Dragon Meetup (Part 3)
Probably unnecessary preparations
Kai stopped walking. “I’d rather explore here, actually.”
“Yeah!” Kaya agreed. “We grew up in a small town. Besides, you called yourself the ‘Dragon of Blacksburg’, right? So this is your town. Not that other place.”
Emilie scratched the back of her head. “Well, technically, my territory is everywhere I can fly within an hour. But this is its center and it is the town where I grew up. Alright. Well, uh, the farmer’s market should still be open, if you’d want to check that out?”
Kaya’s stomach growled, and Kai’s shortly afterwards. “Will they have food?” the female twin asked, embarrassed.
Emilie laughed. “They should. It’s a couple of miles away: bus, or no bus?”
“I can walk,” Kai said, and Kaya nodded in agreement. “By the way, you said we resisted the magic in the first hotel. How is whatever you did still working?” He’d noticed that, while the temperature reverted to a chilled “normal” in their new hotel, it went back to the definitely magically-induced temperature after they went back outside.
“I use a different kind of magic,” Emilie explained with a small shrug. “I think you have a Dragon’s resistance to targeted Aspect spells, which establish their targeting by picking out your body’s entropy—your life and magic source. My magic instead takes the pattern of heat energy in the atoms that make up your body and uses that to pick out where you are. Since it’s not interacting with your magic, you can’t resist it.”
“Oh, that makes—wait, did you say atoms?!” Kaya almost shouted.
Emilie flinched and covered her ears. “You’d get along well with Alex,” she muttered before answering the question. “Yes. Dragons here are all good at physics because we have to learn it to write our spells. We write spells so we don’t have to keep track of all that stuff actively. While I’ve learned to think that way, I still can’t mentally track that much information just to keep you cool. Or myself, for that matter.”
“Wow,” Kai said. “That’s, uh… it sounds a little overwhelming.”
“It was,” Emilie laughed. “But it only started when I was almost twelve. From your description of yourselves, you’ve always been able to breathe fire, haven’t you? Do your parents own a lot of fire extinguishers?”
The twins both laughed at this. “Definitely,” Kaya said. “Less than when we were younger, but when a sneeze can light things on fire, it’s a problem you need to be ready for.”
“That and little kids exploring their abilities, right? I’ve heard that monsters have trouble when their kids figure out magic. Humans usually have to grow up a little more before they can use it.”
Kai’s face reddened at the mention of exploring abilities. Then he thought about the fact that he might have kids that could breathe fire. “Your, uh, monsters, have been around for a while, right?”
“If you’re talking about just the people version, over a millennium. For all of them, over four.”
“Yes, that’s a while,” Kai thought. Aloud, he continued, “Would they have anything that might help with our potential kids?”
Emilie snorted. “Absolutely. Lizarkin are probably the best to check with, since they should all have relevant spells. There aren’t too many monsters in Blacksburg, but we can visit a monster village tomorrow afternoon, if we don’t find anything for you here.”
The conversation continued while the trio walked, until they came within smelling distance of the farmer’s market. Kaya rocketed off to the nearest food stall as soon as she smelled it. Kai was a little more thoughtful with his options, but ended up going to the same stall. While they were in line, Emilie excused herself, saying she needed something from home, and the summer sun reasserted itself.
“Whew!” Kaya exclaimed. “That magic of hers really makes a difference, doesn’t it?”
“Not that the heat is too unpleasant,” Kai remarked. “It’s just much warmer than New York.”
With their guide gone, Kai and Kaya took their time browsing the mix of local and patriotic booths after they finished eating their fish tacos. The majority of products on display were art and knickknacks, including one local fox creature selling dragon plushies labeled with names. “Hold on, that one’s Emilie!” Kaya said in front of a very blue plush.
“Indeed it is,” said the saleslady. “It’s a popular plush. Her frequent activities with children probably help my sales.”
“Activities?” Kai echoed.
The fox smiled warmly. “Children love to climb. You know how it is. It’s very difficult to hurt her, so she rests on the ground after her flights and lets children climb.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“It might also be part of her efforts to overturn centuries of misunderstandings,” the saleslady speculated. “You might not be able to tell as a tourist, but Dragons were something that inspired only dread until she came along. They earned their reputation, but that’s not to say we didn’t earn ours among them. I’m glad she is who she is.”
Understanding dawned on Kai’s face. “Is that why some people call her ‘Lady Emilie’?”
“Maybe. I don’t think she would like the title, though.”
“You’ve met her?” Kaya asked.
“She owns the first plush I made of her dragon form.”
July 2, 2011
While plenty of people will recognize me no matter what form I take, I like to match myself at least a little to the people I’m talking with. One of the coolest things the Blacksburg lab has made so far is the self-casting button. Insert a standard iron band wand and press the button, and it casts the spell on the person holding the box! I got Shannon to make the wands I needed, so now I can be a red lizarkin anytime I want for however long I want, without having to bug her.
I don’t carry it with me everywhere, though. I like my yukata and between the button’s entropy cell and the yukata’s folded bulk, it takes a lot of space. Besides, I can eat lunch at home now and meet up with the twins after they’ve done a little shopping.
One lunch and change later and I’m back to the farmer’s market. Let’s see… ah, there. I know that proprietor knows this form, but I can still see how long it takes for anyone to notice me.
I think Akiko may have rubbed off on me a little. She definitely earned her old title of Prankster.
The twins are chatting with one of the lizarkin from Blacksburg… oh, that’s Mark’s older brother! Not everyone here is strictly local, especially because of holiday travel, and I think there’s even someone from Rich Creek here. But Mark’s brother decided to start a business just a little after Martha’s attack, and that shop is perfect for what Kai wanted. It’s kind of funny: he’s a Mage with probably the most useless spell set for a lizarkin, but it works out perfectly for his particular business.
“Here! Here,” Francis is saying as he darts around his booth while careful not to knock anything over. The five-lined skink’s long tale is certainly doing him no favors in that department. “Pick out anything you want. I’ll add the spell when you buy it!” He sets out a few charms and blocks of metal and crystal that I’m certain he bought just to resell with added magic.
“Anything we can turn on and off ourselves?” Kai asks.
Francis sucks in air. “Ooo, fresh outta buttons. But! It’s a light spell. Take a block or something quartz and it’ll certainly last a while. Any Mage or Wizard can recharge and reactivate it.”
As hurried as he acts, I know he’s actually not ripping them off. But he said (as related to me through Alex) that more people buy if he looks busy, so he tries to keep up appearances even if haste really isn’t warranted.
I watch as Kai and Kaya look over the wares and their attached price tags. They must be experienced with people like Francis; they don’t look rushed at all. He moves to help another customer while they decide, Kaya eventually grabbing a tasteful crystal necklace in the shape of a scale. “How is sapphire this cheap?” I hear her ask.
“It’s actually white quartz,” Francis admits. “Magically recolored. Just as pretty, but not as rare or as good at magic storage. Still plenty for what you need! Want it?”
“Mmmm, sure! You’re getting one too, right, Kai?”
“Yeah, give me a moment. There.” He picks up a similar—hold on.
“Ah, the Dragon scale chip!” The housing for it is metal and shaped to look like a dragon in profile, with the purple chip covering one of the wings. “You have a discerning eye. That’s way more than what you need. Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He pulls out his wallet and hands over the cash, while Kaya pays for hers. Then Francis holds each in turn for a moment, imbuing them with some spell that I’ll be asking them about in a minute.
With that sale done, Francis looks up and‒ “Ho! Emilie!” ‒waves at me.
“Hello!” I reply as I approach. “How are you today?”
“Wha‒?” Kaya cuts herself off. “Emilie?”
“Never better,” comes the reply from Francis. “Excellent sales this weekend.”
“Where’d you get one of Sven’s scales?”
“I didn’t. Just a few chips that I had rehoused. Care to introduce yourself?”
I narrow my eyes in amusement and turn to Kaya. “Yes, the same Emilie. I thought it would be more fun if we somewhat matched. What’s in the charms you bought?”
“Fireproofing,” Francis answers for them before returning to his other customers.
“Yeah!” Kai holds up his charm and… by his motions, he’s probably doing his fire breathing thing. But nothing actually lights on fire until it’s fallen a few feet from the charm, and then it’s too spread out to set anything else on fire. “Not perfect, but way better than having to watch a baby constantly.”
“Uh, you probably should do that anyway. But it should help with your sneezing problem.”
“Oh, yeah, that it would. So? What’s next?”
Part of my hesitation with writing this series is that it is meant to occur after the entirety of Emilie’s tale is done. And I’ve only written the first part. I’ve planned the broad strokes of the rest of it, but I also don’t want to spoil things too much so we’re mostly just going to get the vibe that Emilie somehow fixed things.