Thenio frowned down at his sketchbook, doing his best to concentrate on the picture he was drawing. But he was having a hard time. It wasn't easy to focus when there was a constant stream of splashing, growling, and scratching noises going on in the background.
A brief silence followed by an extra loud splash finally made him look up. The sliding glass panel that separated Iggy's bathtub from the rest of the room was covered in water droplets, making it hard to see exactly what was going on behind it, but there was something blue whipping around inside, accompanied by loud growls.
From that, Thenio guessed that Iggy was probably 'playing crocodile.' That particular bath game involved diving under the water in order to sneak up and attack one of his unsuspecting bath toys from below, after which he would usually clamp the 'prey' in his mouth and wave it around while growling extra loudly. Then he would let it go and repeat the process with another toy.
Thenio sighed and set his sketchbook and pencil down on the bathroom counter. If Iggy had started playing a diving game, that meant he'd have to pay more attention to what was happening in the bathtub for a few minutes. The little dragon was a good swimmer, but he occasionally snagged a wing or foot on one of his toys and got himself into trouble. So Thenio needed to be ready to help him out, just in case he got stuck while he was under the water.
The upside was that playing crocodile took a lot of energy, so Iggy couldn't keep it up for long. Thenio glanced at the clock on the bathroom wall. It had been about half an hour since Iggy had gotten in the bath, so he'd probably be ready to come out after he was done with this game. Most days he could keep going for longer than that, but he was already worn out from the trip to the park and then playing around with Tava after coming home, so he shouldn't have enough energy left for a very long bath tonight.
After four or five toys had fallen victim to crocodile attacks, the bathtub became quiet, and Thenio went over to pull the glass panel open a little and check how Iggy the Crocodile was doing.
As expected, the little black dragon was drifting around in the middle of the bathtub, panting. He had his wings spread out to help him float without having to swim.
He turned his head when Thenio slid the panel open. "Oh...hi...Thenio...."
"Hi. You look tired. Are you ready to get out?"
Iggy nodded, his tiny pink tongue hanging out between his teeth.
"All right, come here. I'll get your towel."
Thenio reached over to pull a fluffy white towel off the rack near the bathtub. He held it ready while Iggy slowly paddled himself over to the side of the tub and climbed out. Then he wrapped the tired little dragon in the towel and carried him over to the counter, where there was an absorbent foam mat with dragon grooming supplies set out next to it.
Thenio put Iggy down on the mat and patted him dry before setting the towel aside and picking up a scale brush. This was a soft brush specifically designed to help remove loose dragon scales.
Scaled dragons looked somewhat reptilian, but the structure of their scales was actually somewhere between fish scales and feathers. The scales were smooth and flexible when they were lying flat, but when the dragon was frightened or angry, they would stiffen and stand on end, making the dragon's body prickly and painful for an attacker to grab or bite.
The structure of the scales also meant that they were shed individually, rather than in sheets like reptile skin. Seyli had explained to Thenio that wild dragons had seasonal molting periods, where they lost and regrew a large number of scales over the course of a few weeks. But since this was a messy and unattractive process, it had been bred out of most domesticated dragons. Modern breeds like the Flare dragons that Seyli's family raised lost a smaller number of scales consistently throughout the year.
But this also led to these breeds having a small problem: Old scales didn't always detach from their skin properly, which interfered with the new scales that were growing in. This could cause skin irritation and potentially lead to infections.
Fortunately, most of these skin problems could be avoided with regular grooming, which meant that Iggy had baths two or three times a week, followed by a scale brushing and skin moisturizing routine.
Tired from playing in the water, the little dragon happily sprawled out on the mat and allowed Thenio to gently brush him from head to tail. Several small black scales came out in the process, which Thenio carefully collected and set aside. Once the brushing was done, he'd also check the bathtub to see if any scales had fallen out while Iggy was wrestling with his toys.
This was another reason for the regular grooming sessions. Dragon scales were a valuable alchemical material, so most dragon owners tried to save as many as possible. And Iggy's scales were especially precious, since there were no naturally occurring void affinity dragons.
The same went for his claws, which Thenio clipped and then filed smooth once the scales were done.
Seyli had given him an in-depth lecture on how important it was to keep a dragon's claws long enough that they could climb and grab onto things but short and smooth enough that they wouldn't accidentally catch on anything or scratch anyone. She'd also explained how to avoid cutting too close to the quick and what to do if a claw developed a crack in it.
Ariom had a more practical approach. He'd simply handed Thenio a small measuring stick and told him to trim Iggy's claws to the length marked on it and then smooth out the tips a little.
Well. That was a veterinarian's approach versus an enchanter's. Thenio could appreciate both, but he had to admit that Ariom's was a lot easier to follow.
Iggy was starting to nod off by the time Thenio was done with his claws. He left the little dragon dozing on the counter while he went to tidy up the bathtub. He didn't need to clean it too thoroughly—a cleaning golem would come along and scrub it later—but he drained out the water and put the toys on a drying rack on the side of the tub, checking them for loose scales as he did. Several of the toys actually had soft bristles on them that were intended to act as supplementary scale brushes.
Apparently Iggy had a hard time holding still long enough for proper brushing sessions when he was a baby. So Ariom and Toflyn had designed special bath toys for him that would help brush his scales while he played with them. They'd even sold a few of these designs to the magic beast supply workshop that Toflyn had later gone to work for.
Thenio found three more scales—two caught on toys and one floating in the water. He added these to the glass vial where he'd collected the others and put a cork in the top. Then he scooped up the sleepy little dragon in one arm, tucked his sketchbook under the other arm, picked up the vials of scales and claw clippings, and went to go look for Ariom.
There wasn't any light coming from Ariom's bedroom, so Thenio went past it and across the balcony to the other wing of the house. He could hear the soft clatter of raindrops falling on the roof of the atrium. The rain had kept up ever since that afternoon. It made the house feel a bit colder than usual, in spite of the fancy heating system that Ariom had installed in it.
Well, that was just how it was when you lived in a city that had been built in a high altitude mountain valley. There was a reason why most of the rooms in the residential wing of the house had fireplaces in them.
They found Ariom in the workroom, sitting at his desk and looking over some enchantment diagrams. He raised his head as they entered the room.
"Bathtime's over already?" he asked, glancing at the clock on the wall.
"He was pretty tired out from playing at the park this afternoon, so it was a lot shorter than usual." Thenio handed Ariom the two glass vials. "Here. Scales and claw clippings."
Ariom took the vials and set them down on the desk. "Did you count how many scales there were?"
"Eleven."
"Hmm. That's a little on the high side. We'll have to pay a bit more attention to the count over the next couple of weeks."
Tracking scale loss was a way to watch for potential health problems, since dragons tended to lose more scales when they were sick. Though since Iggy was still in his juvenile period, it could also just be a sign of an upcoming growth spurt.
"Oh...hi, Ariom." Iggy woke up enough to notice that he was there. He stretched his front legs out toward Ariom and squirmed a little, indicating that he wanted to go to him.
Ariom reached out and took the dragon from Thenio. "You look ready to go to bed, little guy. Do you want to sleep in your box for a while?"
"No! I want to sit with Ariom!" Iggy gripped Ariom's shirt with his newly manicured claws. "You were working without me all day...."
"All right, all right...." Ariom cradled him in one arm, reaching up with his other hand to rub the little dragon's head. "You sit here with me and go to sleep, then."
"Mmm." Iggy happily laid his head against Ariom's shoulder and closed his eyes.
Ariom smiled and patted his back. Then he looked up at Thenio. "Are you ready to talk yet?"
Thenio grimaced a little. He still hadn't told Ariom about his conversation with Eteon. Seyli and Tava had stayed until after dinner so that Ariom could put a reinforcement enchantment on Seyli's new hair comb, and Thenio had volunteered to help Iggy with his bath after they left, partly as a way to put off the conversation a little longer.
It looked like Ariom had noticed....
"I guess so." Thenio pulled a chair over from the work table and sat down with a sigh. "Sorry. It's not really that I don't want to tell you what Eteon said. I just...needed a little time to sort things out."
"Well, I can understand that. Like Mideis said before, Eteon has been an important part of your life, so it must be upsetting to find out he's not what you thought he was, whether he had a good reason for keeping secrets from you or not."
"Yeah...it is...." Thenio was quiet for a moment, looking down at the sketchbook he was holding in his lap. Then he opened the book and flipped back through the pages until he found a drawing he'd done a few weeks earlier. He held it up for Ariom to see. "Do you know what this is?"
Ariom frowned slightly as he looked at the drawing. "That's.... Is that your 'wing-deer'? Iggy told me that you had a wood carving of a creature like that in your bedroom."
"It's called a dream beast. It's a creature that can go into people's dreams. Eteon gave me a carving of one just after I dropped out of the academy, when I was on heavy magic suppression and was sleeping most of the time. Apparently it's a tradition for children in Ket'qe to keep figurines like that by their beds to help them have good dreams. They have folktales there about dream beasts going into children's dreams to protect them from nightmare monsters."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Oh, is that why you wanted that book of folktales?"
Thenio nodded. "Eteon said there were stories about dream beasts, but he didn't tell me the details. So I wanted to learn more about them."
"And? Did that book have the stories you wanted?"
"It had one, at least. There might be more. I haven't had time to read through the whole book yet. But...." Thenio turned the sketchbook back around and looked at the drawing. "I learned that there's actually only one dream beast. He's a mythic beast. The Forest People call him Ki'shiu."
"And...that's the mythic beast Eteon is contracted with?"
Thenio nodded, still staring at the picture.
"A dream beast...huh?" Ariom was stroking Iggy with a thoughtful expression. "I don't think I've ever heard of him before. Though I guess that's normal for a mythic beast. Not many of them openly reveal themselves to humans. Did Eteon tell you what his magic domain is? I assume it has something to do with dreams, based on what you've said."
"Right. Eteon just called it 'dream magic.' He didn't have time to tell me a lot about it, but he said it's kind of similar to mental magic. He called it 'the magic of knowledge' and said that it lets you get information from the world and use information to affect the world."
Ariom's brow furrowed. "Meaning...what, exactly? Did he give you any examples?"
"Remember that carving of Amisi that I showed you? I only told him her name and mentioned she was a taua, but he used dream magic to know what she looks like and to make that figurine. He didn't actually carve that or the phoenix. He made them both with magic. He said he used what he knew about them to reshape the wood to look like them."
"Used what he knew...?" Ariom's eyes widened. "Wait, does that mean that the clairvoyance technique you've been using, where you use what you know about something to create an image...?"
Thenio nodded. "Right. Apparently what I've been doing is really dream magic, not mental magic. Eteon said he taught me about that technique when I was learning to draw because he knew that my chaos affinity would let me use it."
"He knew you'd be able to copy a mythic beast's magic?" Ariom looked taken aback. "Does that mean you're not the first chaos morph that this Ki'shiu has gotten involved with, if he and Eteon already knew what to expect?"
"Probably? Eteon didn't specifically say that, but he said something about previous chaos morphs dying and the methods they'd tried in the past not working. Ki'shiu said something like that, too, so— Ah." Thenio realized what he'd just said and paused, scratching his cheek awkwardly. "Um...I guess I should mention that I've actually seen Ki'shiu before...."
"Wait, what?" Ariom abruptly sat up in his chair.
"Krr?" The movement woke Iggy, who lifted his head with a questioning trill and looked around, blinking groggily.
"Sorry, Iggy...." Ariom patted him soothingly. "Everything's all right. Go back to sleep."
Iggy let out a soft, sleepy chirp and then buried his face into Ariom's shirt and relaxed again with a small sigh.
Ariom made a face and then turned back to Thenio. "What do you mean, you've seen Ki'shiu before?" he asked, lowering his voice a little. "When was that?"
"The first time was...about six weeks ago? In a dream. That's why I didn't say anything before now. I've only seen him in dreams, so I didn't think he was real at first. But after I saw him a couple of times...well, I did wonder about it a little. So I started trying to look into the folktales that Eteon had mentioned when he gave me the dream beast carving. And when you said that you thought Eteon might be a mythic beast's agent...." Thenio shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Well...I mean, I did think about telling you and Mideis about him then...but I still wasn't sure...and Mideis seemed really skeptical about the idea of a mythic beast watching me...so...um...."
Ariom sighed. "I understand," he said gently. "I can see why you might have been hesitant to say anything. I'm honestly not sure how I would have reacted if you'd told us then. I don't think I would have completely discounted it, but...well, a mythic beast that talks to people in dreams is a little hard to believe. I probably would have wanted confirmation from Eteon before I really took it seriously. So you waiting to tell me didn't really change anything. Don't worry about it."
"Right...thanks." Thenio still felt a bit guilty, but he was relieved that Ariom wasn't angry.
"Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me everything?"
"Okay...well...like I said, it started with Eteon giving me that dream beast carving, a couple of weeks after I left school...."
Thenio told Ariom about all the times he'd met Ki'shiu in his dreams, although he did edit out some of the more embarrassing parts.... But he described Ki'shiu telling him to follow Iggy in the forest, the dream that seemed to be about a previous chaos morph and what the dream beast had said about it, and the nightmare he'd had after the incident with the cat.
Ariom occasionally asked for clarification on something Thenio had said, but he mostly listened silently, with a slight scowl on his face. If Thenio had seen him make that expression a few weeks ago, he would have assumed that he was upset about something, but he'd seen Ariom make that same face when he was studying books or enchanting diagrams, so he knew it probably just meant that he was concentrating hard.
Thenio also told him about the conversation he'd had with Seyli at the bookstore, which was the first time it had occurred to him that the dream beast might actually be a mythic beast. And finally, he went through everything that Eteon had told him about Ki'shiu and dream magic.
When he finished, Ariom let out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair. "Well. I can completely understand why you needed a little time to sort out your thoughts before you wanted to tell me all this. I think I'm going to need some time to sort things out myself...."
He was quiet for a minute, absently stroking Iggy, who was now curled up on Ariom's lap with one of his wings over his head.
"So how did the phoenix tie into all that? You said Eteon used dream magic to make that figurine as well. But was there any particular reason he wanted to make you a phoenix?"
"Oh, right. I skipped over that part because it wasn't directly related to Ki'shiu. We were talking about the phoenix because of Seyli."
"Seyli?"
"Yeah. See...." Thenio hesitated, not sure how to explain what had happened that morning. Should he tell Ariom about that strange vision he'd seen? He hadn't even told Eteon.... "Well, when she used healing magic to help with my headache, I thought it seemed different from how healing magic normally feels. So I asked Eteon about it."
"Ah." Ariom had a look of understanding on his face. "So he told you about Seyli being a phoenix child...which led to talking about the phoenix.... I see."
Thenio raised his eyebrows. "You already knew about Seyli?"
"Of course. Did you forget that I analyze people's magic for a living? I've known about Seyli ever since she was a little girl. I was already acquainted with another phoenix child, so it wasn't hard to recognize that she had a similar magic frequency."
"You know another one? Who?"
"You know him, too, actually. Focilo Sephior."
"Grandmaster Sephior? He's a phoenix child?" Thenio blinked. "Then why didn't I—? Oh. Now that I think about it, I haven't had any magic burns since he became my doctor, so he's never actually had to use his magic on me...."
Ariom nodded. "It's not like they're so different that you can tell just by looking at them...not unless you can use magesight. Or if you happen to see him with his familiar, I guess. Having a unicorn is pretty much a dead giveaway...."
Thenio's eyes widened. "He has a unicorn? Really?"
"You didn't know? Well, Focilo doesn't mention it too often. People always want to see Sano when they find out about him, but he almost never wants to see them. Do you remember Focilo saying that he was curious about how his familiar would react to you, after all the magic beasts in that meeting at the Stability Center seemed to be attracted to your magic? That's why. Unicorns are fickle little brats who dislike most humans. It's rare for anyone other than phoenix children to be able to win them over. So he was really saying that he wondered whether unicorns would be attracted to chaos magic like other magic beasts are."
"Oh." Thenio couldn't help thinking back to that dream he'd had, where he was surrounded by unicorns.
That...was just a dream...right?
"Does that mean Seyli could have a unicorn familiar if she wanted to?" he asked, trying to distract himself from that uncomfortable train of thought.
Ariom shrugged. "Probably. But it's really not worth it, if you ask me. People like unicorns because they're rare and mysterious, but it's a real pain to actually live with one. At least if you want to live anywhere besides Ket'qe. You think I spoil Iggy? Ask Focilo sometime what lengths he has to go to in order to make that golden monster of his happy.... Seyli's much better off with a sweet little dragon like Tava."
"Oh," Thenio said again. He didn't know what else to say.
Ariom definitely had a different opinion of unicorns than most people did.... But it sounded like he'd actually met one, and most people hadn't, so it was hard to argue with him.
"Well, it's getting late," Ariom said, looking at the clock. "And you have an acrobatics lesson in the morning. You should get to bed. I need to think over everything you've told me and decide how to proceed from here...like exactly how much we ought to tell Mideis, for example. Let's talk more after we get through with morning training tomorrow, all right?"
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Thenio dreamt about rain that night.
He was sitting on a sort of covered patio that was attached to a large, beautiful building made of white marble. There was a wide garden courtyard in front of him, and he watched as a steady drizzle of rain fell onto the plants, making them drip and sparkle.
It had obviously been raining for a while, because large puddles had formed on the stone walkways that ran through the garden. A young girl with bright orange hair and a white fox were running around the courtyard, playing and splashing in the puddles together.
Thenio stealthily looked to his left and right. When he didn't see anyone else nearby, he quietly got up and tiptoed over to the edge of the patio. He held his arm out and felt raindrops falling onto his hand, which looked much smaller and more childlike than usual, as it often did in the dreams he'd been having recently.
The girl noticed Thenio standing there and turned to wave at him. He smiled and waved back and was just taking a step forward to go and join her and the fox when something large and white blocked his path.
"No, you don't," said a feminine voice behind him. "I told you to stay and watch from here."
Thenio felt himself being lifted off the ground by the huge white and gold feathered wing that had just wrapped around him. Turning his head, he saw that the wing belonged to what seemed to be a large white bird, though he couldn't see her face because of the pale golden light her body was emitting.
The bird pulled him back onto the patio and held him against her soft, feathered side.
"That's not fair!" Thenio pouted. "Why do they get to play in the rain, and I don't?"
"Because they're water and snow beasts, and you're not."
He scowled. "What am I, then?" he asked, looking up into the soft golden light where he knew her face must be. "I'm not a water or a snow beast. And I'm not like you. So what am I?"
She hesitated, as though she wasn't quite sure how to respond to his question. And when she finally spoke, he thought he could hear a slight undercurrent of sorrow in her voice.
"You're just you, Thenio." Her wing hugged him a little more tightly, and he felt her bend down and ruffle his hair gently with her beak. "You're our precious little Thenio. You don't need to be anything else."
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After he'd sent Thenio off to bed, Ariom stayed sitting in his workroom for a while, stroking Iggy and staring blankly into space.
It was clear that it made Thenio anxious to talk about his experiences with Ki'shiu and the things he'd learned from Eteon, so Ariom had been doing his best to listen calmly and not show just how unnerved he was by everything he was hearing.
But now that Thenio was out of the room....
Ki'shiu? Dream magic? A power that could unearth the secrets of the world and reshape reality? And someone like that had been trying to save the chaos morphs...but hadn't been able to? That terrifyingly powerful creature somehow thought that he, Ariom Denifor, might be able to solve a problem that even a mythic beast couldn't?
What was all this?! What was he supposed to do with something like this?!
"Just what did you get us into, little guy...?" Ariom said helplessly to the sleeping dragon on his lap.
He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. Then he opened them again, pulled his message book out of his space pocket, and picked up a pen that was lying on the desk. He opened the book to the tab labeled 'Bero Denifor' and spent a minute or two staring at the blank page before he finally wrote a message.
> Hey, when do you think you'll be able to come to Kamari next? There's nothing urgent, but...well, Thenio went and had a talk with his friend Eteon today, and some of the things he learned.... I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed.
>
> I know you're busy, and I don't want to be a bother. But it would be really nice if you were around so we could talk it over together.
Ariom read over what he'd written with a discontented expression. He was a grown man and a grandmaster wizard, and it irritated him to have to ask for help like this, especially since he knew perfectly well that his uncle would immediately rearrange his schedule and plan a trip to the capital once he read this message, regardless of how mildly Ariom had tried to word it.
But he really didn't feel like he could handle things on his own....
He sighed again, finished sending the message, and put the book away. Then he tidied up the desk and carefully lifted the sleeping Iggy.
He should get to bed, too. It was going to be a busy week.