“Hey, how much would it take to get you to eat this wallace slug?”
Jensen turned towards his disgusting best friend and grimaced.
“A lot more than you have, Kit, I’ll tell you that much”
Kit frowned.
“C’mon, it won’t kill you! Probably. Maybe it’ll live and squirm it’s way out, no harm done.”
Jensen made a gagging sound and shoved him away as Kit laughed loudly and set the slug back on the wall where he’d found it.
It was close to Kit’s birthday. He’d have 9 summers under his belt come sunup. The boys had decided to have a campout in the cave they’d renovated into a fort, playing games they’d snuck out of their rooms after everyone else had fallen asleep.
“It’s a good thing Sill isn’t here, she’d have punched you in the nose.”
Kit snorted at the mention of their third best friend, who had refused to come out, insisting it was too cold, and too wet, and they were too stupid. Which probably weren’t all true, Kit reasoned.
“She ain’t quick enough,” he laughed and put up his small blue fists in mock aggression, “You ain’t quick enough, either! Come at me, short stuff.”
Jensen chuckled and set his drink on the makeshift stone table they’d dragged into the cave. The cave sat 100 feet or so from the Mers River, carved out under an enormous hill in the countryside.
“Listen, idiot, just because you’re 4 measly months older than me doesn’t mean I’m not going to pound you. I have a reputation to uphold as the toughest kid in the great town of Rydaya.”
Kit snorted. “If you were the toughest kid in town, you wouldn’t have let Bento shove you in the pond last week.”
“Shut up, he got his trait.”
“Yah, but he’s an outlier. All he can do is communicate with bugs. Hey, he could have helped me out with that slug! Wait, is a slug a bug?”
“Some outliers are really powerful.” Jensen felt the need to defend himself.
“I’ve never seen a powerful one. Mostly stupid stuff like talking to bugs. Still better than plain old human though, that’s a fact. I’m going to be a powerful wizard, I can tell. I feel the magic. It’s only a matter of time.” He squinted his eyes and wiggled his fingers in Jensen’s face.
Jensen shoved his hand away.
“What do you think you’ll get? Or maybe you’ll be a puny human forever?” Kit grinned.
“Well, nobody’s ever changed before 11, so I don’t even know why we’re talking about it already.”
In truth, the concept of the inherent trait made Jensen a little nervous. He wasn’t sure what he hoped he’d get, if he hoped he’d get anything. The main three options, shapeshifter, magic user and flasher all seemed too weird. Did he want to turn into a bear or a wolf or a lion? Control an element he could kill and be killed with? Have the ability to teleport but risk flashing into space and suffocating? It made his palms sweaty. And being an outlier was even worse. Those rare exceptions got some weird power no one’s ever heard of. As far as he knew, no two were alike. All he knew was, if he didn’t get it by 15, he’d be a human forever. He supposed that wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe he and Kit and Sill would all be humans, and then they could stay together. His ears pinked a little at the thought.
“I said shut up. I’m going to let you off easy, since it’s your birthday, but you better be thankful. Giving me the sweets you brought with you should be enough.” Jensen extended his hand as he spoke and waited as Kit expectedly smacked it out of the way and tagged him lightly in the gut. Jensen laughed and shoved Kit over a rock, causing him to trip backwards, deeper into the cave.
Jensen erupted in laughter, and moved to help Kit out of the mud puddle he’d fallen into when he felt a sharp twist in his belly. He cringed and pushed his palm into his stomach, letting out a little gasp.
“Oh, c’mon, Jens, I didn’t even hit you that hard. Help me up, my shorts are getting all muddy.”
Jensen felt waves of nausea roll up his body, and his breath came shorter as heat began to travel through his body.
“Something isn’t right, Kit. I feel really hot suddenly. I think… I might throw up.”
Kit scrambled up and hurriedly brushed the mud off his shorts.
“Whoa, man, don’t croak on me. You want some water?” Kit moved toward the flask they’d positioned next to the pallet on the floor, but Jensen let out a rough whimper and fell to his knees. His body started to push out pulsing light, first yellow, then orange, then red, as Jensen slapped a hand onto the rocks under him. He had one brown arm slung around his midsection, clutching his belly, and the other shook as it tried to sustain his weight during the onslaught of pain that was ravaging his body. He felt as though he would burst into flame at any moment, his skin itchy and burning, his mouth dry, his body quickly covering itself in sweat.
He snapped his head upwards and waved Kit away jerkily.
“No…Kit…Something’s…not right. You… need to get out…”
“Jensen! What are you saying? Come on, we have to get you to Lucille.” Kit’s eyes were wide with panic. He knew deep inside that even Lucille, the medicine woman from their village, might not be able to help with whatever was happening to his friend.
Jensen felt his body begin to melt away, the skin seeming to evaporate into the air. His bones made cracking noises as they rearranged themselves, and he had a moment of relief as a cool sheath appeared to be smoothing over his burns. He swiped his face across his shoulder, trying to get the sweat out of his eyes to see what was happening as Kit shouted in his ear and pulled on his shoulder. He saw the scales, the beautiful, terrifying gold and silver scales sliding over his molting skin. His mind rejected the reality, but something inside him knew he had to take action or something very bad was going to happen.
He shot his best friend one more panicked look and made a decision.
“I’m sorry, Kit.”
Jensen pushed Kit with much more force than his scrawny 8 year old body should have had and Kit tumbled screaming out of the cave and onto the cool grass outside.
“Jensen!” Kit’s high-pitched, frightened voice sounded scratchy and far away to Jensen’s ringing ears and he felt his body snap past it’s limit. His frame exploded out, giant leathery wings sprouting violently from his back, scales shooting over every inch of his torso. His mouth and nose snapped against his skull as they elongated and separated. His voice cried out in agony once more before his brain mercifully blacked out and he crumpled to the ground. His last sense was of the cave coming down around him, and the sound of Kit’s desperate voice still screaming from outside of it.
Outside, Kit watched as the cave came down around an image that didn’t make any sense to him. Jensen’s body had appeared to grow enormous, bucking against the walls of the cave. The cave splintered and crumbled, leaving a giant pile of boulders and gritty, shifting rocks behind. His heartbeat threatened to pound out of his chest as he climbed up the side of one large stone and dug his hands through the gravel. Droplets of blood and tears wet the ground as he scooped rock away from rock, frantically digging towards his friend. As he clawed into the dirt, he felt a shockwave emit from the ground and a wave of sickness shot up from his belly. Eyes wide, he froze in place.
Oh gods, no.
He felt sheer terror rise inside him and the breaths he could manage to take in became smaller and tighter. He sobbed Jensen’s name twice, three times before collapsing beside the massive pile that contained him. He tasted his pulse on the back of his tongue, battering his throat like a trapped butterfly. His body begin to crack apart and one more sob forced it’s way out before darkness filled his vision.
-------------------------When Kit woke up, it was to the sight of a tall man bending over a human again Jensen. His throat tasted like pure ash, and trying to talk emitted little but a harsh croaking. He forced himself to sit up against the waves of nausea and heaviness that pressed on him, and took one step towards the man before stumbling and smacking harshly against the ground again.
“…eev…im…lone…” He hoped his voice sounded threatening even though it sounded as though a frog were using it. The words triggered a ragged coughing fit and he went limp against the ground, leaning his forehead against the cool earth. Even though the world spun, he weakly lifted his head, trying to get his bearings. He noted only a cozy campfire between him and Jensen, and a battered tan tent before his vision went fuzzy and he had to lower his eyelids to ease his pounding head.
As he looked up again, the man turned towards him with a cocked brow, and Kit caught his first look at his face. His pulse jumped in his throat. He had never seen anyone like this enormous imposing man. He only knew of the two races that lived in Rydaya: the Gontes, the light brown indigenous people of the town, and the Illips, a race that ranged from blue to purple that had emigrated there during a war some five decades before. He hadn’t known any others existed, but this man clearly did not belong to either. His skin, his eyes, his hair, every part down to his short, blunt fingernails were a pure, shiny black. Kit tried to swallow past his fear and reach towards the pallet where Jensen was lying, but lost hope when the man sighed and scooped him up, positioning him back onto his own cloth.
“Are you an idiot?” the man’s voice sounded surprisingly normal to Kit. He expected the deep voice of the abyss, or a trembling demonic ooze meant to intimidate the piss out of him. Which it was decidedly too late for, he thought, cringing as he noted the still damp stains on his pants. Instead, it was the mild tone of an exasperated uncle or an annoyed shopkeep. No longer fearful for his friend for the time being, Kit’s bravery, along with any strength it was providing, suddenly left him and a hot tear squeezed out of the side of his eye, trailing down his temple and into his tousled black hair. He jerked his shoulder against his face, wiping the tear away and swallowed what felt like thick black soot before speaking.
“oo…ah…you?” He managed to strangle out.
Taking a longer survey, he realized they were still next to the cave, but they were lying on thick cloths, arranged around a crackling fire. His gaze flitted to Jensen, lying motionless on his back, the flame casting foreboding shadows against his small body, and then nervously back to the man.
“Here,” the man offered a soggy grey root, “This will help with the healing. Why weren’t you boys in some sort of coven or something when this happened? Letting you turn out here in the wilderness. You’re lucky I was passing through.”
Jensen obediently opened when the man shoved the root against his lips, grimacing at the disgusting bitter taste. His groan of disgust was quickly replaced with a sigh of relief, however, as the root seemed to clean and calm all the thick, crusty dust in his windpipe.
“Is Jensen okay?” his words, able now to escape his throat, came quickly, squishing into each other in his panic, “What happened? Who are you?” He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling this man knew all the answers, even more than the average adult.
The man blinked once and then snorted.
“You’re welcome for saving your lives, punk. What a polite and level headed young dragon.”
“Dragon?!” Kit’s voice broke, causing a spike of pain in his throat as he jerked upward, trying to see more of Jensen. He couldn’t be a dragon. They were huge. And mythical? At least there weren’t any in Rydaya. He was pretty sure he would have noticed someone turning into a giant freaking lizard. His mind spun a thousand miles a minute as he tried to remember everything he’d learned about shapeshifters. He didn’t remember anyone telling him that the transformation was so painful. The thought made his head jerk back up to the man’s face, still cringing away from Kit’s shrill shriek a moment ago.
“Wait. Me, too? Me? Am I a…a…”
“…Dragon. Yes. Are there no dragons in your town, lad?”
Overwhelmed, Kit turned his face to the sky and tried to breathe in deeply and slowly. He felt the man rise and turn back to Jensen. A heavy hand patted his shoulder lightly before the man crossed over and knelt once again beside the pallet his friend lied on. Kit sucked in air, held it, and let it out. He smelled the woods nearby, the river’s mossy scent, the mint of the bushes on the other side of the river. Bread. He blinked and furrowed his brow. He focused a little harder. He felt as though he could smell the bread baking in town, but that was ridiculous. They were a mile away.
“Is there bread?”
The man didn’t turn, but angled his head towards the boy.
“Here? No.”
“But…but I can smell it. From here. Why…why can I smell it all the way from here? Town is…so far away…”
“Dragon senses, boy. Have your elders really taught you nothing about what you may become? Are you from the divisions of the west, where they’ve chased them out in fear of the crop or livestock being eaten? Such ignorance.” He turned back to Jensen, and in the quiet, Kit timidly sniffed again. He could smell the bread. From town. For the first time since he woke up, he grinned a little.
He was a bloody dragon! He’d gotten his trait! At NINE. He couldn’t wait to shove this in Bento’s face when he returned to-
Wait.
There were no dragons in his town. Would the townspeople accept them? They already looked down on him for his blue skin, casting disapproving looks at his friendship with Jensen, a Gonte. He guessed he was allowed to be friends with Sill, since she was also an Illip, as they got way fewer stares when out together alone than he and Jensen did.
“You know when you return, you’ll have to face The Manor.” The man said casually.
“I know. To get my brand.”
When a young human receives his trait, they were required to trudge up to The local Manor, the agency that kept track of traits, to receive a small brand, and be reclassified in the record. The Manor also sometimes helped with interspecies politics and policy.
“That’s right. Since there are no dragons in your town, what d’you think they’ll brand you with?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“D’you think they’ll accept you back?”
At Kit’s silence, the man put down the salve he was using to treat Jensen, and stood, turning towards him. Kit thought of his parents, a loving pair of humans who molded his entire worldview, who took care of him. He tried to imagine what they would say, what they would do. They were both so normal. He curled to his side away from the man and shoved his face into the crook of his arm. He wasn’t sure.
“Y’know, boy, there are a lot of rumors about The Manor. That they use shady tactics to keep track of traits. That they kill those they see as a threat to the magical order. Are you listening, boy?”
“My name’s not Boy,” Kit snapped.
“Oh, well, then young master, if you’d be so obliged?”
“It’s Kit,” he said through his sleeve, his voice muffled and small.
Eidolon began to respond but was interrupted by an awakening Jensen, the boy’s frame shaking as he awoke coughing violently. Kit hastily turned on his pallet to watch as his friend rolled over and dry heaved for a minute before pulling his gasping face up to look at them.
“…eav…him alone.” Jensen panted out.
“Well, you got more of it out than this one,” Eidolon responded dryly, hooking a thumb towards the wide eyed Kit.
“Jensen! Are you okay?” He knew it was a stupid question as soon as it left his mouth but he desperately needed to hear more of his friends voice. He was still half convinced that he had just wished for him to wake up so badly, he’d imagined it.
“I’m…fine,” Jensen rolled painfully upward, trying to ignore the screaming in his body and pushed agonizingly to his feet, “Who are you?”
Eidolon regarded the boy for a moment. He was a small, dirty chestnut colored boy who was clearly about to pass out again, but he kept his feet for the moment, through what Eidolon could only guess was sheer will.
“Sit down, boy, you’re going to fall into my fire. I’m Eidolon. I pulled your grimy butts from that rock pile over there after you turned.”
Jensen flinched as if he’d been punched and sat heavily back onto the pallet as it came back to him. He had turned…into something. Some huge bird or…lizard? But he was only eight summers! How could this happen? Confused and overwhelmed, he let his head fell into his hands, his elbows resting in his lap.
“What…happened to us?” he asked, his crackly voice rising above the sound of the snapping fire.
“First, take this. It’ll help your throat. I’m surprised you can talk at all with the damage from the dragon fire.”
Jensen’s head snapped up and he swayed on his pallet.
“D-dragon?” he whispered.
Eidolon heaved a great sigh.
“I hate repeating myself.”
Jensen’s gaze lingered on the man for a moment before trailing over to Kit. His lip trembled slightly as he took in his friend’s ragged appearance.
“Kit, are you alright? What happened? Did you come back into the cave? I told you to-“ he choked and coughed out a handful of black tissue. Eidolon knelt and all but shoved the wet root into his mouth.
“Oh, warning it’s real gros-oh, you’ve got it in there, you know already.” Kit grinned at his friend, amused at the same grimace that must’ve rested upon his own face minutes before.
“Gods, it’s like eating a wet spider web. Oh, wow.” Jensen found himself able to speak without feeling the hot, acidic slime coming up with it, “It worked. Thank you.”
“I changed, too,” Kit blurted out.
One side of Jensen’s mouth perked up in a half smirk.
“Witch?”
Kit looked at the ground and returned his gaze to Jensen’s face before slowly shaking his head.
“Oh, gods, not both of us,” Jensen dropped his forehead in his hands again.
“How do we know when we’ll change again?” Kit asked.
“Well, it’s more like controlling every aspect of the dragon at once.” Eidolon gestured towards Kit’s elbow that was currently surrounded by a small flame. Kit squeaked and began flailing his arm before Eidolon caught it in his large, dark hand.
“Idiot. Do you feel burning? This is your own fire. It will not harm you, but you must learn to harness it. If you concentrate, you will soon have more control. It will take considerable time to appear as human constantly.”
“How much time?” Kit asked nervously.
“It would probably take 6 months to a year to-“ Eidolon cocked his head as though hearing a far away sound.
“I’ll be right back,” he said vacantly, before rushing towards the woods and disappearing between the trees.
The boys sat in silence for a long while before looking up at each other.
“Did…did you know dragons were real?” Kit asked quietly.
Jensen hesitated.
“Yes, sort of. I got ahold of one of the manor’s documents by mistake once, when they were visiting my father. I saw that dragon shifters had been banned from the town. Too dangerous. I had completely forgotten. I never thought that we would…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…wasn’t sure if the document was real. I couldn’t believe it,” he paused, his gaze trailing up from the ground and meeting the other boys’, “I believe it, now.”
They stared at each other across the flickering light,
Eidolon’s calm voice penetrated the silence.
“Well, boys, you have three months to return to your homes.”
They both gaped up at him where he stood beside the fire.
“We…we can’t. We have to learn to pass, first,” Kit stammered out.
“Well, you’d better learn fast then,” Eidolon smiled cheerily.
“But before, you were saying 6 months to a-“
“Don’t interrupt, boy.”
Eidolon dropped a large satchel at their feet. They stared at the bag for a dazed moment before raising their eyes to his face.
“You’ve got three months. If you don’t return to your town on that day, I shall find you and return you myself.”
Kit blinked rapidly up at the man, bewildered by this sudden change.
“Why do you even care when we go back?” he asked heatedly, flustered by the mans sudden attitude.
“Don’t ask too many questions, boy, or I’ll feed you to the dragons.”
Kit screwed up his face.
“You’re the one that saved us in the first place, you crazy old man!” he yelled.
“Well, that was before you started talking, wasn’t it?” Eidolon yelled back.
Kit fell back onto his pallet and covered his face with his hands.
“How will we even…How are we supposed to…”
Jensen stood shakily from his cloth and crossed to lower beside a trembling Kit. He pulled Kits hands away from his face, and replaced them with his own, cupping the sides of his head in his palms. He gripped his ears, twining his fingers through Kit’s thick black hair, and looked deep into his eyes.
“Kit. We have to do this. We can’t go back until we know we can pass. Do you trust me?”
“Jensen…our parents…If the wilderness doesn’t kill us, which it definitely will, my mom will when we get home.” Jensen heard the shaky fear beneath the joking words.
“Kit,” he shook him gently, “Do you trust me?”
A tear rolled down the side of Kit’s face, and he sniffed.
“Of course I do, you idiot.”
“I’ll protect you.”
Kit stared into Jensen’s eyes for a long moment before groaning and letting his head fall back.
“We’re going to die.”
Jensen grinned.
“Eidolon, do you have-“ Jensen tensed as he looked around the campsite. There was no way he could have made it back to the woods in that short a time, but he was nowhere to be found. The tent was gone as thought it had never been, the stake holes already filling in with dirt.
“He was just standing…”
Kit dragged the satchel towards them and opened it to reveal a tent, supplies, tools, and a piece of parchment with the words “And for all the gods’ sake, learn to control your fire” scrawled across it.
They turned to share a bewildered stare and Kit blurted out, “What in the nine hells just happened?”
-------------------------
12 years laterSill Marong was dressed to kill. She fluttered her lashes at herself in the mirror and grinned at the visage she made. She was wearing a dress she’d invented herself. To wear it was to be folded up in the warmest, coziest wintertime sweater and sweatpants, complete with her yuletide socks. To view it from outside, it was a snazzy red dress, clinging to the most important curves, tilting her breasts and thighs toward the viewer. She had made sure the dress appeared dripping in dazzling sparkles. You could pull the wallet right from their pocket if you’re sparkly enough, she thought with a chuckle. She wiped the grin from her face and practiced some sultry looks, turning in the mirror to make sure the glamour looked convincing. If she was recognized, it would blow her whole operation. Her target was a woman, and she felt a sting of disappointment that she wasn’t trying to seduce the woman, but simply rile her enough to let her guard down. To do that, she was going to have to target the male half of the couple, as Lilinda was notoriously jealous. Not in small part due to the fact that Lilinda’s fiancé Liam couldn’t keep his dick in his pants if someone taped the poor thing to his leg.
Sill had borrowed the face and body of a friendly merchant from a few towns over, where she’d spent some time as a teenager learning advanced potions. The shopkeep, Andrea, was a sweet young mother who Sill knew would never have wandered into Rydaya, meaning she was safe to assume her identity for a night. Andrea knew about her ruse and happily provided the portion of hair and dead skin required for the spell, laughter in her eyes. She had made Sill promise to return with the results, and turned back to her till, seemingly unbothered that a 20 year old would be parading around with her face. Thank goodness there was less stigma around Magick these days, Sill thought. In the old days, a simple spell like a glamour might have sent the townspeople dashing for a cross and a pitchfork. Or gods forbid, a noose.
She studied the eyes in the mirror. An ethereal mixture of crystalline blues and mossy greens, Andrea’s eyes had always brought to Sill’s mind a pixie pond, and in her mind, that made Andrea the pixie Queen. She’d told her such once and earned a wide smile and a free cinnamon bun. What was Andrea actually doing at this moment, she wondered? The woman in the mirror was tall with plump, inviting breasts, a small amount of belly fat and a short black pixie cut. She glanced down at her, or Andreas, thighs, the sway of her hips waning down into a set of long, luscious legs. Andrea had once grumbled about those sturdy thighs, the standard drivel about needing to lose five more pounds or whatnot. Sill shook her head. Could women not see themselves?
The real Andrea was most likely tucking her young one into bed, reading him a story, then going to lay with her husband and talk about the day. Sill was almost wistfully envious, but she knew the domestic life wasn’t for her. At least not yet, she thought with a small smile. Maybe someday. But for now, there was work to do.
She checked her lip stain once more, and then folded everything back into her infinibag, a purse she had rigged to teleport items back to her home. She swung out of the bathroom and took in the state of The Estate, one of only two pubs in Rydaya. Sill was pretty sure the full name was The Royal Green Estate of Clubs or something fancy along those lines, but everyone here just called it The Estate.
Rugged brown tables congregated loosely on either side of the room, huddled between chairs pulled up by stumbling, cheerful townsfolk. A bright green feather bobbed above the sea of hoods and hair-dos and Sill felt her face melt into a soft smile. Edward {last name} slapped a beefy hand on the rough top of the darkened oak table at which he sat. As he leaned back in his booth, fat chunks of foam, likely from the many ale he’d had this evening, shook out of the fiery truss of his lengthy beard. It reminded her of a playful dog who’d escaped his bath to torpedo into anything worth ruining with dog smell for the day. Assuring her route wouldn’t take her past the hat befeathered gentleman, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. It wouldn’t do to have Jensen’s father see her. He could always see through her glamours. Although someone needed to be able to, or else she’d have killed someone by high school, she supposed. Once in a tantrum, she’d accidentally shapeshifted into a duck, resulting in 3 hours of pure quacking panic until Edward (affectionately nicknamed Teddy by those close to him) finally happened to walk by. After what she considered a rude amount of time laughing, and joking to trade her in for a goose, he’d helped her change back to human form. She shuddered remembering having duck genitals. It was not an experience she hoped to ever repeat. Normally, she’d settle down next to him and trade a few low-brow jokes, but Teddy wasn’t going to approve of her plan, such as it was. And she’d truly had enough of people doubting that she knew what she was doing for one day.
She swung around one of the wooden banisters close to the bar, and leaned on a bent wrist, beaming up at the bartender on duty.
“Howdy, Fred.” she purred. She didn’t see Liam yet and she wanted to practice her sultry voice. You can’t lure without the purr, her aunt Linda had always told her.
She knew she’d made a mistake when Fred’s head jerked slightly to the side, a faint, polite smile on his face.
“Sorry, have we met?” his eyebrows trailed upward as the gears turned in his head, trying to place a face with a name.
“No, I heard someone say it earlier.” She smiled sweetly and quickly changed the subject. “Can I get a Leaping Lizard and an extra large cup of ale?”
“Sure thing. Be right up.” He smiled toothily, relaxed again. Maybe he believed her, maybe he didn’t, or maybe he was a bartender and leaned towards not asking questions. She liked that about bartenders.
Liam walked out of the bathroom and Lilinda swooped in from nowhere as far as Sill could tell. Waiting in the wings in case someone was trying to scope her man, she guessed. Sill rolled Andrea’s eyes. As if anyone is waiting in the wings. Well, except me, she thought with a grin. She grabbed the drinks from Fred, tossed some cash on the bar and thanked him cheerily before heading in the right direction. Well. Right in her opinion. And who else’s mattered? The glint of her grin reflected a white light shining from the corner of the room. Her glance flitted over, but among the movement, she couldn’t tell where it came from. A dull crack escaped the well of her shoulders as she straightened, leaning her neck to the side and appreciating the stretch. She straightened and strode towards the couple.
-------------------------Jensen ground a whisk into the glass bowl in front of him fitfully, unaware or maybe just apathetic of the grimace plastered on his face. He flicked his wrist in a practiced fashion, scooping the remnants of dry flour into the plasma of eggs and butter until the rolling dough became the familiar visage of chocolate chip peppered dough. He yanked the silver cinnamon shaker from the custom baking shelves Kit had built him for his birthday, quickly flipped it in his hand, and flicked it into the batter before shoving it back onto the shelf. Baking came naturally to Jensen. He was a decent cook, he mused, pulling a pan out with one hand and grabbing his homemade greasing oil with the other. Cooking and baking were NOT the same thing, he thought with exasperation, stretching up to his tiptoes to retrieve his cookie molds from the cabinet above his head. If he had to field one more request from Sill to cater meals for her and her musical troup, he was going to get it tattooed on him. He snickered, suddenly picturing Sill’s face if he were to yank up his shirt to reveal, “BAKING AND COOKING ARE DIFFERENT, FOOL”, in giant red letters on his midriff. Hell, he mused, if it’s to mess with Sill, Kit might go in on matching tats. The thought made him grin and he dragged his chin over his shoulder in an attempt to wipe away the errant flour that had found it’s way there. It’s not as if Sill weren’t forever dining on his sweet rolls and cinnamon buns. She knew he’d been an apprentice at his fathers bakery, working his way up all the way to partner. The work had sparked a love in him, of creating and inventing, of feeding the people he loved. In Jensen’s mind, there was no comparable feeling to the excitement in his loved ones eyes when he delivered them a delicious treat. It was a way for him to express himself when he had always struggled with the words. Sometimes he could physically feel the impenetrable distance between him and the folks in the town. Hiding your true self for 12 years will do that to you, he thought with a weary sigh. It was a fragile line. He jerked his shoulder as he kneaded dough, as though shrugging off the impossibility of the problem. Since Eidolon had abandoned them near the campsite, Jensen felt like a turtle on the beach, punished by the harsh sun each time he popped his head out of his shell. Four moons had passed before they’d returned to the campsite a decade back. A month past the deadline, he thought. Still less than the old man had thought at first.
His thoughts were interrupted by the clattering of iron. He swung around, losing his footing on some of the flour forever littering his kitchen, finding his chin smacked onto the brick below him. Onion, his aged Tabby, padded up to him, poking her little sandpaper tongue against his nose. Jensen sighed. The power of a dragon, the soul of a klutz.
Back in her own body, Sill waltzed into the brick-washed expanse of Jensen’s kitchen. She tossed a small parcel onto his countertop then surveyed the room, hands fisted on her hips. Where were those idiots? She knew Jensen was out of practice by now, the short hand long past the 7. And she had kit’s solemn promise that his string of lovers could be intermissioned. Her gaze was drawn south when a fat, tawny lump nuzzled her ankle. One corner of her mouth perked up as she squatted to scoop Onion into her arms. Plucking her up like a mother retrieving an unconsenting toddler, she shifted as Onion found ground in the crook of her arm.
“What a beauty queen,” she purred, leaning in to nuzzle Onion’s nose.
Her mind flashed briefly to the pond where they’d found Onion. She’d been a miserable brown lump, and had covered Kit in wet, muddy, kisses the whole way home.
How lovely to reside in a place where her most precious memories were just down the lane. She made a mental note to add that to the list of reasons Kit should stay. There are no ponds in Arivnia, she’d bet. She supposed there had to be bodies of water anywhere…but would they glisten with blue and green sparkles in the night like in Ridavin? Would they remind him of learning to swim and his first kiss and catching lilyworms in the dead head of summer? She thought not.
She was very close to done feeling smug about her correctness when she tripped over a face-down Jensen.
“Ough,” She grunted, gracefully.
“Ditto,” he mumbled, rubbing his head.
“What are you doing, you infant?”
“Oh, choosing to lie on the floor. Felt like the time to get kicked in the bleeding head,” he quipped back sourly.
She laughed, hooking her arm around his to pull him up.
Jensen groaned as he lifted his body from the ground, rubbing his thigh where it had knocked against the counter.
“Do you often get taken out by your own kitchen?” Sill grinned playfully, arms crossed.
“It was…I heard a noise and i thought…well, but it was Onion, she just snuck up behind me and…”
As Jensen fumbled, Sill chuckled and relinked her arm around his, walking him towards his sitting room near the kitchen.
“Listen,” Sill started, “I saw the BEST dress at a shop in Livtown. It was the exact color of your seeing amulet,” She noticed his flinch, continued on, “I was hoping you’d let me see it to see if it went with my eyes,” She batted said eyes at him keenly.
“My amulets aren’t for you to compare dressing gowns, Sill.”
She turned to hide her smile.
“Come on, Jen! Let me just see it for a moment, then we’ll pop it back in, tick of the clock, that’s it.”
“I’ve…loaned it out to a friend. Leave me be, Sill, they’re my amulets. I get to decide who-”
“Oh, enough!” She cried. She strode into the kitchen and back, tossing the satchel she’d brought in onto his lap.
He let the brilliant green stone drop into his hand, his eyes shooting up to hers before incredulously back down.
“How? Sill, please tell me you didn’t hurt anyone,”