As he walked upstairs to his apartment, a part of Aaron hoped that none of his new purchases had been delivered yet. Sure, he only had another day or two of clean clothes, but he really wasn’t in the mood to do laundry.

Running from ambushes and fighting for his life had left Aaron in the mood to put his brain into rest mode with some videos or games and that was before factoring in a full day of shopping, sightseeing, and suddenly discovering your childhood teddy bear had come to life and was a quasi-legal sentient fuzz golem.

As it turned out, both Macy’s and the Drakon were dedicated and implacable foes of his procrastination and laziness; the hallway outside his apartment was filled with bags and boxes of varying sizes. The furniture was absent, but that was perfectly reasonable. After all, Aaron still needed to arrange to have the interior walls modified to fit the theme he was going for.

Aaron sighed, but a small smile formed on his face nonetheless. All this expensive new crap was his!

This is both the best and worst thing that’s happened to me this week, he thought. Finding out I’m a dragon and assassination attempts very much included.

With a few minutes to kill until Tia came up, Aaron started moving things into the apartment. He did the heavy stuff first so he’d be able to cool down a bit — being all sweaty and gross was not ideal with a woman like Tia coming to visit — but he’d totally forgotten about his new strength.

With the benefit of the changes from his Emergence, it took hardly any effort to move everything. All that was left when Tia arrived were big red bags full of clothes. Tia had brought her own bag, a weathered backpack slung over one shoulder.

“You want a hand with all that?” she asked as she summited the stairs.

“I’m good. I’m going to have to sort through all this later to decide what to throw in the laundry, so I’m trying to get some kind of organization done so it’ll be a bit less of a headache.”

Tia patted him consolingly on the shoulder as she passed into the apartment. Aaron hauled all the bags in one big heap and set them in the living room. When he came to the dinette, she had a small pile of menus and was spreading them out on the table.

“There are so many great restaurants in New York and we have a bunch that are pretty close,” Tia said. “Korean, Thai, Ethiopian, Indian, and, of course, plenty of Chinese and Italian. Pretty much anything you could think of, we got.”

Aaron bit the inside of his lip as he sat down. It looked like Tia was going to ask for his input on what to order this time and that meant he was going to have to make a shameful confession. A confession that always led to acrimony and strife. One that precipitated its own dreaded version of The Talk.

Once he made his admission, the conversation that would follow was familiar and annoying. It was basically the same as someone saying they’d never seen Star Wars or The Godfather — not that Aaron was guilty of such pop cultural sins! — because some people took it in stride while others… others learned of his foible and immediately discovered a new purpose. A purpose that consumed eclipsed all other concerns and left them insistent Aaron had been living his life incorrectly and that it needed to be rectified.

“So this might make me seem weird, but really it’s one of the least weird things about me,” he began, pausing to gird himself for the imminent fallout of what came next. “I’m, uh… I’m not really into spicy food.”

Tia looked up from the collection of menus on the table and gave him her full attention. “Really? Why not?”

Aaron scratched the back of his neck and stared down at the menus, as if a sudden, intense interest in restaurant names could hide the shame of not liking sriracha on every damned thing.

Can I go with the truth here? he wondered. Or will that make this whole thing into A Whole Thing?

Sometimes, the truth was enough to get people off his back. It could prevent them from pestering him to try this sauce or that pepper or these chips. Other times, people saw it as little more than an evasion, convincing themselves of Aaron’s cowardly weakness in the face of their oh-so-flavorful ‘heat’ and taking grievous offense on behalf of all foods.

He liked Tia and, more than that, he liked Tia. Not only had she taken the revelations about his teddy bear in stride without teasing him too much, but he didn’t want to start their relationship — whatever it turned out to be — with lies.

“Spicy food doesn’t have a flavor, it’s just hot,” Aaron finally said after a deep breath. “I know people are convinced it does and that’s cool for them, but the only selling point I can see is physical discomfort.”

Tia sat back in her chair, letting out a low whistle. “I can’t even imagine. Both my parents are Korean, New Yorkers, and foodies, so spicy food was always part of my life.”

“It was a real pain in the ass growing up. My mom and I have, like, the exact opposite taste buds. She’s dark chocolate, mustard, and pepper and I’m vanilla, mayo, and salt.”

Tia blinked several times. “You are the whitest of white breads.”

“Tell me about it,” Aaron said. “The true irony is that I get all my Euro-mutt genetics from my mom’s side of the family.”

Tia shuffled the menus around. “Well, I know all these menus pretty well, so I can order plenty of food that won’t be spicy, but I’m also going to order stuff with some heat. It might not even sting for you anymore now that you’re a drakus.”

And there it was — the inexplicable drive of all spicy food lovers to convert you to the Cult of Scovilles. It was almost pathological, like those guys who convinced themselves a woman could only be a lesbian because she had never found the ‘right dick.’

And isn’t it weird how the ‘right dick’ is always their dick? Aaron thought.

Still… Aaron’s thoughts went back to the Tribulation under Yellowstone. He hadn’t broken a sweat standing a couple feet from a lake of magma, so maybe Tia had a point. If not, it would be disappointing if the mighty Primus Draconis could be defeated by some hot sauce, but it was something Aaron could live with.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Tia ordered an absurd amount of food from several different restaurants, then turned her attention fully to Aaron.

“There are several things we need to go over this evening,” she said. “Where would you like to start?”

After a few seconds considering what was most pressing, Aaron decided to tackle things in the reverse order of their severity.

“I’m not sure how to phrase this without sounding super nerdy, but the first thing I’d like to know more about is what kind of physical changes come with being a drakus. I know about the increases to strength and endurance, and I’m adjusting to the changes from the Emergence, but is there other stuff?”

Tia smirked and snorted a quick laugh. “You want to know the racials of being a drakus?”

“Other than that being the exact kind of phrasing I wanted to avoid, yes,” he answered. “Like, I’ve noticed some things I seem to be able to do and I’m curious if all of us can do it and, more importantly, what I might be missing.”

“What kind of things can you do?” Tia asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Back in Wyoming, when I was in the lake, I could see for a few feet even though there was no light and I also seemed to be able to hold my breath pretty much indefinitely,” Aaron said. “Actually, I inhaled a bunch of water on accident and I was fine.

“Sensory and respiratory enhancements are fairly common, but there are records of many strange physical abilities,” Tia explained. “Most are so specific that they’re almost not useful, but others can be life-changing if they manifest.”

“So they’re not universal?”

She shook her head. “Not really, no. Our physical power is pretty much always there, but everything else is sort of individualized. All those kinds of little powers are basically innate magic; all drakus could theoretically develop them, but many don’t.”

Thinking back to Mallory’s explanation — and lecture — about how magic worked the day before, Aaron could dredge up some of what he’d been told, but he knew he was missing pieces. Tia was more than your garden variety genius, but she was also a student who had turned her attention in many directions, so Aaron was willing to trust she wouldn’t think him incompetent for not remembering every specific detail from that brief conversation.

“Innate magic is the kind that comes naturally to someone, right?” he asked. “It’s the trinary state we talked about where magic is simultaneously on both spectrums and none for performing magic?”

Tia raised a hand over her head for Aaron to slap, which he did.

“Yes, good memory,” she said. “Innate magic will usually be spontaneous and structured while also being neither, in the traditional sense. And for extra fun, it is generally performed expertly without the need for personal expertise.”

“I’m going to have to draw actual charts or something until I get this stuff down,” Aaron groused. “Is it possible for a drakus to train an innate power they don’t have, uh, innately?”

“Yes, but it’s not easy,” she said. “Improving at something that innately comes to you can be done, but manifesting something that doesn’t is a lot more complicated. Because they’re tied to our nature as drakus, it requires a change in perspective or understanding on a very deep level.”

Aaron wondered if it would be easier or harder to develop talents he didn’t already possess because he carried the essence of the Primus Draconis, but that was a question he could probably explore later. He only wanted to know one more thing before they moved to the other issues on the table.

“What are some of the coolest innate powers?” he asked.

Tia laughed, brushed her hair out of her face, then began to list them off. “Slowed aging starts at some point in our twenties, which most drakus benefit from, but probably the coolest ones are sleep and bowel regulation.”

“Come again?” Aaron asked.

“Nothing that affects the refractory period, I’m afraid, and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing I’d have heard about. Sorry.”

Her delivery was so deadpan it took Aaron a second to register what Tia had said, then a single bellow of a laugh forced its way out of his throat. She snickered softly, probably more at his laughter than the joke itself.

“Okay, but seriously,” she said, “some drakus can go almost entirely without sleep or using the restroom. Think about our dinner yesterday. Have you taken the monumental dump necessary to account for all of that food?”

Keeping close track of his shits wasn’t a habit Aaron was prone to, but now that he thought about it, Tia raised a good point. They had eaten literal pounds of food the night before and Aaron hadn’t experienced even the slightest digestive upset.

“A part of me feels like I’ve been deprived of that satisfaction of a truly historic load, but at the same time this is a pretty awesome power to have,” he said.

Tia laughed softly. “Too true. Is there anything else you wanted to know?”

“Nothing that can’t wait, considering how heavy some of the other stuff is,” Aaron replied.

Although burning with curiosity, Aaron was hesitant to move on to the next matter — his potentially missing or altered memories. That an assassin had come after him, obviously failed, and somehow removed the event from his memory was disturbing enough, but Aaron was more worried about what he had done to survive.

That concern was fresh in his mind after the ambush in the parking garage not even an hour earlier. He had lost control of himself for the first time in more than half his life and it was unsettling to consider that it might have actually been the second time. But what truly gave him pause was the knowledge that he had likely faced that assassin entirely alone. He didn’t see how he could have survived and avoided the very thing that had motivated him to swear off fighting in the first place.

And depending on how the magic works, Tia will know what I did and so will the others, Aaron realized. What if they think I’m some kind of psychopath and unfit? Will they expel me from the Drakon? Or kill me?

If it weren’t for the fact that Aaron’s default mode of existence was constant, low-grade anxiety, he might have been having a lot more difficulty moving ahead with the whole memory thing. As it was, a few seconds of racing thoughts were the worst he had to suffer through.

“I think we should probably try to find out about that problem with my memories,” he said.

“Ooh yes,” Tia said, pulling a small, ancient book from her bag and placing it on the table. The title, Aaron noticed, was Arcanum Memoria. “I’ve been stoked to take a look at that.”

She set more items on the table: a mortar and pestle made a rich orange-brown stone shot through with eddies of black; a gleaming rock, shockingly blue with splashes of gold on every surface; and, a small, pale blue flower with five petals and a thick golden ring at its center.

“I don’t usually get to do ceremonial magic or high rituals, so this is going to be very cool for me,” she explained, dropping the flower into the stone bowl. “It offers a lot of stability but it’s time-consuming and relies heavily on the work of others, which can interfere with a caster’s intent.”

She lifted the pestle in one hand and gripped the mortar with the other. “Are you ready to begin?”

There were secrets locked away in Aaron’s mind and now was the time to unearth some of them. Whether he wanted to know just how far he had gone or not was secondary to the fact that he — and the Drakon — needed that information.

With one hard swallow, he nodded to the young sorceress sitting across from him.

“Let’s see what there is to see,” he said.