The Wizard Tower, my apartment building and home. The Laboratory that sat atop the Tower was my very own apartment, where I slept and cooked. I had spent a few nights with my beloved Martin, watching movies and playing games, and doing other kinds of less innocent activities. I smelled the waft of a home that had not changed one bit since I left.
Behind me, my escort was composed of three men, an alien among them. Wasting no time, I headed to my bedroom and perused through my plastic containers, where I kept all my stones and magical items. I had pendants and rings that I tried making and butchered. I had some other objects I bought, lathed, and poured my magic into. They held weak magic, but magic that was supposed to help you concentrate on power and spells. I wanted to use them to help me use water and air magic with more control. Within my palm, I held the items and I sighed frustrated, I knew that I was not going to use them correctly. These were meant for Padrict, today.
I grabbed my staff from my closet, two wands from my pile of commercially-made silicon wands, and closed my closet. I turned on my heels to walk out of my room, only to find my boyfriend handing over beer and water bottles. He offered me one. In any other situation, I would’ve been angry that everyone just took my drinks without my consent, but the people drinking included my lover and best friend; my home was theirs, and if that were the case, then they could invite any visitor to my drinks and food. Padrict was a guest in my home and he was welcomed by my family, my circle.
The grimace that found my face for an instant transformed into a smile. This was to be a family. But then, that thought turned sour. How I longed for another person to be present; for Padrict to be replaced by her. How I wanted Misa to be smiling and cheering with us. The family was not complete yet.
“Drink up,” I said. “We’re leaving at once.”
I threw my trinkets at Padrict, he tried grabbing some with a beer in one hand, and failed to do both. The bottle fell from his grip and the trinkets slipped through his fingers and bounced off his palm. The beer spilled on the floor and the party laughed at the embarrassing attempt. Padrict could not help but laugh with us, and I handed him over a bottle of cold water, now that all the beer bottles were spent. He took it with a smile, and I jest that he might have taken a bit too many swigs.
“I only took two,” he answered.
“Two too many, then.”
I took a swig of my bottle.
Once done with refreshments, we left for Tedet’s car and drove to his home, where we’d find our friend Misa having a meal with Grikhat, waiting for us to arrive. We exchanged pleasantries and Grikhat croaked and gave me a hug, an unusual gesture by radera, reserved only to greet humans. Radera disliked hugging, they felt robbed of their personal space and felt attacked by the gesture. Grikhat had hugged me against her better judgment and disgust, only because I was accepted by both.
There was a small secret between Tedet and me that Grikhat didn’t know about, it made me smile. I would wait for my time to talk.
Grikhat offered us to sit and eat, along with them. Of course, we could not refuse, and it would be important for us to be prepared. We talked about the adventure on the Ark, nothing was held back, except for the part where we got irradiated by the dragon’s fission breath. That conversation was something we were going to have later.
“We’re going to kill a dragon?!” Misa exclaimed. Pieces of food dropped from her mouth.
“Close you moth, Misa!” I reprimanded her. “That’s disgusting…”
She apologized and settled back down, almost like a child.
“Yes, we’re hunting the dragon and make sure it doesn’t cause more trouble than it should. Wizards used to hunt dragons. We managed to eradicate them all back on Earth. Or, at least, that was what we thought. It seems we didn’t finish the job.”
“That’s so cool. I can’t believe I’m tagging along.”
“We need all the firepower we can get. We’re hoping you both can come with us.”
Grikhat’s pimples turned a brighter yellow. Something was wrong and she didn’t know how to bring it up.
“What’s going on?” asked Tedet.
“I can’t go,” she answered.
We waited for an explanation that didn’t come.
“What’s the matter?” I finally asked.
She stood up and took Tedet by the arm, pulling him off his seat and into the kitchen. The rest of the table made a chaotic murmur that expressed the same sentiment. What could have possibly happened to make her act like that? I thought that she might be scared, but that wasn’t possible, Grikhat is one of the most courageous people I know. She was the one that taught Tedet marksmanship and she was already the adventurous type, I’m sure it was that personality that caught Tedet’s figurative metaphorical heart — given the lack of an anatomical heart, the apparent redundancy is needed in this case.
But she still appeared scared. So, what could possibly scare such a person?
Tedet returned to bring me along with him. It turns out I was involved in this too, or maybe it was something that the others shouldn’t hear. If I was getting involved in this conversation, then it must have been something serious. I became much more nervous and scared than I imagined I would.
“Edwhite,” she said. “Ed. There’s been something on our minds for a while. You’ve been a friend to my Tedet for a long time. A friend of mine only recently. To tell you the truth, I still don’t know my feelings about you well enough, but Tedet loves you very much.”
Ah. So, this was what we were going to talk about. I should’ve known. And yet, now that I knew it was something good, I wasn’t getting any less nervous. In fact, it was much more anxious, expectant of the question that I knew was left yet unsaid.
“Tedet and I, we’re a family. And I know humans are not like us, but I think I can come to enjoy your presence like the few times we spent together… as a family, I mean.”
Her face turned red. Even Tedet was getting excited by the moment. My face began feeling hot, and I knew I was flushing. During this very moment, we three were essentially blushing.
“Ed,” Tedet interrupted. “You already heard it from me, but it is a tradition to do this together. And we both are happy to have you spend more time with us. As family.”
“Family,” I said. “We’ve always been brothers, you and I. I’d like to have a sister as well.” I held out my hand out to Grikhat, hoping she would grab it.
She did, and Tedet followed suit. Then, she spoke the words that would seal our fate.
“Would you be our loedthgeyr?”
I chuckled. I felt like they were asking me for marriage.
“Yes,” I spoke. “It would make me happy to become loedthgarn with you.”
Their faces flashed red. If my face could get any redder, I’m sure it’d go into the infrared. I felt the spark of magic. Grikhat and Tedet roared with magic, and I’m sure if someone was close, they must have felt the energies heave like a beast. The purity of the magical power that came from a moment of love made by three people was something that could make the Merlin flush with embarrassment. Love is a powerful emotion, and its power comes from its intensity and purity. Anger is also powerful, but that is a flame that burns bright, not hot.
This was the turning point of our lives. The Galieta family has finally included one more person in their family, and from now on, we’re essentially a unit. I would be included in family business from now on, although I would not want my human nature to become an obstacle in their lives; I would have to reserve myself from intruding too much in their choices.
But with that, their two faces turned green.
Not good. They are scared.
“Come over,” she signaled me.
I followed her through a door to the outside, to the back of the house, past a small corridor next to the kitchen, and out to the backyard. The small house had a high concrete wall that delimited their land from their neighbors. The neighborhood wasn’t so safe after all, and walls were the best they could do to keep themselves as safe as possible.
In the backyard, Grikhat and Tedet kept an array of plant species, and several little critters scuddled away the moment she appeared around the corner. The bear soil grew a few bushes and a single tree in the middle. The tree was carved hollow. An odyssey that I knew took several years to do because the tree had grown around it. This was something a decade in the making. And now that hole was plugged.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, both in surprise and fascination.
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My blood was quickly being drained from my face at the realization. Alien life from Sovail had a peculiar way to deal with this kind of natural phenomenon. Within Earth life, where there was diversity in how life dealt with its physiology, and, so, did Sovalian life. But there was one thing that struck me as unusual from radera, as an intelligent species.
I walked up to the plugged hole in the tree in the middle of the garden and suddenly my perception of the world around me changed. Everything looked brighter than usual.
“I’ve been taking care of it for a week now,” Grikhat explained. “Be careful.”
“Of course,” I said between my charm. “This is beautiful.”
I kneeled to see it close and I noticed the carefully packaged dirt, like clay. I placed my hand carefully over it and I didn’t feel a single thing. It was unexpected, I imagined something much more magical, but instead, it was just cold, hardened dirt.
I would imagine that the miracle of life would feel like a burst of magical energies, chaotically fighting over the new creation.
“It’s,” I began but didn’t know what else to say or where else to begin.
“It’s not fertilized, yet,” said Tedet. “It’s missing our gametes.”
“Right! Of course… a week. You haven’t been here to do it.”
Do it, that’s what I just said. And my face turned red again. They had to do it, to place themselves inside the hole. I looked around and saw an empty bucket that still had hardened dirt. In another bucket, there was a ball of what I thought looked like clay, but it was just a ball of wet dirt that Grikhat must have created in anticipation.
“We can’t wait any longer,” said Grikhat. “Otherwise we’d have to wait for a few years. We’ve planned this since the start of the year, and we’re committed to it. You weren’t part of my plan, but Tedet wanted you to be part of it.”
“It’s why you’ve been inviting me to come over for the past month!”
Tedet croaked in agreement, then nodded.
“It was to have you be part of us. Grikhat never really knew you. I had to do something.”
“We want you to watch, Ed,” Grikat said, almost like it was already decided, but I knew there was a subtle tone of pleading to her statement.
For humans, the act of conceiving is very intimate. For radera, although similar, it isn’t something vulgar. Sex was sex, an act of the most carnal desire and need; something you did in secret, something you didn’t speak in public. But for radera, the intimacy came from the meaning rather than the act. It was the moment for the family to become bigger, to make something of theirs; no one else but family members should be present to watch the action, they didn’t need to, and they shouldn’t. It wasn’t barbaric to watch strangers during the act, but it was in very bad taste.
Yet, because I was now considered a family member, a loedthgeyr, I was to be part of it. I did not know how the ritual worked or how to deal with radera anatomy and physiology, so I suggested that they shouldn’t count on me if they needed help. They assented and let me know that they only wanted me to watch.
To be true, there were moments I simply could not bear to watch. Some parts of their body opened and I flinched. There was some handling of things, maybe organs, that I did not want to watch, so I simply glanced a little to see if things were alright and to not shame them with my aversion. I’m sure they also expected me to be revolted by it, just as they would by our copulation, so they didn’t find it offensive if I averted my eyes every now and then. It was when they both held a slimy material in their hands that I could finally watch without much issue.
Tedet broke the dirt in the tree and cleaned it with his free hand, revealing a maze of woody protrusions, like stalactites and stalagmites. There was a nodule at the center, and Grikhat expertly ripped it out in one go. Once that was done, they placed the slime inside and began covering the hole once again with dirt.
This concluded the reproductive ritual. The polynuclear, unicellular slime would slowly become a cocoon, feeding on the tree until it is time to hatch. The four-month pseudo-fetal development would conclude with one last period of development, as a metamorphosing larva into a radera child for the last three months. Each stage of development reflecting the ancestral stages of growth. While other species in the taxonomical branch grow in three different stages throughout their lives, radera grow through them in their first seven months since conception.
Red-faced, both Tedet and Grikhat turned to me and they reached out with their heads to mine, purring as they did. I did not know how to purr, but I did my best by humming and instinctively reached out to hug them. They reacted by stiffening but then reluctantly reached out to hug me too.
The heartfelt reunion was cut short when we realized we had an unaware party in the dining room waiting for us. As we walked back, Grikhat called our attention but remained silent for a second. She swung her arms while she gave herself time to think of what to say. I interrupted her because I wasn’t sure what she was thinking behind her unreadable alien face.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, I just —” she began and croaked. “I can’t go with you.” She turned to see the tree behind us. “I can’t go. I have to stay and take care of our child.”
I had completely forgotten about asking Grikhat to help us. I see what the issue was for a while. They’d been wanting to do this two weeks ago and now that their time had run out, they had to act or lose their chance. But now that they had a child on the way, it needed caring. They can’t just leave a — I guess, this is where I would say pregnant wife, but this time it’s a tree that is pregnant, as ridiculous as it sounds to say it.
Tedet was quick to react, he didn’t even wait to answer.
“Of course, you’re staying.”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “What about you? You’re not staying?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, no, no. You have a child to take care of. You can’t just leave them here!”
“And leave you to go and put yourself in danger?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You can’t even help your own actions. You almost killed yourself and Martin up there.”
I grunted and I saw in Tedet’s face that he understood well what noise I just made. His eyes flared in acknowledgment of my dissatisfaction and, before I could speak, he cut me off.
“You’re family now. I would expect you to put your life in danger for Grikhat and our child just as much as I, and she, would for you and your child.”
“Family,” I repeated.
The word made it much simpler to understand. Something in my brain suddenly clicked in and everything became much clearer. It was like a password for my ancestral brain. In that instant, everything became real.
With clearer eyes and a straighter back, I looked at Grikhat and I assented my head. I did not have to say any more words. Grikhat responded with the same signal, despite being a radera. It was at that moment were interspecific understanding crossed between different trees of life and planets.
Like a team of superheroes — that’s how it felt in my head — we walked back to the living room and gathered everyone for the final supper.
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We turned back to the car and drove off. Tedet cranked the engine on, looked at me, and with two words we set off to find the dragon: “Lead the way.”
The compass only pointed towards the direction of the dragon, it couldn’t tell us its exact coordinates, but that was enough for us to find out. We crossed streets, drove over small bridges, and found ourselves on dead-end streets. After an hour and a half of looking, we finally managed to identify the general direction of the dragon.
We knew it was somewhere outside the city, in a small forest near the hills that touched the old, dry riverbed, the same river that now courses through the city by an artificial canal. I was wondering what kind of dragon would look to hide from humans, but I could only imagine it must have felt a little scared of finding itself in a new place it had never known.
Would it be scared to find those same three people, coming back towards him just to hunt him? Would it even know what we were doing?
“What’s the dragon’s name?” interrupted Misa with an unorthodox question, given our context.
I looked back, behind my seat, to find the armed-to-the-teeth woman innocently looking at me.
“Name?” I responded eloquently.
“Don’t every dragon have a name?”
She looked at me quizzically, almost like it was obvious.
“Galgamon, or something like that,” she opened her palms to announce something before saying: “Dragonar, Hope’s Bane.” She finished it by turning her hands into claws and growling. “Destroyer of Destiny.”
“There used to be something like that,” I answered. “But this is an unknown dragon. No one, except us, knows it exists.”
“So, we get to give it a name?”
“We could,” answered Padrict. “It should be our right.”
“I don’t know if we have the time for this,” said Tedet.
“We should have time,” answered Misa. “How about Melanoptera?”
“Black wing?”
“Cool isn’t it?”
“Sounds cliché,” cut in Tedet, without any care for insulting Misa.
“Give me a better one, then.”
Tedet kept quiet while he drove. He turned towards a dirt road leading into the forest we were looking for. He said nothing after a few minutes.
“Nothing, huh? If you don’t have the imagination for something like this, then don’t bother making fun of others.”
I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. I smacked the back of my hand against my best friend’s shoulder and mocked him by asking him if he was going to take that. I heard Misa laugh from behind my seat and that made a smile crawl into my lips. Tedet, chirped and croaked — his cute alien chuckle.
The moment was quickly over when we saw a truck standing in the middle of the entrance to the forest. A radera and a human were arguing, you could tell by the wide gestures the human was making. It was only when we were about to pull over and stop that I noticed the radera was something I probably knew. At the very least, I knew he was a Knight Hadtherad by his gray garb.
“Watch it, a Knight is already here,” I told everyone in the car.
The Knight looked at us when we were pulling over and I saw his face flash blue repeatedly. He was extremely angry.
“That’s your friend, Shkadaur,” Tedet confirmed.
“Way to make things harder,” I concluded aloud. “And that may as well be a wizard. Padrict?” I called him out and prepared him an order. “Stay close to me, they may not know who you are, but don’t let your guard down.”
I did not wait for his answer. I opened my door synchronously with the rest of the party.
“Wizard, Alchemist,” he greeted us. “And you two.”
“I’m fine, Shkadaur. The wife and children are great, thank you. How about you?”
“Avarez, don’t mock me.”
The tired and angry-looking man who was ignoring us, suddenly turned to look at me and Padrict. For a second, I thought he was going to recognize Padrict, and I felt my heart stand still. Instead, the man turned back to me and approached slightly.
“Avarez? Edwhite Avarez?”
Sweet Mary, I thought, don’t tell me he’s coming for me.
“You’re that mad wizard that championed a torviela.”
I smiled wryly.
“And you?” I asked.
“Not mad enough,” he said with a smile that made me want to break his teeth in. “Orlan Hegway.” He reached out with an open hand. “Wizard. Mechanoconjuration.”
I gasped.
“Machines? You conjure machines?”
“Something like that.”
From behind, Tedet spoke, interrupting everyone, especially Misa.
“Thanatophagon,” he said, his face red.
“What?” she asked.
“Your dragon’s name. Thanatophagon.”
That brought a chill down my spine. Thanatophagon, the Death Eater. Not only was the name perfect for the dragon, given it used radioactive material to sustain itself —a bonafide radiotroph — but also, Tedet had just announced a dragon. I only hoped no one noticed.
“So, it is a dragon,” said Orlan.
“You brought a dragon, here,” began Shkadaur. “Are you stupid?”
Tedet held his gun up as an answer to that, and Misa mirrored him.
“Yeah,” he answered. “And we’re going to kill it.”
Killing the Death Eater dragon. That sounds more awesome than I thought, but more than that, it sounded reckless and stupid. But I was proud.