Dragon Kin

15

After explaining the concept of social networks to Victor, I left him with the boys and went out in the backyard. Uncle Conall did most of our yards, keeping them with grass and trimmed. At least when hurricanes weren't flooding us out.

There were supposed to be several major storms this year. Oma always loved them. The power and force of them, even when they were threatening to tear the house down around us. The stronger they came the more energy she had. It was like she fed off them.

I sat on a bench, and pulled her journal out of my backpack. I hadn't opened it yet. Victor sounded like he was still enjoying himself, learning about the computer search. I could hear laughter. He laughed easily. It was nice.

Opening the journal to a random page, I found Oma's perfect handwriting, describing the Otherworld. Her words pulled me into the description, and I could feel the world around me dimming as her descriptions bloomed in my mind.

She had a visitor from the Otherworld. The woman had already left, but Oma couldn't stop thinking about what the woman had described. Looking up at the date, I found the entry was written eight years ago.

The woman described herself as a Morrigan. She said she was bound to one of the Dradam. She now lived in a small city, on their side. She talked freely with Oma, about her work, her studies and life over there. Oma was fascinated with the information. Even though she had no way of verifying any of it, it still amazed her with the possibilities.

I knew the name, Morrigan. It was the name of a goddess in the Celtic lore, or Irish lore. No, that wasn't quite right. It was the Morrigan. Not a name, but a title. A title to an office. Like a shaman or priest. Searching what I knew about the etymology of the word, I came to the decision it meant something like The Nightmare Queen, or Phantom Queen. Something like that.

I heard from several sources that Oma was a well respected Cunning Woman. She didn't set out to be known as that, it was just something which developed over years, that she couldn't seem to step away from.

Soon the passages became too dense to simply read. They needed to be 'unpacked', and in some places I noted ahead, decoded, because she began using glyphs. The information being too much for her simple pen and paper, she was reduced to notes and reminders.

I knew her journal would be like this. It's how she taught me, when I was ready to begin one.

This wasn't simply one of her notebooks, the many volumes which filled three shelves in her room. This was her master knowledge. Her other books would have the first draft of what was in here. Possibly even second drafts as well.

The pages of description in those notebooks she would then condense to only the important information, and then render it in the most precise language she could, into this journal.

Which was damn precise. I wasn't quite certain what some of the words meant in context.

The idea, which was a bit dated these days, was that if you had this journal, you could recreate your others to use as day to day reference. Mal and Sean would tell you to put your info on a cloud somewhere. Which, was true enough.

Oma used computers as well, and I found the password to her laptop on the inside cover.

I closed the journal and put it back in my bag.

...

The laughter had calmed down from inside and through the open window I could hear Victor's deep voice asking questions and then listening for long periods.

He was easy to talk to. When we talked, he looked to me as if I were important, and reliable. His whole body said what you were saying had value to him. The way he listened was a bit intimidating. A few times, he would lean toward me... as if lured in by my words.

His eyes were peculiar. Green emeralds. Clear green, like feline gems. His pupils were odd. Actually, they seemed to alter occasionally. The first couple of times I noticed it, I thought it was a trick of the light, but now, I don't think that was the case.

Legend says that if he is a true Dradam, that he was part dragon. That he could change — like the werewolf stories — into something that was like a dragon. Or maybe a real dragon?

I couldn't get my head around that. Maybe it was a human sized dragon?

I still haven't seen any wings.

His features were rugged. The brow was heavy, and thick, and threatening to be a uni-brow if he didn't trim up soon. It wasn't bad yet, but it could be. I looked away until I was sure I had my grin under control.

Rugged, but not mean. Expressive as well, I noticed. You could almost guess what he was thinking.

He was certainly intense. I kinda liked it.

I wish this mark hadn't come and ruined it for me. We were going to have a drink together...

How could I be with someone I was forced to be with? What kind of life is that?

Not a unique one, I told myself. Thousands of women are forced into marriages, even today. All over the world women were being bound to men they didn't know and possibly didn't like. Men much older than them. Twenty, thirty years older.

Is that to be my fate as well? Marriage or a painful death?

The back door opened and then smacked shut. There he was, my future... something.

I realized I was crying and wiped at my eyes with my sleeves.

"Bad timing? I can go back in. Just checking on you," he said, his voice even, deep, but not unkind.

"I'm alright," I snuffled, and then sighed. I wasn't alright. I wasn't close to being alright. "Can you talk to me for a bit?"

"Sure," he said and picked up a chair to bring closer to me. "What should we talk about?"

"Where you live?" I asked, my voice a little high with anxiety.

"Thinking of moving there?" he asked, his tone light, but he wasn't joking really.

"It's become a possibility," I said.

He looked at his wrist, "I suppose it has."

After adjusting himself in the chair, he said, "Our cities are smaller. How many people live in this one?"

"About four hundred thousand," I told him.

"Yeah," he murmured, "Our largest is maybe a third of that, well perhaps one-hundred thousand. Most of the towns I've been to are under fifty thousand. The Sidhe cities are huge. Well, perhaps as large as this one."

"Sidhe?"

"Yes. The Sidhe live across our western border, and there is another country, north, where several peoples live. They are typically small communities, and not much interested in being anything else. Shifters. Fae. You know of these?"

"Stories. Tales. Myths," I said.

He shrugged, "Not where I'm from. You'll likely buy your morning breakfast from one in my city."

"What about, like, houses?"

He leaned back, "Well, it's not like here. I mean, look at the milling and construction it takes to put these together. Nails? That would be good back home. I mean if we had boards, instead of logs."

His lips smirked, and I slapped his knee, "Don't tease me."

He laughed. "Just checking to see if it was still possible. You were looking a little intense there for a moment."

I frowned at him.

"Look," he said, leaning forward, putting his hands on his thighs, "if for some reason you should find yourself over there, then I will be with you, and we will figure out a way of getting you back." He leaned back, and stretched. "Even if it means I have to live in this dank smelling aroma wasteland."

"What? I mean, your sense of smell...?"

"Is a lot better than yours, unfortunately," he said standing up. "I can smell everything. I can smell microwave burritos baking inside. I can smell the dumpster at the end of the alley." Then he leapt, high, over the back fence into the alley. A man yelped.

"And I can smell fear."