H - 98: I Crave Flesh (Patreon)

“I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool!”

Kaln slapped a hand to his forehead in self-recrimination, standing in the eating area just outside the kitchen in his lair. The table was laid out in preparation for dinner; so far, only one of his fellow residents had arrived.

Percy was still smiling in residual delight from whatever excursion Pheneraxa had taken her on, or had been until a moment ago. Now she stared wide-eyed at Kaln, then blinked.

“Um. Are you okay?”

He heaved an irritated sigh. “Yes, mostly. It’s just… I realized just now, prompted by apparently nothing, a manner in which I’ve behaved inconsiderately and possibly caused distress to someone I care about. It is…not a good feeling.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “I know that one very well. Yeah, that is no fun at all. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I appreciate you, Percy,” he replied with a smile. “But no, this is fortunately easy enough to fix. At least…well, hmm.”

Kaln trailed off, rubbing his chin in thought. A small serving dish came swooping out of the kitchen door in a puff of cerulean mist, resolving itself at his side into the form of Spooky saluting him with one hand while proffering a dish of his favorite fried pastry snacks with the other. Zhiiji had perfected the recipe according to his descriptions, and now made a point to keep a batch on hand for him.

He had to grin. “Thank you, Spooky, that’s very thoughtful, but I’d better not graze this close to dinner. Zhiiji will be furious if I spoil my appetite now.”

“Good boy!” Zhiiji shouted from inside the kitchen. “Spooky, get your lack of arse back in here and stay on task!”

The spectral maid saluted again and disintegrated, swooshing her snack tray back whence it had come.

“Percy,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m going to…disrupt our dining arrangements just a tad. It shouldn’t be much of an imposition. Sorry to disturb your routine.”

“Oh?” She blinked again. “Well, I mean, if it’s for a good reason… Um, how disrupted are you talking about?”

“Not terribly, I don’t think… Hey, Zhiiji!” He turned and strode toward the kitchen door, knowing better than to call her away from preparations with dinner on the verge of being served. “Got a second for a quick question?”

“Yeah, I heard the preamble to that,” she said, busy ladling sauce over a fragrantly steaming roast when he poked his head in. “What’s up, boss?”

“How much of an imposition would it be for you if I moved the dining area?”

She paused, looking up at him with one furry eyebrow raised. “Depends. Moving it…where?”

“It just needs to be outside this lair. I’m thinking…just outside, say in the middle of the platform at the top of the vault stairs. With dragon-sized space to get around it into this vault.”

“Hmmm… Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a longer distance than food is usually conveyed from kitchen to table, but then again, in every castle and croft I’ve cooked in, that distance was around a bunch of corners and half of them had stairs involved. This is why we serve the food in covered dishes; it’ll stay hot on the trip. Yeah, a straight shot like that’ll be quicker than some routes I’ve had to take.”

“Thanks, Zhiiji.” Kaln stepped back outside, giving a confused Percy a reassuring smile. “Commander!”

The Phantom Legion’s leader materialized as always, saluting.

“I’m afraid I have a rather prosaic task for your troops,” Kaln said, “though it won’t be nearly as onerous as cleaning the main vault. I need the entire dining area here moved outside—tables, chairs, the current serving places, all of it. Ordinarily I could just do that myself, but my ability to shift things around ends at this lair’s door, and I specifically need it outside.”

The Commander saluted again, and a dozen ghosts coalesced out of nothing all around them. With preternatural efficiency, they swarmed the dining table and turned insubstantial, and in the next moment everything from the furniture to the plates to the enchanted-for-durability carpet that had been laid out under it all was zooming away toward the door in puffs of bluish mist.

“Thank you!” Kaln called after them.

“Can I…ask what brought this on?” Percy said hesitantly, stepping up alongside him. “You said you realized something?”

Kaln nodded, stepping forward as he explained, with the princess staying at his side. “I don’t know if we mentioned it to you, but the wards in this lair, the ones made by Atraximos… Well, they’re the reason I’m able to move things around in here with my mind. And since a dragon created them, I can seize control of them.”

“You definitely explained all that, back when we were setting up the houses.”

“Right. The part I may have forgotten was that these wards are designed specifically to actively repel Emeralaphine, and attempt to neutralize any magic she does. Atraximos, probably wisely, was worried about her mastery of magic and what it might mean if he provoked her too much. She can be in here, but it’s not comfortable for her, and very hard for her to do any magic. Which is so central to who she is that… Well. ‘Uncomfortable’ may be putting it too mildly.”

“Really?” Percy’s eyebrows drew together. “I knew he was more dangerous than any of them, but… Even something he left behind could be such a hindrance to such a powerful mage?”

“Let me put it this way: it’s so hard for her to do magic in here that we had to go hire Shadrach to set up the standing portal.”

“Ah, I see,” she said gravely. “So…hiring Shadrach isn’t only for things she just doesn’t feel like doing?”

“The point is that I would never raise questions about her power and mastery by suggesting she can’t do something in here,” he replied, equally solemn. “In such cases we assume she doesn’t feel like it, and do not suggest that there might be anything else going on. Nor that she should stir herself to do that which she does not wish.”

“Got it. I’ve been noticing that the rules for dragons are basically the same as the rules for aristocrats, except with actual reason for the deference.”

“A keen observation,” Kaln observed. “So, the thing I belatedly realized is that by holding family meals in here, we’re basically excluding Emeralaphine.”

“Has she ever expressed an interest in dining with us?”

By the time they emerged from the tunnel, the Legionaries had already perfectly reassembled the dining room setup in the exact center of the broad platform outside. Now, the Commander and a line of ghosts were positioned off to one side of it, saluting.

“Thank you, everyone, fine work,” Kaln praised. “Dismissed. In any case,” he continued, turning back to Percy as the ghosts dispersed, “whether she actually wants to is beside the point. What matters is the way we’ve been doing it specifically excludes her, and that is a terrible discourtesy to offer a member of this family about whom I care deeply. Even if she never decides to join us, it matters to me that she have the option. And I feel I owe her an apology.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Pheneraxa said, just cresting the top of the stairs in her smaller form. “I was just wondering what the hubbub was about. If you ask me, you’re both right—Mother isn’t likely to be interested in this, but it’s a good idea not to suggest she wouldn’t be welcome.”

“Glad you approve,” Kaln said with a smile. “Evening, Ralshi, joining us tonight?”

“Don’t mind if I do!” the other young dragon sang, already sliding into a chair. “Maybe not every night, but that Zhiiji’s a wizard in the kitchen. Seems crazy not to indulge once in a while.”

“You’re always welcome,” Kaln promised her. “The point of family dinner is that every member of the family is wanted. Good evening, my lady wife.”

As usual, Izayaroa was the only one of his consorts who joined them for dinner; she glided forward from the top of the stairs, smiling warmly as he took her claw in both hands and pressed his lips to the cool scales of her palm. Bending forward, she closed her golden eyes and rested her forehead against his for a moment.

“Husband.”

It had been such a short time, but Kaln already cherished the bond they had formed—their ability to convey such warm regard with such simple gestures.

“I keep noticing that,” Percy commented as Kaln escorted Izayaroa to a chair. “You always kiss her palm. Is that…a you thing, or a Rhiva thing?”

“It’s a formal courtesy toward a romantic partner or prospect in our culture, yes,” he said, taking a seat beside his wife. “Truthfully, it is a bit…ostentatious, perhaps even pretentious.”

“The custom is old-fashioned,” Izayaroa added with a smile, “and associated with the upper classes.”

“But it feels right, to me,” Kaln said, smiling up at her. “She is to be cherished.”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Percy commented, seeming not to notice the two of them gazing silently into each other’s eyes, or Pheneraxa’s uncomfortable aversion of her own, or Vadaralshi’s grinning leer. “There is a similar custom in the Vales, but not exactly. The gentleman traditionally places a kiss on the back of the lady’s hand, not the palm.”

“Oh? How intriguing,” Kaln said, finally tearing her gaze away from Izayaroa’s. “I don’t believe I saw that while we were there.”

“Well, we were deliberately not keeping company with the sort of people who value high etiquette,” she replied, reaching over to squeeze his hand.

That was when dinner arrived, the serving cart gliding as smoothly along as ever with Spooky pushing.

“Ah, yeah, this’ll do just fine,” Zhiiji declared, swaggering alongside it. “A straight line from A to B, second easiest serving run I’ve ever had. Being able to serve dinner right outside my kitchen was a luxury—best not get too comfy with that kinda lazy life. Anyway, you won’t necessarily see me at every meal, going forward. I’ve just about gotten confident enough in the girl that I won’t feel the need to supervise.”

Spooky had just placed the platter in the center of the table and uncovered it to reveal the fragrant roast; now she turned toward Zhiiji and saluted.

“AS YOU WERE!” the cook roared, pointing at the meat.

“Hey, Percy,” Vadaralshi said, grinning and leaning forward to look at the princess past her sister. “I hope someday you find yourself a partner who looks at you the way Kaln does at Izayaroa—or even better, the way Raxa does at food.”

Pheneraxa, who had indeed been staring avidly at the roast as Spooky carved it, inhaled sharply and then choked on the moderate amount of drool she’d already produced.

“Well, what can I say?” she growled, scrubbing her mouth with the back of her claw. “I’m a dragon. I crave flesh!”

Pheneraxa suddenly lunged over and bit down on Vadaralshi’s wrist, causing the other drake to yell in surprise and attempt to throw her off.

“GIRLS!” Kaln barked. He put more into it than merely projecting from a diaphragm as Izayaroa had taught him; for an instant, the air trembled with a hint of divine power, forcibly seizing the attention of every dragon present. Immediately he released that, but kept his tone firm and flat. “Not at the dinner table.”

Both of them subsided, ducking their heads, but after a moment the sisters glanced sidelong at each other.

It sent a wave of warmth all the way from his crown down to the pit of his stomach to see that they did so with mischievous grins, rather than continued sniping as would have been the case mere days ago. Izayaroa’s full lips curled up in an expression that matched what Kaln was feeling; she met his eyes in a brief but deeply communicative glance.

It was working. This…was a family. A fractious one, with lines of deep tension and issues to be worked through, but bit by bit, they were coming together. And Kaln, himself, was finally able to acknowledge that he was making a difference here. Hesitant as he had been to take credit, his conversations with Tiavathyris had really driven home that none of them would have even embarked on this path without his urging.

This was what it meant, he realized, what it truly was to be the head of a family. Not to have power and make others cower and obey—any depraved idiot with a big stick to swing could do that. But getting people to see the potential in themselves and each other, to come together, to care for each other.

Sitting at the dinner table with his family, even if it was only half of them, even if he never achieved anything else in what seemed would be a very long life, Kaln finally felt that his work here made everything worth living.

“Kaln,” Izayaroa said as the others fell to eating and talking, and her tone made his full attention snap to her. “I have received word for which I was waiting, from Rhivaak. The time has come to put into effect the measures upon which I have decided, now that my people have gathered the information I needed. I plan to act tomorrow.”

“I see. Is there anything I can…?”

She placed a claw upon his forearm, gently stroking his skin with her thumb. “On this matter, husband, I would ask nothing of you. You have already suffered from my failure to manage my government; to me, putting this right without imposing upon you further is no less than a matter of honor. Tomorrow, I will rectify certain wrongs, and ensure that what happened to you will happen to no one else in my Empire.” Izayaroa hesitated for a moment, and only from the familiarity with her that he had developed over these recent weeks could he see the merest flicker of uncertainty in her. It was immediately banished, however, beneath the calm resolve which was so central to who she was. “Because you have been so harmed by these matters—because it was you, recovering from what you suffered from my failures, that set all these events into motion, I would have you observe the culmination of this cycle. Only if you wish it, of course. I will understand fully if you do not.”

Kaln reached over to grasp her claw where it lay on his arm, squeezing gently. “Roa, love… You know I can’t go to Rhivaak, not right now. The Nine told me in as many terms I am not welcome. They have a… Well, I’d have to ask Emeralaphine about the proper terminology, but I have observed there’s an… A standing exercise of their will over the land, keeping me specifically out.”

“I am Izayaroa, Empress of Rhivaak,” she said, with calm, but with pride and with fire and iron barely beneath the surface of her serenity. “I have held sway in that realm nearly as long as they, and done at least as much in its service. If I declare you are welcome, the Nine will make peace with it. And I do so declare. I beg you, my love, do not think of what efforts I must put forth; they are not onerous, and they are my concern alone. The only question of worth here is what you deserve. And to see the corruption that so harmed you put to its end is the very least you deserve.”

The others had fallen silent now, all three girls watching them with wide eyes.

“That…means everything to me,” Kaln said quietly, “in and of itself. The mere fact that you would… But when I think of it, honestly? I believe I would rather not. No matter what you say, Roa, I don’t want to be the source of conflict between you and the Nine. Rhivaak is and will always be where I am from, but… Sitting here, now, I find that it’s not my home anymore. This is. Not Dragonvale, not this vault, but…my family.”

She smiled at him with deep warmth. So did all three on the other side of the table, Pheneraxa a bit bashfully.

“Someday,” Kaln mused, “I do think I would like to go back. I feel like…that will be important for me, when the time comes. But, and don’t ask me to explain this, I have a strong feeling that it’s not that time, yet. I think… I think that waiting on the Nine to decide whatever they’re going to about me suits me just fine. I’m not going to be dithering or stressing over their opinions, but I have my own work to do, to become whoever I’m becoming. At the end of it all, I guess I’ll see what they think of my progress, and what I need to do about it. For now, my Empress…”

Holding her gaze, he gently raised her claw to kiss her palm again.

“I trust you to look after our people. They could not be in better hands.”

Once more, Izayaroa smiled, closed her eyes, and leaned forward, resting her forehead for a moment against his own.

“Someday, then. Until that time, husband, I shall not fail you again.”