It was not a Hydra, a wyrm, a basilisk…

Or an angel.

The last one had gotten a good laugh out of Melmarc’s uncle. It was a full belly laugh, satisfyingly it was not the roll-of-the-chair laughs that was their uncle’s trade mark.

“An angel? What gave you that idea?” uncle Dorthna asked when he was done laughing.

Melmarc shrugged.

With his sister present and Ark carrying the Guardian like a baby, he wasn’t sure how they would react to finding out he’d told his friends about it.

Was it supposed to be like a family secret? It was only one of two of its kind in the whole world. And the first had caused an uproar when it was revealed decades ago.

“Couldn’t possibly be an angel,” Dorthna told him. “How many angels have you seen without their wings?”

“None.” Melmarc paused. “Actually, I’ve never seen an angel before. No one has.”

“Oh.”

His uncle’s face dropped into the emptiest expression they had ever seen. “Well, all angels have wings. They may not always be feathered but they all have wings. So… not an angel.”

“Uncle D,” Ninra said, suspicion lacing her voice. “Are angels real? Like, real, real?”

Dorthna gave a nervous chuckle. “Of course they are. It says so in the bible.”

“She means real, real,” Ark interjected. “Like you can wrap your hand around their neck and squeeze real.”

He was standing behind Dorthna’s couch and rocking steadily from side to side. The Guardian was cradled comfortably against his chest in one arm, and he had the index finger of his free hand in the creature’s mouth.

It held onto his hand with its two stubby, baby, front limbs and was nibbling on the finger. Ark was like a mother with a feeding bottle.

Their uncle scratched his head, looking from one of them to the other.

“Now, I know what I want to say,” he spoke finally. “And I know what your dad would want me to say.”

“And what would dad want you to say?” Melmarc was still looking at Ark swaying from side to side.

“Doesn’t matter what your dad would want me to say. Angels are real, your bible tells you so, and that’s my answer.”

“Final answer, uncle D?” Ark teased.

“Final answer.”

Ninra laughed. “There’s definitely a portal somewhere out there that leads to heaven. Angels and everything all floating around and looking majestic and shii.”

“If there was,” their uncle pointed a finger at her, “and I’m not saying there is, you definitely don’t want to go in there.”

“Kinda gives a whole new perspective to the whole religion thing,” Melmarc mused.

It was saying a lot that he could easily consider basilisks and wyrms and wendigos as potentially real despite being creatures from mythologies, but not angels. When Delano had posed the idea, the impossibility of it was ninety percent part of why he’d rejected it.

Now…

He wasn’t sure how he felt.

If angels are just behind a portal that could open anytime, doesn’t that mean Delvers have to fight them?

How do you venerate something whose ass you’ve kicked before?

Melmarc realized Ark was looking at him. Their eyes met and whatever he was thinking must’ve shown on his face because he watched a question bloom on Ark’s face.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

His brother looked like a child that had just been told the Easter bunny wasn’t real. When he said what was on his mind, Melmarc couldn’t say he was surprised.

“Wait a minute!” he leaned forward over uncle Dorthna’s couch.

The Guardian gave a small cackle of protest and he was forced to stand upright again. Then he went back to swaying.

Everyone waited.

When the Guardian grew quiet, he continued. “Did mom and dad fight angels? Is that why we don’t go to church anymore?”

Ninra gasped, then she started laughing again. “Did a member of this family kick angel ass? Oh, Father Boniface would be so appalled if he ever finds out.”

Uncle Dorthna ran a tired hand down is face. “If your parents ever hear you guys talking like this, I’ll deny ever being part of this conversation.”

“It’s cool,” Ark said. “We can just say Mel found out from one of his countless research of Delvers and Portals.”

Melmarc shot his brother a glare while their sister agreed.

“That would actually work,” she muttered. “He’s always learning one new thing or the other about—can you please stop doing that, Ark. It’s weird.”

“Doing what?”

“That! You keep treating that thing like a baby when it might grow up one day to be living in a volcano.”

“Not likely,” Melmarc said absently. “It’s not a dragon.”

“And…” Ark moved his hand, saw the Guardian wasn’t ready to let go, and left it there. “Annnnd, you’re just jealous ‘cause it won’t let you anywhere near it.”

Ninra scoffed. “That’s what you think.”

Melmarc had more worries, and they were the reason he was yet to take his eyes off his brother. Since no one was going to say it, he felt he should.

“Aren’t you worried it’s going to bite you again?”

Ark looked down at the creature. Then him and the creature looked at Melmarc. It was so in sync that Melmarc could’ve sworn they were communicating somehow.

“Not really,” Ark answered. “It bit me like an hour ago so I’m guessing I’m good for another few.”

Melmarc looked at all three of them. Uncle Dorthna, Ark, and Ninra.

“Is no one worried by that… at all?”

“Not really,” Ninra answered, not looking worried. “I was there when it bit him, but he healed right up, so I guess it’s good. And uncle Dorthna says its fine.”

“It is.” Dorthna waved the worry aside.

Melmarc wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Their reactions were making him feel as if he worried too much. But Ark was impulsive, he did things simply because he could. He was an amazing brother, that much was without doubt. He looked out for Melmarc whenever he could.

But sometimes it was as if he forgot to look out for himself.

“By the way,” uncle Dorthna drew their attention. “I forgot to ask yesterday, and this morning. But have you guys named that thing. You know names are important for magical creatures, right? And you’ve got to figure out what it eats.”

Ark looked puzzled. “It never acts hungry so I just thought…”

Melmarc’s eyes narrowed. “You just thought what, Ark?”

Ark looked away. “Nothing.”

“Ark.”

“I swear it’s nothing. I had it, then I lost it. Promise.”

Melmarc eyed his brother for a while longer, then dropped the topic.

………………………….

Their father came back from his deployment that weekend. On Sunday, to be precise. And true to their mother’s words, he was not happy to see the Guardian.

His face tightened in the deepest frown Melmarc and Ark had ever seen in their lives. He said nothing, did nothing. He simply stared at the creature with a dark face while it hid behind Ark’s leg when they’d shown him.

It had been a very tense moment that had lasted for a whole thirty seconds before their father left their room.

Oddly enough, it didn’t feel as if he was mad about them getting a pet. It was like he was mad at the pet.

A couple of weeks went by, and winter began proper.

After going through names like The Harbinger of Doom, Dark Lord, and Liquid Fire because he thought they were cool, Ark finally settled on a name for the Guardian.

Spitfire.

Melmarc had been forced to agree reluctantly. In his defense, since knowing the creature, it had never let out a breath of smoke, speak less of a puff of fire.

Still, Spitfire was better than Dark Lord Mordark. Sometimes he felt his brother watched too much television and read too many comics.

But it was a bit hypocritical on his part, if he was being honest. After all, he’d had literally no name for the thing.

Their game of figuring out what Spitfire was with their uncle continued to run into the winter. After days of being bombarded with different possibilities, Dorthna had added a new rule to the game.

For any name they brought up, they were to defend their reason for it. It was a game of figuring out what creature Spitfire was, not a guessing game. And just so they—and by they, he meant Melmarc—didn’t end up devoting school time to the topic, they were only allowed one name a day.

No one had gotten it yet.

Melmarc continued trying.

He didn’t go to the town library again, though. He wasn’t going to keep doing that to his friends. Instead, he settled for the maddening action of going into page two and three of the internet search.

The day Delano had caught him on page four of ‘mythical beasts of Africa’ had been the last straw.

“I think you need to join your brother in therapy,” he’d said, eyeballing Eroms who continued to receive all kinds of food from all kinds of strangers.

That day he’d received a cup of lemonade from a small girl in elementary school. In his defense, you didn’t say no when a kid offered you a gift. You simply smiled and took it like it was the most important thing in the word. Didn’t matter if it was a cup of sand they were pretending was food.

“I’m fine,” Melmarc had argued as his finger hover over the arrow that would take him to page five.

As for Eroms, it always seemed like he was along for the ride. Anywhere Delano and Melmarc went, he was happy to go.

For Delano, he had his own mystery to solve.

Why were strangers going out of their way to give Eroms food? And why was Eroms taking it without any worries?

It was almost as if their friend knew the answer but wasn’t sharing.