Chapter Twenty

Elio

The crew members of the Medwin 2 were restless. Castor had kept them inside except for short trips outside into the landing field for some fresh air. I'd never say it, because it might undermine his authority, but watching another omega boss all these alphas around lit something up inside me. They might not have liked his orders, but they followed them. They trusted him to lead them. He'd gotten them this far. So, his judgement was probably sound.

While Fred dug into breakfast, I followed Castor to the coffee pot. I wanted to give him a heads up about a few tiny things when he finally did take his crew off the Medwin 2.

"Did the Moonscales ever have a scale like that?" Castor asked in lieu of good morning.

"Yeah. I'll get you copies of those records if you want to see them. You all had crescent moons on your foreheads when you first came over. It was before Frost and Juda if the records are to be believed. Sometimes they seem one hundred percent right and then other times it seems impossible that one species – the humans that is – fucked up so many lives over and over and no one just up and offed them all. I know, I know. Marsin always says that would make us as bad as them, but we burn fire ant hills because they'll hurt us."

"I'd like to see those," Castor grinned, passing me a light blue mug full of dark black coffee.

Its warmth spread into my palms and its deep, bitter aroma stirred more of my brain to life. The first drink hit my soul in all the right spots, and I let out a happy sigh. Good coffee usually made for a good day.

"I'm going to take Fred over to the Star Room today."

"Where all the scales come and go from?" he asked.

"Yeah," I nodded and took another drink of the bitter brew. "I'd like to be alone with him."

"And the rest of us don't have the scales. So we couldn't get in anyway."

"Has Teddy's come up yet?" I asked.

"I don't know," Castor admitted. "He keeps his shirt on, and I haven't asked him to flash me."

"If it hasn't, it will eventually," I said. "We take our members with their children. They're still Moonscales or whatever too, but they're Starscales now."

"What should I know about taking the guys out into the city?" Castor asked, taking a long swallow of his own coffee. It smelled diluted with a lot of cream. It was as if none of them really liked the taste of coffee at all and merely used it as a vehicle for sugar and dairy.

"Be nice. Use the sidewalks when you're on foot. People will have questions. You don't have to answer them, but they'll have them. If you go where the purple buildings are…" I bit my lip uncertain of how to explain it. "It's a free love area. Not that someone will jump your bones without consent, but that part of the town is sort of clothes optional and it's not unusual to see people having a really good time out in the open there. Of course, it's an adult only neighborhood and you're free to visit there, but I thought I should give you a head's up about it."

"Don't tell the rest of them. Tell your mate what you want, but not the rest of them if you can help it. I'm all for free love, but I don't want to have to chase after my crew while they're trying to rut to victory or however, they're saying it now."

"I'll leave that up to you, but if they wander around on their own someone will discover it sooner or later. Also, birth control and heat shots are available at any clinic for anyone who needs them."

"You guys aren't very different from us, huh?" Castor asked.

"My ancestors didn't want to leave Earthside. They just didn't want to fight with the humans anymore. So they left and built us a home. Then they had to build two more around our purple sun as the population grew," I grinned. "So I think most things will be familiar to you and your crew."

"Thank you for not being the warmongering dragon king Clarence feared you were."

"Clarence is your flight leader, right?" I double checked.

"Yeah. That's him. Sunny the one who matches you, is his second born. Medwin, his mate and the dragon who I named the ship after, is pressing him for a third kid, but we'll see how that goes. Your Uncle Hush visited yesterday but didn't seem very keen on talking to him or anyone else. He mostly sniffed down the hall to make sure you were there and left after a cup of coffee. We put extra sugar in his. He drank it without complaining, but you could tell he didn't enjoy it."

I laughed and patted Castor on the shoulder. He caught onto things quickly. Uncle Hush wasn't a bad guy, but he was an annoying old fucker at times. Maybe all leaders were, but since all three of ours had their true-mates they didn't care much if the rest of us found ours or not.

"Good luck today," Castor clapped me on the shoulder. "I don't know the whole story, but from what you told me I know enough. To get some of these alphas to believe anything that's not literally dancing on the tips of their noses. They're all good guys on the ship, but they're dense."

"Which of them are your ex?" I arched a brow.

"None of them. All my exes I'd have pushed off the ship halfway through the trip," Castor smirked, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"Should I check the ship's charter for their names?" I teased him.

"You can. It's all over the Earthside news. I don't know why everyone's so surprised we actually made it. You all made it by flapping your wings and stopping to stay with other groups. It was never impossible," Castor sighed. "They're calling me the first omega in space."

"But you're not!" I crinkled my nose.

"I know, but the media has always had some loose screws. I've mostly ignored it. Everyone wants an interview, but I'm not talking to them. If they want an interview, they get all of us. I designed the ship. I flew the ship most of the way here with my cousin's help, but I'm not the only one on the ship. I'm a little tired of being dubbed the omega of the crew or in space or whatever. That's why I bunked up with your guy," he nodded at Fred. "Obviously, he knows I'm an omega, but he was never weird about it."

"A lot of people probably look up to you," I said, finishing off my coffee. "I thought it was all pretty cool when I heard about it."

"The Alpha/omega gene had nothing to do with getting me here or not getting me here. I built the damn ship!" Castor tossed his mugless hand in the air. "They weren't going to space on it without me."

"That's why it's so awesome," I grinned.

"If you say so," Castor shrugged.

"I do. I'm sorry they're making a big deal about it, but you should be proud. I'm in awe, but I don't know if that's about the ship or you bringing him to me," I said and nodded in the direction where Fred was talking to the others.

"Eh, he was an easy passenger. Slept almost the whole flight and waited to blow all his bluster off the ship," Castor chuckled.

***

An hour later, I led my true-mate down Bashi Street hand-in-hand. That was something I thought would never happen in a million years. Yet there we were. I squeezed Fred's hand as he looked this way and that as if his head were on a swivel. The buildings in this part of town towered above us. All of them had wide flat roofs for landing. The streets were wide enough for even the oldest dragons to wander down in dragon form, if the need arose. This was home with its purple and blue flowers and its streets of different colors. They were white downtown and only stayed really clean in the winter. It snowed here as it did on Earthside, but it fell in big white and purple-ish flakes. It was still cold and the hatchlings still played in it and built snow animals from it. It melted to clear, healthy water when all was said and done.

"Where are we going?" Fred asked when we came to a crossroads.

I opened my mouth to say the Star Room but realized he had no idea where that was. The claiming vows didn't show him and I wasn't sure why.

"Probably because his scale hadn't come in yet," my dragon chimed in.

"We're going out of the city. We call it a room, but it's really more like a temple from the old Earthside books. Only it's not about Frost and Juda. We know who they are. They were good people, but they're not who we descended from."

"Who's this temple dedicated to?" Fred asked, stopping to let a big-bellied carrier and three hatchlings hanging onto his tail pass us by.

"Everyone," I shrugged. "Technically the ancestors, but who they are changes all the time. When I sent my memories back to my star, I was technically an ancestor, but I'm not now. It's a bit of a walk. We could fly out, but I thought you might want to see some things from the ground. Plus, we'd get to spend more time alone."

"Lead the way," Fred nodded to me once the path was clear.

The longer we walked the more Fred relaxed. While the ship's doctor, Izora, had questions about air composition and the like, I had done my research ahead of time. During the age my ancestors left Earthside, we and the Moonscale dragons still had the same breathing needs. Fortunately, our evolution hadn't separated us that much. The biggest differences I noticed were that the Moonscales lost their crescent scale and that they didn't often bring out their tails or horns in human form. It was more common with us, apparently, or maybe our society just deemed it more normal.

As we left the well paved paths behind, I brought out my long orange tail for balance. Sensing my intentions over our mating link, Fred put a warm hand on the small of my back. I didn't need his help but reveled in the intention behind the touch. It was nice to have someone to watch my back. The walk wasn't particularly treacherous. I'd walked it alone more times than I could count. Still, having Fred for company was nice.

"Do you prefer to fly this part?" he asked, his hand still resting against the small of my back.

"Sometimes, but not always," I shrugged and leaned into him.

Together we walked the steep uphill trail that led to the Star Room. Some dragons once called it the Temple of Ancestors, but the word temple had gone out of use. We didn't worship our ancestors. We didn't treat them all that differently than living members of the flight. We recorded what they needed us to and if we could help them between lives we did. It was the right of every flight member to have such assistance in life and death. That fact was never voted on. All the rights and responsibilities we had as flight members hadn't changed since before we left the Other World. No matter where our members were, we tried to help them and keep them well to the best of our abilities.

"Should I be worried about what I'm going to find out?" Fred asked after we walked for several minutes in companionable silence.

Purple, blue, and red grass lined the sides of the path now. We were getting close. Worry wasn't the word I'd use for what I thought he'd feel, but then again whether I was inside his head or not, I'd not been able to predict Fred Moonscale's reaction to things very clearly.

"I don't think you should worry about it. It's done and over with. There's nothing to be done that will change what happened. I think it might be strange to have had something happen and not remember it. That was strange for me at first. I didn't have much context to go on for the memory from the Other World I had stored. It took a while to parse out the details. I'll be right there with you. I'll answer any questions I can and one of the guides will be there too. I think you guys might call them priests or something, but we call them guides. They study from like fifteen or so, if they feel called. They study life and death and guide dragons from both sides. They'll admit they don't have all the answers, but they're helpful."

"Guides, huh?" Fred arched a brow.

"They're not some secret society. They release a bulletin every week of the soul stuff they did the week before. It's on their website and delivered to every Starscale mailbox on all three worlds. Before you ask this is the only Star Room for all three worlds. We only get one, because three worlds or three hundred worlds, we're all one flight."

"That's a sweet sentiment. When was the last civil war?"

"Here? In the flight? Never," I shook my head.

"With all these dragons, though?"

"We all have what we need. Our leaders aren't horrible. Uncle Hush is annoying, but that's probably because he's my uncle. They haven't pushed to find a way to get us attached to the Other World gateway network. I secretly think that's because they were afraid of failing and causing unrest. Despite our strength and our temperaments, I don't think war is the natural state of dragons. We're flock animals. We work together quite well as long as there's enough food for everyone and enough space for everyone to nest and live. Food grows well here, and the hunting is awesome. If we start to run out of space, we just build another world. The third world was only added the year I hatched."

"That's incredible," Fred said, glancing up at the mountains behind the Star Room in the distance.

"We try," I shrugged. "Making a planet takes a long time, but it's worth it I think to keep our flight together. We're not all scattered like we might've ended up on Earthside. Sure, not all of our flight members came with us then, but a lot of them have been reborn here. She was one of us before, you know."

"Who?" Fred stopped in his tracks.

"Lotus," I whispered her name.

"How? How is it even possible to know that?"

"Well, she was," I said, tugging him along the path. "Her star has come back now. It's easier to show you than to tell you."

"You keep saying that," Fred let out a frustrated laugh.

"Because it's true. That's how we crossed paths, though. Come on, hurry," I tugged him again toward the huge edifice. "My heart's trying to pound right out of my star!" I laughed.

"Excited or afraid?" Fred stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

"Absolutely terrified and elated all at once," I said.

Fred wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in close to him. His warmth spread over me like a gentle fire in the dead of winter. He kissed my forehead and then the tip of my nose. I went up on my tiptoes and gave him a real kiss.

"Nothing bad happened to us in the Other World," I promised him.

"Then why are you so nervous?" Fred asked, pressing his forehead gently against mine.

"Because if you don't believe me after you see the memory, you'll never believe me, and I've sort of grown accustomed to having you around."

Fred kissed me again. His tongue twirled around mine in lieu of the promises I hoped he'd make to me. I wanted him to promise to believe me. Everything inside me right down to my dragon's tail scales ached for him because I knew the truth. Knowing every word you've uttered is the truth and not being believed stings and aches like nothing else.

"Look," Fred said when the kiss broke.

"I know, I know. If you don't believe me, you'll kill me," I rolled my eyes.

"No," Fred shook his head. "I shouldn't have said that. I don't know why you'd put together such an elaborate lie, if that's what had happened. But even if you did, I'm not going to kill you, Elio. I'm not even going to try to. I'm going to go back to sleep, if none of this is real and leave you to tell Castor and the others they have to drag me all the way back to the ship."

"You're starting to believe me," I smirked and stole another kiss.

"They say seeing is believing, but I'm starting to wonder if it's feeling is knowing instead," Fred said, pushing a lock of hair behind my ear.

"We haven't known each other forever, but we could," I whispered to him.

"I hope we will. For the first time, I'm certain I want you to be telling the truth."

"Good, because I am," I said and playfully swatted him on the ass. "Come on. Quit stalling. It's time for me to find vindication in all I know."

Laughing we raced up the stairs together to the Star Room.