Blood Ties
[WP] “So how did you get Dragon blood in your veins?” “Ah well, long ago my family was cur-“ “Didn’t you say your family was never cursed?” “Oh uh, yeah um… so uh, there was a witch-“ “Im not buying it.” “*sigh*… so my great grandpa was a bard…”
*****
Tables and chairs of dark stained wood and ashen-covered crevices serviced the likes of friend and foe as family. Many of the patrons of the Lilac Lantern cared only for food and drink. Politics could be left to the cities, the Gods to the church, and knowledge to the wizards behind their stone doors. In the country, people thought of the here and now when it happened but gossiped about lineage and stories long past.
The Lantern, originally The Lighthouse when it was owned by Castlebrooks before the law had a fancy to come out this far and find them, had been in the care of the Allorsen family since the scandal. Tax evasion and money laundering were big-ticket items back in the city. Apparently. No one out here had ever seen so many horsed younglings in fancy dress this far west and no one fancied seeing them again. So it stayed that way.
At least that’s what I knew about it. What actually happened before and what happened after I left was only recorded in the journals and notes written by the townspeople. It was never said out loud. History deserves embellishment is the opinion of everyone wanting to enjoy the short time they have on this green and blue little ball but lacking the funds to do it. Ale, wine, and mead let everyone accept it.
“That wizard trick you did this afternoon,” Mason Allorsen, cousin to the owner of the Lantern, asked loudly after we had had a couple of his wondrous mead, “the cooling touch,” a loud belch echoed the noisy hall as he tried to clear his throat. It sent off a ripple effect of responding burps but nothing that could match Mason. Shaking his head, brown curly hair and beard wobbling with him, he continued, “How’d you learn that?”
“No wizard’s magic, I assure you,” I chuckled, setting down my pewter mug and smiling to myself, “Just my charm, a little luck, and some dragon's blood thrown in for good measure.”
“Why’d you find that?” Mason asked, sitting up and giving me a hard look, “Why’d you waste that? Can I see?”
“No,” I laughed, “ it’s in me. I don’t. I don’t, like, have a vial of it or anything.”
“Wha?” Mason frowned, his nose scrunching up as he thought even though his eyes stayed focused, “So how did you get Dragon blood in your veins?”
“Ah well, long ago my family was cur-“ I tried to explain.
“No, no,” Mason corrected, “Didn’t you say your family was never cursed? I might be one pint short of a keg right now but I can still remember.”
“Oh uh, yeah um,” I restarted, this man should be on the floor not calling my bluff, “so uh, there was a witch-“
“I’m not buying it,” Mason stated, putting his mug down and staring at me hard. Stretching out one nostril, he tried to steady himself. It was the only real indication of this man's blood alcohol level and even then he could still take anyone in a fight. Smiling, knowingly, he added, “I listen, Jake. I know a fisher's tale and when to go fishing.”
I sighed hard, he got me and I knew he wasn’t leaving until I had told him. If Mason was any normal man, I’d have gotten away by now or just told him knowing that there was a good chance he’d never remember the story. Mason though, Mason was something else. Something like me maybe.
“So my great grandpa was a bard,” I started, like always did, with a half-truth to this but a half-truth that made sense to some, “And his… well my great grandmother was… is… sort of a dragon.”
“Half-breed?” Mason chuckled quietly.
“Noooo,” I stretched out, wishing that was the case, “full-blooded, cold as ice, and, once upon a time, curious.”
“And why not? Why shouldn’t she be?” Mason laughed, “We are lovers, fighters, and fecking fantastic.”
“Sure,” I accepted.
“You’re great-grand-pappy?” Mason asked, “He give her a night to remember?”
“Courting was better than the act,” I explained, trying to mimic her tone when she had unpromptedly started talking about it, “As she said. She told me he was gentle. First time a male hadn’t left a scar on her and it was the first time she hadn’t left a scar on a male. Two years later, she decided to produce my grandmother as a gift for him and she’s sort of looked out for us ever since.”
“As,” Mason scoffed at me leaving the story there, “What your nanna? Schoolmaster? Queen?”
“Sort of like a nan,” I said, tilting my head back and forth trying to figure out what el’Thena actually was to me, “She has never been around much to be much of anything other than a curious neighbour.”
“Uh, I have those,” Mason empathized, taking another deep drink of beer, “My aunt comes by, asks me a thousand and one questions, eats my food, and then says something about my weight and just leaves.”
“My Avia’s so much worse,” I said with a smile, I wasn’t expecting Mason to be a open person, “She once barged into an exam I was writing just to measure my feet and count my toes. Her nephew had told her that you could learn a lot about a human by their feet.”
“Her name?” Mason asked.
“Avia’s like what she is to me,” I explained, “I’m not allowed to give her name to those she has not already given it to. Dragon rules or something.”
“My Nanna,” Mason started as he nodded, “she has. Uhh, I’m drinking too much. My Nanna will feed you until you are bursting then complain that you get pudgy.”
Grabbing his belly fat and lifting it out, he made a show of being annoyed at how large he was. I knew Mason cared but at the same point, he liked being large enough not to have any problems with the locals. No one messed with him.
“My Avia has zero boundaries,” I laughed, “She’d totally feed me to see me grow larger and then starve me to shrink me back down.”
“My Nanna once told a girl that I liked that if I only got her to make those noises in bed,” Mason countered, “She’d find a new grandson.”
“My Avia has asked if she should find a new great-grandson to some of the women I liked,” I argued back, “I didn’t even know she was around or that she knew who I was dating.”
“Brutal,” Mason laughed, “Dragon Nanna sounds funny though. She trying to understand humans or something.”
“She’s apparently young,” I explained, “She wanted a ‘test hatchling’ as she calls us before producing a true heir.”
“That’s so weird, man,” Mason said with a vigorous nod, “And I have giant blood in my family so we’re not too normal either.”
“I didn’t know that,” I stated loudly.
“I didn’t tell you that,” Mason groaned, sitting upright and giving his mug a good hard look, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
*****
THE END
