Flash Fiction #690 -- Life or Death

 

They say if you sit long enough in the shadow of the North Tower, you'll see everyone you ever knew. I didn't believe it until my father walked by, jingling of metal and gold. He'd abandoned his family for the long war and died in a forgotten battle. 

"Choose your side, boy," he ordered.

"What are my choices?"

"Stupid, blind -- no son of mine --life or death, boy. Choose."

"Life."

Father smiled, showing rotting teeth and a putrid black tongue.  I had known his choice.

We would fight forever on opposite sides. There had been no real choice for me.

Flash Fiction #689--Neko heads home again/4

 The horror took all but one thought.

I don't want to be here.

Darkness rippled like water all around him. Things moved, creating more ripples.  Neko tried not to see them, but sometimes he saw a flash of neon color, unexpectedly pretty.

Strange.  He would never have thought Maude had such a calm and sometimes pretty place within her. The feel--

Not her nightmare.  The horror took all but one thought.

I don't want to be here.

Darkness rippled like water all around him. Things moved, creating more ripples.  Neko tried not to see them, but sometimes he caught a glimpse of a flash of neon color, unexpectedly pretty. It moved closer, but something else pulled it away. Neko felt as though he was watching some sort of battle and wondered what he should hope for from this. What part of Maude should he hope to win in this contest? Could he trust anything pretty from her?

The battle continued. He tried to move closer and became aware of other things beyond the darkness. Those parts he could recognize as being Maude's creations. They seethed with anger. What was he supposed to do here? He had never been powerful.

Strange.  He would never have thought Maude had such a calm and sometimes pretty place within her. The feel--

Not her nightmare.  This was a powerful repudiation of everything she tried to throw at him. This was not his power, so someone else had found the link and had come to help him.  He didn't recognize the magic and that told Neko what he needed to know.

"Merlin," he dared whisper.

Neko felt more than heard the agreement. For a moment, he almost relaxed, but that could be too simple a trap.  He did not want to fall into Maude's hands at this point. Rage gave her power.

"Good," Merlin said, suddenly standing by Neko. The cat jumped and fluffed up a bit before he got control of his nerves. Merlin lifted his arms and sent out a wave of magic that transformed into… funny-faced balloons.

Maude's reaction matched Neko's confusion. They had both expected a masterful battle of wits and magic. Instead, they watched the balloon start to dance and sing. It was appalling. Or maybe it was just amusing.

Or confusing. Maude had to turn her attention to figuring out what was going on. Her level of rage dropped considerably. Merlin grunted in appreciation, and suddenly the balloons transformed into wraiths, attacking their prey. Maude tried to call her warriors to battle, but the balloons and the wraiths confused them. Maude shouted orders that her gargoyles and other monsters were not listening to. Dorian and Callen turned and sped toward her as the shadows of her nightmare disappeared.

Neko started that way but then changed his mind when he saw Luna trying to help Reggie with some sort of black blobs that kept bouncing at him. It took little to shred the blobs, and they fizzled and disappeared with a nasty-smelling puff of smoke.

Merlin was preparing to leave the others behind on the Hill and reinforce it so that even Maude's nightmares couldn't escape. Neko considered going with them, but they had enough company. Besides, he really wanted just to go back into the bookstore and rest.

He slept in the chair this time, although I made sure there was no spell attached to it as well. He was only aware at dawn, when the others came straggling in with mutters about the weather.  At least they showed no sign of battle, so Neko didn't feel so bad about not going with them.

Silver Cloud came into the building with four dragons. They quickly shifted to a smaller size. He still felt intimidated. Neko missed a good part of the conversation until he heard someone say they could sit on the roof and guard.

"Taller buildings," Neko pointed out and tried to pretend like he was paying attention. "Dragons sitting on the roof would still draw attention."

"This is an old-fashioned building," a Dragon said with a nod toward him. "It has a nice exterior cornice and corbels at each corner. A perfect spot for a Dragon to play gargoyle."

The others grunted in agreement. Neko couldn't decide if they were happy with the idea or not. Even Silver Cloud seemed less confident about the decision. Nonetheless, Silver and three other dragons went out onto the roof to check things out. 

Neko had trouble falling asleep while the others continued to discuss how best to stay safe. It wasn't as though he didn't trust them to do the right thing, but rather that he'd interfere with a crazy idea again. He slept to keep his mouth shut and woke up well into the day, smelling breakfast nearby. 

The building's tiny kitchen should have felt crowded, but the fae had played with reality, and the room was a nice size.  Neko took his usual place at the end of the table and was several bites in before he realized the others were still talking about Maude.

"I slept," he said with a little snarl. "Did I miss something? What has Maude done now?"

Merlin, who arrived later than Neko, gave an appreciative nod when Dorian pointed him to a chair and handed him a plate of food.

"She has gone into a deep sleep, Neko. One in which she gathers all the power she can without using any. She's buried herself so deep into her subconscious that if we didn't know where we left her, we would have a hard time finding her again. There is no telling how long she will be in the state, but we expect at least a few years."

The idea of years didn't sound nearly long enough. Neko frowned-- right until Luna gave him a piece of bacon. He considered it for a moment and then decided that it was better than worrying about something that would not happen tomorrow.

They had a friendly meal.  The others made plans to come and go, but Neko turned his attention to getting the bookstore up and going again. Luna was still happy to take over the job of dealing with customers.

The group had a quiet winter. Neko, though, knew the trouble was going to come in the spring.

That was when the kittens would be born.

The End

Flash Fiction #688-- Neko heads home again/4

 

The wind came first, of course.  There was always wind as a harbinger of disaster for them. This storm had no warning breeze or flash of lightning, either.

It simply was there and lifted Neko from the ground. Neko howled with anger and saw Reggie the Wolf leap upward into the maelstrom that had already tried to catch him.  In a heartbeat, they were both flying, and Reggie disappeared into a mass of cloud and debris.  A heartbeat later, Silver Cloud swept up past him.

"Dragons!" Silver Cloud shouted.

Neko, already losing his battle, followed and hoped to catch up with his friend.  He didn't like flying and would much rather ride. Besides, Silver Cloud was heading for trouble. Dragons? He couldn't say it worried him much.

He caught hold of his son's tail and began climbing. Silver didn't notice the inconsequential weight of something no larger than two of the scales Neko climbed across.  The magic he used to hold on went unnoticed as well.

Not that it would matter.  Something large -- some things large -- swept through the clearing sky.  They were so high that he dared look down only once. After that, he held on tighter and tried to focus on the trouble they headed toward.

It didn't help.

Dragons in a dozen rainbow hues swept through the sky. Neko shivered at the sight and gasped in surprise.

No. Gasped because the air was thin and shivered because it was cold enough to freeze his whiskers.  He admitted the dragons didn't really surprise him.  Life had been that way lately. 

If Silver intended to battle the dragons, it might be wise to let him know he had a passenger.  Neko scurried up toward the top of the head and leaned close to the right ear. He feared the others had seen him, though.

"Silver Cloud," he said, trying hard not to gasp.

"Honorable Father!  I did not realize cats can fly!"

"Caught your tail and climbed.  It is too cold!"

"Cold," Silver agreed. "Let me talk to them."
Then came a long stretch of whistles, pops, and low-sounding growls. Neko couldn't decide if things were going better or not. Some of the dragons left, but there were at least six still circling in the air around them. A couple of times, Silver became agitated, but nothing unusual happened.

As long as he didn't consider flying in the air with dragons to be unusual. Neko pulled himself into a crevice between Silver's ear and head, which was slightly warmer than out in the open. He rested since there was nothing else he could do at the moment. Silver, who, after all, was not a baby, seemed to have a serious discussion with the other dragons. None of them seemed overly upset, and since there was nothing Neko could add, he decided just to nap for a while. He was a cat, and there are certain requirements of napping that he'd been missing lately.

The others continued to talk until dusk, when a few dragons showed up. Neko thought they might be the ones who had left earlier. There followed a flurry of noises that he realized must really be speech. He thought he heard Maude's name, which got his attention again.

"Honorable father," Silver began. "They have been studying Maude and her prison. She is still fully asleep, of course, but there does seem to be some problem. She has dreams… Although I think we would call them nightmares. They're getting stronger, and my friends here, some of them may leak out. They're putting a watch on the hill, and might take Merlin back with them if he is interested. The rest will stay to help keep watch here until such time as they can end the nightmare threat."

"Won't having so many dragons around draw attention?" Neko asked with a worried glance around the area. "It seems as though we are concentrating a lot of power in a place that shouldn't have any at all."

Silver Cloud talked to his companions while the world went dark around them. It was then that he noticed Reggie gliding along with them. He had the sparkle of ice on his feathers, and that looked dangerous. He asked Silver what Reggie was doing there.

"Mostly, he is working as a messenger," Silver Cloud replied. "And he also answers questions. Reggie and you both served as familiars to Maude. You know things the rest of us, who only saw her in passing, never noticed. Once they have sorted through Reggie's memory of her, they will ask you some questions."

Neko didn't look forward to it. He had done his best to forget most of what had happened in his years with Maude. It hadn't worked, of course. However, he had made an effective wall to keep the worst of it out of his thoughts. He already felt the chill that did not come from the cold of the air around them.

Dragons were a lot warmer than he had expected.

They were also very quick. Silver Cloud spun once, pointed his nose straight down, and headed toward the clouds below them in the land below that. The other dragons did the same, and somewhere nearby, Reggie gave a cry of delight and swept downward with his hawk wings folded back.

Nice to know someone was enjoying themselves.

Then he thought about the conversation to come, and darkness swept through him again. That was Maude's thought, trying to take hold of him, and he would not allow it. He did his best to shiver aside for a moment; he feared he saw her there in the darkness, reaching for him.

Only a nightmare, he told himself.  Time to let his friends try freeing him, even from this nightmare that was not quite his own.

He heard her laugh and looked around, frantic to find where she was now. Or was he inside her nightmare?

"Gotcha," she whispered at his ear.

Flash Fiction #687 --Neko heads home again/3

 

Neko didn't remember having a dragon child. Shosha looked just as surprised, shocked, and confused. He would have thought one of them would remember.

Reginald knew something.  He didn't even wait for someone to ask. 

"Toward the end of my bondage with Maude, she became obsessed with dragons, and especially unhatched eggs. Her obsession was the only reason I could escape.  I made her think I had died in the cold mountains, and as I expected, she wasted little time on a search. I tried to warn the dragons, but I feared she would sense me."

"I would not have thought it possible," Colin said. He shook his head and then seemed to note the others watching him. "In the truly ancient days, there were tales of high elves who could merge the essence of other creatures with dragons.  The hope, as I understood it, was to make a better connection and avoid some problems in the future."

"And?" Neko asked at the abrupt end.

Colin sighed and continued. "High elves and dragons almost entirely disappeared from most realms.  Some say the attempt went wrong and destroyed them.  Others say it went right, and they left together because the real problem was the growing population of humans."

"That wouldn't surprise me," Merlin added. Since he was a human, no one took it as an insult, just another of those inconvenient truths.

"How did  you get here?" Neko asked.

"Honored father," he said.  None of their conversation seemed to have affected him.  "I was not what she expected. Maude trapped me in a small book, on a forgotten page until --"

"The pixies!" Luna exclaimed.  "They found another of Maude's books!"

They had started back toward the bookstore, the ghostly shapes of the old buildings of the neighborhood coming into view.  Fae had arrived in some numbers. Neko felt better for it.  This was not going quite right.

He wasn't surprised.

The dragon contracted as they neared the door until he was small enough to go inside with the others. Once there, though, he carefully turned to face all of them.  Neko thought he shivered.

"Please, honored parents, do not send me back to the book. Everything is so small and empty there, and I could barely hear whispers sometimes --"

"We do not intend to send you back," Shosha told him, her voice unusually soft. "But I would hope you will behave and help us.  We should help each other against our common enemy.  What is your name?"

"I have none," he admitted. "Parents and elders choose names when a dragon hatches."

Shosha moved closer to Neko.  She whispered a few words, and he nodded in agreement.

"Honored son," she said.  His head came up with a look of shock.  "If it is permitted, Neko and I would like to name you Silver Cloud."

Silver Cloud glowed with delight.  He wasn't the only one who appeared pleased. Neko only now realized they should have consulted the others.  It had seemed right.  A family matter, though Neko felt little like a father. Maybe they could be brothers -- or at least he could treat the relationship that way.  Brother to a dragon sounded like fun.

Cats were not big on responsibility. Shosha could handle that part.  He had read that female cats were usually good parents.

Having worked that out, he turned his attention back to the others, aware that they had been introducing themselves to the dragon.  Silver Cloud looked more impressive with each conversation, and it had nothing to do with size.  He glowed with confidence, and the color of his scales changed to a bluish silver.

"It is like suddenly having a family," Shosha said.

That was not something Neko had ever looked for in life. He didn't know how to feel. Neko spent the night mimicking their moods until they felt natural.  He hadn't expected it. Having family was nice, and one as odd as this group suited him.

So, it angered him even more when someone arrived at dawn, howling, growling, and pounding at the door.

"The humans will notice!" Shosha protested.

"I sealed off a four-square block area around us," Dorian said.  "We don't need the locals to see this. "

"What is it?" Shosha asked, her voice trembling.

The pounding grew louder and then stopped. The silence felt more dangerous.

Colin opened the door. Rock trolls stood packed together as far as Neko could see.  Shosha made a sound of distress and moved closer to Neko. That made him feel better as long as the trolls didn't actually attack.

"We sensed the return of power! You brought her back! How can we trust --"

Silver Cloud glided down the stairs and grew larger with each step. Three rock trolls had stepped inside. Two knocked a third down and walked over him to get out.

Words whispered outside.  Neko had never realized rock trolls could be so quiet.

"I believe I am the power you sensed."

"Yes, dragon.  Dragon Lord. Lord Dragon."

He looked inclined to say as many variations in whatever language came to mind.

"I am Silver Cloud."

"Lord Dragon Silver Cloud.   Or would you prefer --"

"That one will do." They went through the door, Silver Cloud contracting and expanding on the outside.  Neko followed at a respectful -- somewhat safe -- distance.  "And you are?"

"Death at your Glorious Command.  Unworthy Ant at your Feet.  Unfit Pebble --"

"How about First Rock Troll Dragon Friend?"  Silver Cloud asked.  "Then I can call you Friend."

Neko admired how well Silver handled the situation.  He would have relaxed if Reginald hadn't arrived in a rush, and in the shape of a wolf.

"Luna says there is trouble," Reggie growled.

That wasn't helpful.

 

Flash Ficton #686 -- Neko heads home again/2

 

Home!

Someone stepped on his tail.  Neko hissed out of shock, but Dorian was already moving on. Neko could feel a sense of relief all around him as he bounded up on the counter where he belonged. A few pixies arrived in a flutter of light and color. They gave tiny screams of delight and rushed back toward their attic, leaving a glowing rainbow in their wake. 

Neko found very little had changed, although there were a few signs that others had been working here. Dorian was already sending out word to their fae friends not to come in -- in fact, to stay clear.

Yes, there would be trouble not far behind them. Neko felt one surge of anger, but it died away a moment later.

"This is nice!" Shosha exclaimed with a wave at the bookstore walls. "I never realized there could be so many books in one place!"

Luna and Shosha were so much a part of the group that Neko had forgotten they had never been here. A glance at Merlin showed he didn't look displeased. He even nodded as he scanned some titles -- the ones that most people never noticed because of their protective spells. 

"Made it," Colin mumbled as he put the last seal on the door.  He slumped into a chair.  "I think if anything comes pounding on the door, we should ignore it. We all need rest."

Shosha apparently agreed. She left Luna's arms and curled up on the counter like she lived there. Good thing she was so cute.  Neko decided it looked like a good idea. Sleep called to him.

He should have known it was a trap.

"You will let me in," a voice said. This was not Maude, and it was more than the deep bass that told him so. "There is no use in fighting it."

Neko suspected they had reached the next level above Maude.  Great.

He was still asleep. He could almost see the bookstore through a gauze of white clouds. They spread out farther than the building, and something lurked at the outer edge in a band of gray. It moved, clouds shifting around it.

This one oozed power and self-confidence.  It also betrayed a disrespect for the two small creatures who had fallen so easily into his trap. Neko admitted it had been a stupid mistake.   That didn't mean he and Shoha were always stupid.

Shosha appeared to still be in her kitten phase, which meant she had not loosed her rage, though Neko thought he could see a pulse of red in her fur.  He had no time to waste on games.  If he didn't, Neko knew he would have to deal with his friend and their enemy.

Then he heard a distant voice and knew Colin was looking for them.  Their fae friend gave Neko far better hope than his ability to take on Shosha in a bad mood.

They had been home.  For a few brief minutes, he had felt safe.  How had someone got past the shields?  How had it gone unnoticed?

Impossible.  The enemy had already been inside. That was the only answer. They had left fae to protect the place.  Did that mean they couldn't trust the fae?

Or was that what something wanted?

No one else --

Pixies were easy to trick. If someone -- or something -- was patient enough to put up with the constant giggles and pranks, they might find a flaw in the spells the fae wove --

Colin was still yelling, but he sounded more distant. He sensed Reggie closer, but silent.  Which one was the diversion?  It didn't matter because Shosha was about to explode with rage. Neko had no time to figure out what the others were doing.  He gathered all the power he could and launched himself at the white fur ball.

And he hugged her.

Neko couldn't remember ever seeing anyone so shocked. For a half dozen heartbeats, he feared she would explode and take him with her. Then she sighed and snuggled closer.

"Nice," she whispered.

He would have held on if the enemy hadn't launched itself at them. Larger than he had expected.  By the time it cleared the gray area, it was already too large to make any sense of it. He concentrated on the long snout and dagger teeth while he pushed Shosha behind him.

He wanted her to run to Colin, but knew that she would not.  Instead, she growled and raised a paw with claws unsheathed. The creature -- a dragon, Neko realized -- countered by opening his mouth wider.

"Neko! Shosha!" Colin shouted.

The dragon's mouth snapped shut without any cats inside. He backed up while making strange gasping noises. He paid no attention at all to Colin and Reggie when they arrived.

Instead, he bowed with his head to his paws.

"Oh," Reggie said in a tone hinting that he knew what was going on.

"I am unworthy," the dragon proclaimed.  "I beg your forgiveness, honorable parents."