It was not a drake.

Melmarc had returned his mind to the task of sorting through mythical creatures. The plan was to go through all of them. Once he was done with what the west had to offer, he would scrape through what the east had to offer.

Ark had guessed a chupacabra for reasons unknown to Melmarc. If his brother had seen a picture of a chupacabra, he wouldn’t have guessed it. The creature was more ugly-cat than wingless dragon.

But uncle Dorthna had been contemplatively quiet that they’d almost believed that the most insane guess was the right one. Melmarc had sighed in relief when it had been wrong. For some reason, learning the reason for their uncle’s trash collection with that as the answer just felt very anti-climactic.

Before they went to their room with their new pet, as Ark had put it, uncle Dorthn had added a new clause.

“Oh, just the way the chances of being killed by a baby are exponentially low but not zero,” he’d said. “There is another condition on this one.”

Ark and Melmarc stopped at the door to their room.

“What’s this thing about death by babies?” Ark had asked, genuinely curious.

Melmarc had more important curiosities than that. “What’s the third condition?”

“Well… the chances of it happening are very low.” Dorthna’s voice was disbelievingly strained. It sounded like he was hinting at something but didn’t want them to put too much stock in it.

It was like hinting at a birthday present you weren’t entirely sure you could get for a friend.

“Uncle D,” Melmarc pressed. “What’s the condition.”

Dorthna scratched his jaw thoughtfully. How he managed to look contemplative and entertained by his show at the same time was almost impressive. Finally, he let up.

“Alright. Here’s how I’m going to put it. You’re both smart kids so it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand. I’m not going to tell you what the third condition is but—”

“That’s not fair.”

Dorthna raised a finger to stop Ark. “But, I will tell you this. If you find out about what kind of creature it is through the third condition, which you will both know it was if it happens, then you also don’t get a reward. Deal?”

The weight of the box was pressing down on Melmarc so he moved it to Ark who took it comfortably.

“So what you’re saying is that there’s a mystery third way of finding out, and if we stumble on it somehow, then we don’t get to know why you collect things from us.”

Dorthna nodded.

Melmarc thought about it. The only condition that was meant to seem very impossible was Dragon-Knight telling them. Actually, telling them wasn’t what seemed impossible, meeting her was what seemed impossible.

Ark had claimed their dad could help, but Melmarc knew that was pushing it. Their dad was an important government Delver, but Dragon-Knight was in an entirely different league. She walked around with a literal freaking dragon. And the Delver fan sites ranked her among the top ten Gifted in the entire world.

“This mystery way of finding out, why?” he asked. “If it’s a mystery way you can’t even tell us, shouldn’t learning through it be worthy of learning your secret?”

“It’s not really a secret, Mel. I just haven’t told you. And no. This third mystery method is entirely… nope, that’s going into territories that will help you figure it out.” Dorthna’s face scrunched up in thought again. He was more like their mother and less like their father, always full of expressions. “All I can say is that the mystery method has nothing to do with hard work or any skill on your part, so learning through that method would just be you guys being spoon-fed the answer. So it won’t count.”

Melmarc thought about it again and couldn’t figure out how it was going to work. If he removed the other conditions of being told by their parents or Dragon-Knight, he couldn’t find any other way that met the criteria for the mystery condition.

The only thing I can think about is if the thing tells us itself. He paused, looked at Ark, specifically the box in his hand. It can’t be that, right? Dragon-Knight’s dragon can’t talk… Right?

“Alright,” Melmarc concluded finally. “We’ve got a deal.”

And hopefully that thing won’t start talking in our sleep.

…………………………..

Their mom didn’t come out of her room that night. Not for dinner, and not for a late night snack. Melmarc and Ark had stayed up late even if it was a school night, trying to figure out what their new pet was.

The internet had a wide variety of suggestions. A dragon and a drake were the most common answers they got when they put in the creature’s description. There were a few suggestions that it was a Leshrac which looked like a mix between a goat and an alpaca.

Melmarc had never heard of it before so he moved on from that pretty quickly.

They considered asking live forums. It would be a great way of getting more heads in on the project. With enough people trying to figure it out, there was no way they wouldn’t get more accurate suggestions.

But Ark was quick to object to it.

“Everyone only knows about one guardian,” he said, holding their pet up over him like a baby while he laid on his bed. “And they don’t even know it’s a guardian. I don’t think we want to be asking weird people on the internet to help us figure it out. First they’ll try figuring out what it could be, then they’ll try figuring out who we are and what we have. Too creepy.”

So the internet idea was a bust.

They didn’t see their mom until the next day.

Dawn had broken and the roosters had crowed their lungs out when they saw her.

They had bathed, brushed and were dressed for school. Melmarc had his bag in his usual one handed carry. Ark’s bag was literally one handed, like those suitcases new employees who liked to commute tended to wear. He wore it diagonally, so that it crossed over from his right shoulder to his left hip.

Melmarc had watched him wrap Chioma’s hoodie carefully before putting it in his bag with an odd expression.

They met their mom when they stepped out of their room. She stood in the living room, dressed in black. She wore a fit top and pants, with combat boots Melmarc knew were designed to muffle the sound of footsteps. It was her favorite one.

“Hi kids,” she said with a sweet smile when she saw them.

Their answer was instinctual, not that they would’ve given any other. “Hi mom.”

“Your uncle Dorthna over here was just telling me about how you’ve got a new pet.”

They looked around the living room and didn’t see their uncle Dorthna.

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“Anyway,” their mom continued, walking over to them. “It’s quite literally my first task before I’m deployed. I get to see what you guys have and take the sole decision of if your father’s letting you keep it or not.”

Melmarc didn’t trust her smile. It was too happy, too satisfied with itself.

“She’s enjoying this,” Ark said. To her he added: “You’re enjoying this.”

Their mom chuckled easily. “Uhuh.” She ruffled his hair as she passed them and pushed the door to their room open. “Now let’s see what you have in there.”

“I wanna see, too!” Ninra rushed down the stairs, most likely from her room upstairs. “They didn’t let me see it when they got it.”

“Because you won’t be interested,” Ark said, rushing to close the room door behind them.

Ninra barreled into the door with enough force to resist Ark’s hold. For a moment Melmarc watched his brother bounce on the door.

“Don’t be mean to your sister.” Their mom wasn’t looking. It was an off-hand comment made as she stared around their room.

The creature was nowhere in sight. Unsurprising since it was back in its cardboard box hidden under the bed.

“Your uncle made it sound like a magical creature.” She stepped deeper into the room and looked around. In her boots her steps were without sound. “I don’t sense any magic or mana. Is it a stealth type?”

Melmarc would’ve been happy to let her know that he had no idea, but knew she wasn’t talking to him. Soliloquy was one of her habits. Their dad said that she couldn’t think in her head to save her life during a stealth mission.

She walked around to the other side of the bed as Ark’s struggle with Ninra over the door ended. Their sister stumbled in, shot Ark a glare, adjusted herself, and joined them.

Their mom knelt beside Ark’s bed and looked under it. “Did you guys hide it?”

“Under Mel’s bed,” Ark offered.

Melmarc turned to him, befuddled. “I thought we agreed we were going to keep it under yours?”

“You did.” Ark shrugged. “But I figured, I spent the whole day playing with it yesterday, and since it’s going to be our pet, and by our,” he gave Ninra a pointed look, “I mean Mel and I, I figured it has to spend some time with you in some way.”

Their mother was kneeling beside Melmarc’s bed now. She reached under it and pulled out the cardboard box they kept the creature in.

“What did you guys wrap it in?” she stared inside the box. “And why did you wrap it all up? I can’t even see anything.”

She picked it out of the box and Melmarc saw that it had been wrapped like a burrito. A really fat burrito. It was wrapped in a green…

“Is that my shirt?” His jaw dropped. “Please tell me that’s not my shirt, Ark. Tell me you didn’t wrap it in my green shirt.”

“It’s for your sake, Mel,” Ark answered easily. “You won’t spend time with it so how’s it going to get used to you. I read somewhere that if you put your worn shirt in your puppy’s bed when it sleeps it gets used to your smell and loves you more.”

“But I liked that shirt. And it’s not a puppy.”

Their mother walked up to them, holding the creature up. “Well it definitely isn’t a puppy.”

She didn’t look very happy. But at least she didn’t look mad. So the chances of them keeping it were fifty-fifty.

She looked at Ark. “Where did you get this?”

“Why me?” Ark answered with mock hurt. “It’s like you’re so sure I’m the one that brought it home. It could’ve easily been Mel.”

Melmarc looked at him. “Really?”

Ark smiled easily.

“I’m not trying to throw you under the bus or anything,” he explained. “I’m just saying that when shit like this happens—”

“Language,” their mother cautioned.

“When stuff like this happens,” Ark corrected, “everyone just assumes it’s me.”

Ninra walked up beside them to get a closer look at the creature. It was still wrapped like a burrito so that only the front of its face was showing.

When did he even get the time to wrap it up? And what was I doing that I didn’t see him using my shirt?

“Looks kinda cute,” Ninra concluded. “Anyway, people always assume it’s you because it’s you. Everyone knows Mel hates animals and wouldn’t bring one home, talk less of some stray.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a stray.” Their mom was unwrapping it from the swaddle. “Lost? Definitely, but not a stray.”

She dropped Melmarc’s shirt on his bed and held the creature up. It stared down at her with starry eyes, polished marbles stained in dots of white like the night sky.

“Wait, that looks like a…” Ninra frowned, then turned to Ark. “Wasn’t there a Chaos run last week when the Salnug Delvers failed to clear that portal? Why would you go near a portal during a chaos run?”

“He didn’t go near any portal during a Chaos run,” their mom said absently. She was turning the creature one way and the other.

Melmarc was worried it would bite her at some point. For now, it just looked down at her like she was some weird, oddly calm anomaly.

“Chaos runs are the most protected portals you can find,” she continued. “When a portal opens, the government gets access to it and picks a company of its choice to handle it, and the company is left to do it however they like. As long as it’s within the law. If they fail, we get a Chaos run where monsters start flooding out. Before that happens, we get a brief period of time to prepare.”

“During that time the government sets up a perimeter,” Melmarc jumped in, and his mother let him, still studying their pet. “They cordon off a wide stretch of the area, deploy some of their own Delvers and conscript Delvers from other companies, depending on the portal rank. Then they wait. It’s not unheard of for monsters to slip through here and there, but it’s very rare. But it’s impossible for normal people to slip into the cordoned area.”

“So this one slipped through?” Ninra asked.

“That’s my best guess.” Their mother placed the creature on Melmarc’s bed, specifically on his green shirt, and started wrapping it back up.

“Mom!” he whined.

She looked back at him. “What? Your brother’s right. We all know you won’t play with it, but it’s also your pet, so it has to get used to you somehow.”

Melmarc let out a defeated sigh but Ark perked up.

“Does that mean we get to keep it?” Ark asked, excited.

Ninra stepped in front of him. “Please say no, mom. That’ll teach him not to bring home random animals.”

Their mom chuckled as she finished wrapping the creature up. “Do you even know what this is?”

“No,” Ark answered. “But don’t tell us.”

She cocked a quizzical brow at him.

“Uncle Dorthna said he’d tell us something fun if we find out on our own,” Melmarc explained. “But we don’t win if you, dad, or Dragon-Knight tells us.”

This time their mom laughed.

“You have a higher chance of being killed by a baby than running into Dragon-Knight.”

“What’s with you guys and being killed by babies? Are you sure Uncle D’s not some long lost brother of yours? Or was there a portal of murderous babies no one found out about?”

“Portal of murderous babies,” their mom nodded. “We went in with Dragon-Knight and a few others because the portal was A-rank.” She chuckled. “I’d never seen your uncle so terrified in my life.”

“That said,” she placed the creature back in the box and slid it back under the bed. “Next time you want to use your brother’s things for questionable—even if good—reasons, ask for permission first, Ark.”

“Yes, mom.”

Ark didn’t look in the least bit chastised. Not that Melmarc had wanted him to be.

“So do we get to keep it?”

Their mother got up smiling. “It’s going to give your father an aneurysm when he comes back in the weekend, but definitely. Why not?”

Ark gave a fist pump in the air. “Yes!”

Their mom was smiling fondly at them now.

“Alright, alright. That’s enough of that.” She walked up to Melmarc and smoothed his hair out. It changed the way he’d dressed it but he didn’t complain.

She looked him in the eye, her green meeting his hazel. “Be good in school, okay. And stay away from bullies. Let’s work with your brother to keep him out of fights.”

Melmarc nodded, and she kissed him on the head. She wasn’t very tall, and at sixteen he was her height so he had to tilt his head forward to make it easier for her.

She walked over to Ark and scattered his hair some more. “Stay out of fights.”

Ark grinned at her. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’m serious, Ark,” she warned, though she was still smiling. “I know it’s a condition due to what happened with the Player, but you’ve got to control it. You can’t go around beating up everybody that looks at Mel sideways.”

“I only beat the bullies back then,” Ark complained. “If you’re going to hit someone, you have to be ready to be hit back.”

Melmarc looked between the both of them. “Why do you guys sound like I have bullies? Like it’s a constant thing? It was just three times.”

All three of them gave him a flat look.

He threw his hands up. “I swear I don’t have bullies.”

“You got bullied three times, Mel,” Ninra said. “That’s you having bullies. If Ark wasn’t a walking grenade, you’d be bullied more.”

“No, I got into two fights that I couldn’t win. The first one was me being bullied and I’ll take that one. But the other two were different. Eroms was being picked on in one of them so I had to step in, and Delano had a bit of an issue in the second one.”

Ark scratched above his lip with a finger in thought. He was clearly thinking about all three since he’d been the one to give the bullies a beating. “Oh.”

“See? I’m not being bullied.”

“That’s good to hear.” Their mother walked past them. “So remember, Mel, be good. Ark, no fighting. And you.” She stopped in front of their sister.

Ninra beamed up at their mother. She’d gotten their mom’s looks, but hadn’t really gotten any of their parents’ height. Melmarc wouldn’t say she was short, but she was definitely the shortest in the house.

Their mom’s lips pursed in thought. “When’s school resuming?”

Ninra’s mouth fell. “You sound like you’re already trying to get rid of me. I just came back last week.”

Everyone laughed at that. Their mom gave her a kiss on the cheek before walking out the door.

“I am,” she called over her shoulder. “Go back to school, Nin.”

Ninra followed after her with a few words of complaint. There was something about not being appreciated for her pasta skills, and another about calling a children’s strike.

Alone in the room, Ark looked at Melmarc and said, “That went well.”

Melmarc agreed. While their mom had been mildly surprised at the sight of the creature, her willingness to keep it meant it either wouldn’t be too dangerous, whatever it was, or there were benefits to keeping it.

Either way, they got a pet. A magical one.

“Now we’ve just got to name it,” he pointed out, adding, when Ark wanted to speak: “We are not naming it Nologia or any variation of comic book or anime names.”

“Actually, I was going to say that we also have to figure out what it eats." Ark shrugged. "Because I’ve got no idea.”