I had a renewed purpose with Barebone around.
Of course, I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't going to end how my heart desperately wanted it too. And he wasn't shy of reminding me either.
He already had others in his sights. Once the season came, I was going to be on my own while he raised yet another brood.
All I wanted was what he had. And I wanted it badly enough to learn from the water dragon.
Who else was going to teach me these things I would have remained clueless about? There was no way I was going to be getting a mate without his life-changing advice.
He was already assisting me in building a glorious nest in my room.
It was better than anything I could have ever done alone.
"I think I'm going to have to step up my own game" Barebone commented when he dumped another load of stones for me to place "this is looking a little too perfect."
"Don't sabotage me" I chuckled back as he marveled the halo of rocks neatly stacked together "or I'll have to start stealing your horde too."
"And keep nothing to myself?" he gasped back sarcastically before shaking his head and flying off to collect more.
I smiled and kept packing the walls of the nest together. I had purposely left a gap in the front of it facing the door so I could roll the eggs out without ruining all of our hard work.
Barebone thought it was despicable that I was just freely handing them over; but couldn't give me the solution I wanted either.
I was happily stacking when Barebone returned with more of the rocks.
"I think this might be it" he smiled as he placed them up and I rearranged them to thier own locations "now you'll need to fill the place with a horde."
I smiled at the nest I stood within and marveled at the handywork that had created it.
It had taken two solid weeks of stacking and adjusting to get each stone just right to distribute thier weight evenly and remove any stress points in the towering nest.
In the time making it though, I had neglected the children. I hadn't seen them since I started this process back before I had met Barebone and when I was still experimenting with materials.
That was close to six weeks ago.
Would any of them still be here after all that time?
Or would I have to start over with them too?
"You look worried."
"I don't know if my children are still here."
"Your... children?" Barebone tilted his head at me.
"Mushroom, Little Chick, Mouse, Leaf, Pancake, and Apple" I fretted now "they have brands on thier backs."
Barebone snorted at me in amusement when he realised what I meant.
"Human children; right. I wouldn't suppose a tall white-haired boy is yours by any chance?"
"Mushroom is mine" I smiled back.
Barebone huffed and shook his body so that his wings rippled as he sat on the ledge.
"That boy of yours keeps stealing my water to put in little jars. I don't know why and I don't think I want to know why, but he always does bring a nice trade before he does."
"Then it's not stealing" I replied simply to his disgruntled face.
"Just... try and make him understand, somehow, that I don't appreciate him snooping around my nest for 'the best dragon water'. Sometimes, he's not exactly decent when he does it."
I laughed at his disturbed face and covered mine with a wide smile when I saw he wasn't sharing my amusement.
"I'll let him know."
Barebone stretched his wings to prepare them for flight but also show off thier glorious colours shimmering in the afternoon sun.
"I'll be back to teach you that dance once you have a horde, Scala. I'll be waiting. Don't be late."
I watched Barebone leave and felt the weight of it all suddenly press down on me.
I didn't have much time at all. I had to rekindle the relationship I had with my children, if they were still here, before neglecting them yet again to focus on collecting a horde.
The season for it all was only a month away. I still had to learn this fate-defying dance too if I had any chance of raising anything before my window closed.
It was all so much.
Was I up to becoming a mother if this is what was scaring me the most? Maybe I was only cut out to protecting human children after all?
The children.
Immediently, all thoughts left me when I pushed myself from the ledge to glide upwards for enough height to scan the marked rooms.
However, when I searched for the marks, they were all gone. Not a single cross on the balconies remained from where I had put them.
Did that mean all of them had left? Was I alone here now?
OK, don't panic, Scala. They have to be around here somewhere. At the least, Little Chick should still be roaming nearby. She was the only one who was certaintly not returning home.
Out of the six I knew of, I still had one.
I couldn't find her scent though. I followed Mushroom's to the dining room to find him drinking from a jar while reading a book. Apple was here too; enveloped in a smokey and ashen aroma that was like she had been plucked straight from a fire. She was painting away like the first time I had seen her, but was referencing Mushroom while he wasn't aware.
Both looked up when I scanned the otherwise empty room, and rushed out when I left them to continue my hunt.
At least I knew I still had two.
However, my entensive search came up with only dead-ends for the whereabouts of Little Chick, Mouse, Leaf, and Pancake. I couldn't find them anywhere and it was worrying me.
"Mushroom, Apple" I called out to the pair when I returned to them again "where are the others?"
I kept searching, just in case I had missed an area. But it was still the way it was before.
Where were they? Had they been taken from under my nose while I had turned a blind eye? Had I failed to protect the only things I had been tasked to?
"Scala" Mushroom tried to soothe me when I turned around again frantically to search the unchanged room for signs of life "hey, shh shh shh."
"You don't understand" I whimpered back when he placed a hand on my snout and stroked my head "they're missing. We have to search for them!"
"Scala" Mushroom pulled my focus to him when it started to drift elsewhere again "they aren't here. You can stop."
I looked to him in shock.
He knew where they were?
"They're gone" he patted down my head now that jerked at the touch "hey, there's only three of us left now."
No. But... they had been right here...
...Over a month ago...
I had lost them. Not to danger but to my own hindsight. I hadn't even seen them off or built our bond. I had been too busy collecting river rocks for that.
"I'm so sorry" I whispered to them "I wasn't there for you. I will be now, I promise. I can't leave you unguarded like that."
Apple carefully placed her hand next to Mushroom's to help calm my racing thoughts. Her touch was a lot more intense in heat than his and left radiating warmth wherever her skin trailed.
She smiled up at me then moved around to rest her forehead against the side of my jaw while she wrapped her arms over me.
"We are still here" she murmered against me "don't frett."
That's right. They were still here. But that also raised questions.
How come no new children had made thier way in these walls within that time? Surely even one child would have needed my protection?
Or had it stopped purely because of Barebone's appearance?
An unfamiliar dragon lurking around would be a cause for doubts amongst Bee and Monty. Maybe they thought I had shifted my priorities because they had seen him by my side and had assumed we were mates?
"Children" I mumbled as I dragged both of them towards me to hold them close to my body "I'll make sure nothing can hurt you as long as you are here with me."
"She makes that noise when she's defensive" I heard Mushroom tell Apple who was quite content with being held against me "I'm still learning which ones mean what."
"I'd like to learn with you" Apple replied as she peered at him from around my neck boxing them in "this is wonderful."
"This is" I savoured the moment of them rushing over to lean against me then let thier bodies rise and fall with my breathing. I saw them both giggling on my left when I purposefully inhaled to rise them further.
If only this moment could last forever...
But I was on a time limit and torn between priorities.
Perhaps, I could get the children to help me? Three sets of hands were better than one. And when I found Little Chick, we would have four.
I would be done in no time!
But what was I going to horde?
"Come on" I nudged them both towards the doors "let's go exploring."
I met Mushroom and Apple on the other side of the house in the stripey yard. When I called out to them, they both came running out of the house and down the back stairs to me. Little Chick was still nowhere to be seen.
It probably was nothing to worry about. Mushroom and Apple didn't look concerned about her, so I shouldn't be.
She was fine.
"Onwards, Scala!" Apple pointed to the trees enthusiastically and laughed.
Mushroom smirked at her and wandered ahead lazily. He looked like he knew where he was going. Most likely be had walked these woods many times in the hunt for odd souvenirs for his collection back in his room.
"This is exciting!" Apple jumped from a boulder we passed "it's like an adventure! We never have these!"
"Either that or she's taking us on walk-abouts to make way for new children" Mushroom commented, picking up a stick to inspect it then discard it "right, Scala?"
Walk-abouts?
"They take you further and further away from what you know to confuse you, then they dump you there and hope you don't return so they can raise thier new family without hassles."
"Mushroom" I murmered back "it's seriously not like that."
"I know she isn't doing that, so quit trying to scare me" Apple laughed back "besides, I know where home is."
"Where the Safe House is" he corrected her promptly, and I noticed annoyance in his voice "we aren't going to be here forever, OK?"
"You know, it sure seems like it though" Apple pondered as she jumped from a small ledge beside us "we can't check anything because there is no internet or phones, and only word from Bee or Monty comes in from our parents; never a letter or anything like that. It just seems a bit odd how everyone's parents come out of nowhere to just collect them like they haven't been here for who knows how long."
"It's the way things have to be until it's safe to go back."
"Is it?" Apple stopped now to make us freeze too "how come you were sent here?"
Mushroom looked to me then to Apple who folded her arms.
"I was doing things that weren't natural where I was."
I remembered how the rock salts around us had glowed brilliant blue when Mushroom had been bathed in moonlight. Even his brand had glowed the same colour as the energy flowed through everything around him.
"I was sent here because they thought I was dangerous" Apple unfolded her arms now "I was born from hellfire and raised like one of them for as long as possible until it got obvious I wasn't. Then I was pushed from place to place to stop people hunting me down."
"Hellfire?" Mushroom breathed "that's powerful stuff; rare too."
"For a magic man like you?" she teased.
I chuckled with Apple who patted Mushroom's shoulder when she passed him to take the lead now.
"A demon itself is a rare thing to see" he called out to her to make her scoff "they can be a source of hellfire themselves. That's probably why you've found yourself in this situation."
"Probably" she turned around to walk backwards "and what about you? Did you make too many jars glow in your naked salt circle?"
I saw Mushroom's embarrassment and pieced together that Apple must have walked in on him. Whether or not he was in his room was another thing. I now knew he had a thing for collecting water naked too.
The boy really hated clothes. It definately was a strange trait.
"I may have 'accidentally' put up a few wards around my home that worked a little too well. They may have been cursed in the process along the way."
"Ooh, you are evil" Apple teased to make him shrug rather than deny it.
"People don't like what they don't understand."
"I can agree with that" I finally spoke up "people are odd creatures."
They both smiled to me and continued to dart around me on our journey deeper into the woods.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Apple spoke up when she saw me searching the trees surrounding us and leaves under our feet for something alluring.
"Our sanity, probably" Mushroom mumbled back, picking up another stick he turned in his hands before throwing it away too "we are getting quite far out."
"I think it's fun" Apple smiled and kicked up the leaves under her feet "it's almost like we are running away! Do you think they'll follow us in here?"
I turned to check behind me when Mushroom did.
"Only for a few meters; maybe half a k if they really want to stretch it. They'll expect us to be back for dinner before they get too worried. Russet goes missing all the time and they've just accepted it."
Russet? Was that Little Chick's real name?
"I still can't believe they named her after a damn potato" Apple snorted then jerked a thumb to me "don't they say if you give a dragon your real name and let them look into your eyes that your soul will be thiers? Maybe they think Scala is behind it all?"
Me? Cause harm to Litt... Russet?
"Well, they did bring us here in blindfolds" Mushroom snorted too and chuckled "remember that? And we really believed thier superstitions."
Apple laughed with him while I was left confused.
Thier laughter died out as the area around us became mountainous and pulled up into towering walls of dirt and leaves peppered with rocky walls and the boulders nestled on top.
Mushroom took the lead now and guided us over towards the nearest boulder that he teetered on before following it around to slide down the side to a dirt wall beside him that had been dug out in one section.
"You've been here before" Apple marveled, following him to the wall that only had a small ledge that dropped down dramatically. I perched on the top of the wall to look down at Mushroom who carved through the dirt with his hands and pulled out a lump he wiped off on his shirt.
It looked like a white rock that he held up in his fingers proudly.
"Raw white quartz" he smiled and handed it to Apple who rolled it in her palm "the whole dirt here is buried with it."
"Is it valuable?"
"Completely worthless" Mushroom took the quartz to toss it up to me so I could catch it in my mouth "but it's amazing in its raw form for healing and purifying negative energies."
I dropped the quartz beside me to gaze at its obscured beauty. Alone, its rough, waxy looking surface and crusted dirt blanketing it wasn't too impressive. But if it was cleaned up and stacked together...
I think I had just found the first part of my horde. And anything else that I added to it would really pop against such a bright white too.
I could see Barebone rolling with jealousy already. It only made my smile wider when I scratched at the edge of the wall to reveal more of the hidden quartz.
"Looks like we are excavating" Mushroom laughed to Apple as they dodged out of the way to avoid the tumbling dirt showering downwards.
I saw them start scooping the wall further down to toss the quartz they found into a pile beside them.
Mushroom was amazed with the sizes he was unearthing and marveled over them enthusiastically to Apple who humored him.
We would have to share the haul. I couldn't just take all of Mushroom's secret stash for myself. It was only fair that he got to pick out his favourite pieces he felt a connection to before I took the rest to hide away from him.
He wouldn't be allowed to touch those ones. I would guard them with my life if I had to, despite thier worthlessness in terms of monitary value.
And to think I had only been searching these woods aimlessly for anything that wasn't rocks or trees. I would have never have known this pocket was here without Mushroom leading me.
We didn't finish digging until night had set in and the tall dirt wall was now a low bulge under our efforts.
I had already made several trips from the river I had washed them in, then to my room I piled the quartz within near the door and along the walls.
It shone just like precious gemstones now it wasn't obscured by grime. I even returned with the freshly washed pieces for Mushroom who clambered onto my back with Apple so I could return them to the back doors where the carers promptly scolded them for making them worry, and then me for allowing it to happen.
I didn't care though. I felt like I was flying as high as the moon with euphoria when I saw how radiant my horde glowed against the moonlight washing over the slick surfaces.
Everything was coming together perfectly. There was nothing that could ruin the feeling bubbling inside me.
That was until I heard the barricades from the door being torn from the outside by something snapping and snarling in a frenzy.
I didn't flee to the skies like I normally would have. I had something to defend now and I was going to do just that.
I heard metal bend and break, and the wood around it splinter and crush under the thing tearing at it.
I felt my fire bubbling within me, dancing up my throat preparing to let it loose in panic, when I watched the door start to shatter now that the barricades were free and saw the face of a monster peer in that I unleashed on.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
