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Scarlet

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Hack, for whatever reason, cannot make clothes from leaves like I can. So we begin our search for clothes.

After about an hour of digging through the many dressers in my room, Hack finds some clothes he likes. He spins around in place in a light green dress, the folds flapping around his legs. He beams up at me in his unexpected choice.

“How do I look?” he asks with a tilted head. I ruffle his hair gently, making him pout at me.

“Very cute.” I smile down at the adorable dragon. He’s apparently not satisfied with that answer and looks away from me. “Did you… not want to be cute?” He shoots a glance back over his shoulder before answering.

“I wanted to be pretty,” he says dejectedly. Oh.

“You are pretty too, hun, I didn’t know if you’d like me calling you that.” He turns to me, his eyes twinkling.

“Really? You’re being serious, Mom?” He shoots me a distrustful look. I just nod through his suspicious glare. He hmphs at my answer before running to my dresser. He reaches up on top of it, rooting around, hah, for something. I start over to help, but by the time I reach the child I hear a strange whipping sound.

One of my jewelry boxes lifts off the top of the dresser, suspended by vines. Hack lowers his arm, the vines retracting into his palm. He looks at me, triumph gleaming in his eyes. With a dull thud, the retrieved jewelry box drops to the ground. He sits down, pulling the case in front of him. He opens it gingerly, like it’s an ancient, long-forgotten treasure. Once the lid is up his carefulness vanishes.

He shoves his small mitts into the box, quickly rummaging through the gems and metals of my jewelry. I smell something sweet and notice a small amount of sap is dripping out of the corner of his mouth. He snaps out of it when I give him a gentle shake. His face goes green as he blushes over whatever just happened.

Trying again, he picks through the jewelry carefully, clearly looking for something specific. After a few minutes he finds what he was looking for. He pulls out a golden chain that has a small round amulet at the end. The amulet is engraved with a small tree whose trunk grows around the small gem inset into the metal. The gem is a small shard of a foreign townheart, also called a heartgem, and it glows a light green.

Hack holds up the amulet in the air so I can see it. “M-mom? Can I have this?” I’m a bit startled, I’m not sure how he knew I had that. I think I wore it once, maybe. “I’m sorry for asking,” he says before I can answer. “You were wearing it the day you made me.” He stares at the ground nervously. …I did? I had no idea, I should pay more attention to what I wear.

“Hun, of course you can have it.” I pet his hair, which is just the right height for me to rest my hand on. “I was surprised you wanted it, that’s all.” He pushes my hand away from his hair before ruffling it back into place. With my hand out of the way he slips the necklace over his head.

The amulet hangs between his legs, the chain meant to fit on my neck. He looks down in disappointment. I quickly scoop him up, shocked at how light he is. “Bud, tap the small circle on the back.” I hold the amulet up to him.

He looks closely at the back of the golden oval, searching for the circle. Eventually he spots it and taps it gently, like it might break. The green glow from the gem dims as the glow is transferred into the chain. The metal cord quickly shortens, adjusting to my son’s much smaller neck. Once it’s fitted properly the chain stops glowing and the gem returns to its previous luster.

He smiles up at me, ecstatic. I giggle as I watch him fiddle with the jewelry. “It’s enchanted to fit the user and it draws power from the heartgem in the front.” I tap the gently glowing crystal. “That way it's cheaper than a self powered enchantment, and it’ll never run out.” I realize that my child isn’t listening, instead enamored with running his fingers over the engravings.

“Hey, Earth to Hack.” He looks at me, a bit startled. “I think we should take you to the temple.”

He looks at me, confused. “But the temple is for people, not monsters,” he scolds me before returning to his amulet. I hold back my laugh.

“Hack, hun, you are people.” He looks at me with a scowl, clearly not believing me. I quickly speak, to cut off any dissent. “Monsters can’t come inside barriers, monsters also can’t be born inside the barrier, you’ve done both.” I poke his chest. “Plus, any kid of mine wouldn’t be a monster either, would they?” He looks down at where I poked him and mulls it over. “Okay… I guess I’m a person.” He sounds… disappointed? I almost laugh at that. “What do we do in the temple? I don’t know what people do inside.” He picks at the edge of the locket idly.

“We’ll get to see your status, the details of who you are. Nothing too personal, just the nitty gritty facts.” I rub his head and pull back before his swipe can get my hand. “It’ll be good to know that stuff.”

He looks at me with a withering glare. “If I’m going, you hafta, too! You hafta get your details, too!” he demands. I nod with a snort. Sure, that's fine.

I scoop up the child, realizing how comfortable I am with doing it already. “Let’s go meet your Auncle Zenith and Grandpa with your new form.” He silently snuggles against me as I carry him out into the hall.

For some reason I feel happier than usual.

】〓〓〓〓【

Jet

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It’s been a few days since everything went down, including the indoctrination into Lord Coil’s little ‘inner circle’. I’ve been getting my ass worn raw by the continuing rash of disappearances and crime. On top of that I’ve had to babysit.

“Jeeeeet,” the monster drags my name out. “I’m hungry.” He moans like he’s starving to death.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“We ate two hours ago, you’re fine.” I don’t even look back at the thing, it never stops complaining.

“Maybe you are, but my superb physique needs much more energy.” I snort at his nonsense. The creature is a good foot shorter with me and half my weight, built like a pencil. Like a dead pencil, if you include his skin tone. “Can we please eat?” the monster that killed hundreds of people whines.

“Eat the rats if you want a snack,” I say evenly. “We’re working.”

“Yes, speaking of, why am I working?” he asks pointedly.

I cough in surprise. “Well, I need your expertis—”

The monster cuts off my excuse. “I know that’s grubshit, Jet, why are you still dragging me around?” He sounds actually angry. Idiot, doesn’t he know the alternative?

“Because, monster, if I take you in I’ll have to… exterminate you.” I keep my eyes forward as we walk. I don’t want to see his expression. Its, its expression.

It lets a long sigh out behind me. “Right, I almost forgot.” His tone is so down it's hitting the path as we walk. “...I wasn’t human…” he mutters.

“What?” I ask, not able to hear the last thing clearly.

“Forget it.” He follows behind me in silence. We walk like that until arriving at the fancy house that is our destination.

The building is a medium sized shop, only three stories tall, that has a large anvil shaped sign on the front. As we get closer I notice a smaller sign hanging on the door saying ‘closed.’ I look at the monster and nod at the building. He nods back and follows me towards it.

Just before we reach the door it swings open, revealing a small elderly woman. She totters out to us, wringing her hands in worry.

“Are you Captain Jet?” she asks me.

I give her a nod. “Yes, that’s me. We’re here to investigate your grandchild’s disappearance?” Usually a knight lower down the pecking order would do this, but this old woman is the wife of one of the wealthiest people in town. The Count asked me personally to do this. Her eyes start to tear up at my words.

“Y-yes, Karl went missing last night.” She sniffs loudly. “He went to bed just after nightfall, and never made a peep.” She looks at the ground. “I should’ve checked, maybe if I checked I would’ve…” Her words slowly puttered into silence.

I desperately reach into my skull for the woman’s name, I just read it this morning. ‘Mrs. Wurmbinder, A voice whispers in my ear.

“Mrs. Wurmbinder, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t have caught the culprit in the act. If you had, there would’ve been a significant chance you would’ve been hurt, or worse.”

She looks up at me, fire in her eyes. “I might not be a smith like my husband, but I can still swing around a weapon.” She breathes angrily. “I would’ve cut the bastard in half.” Her posture is subtly different, squared off and energized. After a moment it drains away, returning to her semi-slouch from before. “I… Well at least I’d have tried.” She heads back towards the shop, motioning us to follow. I flash a thumbs up back to the monster as we enter.

The first floor is a typical weapons shop, the room littered with stands and cases holding every weapon type imaginable. Bows and glaives hang next to ice picks and… is that a shovel? The older woman leads us up a flight of stairs, and the atmosphere of the building changes dramatically.

Shifting from the standard shop feeling of the first floor, the room becomes much more homier. As we walk through the room, deeper into the house, I notice framed photos. The first few are black and white, but as we go farther into the building they get color, and then more quality. Each picture shows a shorter young woman holding hands and smiling with a creature.

The creature is easily six feet hunched over. In place of a face it has a long snout suitable for reaching into deep holes. Its entire body is covered in large scales. Its bent back continues down to a long tail. It has some stocky legs holding up its large frame. Its arms are huge and clublike. Right where the woman’s hand would reach the head of the arm the scales are folded back, revealing a very pale hand. The woman holds the pale hand of the creature tightly, and affectionately. Even though the creature is covered in scales, it has short, bear-like ears, and is clearly a mammal. The scales are all a bright silver color with some duller patches. The creature stares out of every picture with smiling eyes the color of sapphires.

“Is this your husband, Mrs. Wurmbinder?” The older woman stops and looks up at the pictures. She smiles fondly at them.

“Yes, that’s me and Ezick. Although I am much younger, and prettier, in most of those photos.” She chuckles to herself.

“I’m surprised that a stequillian left their homelands.” I look closer at the image of the member of the famously homebodied race. “And I thought stequillians couldn’t make weapons?” I look over at the woman, who’s smiling wistfully at the pictures.

“Yes, Ezick is a very strange one overall. He’s one of the rare ones that can visualize weapons. I suppose compared to that, leaving home or falling in love with a human girl aren’t all that odd.” She snaps out of her nostalgia. “Anyways. Karl’s room is just down this hall.”

After a few more moments the three of us step in front of the wider than normal door. Now that I think about it, all the doors here are wider than normal. She swings it open and leads us inside.

The inside looks like a typical child’s room, maybe a bit on the wealthier side. Toys and books are scattered around haphazardly, with some discarded shirts and shorts peeking out from under the furniture.

“How old is Karl, ma’am?” I look closely at his bed. It’s made neatly with blue covers and a large, fluffy, pillow. “And did you make his bed?” I look at her.

Her eyes are large with surprise. “Oh my goodness, I didn’t!” She looks at the bed for a moment in a daze. “Oh, he’s seven,” she belatedly adds. I give her a nod.

The monster has been poking around the room while I spoke to the elder. He pushes toys around with his foot and flips through a few books with a bored expression. Once I finished talking to the grandmother he waves me over.

He’s crouched under the window sill across from the bed. I walk over and crouch down next to him.

He points to some dust on the floor. “It’s a bit cliche, but the intruder slipped up.” He pinches some of the dust between his fingers. “It’s metal, silver, I’m pretty sure. Off the tool the intruder used to jimmy open the window.” I stand up and take a closer look at the bottom edge of the window.

A groove the thickness of a needle leads into the room from the outside. Some of the dust from the floor is in it as well. The window is unlocked from the inside. I look back to the older woman standing in the doorway nervously.

“Ma’am, did you unlock this window?”

She shakes her head at me. “When I found Karl was missing I made sure to not touch anything.” She wrings her hands again.

I nod at her before asking my next question. “What metal is your husband? I noticed he had a whiter scale color.”

She looks a bit confused, but answers, “He’s mercury, what does that matter?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing, I was just curious.” She doesn’t look particularly convinced, but drops it.

I crouch down next to the monster again. “It’s not the grandfather, then.” It nods in agreement.

“Well, at least this dust isn’t his, I suppose he might’ve kidnapped the kid still,” he muses to himself.

I shake my head with a chuckle. “I’m sure that he was in the forge the entire night, and I’m sure there were people coming and going to give alibis.” I glance at the woman. “Also I don’t think they have any motive, do you?” The monster shakes its head.

We stand up simultaneously and I pull a small bag out of my pocket. It’s made of… something that makes sure dust won’t fall out of it. I scoop up the majority of the dust and dump it inside before sealing it. I put the evidence into a small pouch on my hip before looking at the grandmother.

“Mrs. Wurmbinder, I think you’ve given us a lead.” I walk over to the bed and pull back the blanket. Sure enough, a small amount of the silver powder is there as well.

“We’ll find him, ma’am.”