Chapter Sixteen

Tritus

I came to standing outside a big three-story house. It was a work of masonry wonder. It seemed the Moonscales were as decent at building as our own flight was. I glanced around. I didn’t see my Casimir nor his past self. It wasn’t uncommon for ‘memory travelers’ to end up at different starting points. Most of those who carried memories were shy or concerned that the memories they were about to share would impact how their traveling companion felt about them.

A truck roared in the distance and burnt rubber as it swung around the corner, revealing itself to be silver and shiny, as it skidded to a halt in front of the house. Casimir – past Casimir – nearly tore the hinges off the door getting out and Castor wasn’t far behind him from the passenger’s side. They barreled past me and tried the knob, finding it was unlocked. It was only once the door swung open that two of my senses lit up as if the apocalypse were upon us without a doubt.

I heard her first – the roaring keen of a mother in pain. Delivery? No, that wasn’t the smell assaulting my nose. It was fresh blood – not the blood of a womb – but the blood that ended a life and something more fragile. Casimir roared and the woman inside (Ren?) roared back. I sprinted inside, desperate to help, but remembered that I couldn’t help past anyone. The past was set in stone and scale and nothing would change it.

There!

There he was!

There was my Casimir knelt in the big nest with his sister. He couldn’t touch. She couldn’t hear him or see him because she wasn’t real. She wasn’t a ghost or a spirit even. She was a phantom inside his head. This was how he remembered her. A man lay disemboweled in front of the nest. She’d done it. There wasn’t a doubt that she’d ripped his insides out. It took me a long moment to grow brave enough to look at his face. He looked so much like my mate – right down to the curve of his cheek bones and the shape of his nose. This man – this dead and gone man – could only have been his brother.

My Casimir wouldn’t look at me. He stayed in the nest with Ren. Pieces of eggshell lay here and there all smashed as if the hatchlings had crawled out recently. Too recently.

“Where are the kids?” I asked my Casimir as Past Casimir and Past Castor yelled back and forth at each other. I couldn’t make out what they yelled about but that was probably because my Casimir didn’t remember the heated discussion with any clarity.

My Casimir raised his hands and held them out in front of him, gesturing to the nest. Ren’s eyes were red. The pupils and the white parts. She was covered in the quickly drying blood of her sibling. I didn’t want to get any closer. One should never approach an enraged dragoness. Still, she wasn’t real. She was a phantom and I had to remind myself of that. I needed to see the kids. He had lost kids, hadn’t he? His nieces and nephews? Had his brother killed them?

“He fell on the eggs. He was---” My Casimir started but stopped as the memory morphed. We were inside the truck with Past Casimir and Castor. They were silent now. It was a ringing sort of silence that echoed around the cab of the truck. When the truck stopped again, Past Castor exited the passenger side. I thought his part was finished but we waited while he politely knocked on the door and asked an old woman if someone was home. He was and she’d get him. She was short for a dragon. Maybe she wasn’t a dragon at all. I sniffed the air.

“Wolf,” my Casimir said. “She was a wolf. He wasn’t. That’s sort of important.”

“He?”

Just hold on. Hold on.

That’s what the woman had said as she turned to go back inside.

My Casimir held on to me. The man came out and shut the door behind him. He was skeevy looking with eyes that darted in every direction. He was a dragon. He had the shoulders and the height, and he towered over Castor but the fearless not-yet-ship captain didn’t stand like a man who could ever be towered over. He was nice and calm as he pulled out a wad of paper money and nodded toward the truck.

The skeevy dragon opened the front door and told the old woman he’d be back later. Then he was inside the truck. They put him right between them and Castor chatted like nothing had happened. Though, something was about to happen. It was clear in how both Casimirs flared their nostrils. He was angry. Past Casimir more than present Casimir. My Casimir was more sad than anything.

“What does he have to do with it?” I asked aloud.

My question echoed around the cab of the phantom truck.

“He was Zayton’s dealer.”

“Zayton?”

“The one who smashed the eggs. He was so out of his gord. That’s Ren’s story to tell. He had a key to her place for when he needed to crash. We all thought he was clean. We really did and we loved him so much. He wasn’t and he showed up while Ren was home alone with the eggs. We think he was trying to get into the nest with her because he was afraid, but everything went wrong. He owed Skater money. Castor and I knew what we had to do as soon as we wrapped our heads around what happened. We just argued about where but we’re here.”

“Then she?” I asked.

“Yeah. She did. I think she’s still enraged to this day. Living in the wild and all that.”

The truck pulled to a stop in front of a mechanic’s shop. From what I knew about Earthside vehicles the job made sense for both Casimir and Castor.

“This is where the Medwin 1 was built. It didn’t work all that great. In fact, I guess it failed not long before this one. We had better funding for the Medwin 2.”

We followed the trio into the garage. I expected the memory to skip again but Casimir’s memory was lucid. He remembered how they brought each of his scales out and how they scaled and dismembered him while he was still alive. Bit by bit they took from him all the things he’d taken from other people when he made and dealt his drugs. Castor kept the head. Later, Casimir would tell me he took it with him in a shoebox while he had tea with Medwin.

“There was this whole thing. See, Clarence had been told about Skater by so many people. They kept saying the guards had no evidence, but all the addicts were proof. All the proof anyone should’ve needed. They needed help but most of all they needed people like Skater to stop enabling it all. They weren’t shy about telling people where they got it from. I used to think Clarence benefited from Skater’s drug trade. I don’t think so anymore. I think he was trying to be fair, but life isn’t fair, and neither are those who only care about lining their own pockets at the expense of everyone else,” Casimir said. “Castor and I were fair.”

My eyes grew huge. He hadn’t wanted me to see the accident scene at the nest but that wasn’t why he said I didn’t deserve to be stuck with him.

“You think I’ll rethink what was decided long ago because you don’t feel bad about it,” I whispered as Past Castor and Casimir left to go have an unplanned tea with Medwin.

“I don’t feel bad about it. He not only killed Zayton and others like him – by proxy – but murder nonetheless, he killed Ren’s eggs. He made Ren lose her Frost-damned mind. She’s living in the wild now. Barely comes back to see her mate. I’m not even sure she knows who I am anymore!”

“It hasn’t changed---” I started and stopped. “That’s a lie. It has changed how I feel. I don’t know how you get up and go about the day without breaking heads open, Casimir.”

“I’m not a violent dragon,” he shrugged. “The proof doesn’t show that but I’m not. We made sure Clarence took care of the old woman. That was Skater’s grandma. She had no clue what he did. Poor woman. Her door showed up a few years back.”

“I didn’t say you were violent. Mate, minds and hearts are not made to see what you did. They’re not made to lose what you did.”

“I did most of the work,” he nodded at the phantom mess still left on the floor. “I made sure to because --- Castor is Castor. He did the hard part, though. He went inside and had tea with Medwin Moonscale and gave him a Frost-damned head. He debated with him in circles and came out with the head inside a damned tea cozy and told me we had funding. Not only did he talk Medwin into taking a tougher stance on those abusing Moonscale dragons through drugs, got us and Ren cleared of anything, he somehow walked away with something that kept me busy enough not to lose my mind.”

“I’m glad you didn’t lose your mind,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m happy you’re here.”

“This is so fucked up, Tritus,” he said, taking my other hand in his too and stepping closer. “This whole fucking life is so fucked up. I didn’t want to drag you into it. Didn’t want you to know that this happened and I can’t feel bad about it.”

“Casimir,” I whispered his name. “I’m sorry you had to do this. I’m sorry you lost them all to such a fucked up thing that bureaucracy made it impossible to solve. I’m sorry Ren lost herself after she lost her babies. I’m sorry Zayton couldn’t get clean and I’m sorry this all fell on you and Castor. I’m so fucking sorry but I don’t see any reason you should be guilt riddled about ending it all. He had hurt people before. Guys like him always do. I don’t even need to know him to be sure of that. He would’ve hurt people again and he’d have done it from a ‘safe distance’ so that they couldn’t take him down for it.”

“I’ll protect you too,” he said.

“I never doubted that. Ren never doubted that either. I’m sure she didn’t. She trusted you and Zayton and whether by choice or by sickness, he did let her down, but you didn’t. You couldn’t have sat there every minute of every day. She wouldn’t have expected that. I bet if she could, she’d tell you that too.”

I kissed his chin and then the tip of his nose. I wanted to touch him – for comfort and affection. Needed to let him know that it was all okay as it would ever be. He did what he had to do to protect his flight. His family was already torn asunder.