Chapter Five

Izora

Nycto and I stayed up all night talking and waiting out the storm. Waj wound between our words, coming in and out of the nesting room as if we might suddenly have great need of him. Eventually, Nycto waved him over for a brush down and some dried fish that was hidden in a leather bag somewhere inside the nest. Once the dotter was content, we talked some more. The memories the claiming vows left me with only made me want to know more about Starscale 1. Starscale 2 and 3 also, but Nycto had never bothered to visit those.

"I hatched here," he shrugged. "Sometimes they try to move wild dragons around between worlds, but it doesn't work so well. When they built 2 a lot of wild dragons flew over on their own but only a few handfuls have gone to 3. They gave up on relocating any of us themselves. Even if someone was nice enough to let themselves be moved, they just came right back home when the townies were done fooling around. There aren't a lot of rules to being a wild dragon except stay out of the nests of others and no one fucks with eggs – any egg. We really do our best not to hurt the townies."

"Townies are dragons who aren't wild?" I asked.

"Sort of. It's not a nice term generally, but it's what they're called. The wild dragons see them as softer – more fragile and egglike. I think egglike is the best way to explain it. Then again, we can afford to be kind. Townies have stiff penalties if they purposefully harm one of us. Whereas we could gobble up a trespasser and no one would bat an eye."

"Has that happened?" I asked.

"Not in my lifetime. Generally, we don't eat other dragons. Well, it did happen once on 2 a couple decades ago but that's because a drunk gladiator trampled on eggs. They didn't really find any of him left besides his gold wristwatch in a nest years later."

I flinched involuntarily. Egg smashing was always a crime punishable by death wild or not. Nycto nodded at my flinch and rested his head on my shoulder. I slid my hand over his and he turned it palm up to lace our fingers together. He kissed my shoulder and one thing led to another which ultimately led to Waj slinking out of the room as we slid into position to make love again.

The storm went and another came in. I lost count of days as we marked the nest and each other as our territory, he showed me around the house, and Waj showed off all his tricks which mostly involved food. He might be a dotter, but the little swimmer had the appetite of a dragon.

We did household chores together, cleaning up after our meals and polishing up the slide that our first encounter left scratched and gouged. Surprisingly, Nycto had plenty of food from town in his pantry and fridge.

"They bring me food if they think I'm not using enough of my food points," he shrugged when I asked him about it. "Cheese is always good. I hardly go into town, but there is a minimum of points they want everyone to spend. I thought they'd be glad I hunted and gathered, then they could save food for the others."

"They just want you to remember you're a part of the flight too," I said, gently.

"I'm not complaining about it. I just didn't think they'd bother too much."

"The Starscales bother themselves with their flight mates' wellbeing more than some wolf packs back on Earthside."

"What do wolves have to do with it? I mean besides the wolf pup here."

"Wolf packs back home like to tell themselves they work better as a group than any other species. There's really only one fraction of a pack that does anything close to what you all have here. It's this town called Heartville. I don't think they have a points system or anything, but no one does without at all. Teddy, he's one of our crew members, has a brother and some other family that lives there. He talks about it a lot."

"He's probably homesick," Nycto offered up as I fried up a few grilled cheese sandwiches.

Waj climbed up my leg and clung to my hip.

"Can he eat cheese?" I asked Nycto, glancing over my shoulder at him stretched out naked and on his belly on the kitchen table.

"It hasn't killed him yet," he shrugged.

"Well, he'll have to wait until it's done cooking."

More than a week of days slipped through our fingers. I tried to remember to contact Castor every day, but wasn't great at keeping track of sunrises and sunsets while dwelling under Nycto's nest. We might have truly gone on like that forever if not for the miniature earthquake caused by an anxious visitor.

One of the items all of Nycto's food deliveries included were frozen pizzas. My mate liked to add wild toppings he foraged in the woods to make them tastier. We were just about to sit down to dinner when something heavy banged against the trapdoor, sending Waj out of his chair at the table to hide under it.

"Does Starscale 1 have earthquakes?" I asked, grabbing the tea pitcher before it was overturned.

"No, it was designed better than Earth was," Nycto said, pushing his chair away from the table. "What day is it?"

"Friday," I said after glancing at the phone.

"Shit!" He cursed and sprinted off. "I'm okay, Mom! I'm alright!"

Waj peeked out from under the table and raised one paw in the direction of the door as if I should follow him. The dotter was right. I wasn't about to let my true-mate face an angry wild dragoness alone.

"She's not angry. She's worried," Nycto cut into my thoughts over our link.

Normally, he took the back doorway out of the house, but I made it to the entryway just in time to see him scramble up the slide and push the trapdoor open. He was tugged out by someone with red scales.

"Why didn't you come!? Too many suns have passed! You could've been eaten! Stuck somewhere! Captured by townies!" Her meaning washed over my brain too.

Bloody Frost in a pit of cannibals! I was on the flight link of the wild dragons of Starscale 1! Her communication didn't come solely in words. It came in scents and sounds and images as I scrambled up the slide to join them.

"Mom! Mom!" Nycto shouted over her worried rambles. "I'm alright! I'm sorry I lost track of time. I met Mine!"

Her big golden eyes turned on me and I froze for a second. Then, like an idiot, I reached out a hand to shake one she didn't have. Much to my surprise, she raised one massive, clawed paw and put it on top of mine in greeting.

"This is Izora. He's a healer and my mate. We just lost track of time," Nycto explained.

She leaned forward and sniffed the top of my head before sitting down on her haunches inside the nest. She moved her tail to reveal a deerlike creature that had both antlers and a pointed horn in the middle of its head. I was about to ask who crossbred a unicorn and a deer but didn't have time before she snapped off the horn and handed it to me with the point face down as if it was an ice cream cone.

"The stuff inside is the best tasting," Nycto said.

"Is it safe to eat raw?" I asked him over our mating link.

"Hasn't killed anyone here," he shrugged.

"Thank you," I said aloud to my mother-in-law.

The horn was filled with marrow and that I ate at first out of politeness and then because they were right, it was rich and fatty, with a trace of gamey taste one didn't find often back in Moonscale London.

"I'll grab our pizza and we'll eat up here with you, Mom," Nycto said, leaning against her massive side for a moment before disappearing down the slide into the house again.

"Sorry to make you worry about Nycto," I said because I always had hated awkward silences.

"Safe," the word came across the flight link. "He safe. You safe. All okay. That will make a good drinking horn. That's what Nycto uses them for."

"Thank you again," I said aloud as Nycto scurried back up the slide.

I almost said we should've made more pizzas but realized his mother had brought her own food along. Perhaps it started as food for her son if something had gone wrong inside the house, but it served as her meal as we ate our pizza. Nycto and his mother spoke and I mostly listened while I ate.

After dinner, all of us drifted off. It was a habit I was quickly picking up from Nycto. A good nap afterwards was the only thing that made an excellent meal even better. My dreams were strange and thick as if I could run my hands through the webbing that held them all together. I dreamt of flying upside down while the stars tried to shoot me out of the sky as if the whole world was an old arcade game.

"It's the mushies," Nycto whispered to me. "I forgot townies didn't eat them for food. It'll be okay."

Maybe I wasn't dreaming at all! Were the stars really trying to shoot me down? I clung to Nycto's arm until I spotted the slide and made to dash down it. His mother caught me before I could escape! Her paw rested over both of my legs! Was that her real plan? Was I her real dinner?

"Think about your problems. It'll distract you. You're not the first townie to have a bad head after eating them. They're not food for you. For my son, it is easy to forget you're a townie – at least in your stomach."

Problems? What problems did I have except for the stars trying to shoot me?!

"Your people want elf doors," she reminded me. "Stay still and think. It will help you, mate of my son."

"The stars are trying to shoot me!" I shouted back at her over the flight link.

A massive red wing stretched out over both Nycto and I. He held me tight, not letting me up to go inside away from the literal shooting stars.

"I'm so sorry, mate. I'm sorry. I forgot about the mushies and the townies. I always eat them. Everyone here eats them. I'm so sorry. I'm such a fucked-up mate! I've poisoned you."

"No, good mate," I patted his arm and pulled him closer. "If I sleep will this shit stop?"

"Maybe, I don't know," Nycto whispered in my ear as I squeezed my eyes shut.

I drifted in and out of the waking world. Each time I came up for air Nycto was still whispering apologies under his mother's wing. She purred above us as if to soothe us both with her song. It worked a little. At least I knew she wouldn't let me walk off the side of the nest and plummet to my death. I barely finished the thought before I was gone again.

I came to outside the nest and realized I hadn't come to at all. I was lost somewhere inside my head or inside the mushies. Frost in a toilet. This sucked! People did this for fun!?

The forest around me was dark and dense. The trees moved in circles as if they all thought their neighbors were a maypole to dance around. A woman with hair as crimson red as the scales of Nycto's mother stood in the middle of a clearing next to a transparent door. I sprinted over to her, hoping the door would lead me to the world of the waking, but she held up a hand for me to stop. I stopped and waited for her to speak. She only nodded in the direction that her palm faced. I turned to see a silver dragon ghost or spirit. Maybe it was a Frost-damn hologram for all I knew. A thin silver line ran between the silver dragon and the woman with the red hair. The dragon followed the line until it was back inside of her. She glanced at the door next to her and shook her head. That wasn't the door for me.

She turned on her heels and walked away. The wind and the dancing trees ruffled her long hair just enough for me to notice the points of her ears sticking out through her crimson locks.

"Do you make doors perchance?" I asked her.

"I did. My descendants do," she said, softly. "I do now, but not in the land of over there. I am over here."

"Where is over here? Wait!? Am I dead?!"

"Not dead," she chuckled. "Just lost. Probably tripping on something. The high and the dead always seem to get confused and end up here. This is my grove. These are my trees. They all died with me, you know, but I saved the eggs."

"Are you a dragon or an elf?" I asked as I followed on her heels.

"Bold of you to assume that I am one or the other. Some of us are both. Even my dragon's ears are pointed."

"What's your name?! See, my crew came from Earthside and we're trying to figure out how to connect these worlds we're on now to the Other World gateway network. It seems you make doors, and we could really use the help. They don't really do money over there, but they trade a lot and I'm sure they'd be glad to pay you something for your trouble."

"I am a dead queen. I died saving the eggs of many. I died so that my magic might pour through the veins of my clan and so it has. So it does. You must find them, I'm afraid. I can only make doors here now. Mostly I make them for those who show up intoxicated like you have. Where will you go? Back to the world of your birth or back to your mate?"

"My mate!" I spat out the words.

What a fucked-up question! I wasn't going back to Earthside and leaving Nycto behind. Mushies aside, our lives blended together into a perfect tapestry.

"Good answer," she nodded. "He'll have an egg soon. He'll need your help."

She tilted her head as if looking right into whatever my soul was made of.

"Your egg will hatch before the egg that you listened to last," she said.

"What's your name?" I asked her again.

"I gave it away too. Now, go home."

"How do I find your clan?" I asked as she waved a hand and a door became solid in front of me.

"How do you find anyone?" She smiled softly. "Ask about dying worlds. We had humans too. They killed our world but not before killing themselves off and leaving us to deal with the mess they made. My death made the escape of my people and their eggs possible. Someone must remember us if everyone is still using our doors."

She shoved me through the door and I woke up in the nest with Nycto's head resting on my chest. He and his mother were both asleep. My heart pounded in my ears. Pounded so loudly that I expected Nycto to startle awake at the sound.

"Was that a trip or a vision?" I poked my dragon.

The scaley guy was curled up with his head on his tail and tucked under his wing. He wasn't asleep either and I didn't want to know what he saw inside his inner sanctum that made him hide his eyes.

"Vision," he said. "Definitely vision."

Well damn.

I peeked my head out from under my mother-in-law's wing. It was proper night now. The corners of my mouth turned up in a fuck-me-grin. It wasn't even night when I imagined the stars trying to shoot me out of the sky. The real fuck-me was tomorrow I'd have to make a trip back into town to tell the others what I saw. It wasn't something I was willing to explain over the phone or flight link. If I were closer to the ship and my clinic, I'd have drawn my own blood for medical research, but it wasn't next door anymore. Instead, I hugged Nycto closely and kissed the top of his head. It was a bloody miracle that we made it this long without me eating a damn mushie and tripping the scales off my balls. In the future, I'd have to be more careful.