Chapter Ten

Elio

I was the first to the landing field. It was the middle of the night and that bought me time. There was so much to explain, and I wasn't sure Uncle Hush would be friendly to the visitors. Sure, he agreed for me to invite them out, but he blamed the Moonscales for the Starscales flight from Earthside. I didn't believe that for a second. None of the official records or stories mentioned them by name. The records talked about war after war and a few megalomaniacs masquerading as human governments.

The ship appeared to be a water vessel that just so happen to sail through space. My star scale vibrated again. It was heating up quickly. I swore under my breath. Why was I so nervous? I was the one who knew exactly what was going to happen when Fred Moonscale walked off that ship.

"There's a teensy chance he'll remember," my dragon said, standing ready for whatever happened when the ship landed, and its inhabitants disembarked.

He wouldn't remember. The living almost never remembered what happened when they visited the Other World that deep. Once we went into the lands that belonged to the dead it was almost a guarantee that coming back to Earthside would cloud our memories. Well, for most people. We Starscales had one trick up our sleeves and half the time it actually worked out in our favor.

The ship landed beautifully between the two strips of purple star grass used to mark the parking spots. Most first timers couldn't slide in perfectly on their first try. Was Fred flying the ship? My heart fluttered and my star scale sizzled under my shirt. I rubbed it. It was scorching now ready to touch upon --- I stopped myself from thinking too far into the future. For all we knew, they'd come out ready to fight. Freddie wasn't the only one to see the message after all. He was the only one the starscan would work for, but that didn't mean much. Magic was fickle and fate fucked everyone over with its cactus dick eventually.

I braced myself for the door to open. It didn't. My dragon cocked his scaley orange head to the side after a few heartbeats passed. What were they waiting for? An invitation? A knock? Some water to swim in? How much had changed in the thirty years since I last saw Fred and Lotus Moonscale? My fingers trembled. I squeezed the traitorous digits into fists to calm them down. They'd have to come out eventually. I'd have to cross my fingers that I'd have a moment alone with Fred before the world exploded with dragons and their questions. There wasn't much excitement around the three worlds these days and a visiting ship all the way from Earthside would definitely stir everyone up. Dragons both excelled and failed at being bored.

"Knock on the door," my dragon suggested, unfurling his wings glad that I wasn't wearing a stupid shirt to be ripped to shreds.

That's why not many of us bothered with shirts. Even our women barely bothered with them, because our dragons wouldn't stand for it most of the time. Our forms were one and sharing control of your own body meant having to find a middle ground on how much of it to cover. Most didn't mind the shirts, but they also didn't mind shredding the backs of them when they wanted a winged human form.

I took a deep breath and pressed a hand over my star scale. It was scorching, but the throbbing had stopped. The pain was from the activation. I knew enough about true-mate responses to have expected the pain. The heat was less bearable than I thought. It seeped into my skin and spread across my chest and down my stomach as if it meant to warm me up for Fred. Ignoring it, I bounced on the balls of my feet and propelled into the air. The ship's name read "Medwin 2."

"What? Did they eat the first Medwin?" My dragon laughed at his own joke as we approached the ship's door.

"Let's hope not," I whispered back to him before I knocked.

The sound of my orange knuckle scales knocking against the metal door echoed around the landing field. A few others, including my brother, had gathered at the edges of the field. Sighing, I knocked again, louder. There wasn't any keeping their landing on the down low now anyway.

No answer. Had they sent a ghost ship to investigate us? Was it a drone? Were they preparing their weapons? Sighing, I knocked one more time, as loud as I could. My ears rang with the sound of metal against metal. No answer still.