can't call me by my name," he said shaking his head. "I'll need another one. Have you got any suggestions?" he asked Seth.
Kendra just stood there gawking at the two schemers, thinking that this was doomed to failure. It was obvious by his statement that he had been thinking about this the entire trip from the cabin. Kendra was surprised that he hadn't disappeared during the flight to keep his secret.
Where were all the fairies that should be in the yard? She looked around the garden again and there wasn't a fairy to be seen anywhere. That was very strange.
Seth liked the new Raxtus. He was going to be fun. Conning everyone into believing he was someone else was going to be so cool. They would never suspect a thing, mainly because there wasn't a reason to suspect anything.
"A name? Hmm…. How does Leander sound? I had a friend with white blonde hair named Leander in the third grade. I like the name Day too. It's kinda neat and strange," he suggested, thinking of the online character he created who had blue eyes and white hair.
"Oooo… put them together. How about Leander Day?" Seth proposed.
"Just as good as any, I guess. Kendra do you have a suggestion?" he asked her.
"No, I don't. It may seem strange but you look like a Leander," Kendra said looking at Raxtus appraisingly. For some reason Kendra remembered that Leander meant lion in Greek. Raxtus looked leonine with his shaggy white mane of unruly hair.
"Then it will do for me," he said smiling. He was happy again. The depressing dragon ego burned away with the flush of human hormones and emotions. His eager teenage body and mind were aching for the adventure of being 'normal'.
"Hi Kendra. Seth. Who's your friend?" Bracken called from behind them.
The three spun around guiltily. Bracken was in the deep shadow of the forest path when he called. He was dressed all in white, and as he walked through the hedge gap into the treeless garden yard he and his long white hair glowed blindingly as the bright sunlight hit him.
"Bracken!" Kendra ran to him and they wrapped each other in a hug. "What are you doing here?" She pulled away and looked at him suspiciously. "I thought you were gone – unavailable," she accused and held him at arm's length for only a moment before she snuggled close to him and took his hand in both of hers.
"I was… but fairies came to the shrine and relayed the message that a small silver dragon was flying over Fablehaven and others reported that he had landed here in the garden," he explained, squeezing her hand lightly as they walked toward Seth and the stranger.
"I thought that I should come. They abandoned the garden at once thinking it was Raxtus. They are all at the shrine apprehensively waiting on my return, hoping they didn't get too close to him. They are still under the impression that I didn't want them around him at all. I didn't tell them otherwise. I wanted to see what was happening," Bracken laughed eyeing the young man suspiciously. He looked uncannily like a large version of Raxtus' fairy avatar, minus the wings.
"That's why there aren't any fairies in the yard. They saw Raxtus and left," Kendra smiled at Raxtus from beside Bracken.
"Bracken this is Leander Day," Seth introduced the two. He leaned toward Bracken and whispered, "It's Raxtus."
"Nice to meet you. Leander is it?" Bracken reached out to shake hands with Leander. He nodded, of course it's Raxtus in his human form, but why a new name?
"Yes, it's Leander. Nice to meet you too, Bracken," Leander smiled shyly at him and shook his hand briefly.
With the brief handshake, Bracken could feel Leander's open and honest feelings of happiness.
"Wow, I guess your secret is still a secret," Kendra whispered, amazed that somehow he had gotten his wish.
"You two look enough alike to be brothers," Seth said glancing back and forth comparing their features. "Except for the eyes."
Bracken's were a silvery blue and Leander's were pale glacial blue.
"Secret? What is going on?" Bracken asked, confused.
"I'd rather just be a human friend right now and not the dragon's avatar. Is that okay with you?" Leander asked Bracken speaking softly.
Bracken thought he seemed afraid for some reason.
"What are you going to tell everyone? People just don't walk into Fablehaven," Bracken said sternly. "Your name had to be written in the register to gain entrance into the sanctuary, at least if you came through the front gate. The fairies thought they saw Raxtus. Where did he go if not here?"
Bracken watched as Leander's expression went from happy and open to gloomy and introspect. Bracken wondered what made him so nervous about revealing himself. True they had kept it a secret that they were going to try to change his avatar but it had worked. He should be happily revealing it to all his friends. He wanted to find out what was making him act this way but out here in the open wasn't the place to have that discussion.
"Well," Seth said already scheming and looking devious as usual. "You look enough alike to be brothers, how about cousins? You could be Bracken's unicorn cousin. You got in through the fairy shrine with Bracken. Fairy friends do that all the time – right? As for Raxtus he went invisible and took off for parts unknown after dropping Kendra off here."
"My cousins are all well known, Seth and the fairies know I came alone," Bracken said rolling his eyes at Seth. "But I think you may be on the right track as far as Raxtus' whereabouts goes. Let's get out of the open before someone sees us." Bracken looked around the yard; there was no one around.
The group headed to the house for more privacy. No one was in the main room so they quietly headed up to the third floor where Seth now had the whole attic room to himself. The room was the former nursery and specially warded to protect children. Since none of them were precisely adults the wards held and no one could overhear or spy on them, though technically Bracken's personal shield was effective even in the garden. This way they were also able to scheme in anonymity, only they knew of Leander's presence in Fablehaven.
"Why do you want to keep this a secret?" Bracken asked as they closed the door.
"I just want to be normal for a while, see how it feels. If everyone knows I'm Raxtus, they will expect me to go back to being a dragon most of the time but I don't want to do that. Can you understand?" he pleaded with Bracken. "This will be the first time in my life I've been anywhere close to normal. I want to enjoy it without a connection to the runt dragon.
"But my fairy magic is all gone," Leander said puzzled and upset.
Kendra noticed that everything he was feeling was very obvious on his face. His face flashed anger, sadness and happiness all within seconds. It was hard to keep up.
"Yes, the fairy magic is gone. The spell deleted it, but you have your human avatar," Bracken said encouragingly. "We knew that there was a big difference between fairy magic and dragon magic but we didn't know if the two types of magic would work at the same time. Since you had no breath weapons and there were other dragon magic things you couldn't do we assumed that the fairy magic either negated or forced your dragon magic into dormancy. I guess we were at least partially wrong since invoking an avatar and reverting to a dragon is part of dragon magic. You have been doing some dragon magic all along," he said with an apologetic shrug. He moved to the table in the center of the room and sat down.
Seth pulled some clothes from his dresser and stood in his wet swim shorts listening to the conversation.
"But I don't feel any magic at all. Could I invoke an avatar simply because I'm a dragon?" he asked bluntly.
"I don't know," Bracken answered honestly. It was an interesting question that he truthfully didn't know the answer to. He had never heard of a dragon without any magical abilities before. Then he thought an unpleasant thought, they probably didn't live very long, dragons were brutal.
"Don't do anything or say anything until I come back," Seth told them. He disappeared into his closet.
"Bracken, will you heal Leander; he has a bad wound on his side," Kendra asked.
"Sure, what happened?" Bracken asked.
"Oh yeah, I guess that would help, huh!" Leander sighed and pulled up his t-shirt. The area around the gash was red and it was healing poorly but no blood seeped from it.
"How did you get that?" Bracken asked but he placed his hands on either side of the partially healed gash not waiting for the answer. It shrunk into a thin red line.
"Swamp troll, I think," he answered with a relieved sigh pulling his t-shirt down.
Seth opened the closet door wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He dropped his wet shorts on the hamper and hopped on his bed. "Okay," he said gesturing magnanimously giving them permission to continue the conversation. He relaxed against the pillows.
They all turned and looked at him.
"What?" he asked, "did I miss something?"
They smiled at him and then Kendra turned back to Leander.
"What?" Seth asked again, now suspicious that he missed something important.
"Can you turn invisible?" Kendra asked Leander, taking a chair next to Bracken.
"I've never tried to be invisible when I wasn't a dragon. I wonder if I can. I wonder if it was fairy magic," Leander cringed. He stood holding the back of the chair next to Kendra.
"Just try it. Can you go invisible now?" Kendra asked casually, seeing the panicked look on his face.
Leander took a deep breath, a weak smile crossed his face, and then he was gone.
"All right! You're invisible Leander," Seth laughed and sat up. He didn't miss anything earlier he consoled himself. They were just messing with him.
"Cool," his voice came from nowhere and everywhere.
"Yah, way cool! Say something else," Seth instructed.
"Um… something else?" the disembodied voice said and soft laughter filled the room.
"I can't tell where you are from your voice. It is all around me. I can't pinpoint your location," Seth said impressed with the trick.
"Can you hear me whisper to Kendra?" The soft whisper tickled her ear but she looked at Seth and saw that he did not hear it.
"You can't tell if I'm right next to you or across the room?" Leander's voice was everywhere.
"No, I can't," Seth said swiveling his head looking around the room.
"I'm right here," Leander said and suddenly appeared sitting next to Seth on the edge of his bed. Startled Seth flinched and tumbled off onto the floor.
Kendra and Bracken laughed as Leander reached out his hand to help Seth up from the floor.
"Scared me," Seth said stating the obvious reaching up for the offered hand. "That doesn't happen often." It took a lot to surprise Seth.
He walked with Leander to the table. They both pulled out chairs and sat with Bracken and Kendra.
"We couldn't hear you walking or moving around. You were silent," Kendra said still chuckling at Seth's embarrassment.
"Man I wish I could do that too. I didn't even feel you move the bed to sit next to me. All I can do is shade walk and that takes darkness and shadows and I still have to be quiet."
Seth was obviously jealous of the invisibility. He didn't know how to use his newest skill and wasn't up for experimenting yet. It was one thing for a dragon to be invisible but as a human, that was something spectacular, at least to Seth.