The Elementals

“I don’t think I belong here,” Skylar confided. Idly gliding her fingers over the table she laid her head on.

“Why am I the one you’re telling this to?” Draco, her brother-in-law, asked. His red hair and pale skin was enough to mark him as non-Phoenician.

“Because you don’t care enough about me to tell me I’m wrong.”

Draco let out a long whistle, setting his book down.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re like the kid sister I never had, or wanted.”

“I’m several years past childhood,” Skylar said.

“Guess I proved your point then,” Draco said, “Why don’t you belong?”

She closed her eyes as if that would give her an explanation.

“I thought when I left the Forge, everything would make sense, and I’d belong because I’d be with my family forever, but the only time it felt right was…” Too many secrets that weren’t hers to tell.

“When you were with Singe?” He asked.

Her expression turned to confusion.

“What, no? Not that I dislike him, but being around him doesn’t make this place feel less wrong, if anything it makes it feel worse. I mean when I was visiting my godmother on Earth.”

“Where you met Singe,” Draco added.

“You’re really fishing for your friend, aren’t you?”

Relationships weren’t the point of what Skylar was talking about right now.

“Well,” Draco held until Skylar’s gaze turned into a glare, “He seems to like you, and I’d like to see him more often.”

Skylar rolled her eyes.

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t tell anyone what I told you today. This doesn’t go past the two of us.”

“Sure.” Draco returned to his reading.

Lotus transported them to a place full of people, then pointed up. Above them was the barely visible form of a Night Dragon. Only discernible against the sky behind it by the shimmer of it’s scales.

“Oh,” Singe said, “This is going to be much easier than the cave-blights.”

Everyone turned their gaze toward Singe.

“It’s only one thing, and I can definitely talk to it.”

“The caveblights had the crowd running away,” Lotus said, “And an easily locatable portal. We have neither.”

Skylar watched the crowd of people, the dragon hovering above them, and looked for a possible point of entry.

“If it came here by portal, the portal can’t be far,” she said, “Who knows how to locate them?”

Lotus singularly raised their hand.

“How?” Skylar asked.

They shook their head.

“It’s too technical. I’ll just do it.”

“No,” Lotus paused at Skylar’s command, “We need your energy up for sending it back. Singe, try to move the dragon away from the crowd for now, poor bugger’s going to get tired from holding itself up. Evia, try to move the crowd away from the dragon. We want to keep both of them safe.”

Evia and Singe ran off, leaving Skylar alone with Lotus.

“Now I remember why you’re not a spare,” Lotus said.

“Spare?” that question didn’t matter, “Whatever, show me how to find the portal.”

Lotus grabbed a large rock, drawing a series of runes on it with their chalk.

“Burn those in. You’ll have to look through it, but it will reveal a portal from up to a mile away.”

“That far?”

“You’ll have to get up high.”

“I can manage that. You couldn’t have chosen a smaller rock?”

“It’s already tight on this one.”

Skylar gave a nod, exhaled, and burned the runes onto the rock. She held it to her face, and found she could sort of see through it, awkwardly.

She moved into the area Evia had cleared out, took another breath, and on release two wings of flame appeared from her back. As they took in air, their temperature and Skylar’s altitude increased. She quickly started looking through the rock. Nothing.

“What’s the portal supposed to look like?” she yelled down.

“Obvious!” Lotus yelled back. “If you can’t spot it, it’s probably not there.”

“Great!”

She floated down, still holding the rock.

Evia ran over to them, showing a wall of ice that kept the crowd away. There was nothing else to do here, and the dragon was gone.

“Lets go find Singe and our dragon.”

“No portal!” Lotus yelled, sliding in next to Singe, who was in full draconic form it seemed. The dragon’s giant violet eyes opened and looked directly at Lotus.

“Which means we’ll get you out of here with a teleportation spell that Lotus is going to work on straight away,” Skylar explained, bringing the eyes toward her.

“Singe, get your hands off the dragon,” Lotus said, “I don’t want to teleport you too.”

Singe relayed the message in growls and eye-contact, earning a large nod from the dragon.

“Does it need any healing?” Skylar asked.

“She’s fine, just tired.”

“Well I can’t help with that.”

She grabbed Singe’s hand to pull him away as Lotus gauntlet made a small form in the image of General Oak, before it melted and started surrounding the dragon from the bottom up. It lifted its head to get away from the metal. Singe put his other hand on Skylar’s arm, nodding at the dragon to reassure her.

Once the copper completely covered her, it suddenly collapsed in on itself, returning to Lotus’ gauntlet with no dragon to be found.

“Is that what happened in the woods?” Skylar asked.

“More or less, except this time it didn’t return to me. I’ll get the stuff that brought us here back once we return to the cabin, but I don’t think I have the wherewithal to do that right away.”

“What do you need?” Evia asked as Lotus leaned on her. Singe quickly moved to take over, stringing Lotus over his shoulder.

“I mostly need nuts.”

“Luckily this is a tourist town,” Singe said, “Odds are good they’ve got some kind of nut-based treat.”

“No time to waste,” Skylar said.

Skylar propped Evia up as she took down the ice walls, allowing the denizens of the town back inside.

“What is the meaning of this?” an angry man who looked mildly political asked, “We don’t take kindly to—”

“There was a dragon less than an hour away from crushing your whole town with its body weight,” Singe said, “Less than that if you were too loud.”

“High chances of it, given your tone,” Lotus added.

The man began sputtering.

“B-b-but where’s your proof? You can’t just say you saved us from an imaginary thing after pushing us all out of our town and nearly burning it down.”

Skylar felt Singe staring at her from behind.

“You’ll find none of your buildings have been damaged,” she said, “I needed a high and centered vantage-point to check for where the dragon came in.”

“It better not be damaged,” the man grumbled, pushing against her as he walked past.

“Is there any shop with nuts somewhere?” Lotus asked. They were ignored.

“Can we buy some nuts?” Skylar asked, louder. “We’ll pay, and it’s the fastest way to get us out of your hair.”

“And somewhere cold,” Evia said, her signs rather slow. Considering the temperature and the size of the walls, it wasn’t a surprise she was probably overheating.

“And somewhere with AC for a minute,” Skylar added, “Maybe a cup of water.”

“I have some cinnamon almonds, and my shop has AC,” a woman said, pulling a small child with her.

“I saw the dragon,” the kid claimed.

“Good work,” Lotus said.

“What are you called anyways?” the woman asked as she guided them.

“Call us the Elementals,” Singe said, shrugging off the stares the other three gave him.

Skylar felt guilty for how little burning in the runes taxed her, the cold return barely giving her a chill. There was a vast difference between building a wall and burning in a few things, but there seemed to be a vast difference between her and the others as well.

She disliked that feeling.

At least she could reduce Lotus’ headaches.

“I was hesitant at first when I heard you were joining us,” Lotus said as she burned in the last rune, “Evia and I are friends because we’re spares, unnecessary for the political state, but you can’t even breathe without someone asking why.”

“So I draw too much attention to you?” Skylar asked. She didn’t really care about what Lotus thought. She was relatively comfortable for the first time in months.

“That was my initial assumption, yes, but that’s exactly why you had to come.”

She actually turned to them after that comment.

“Excuse me?”

“Evia and I don’t really matter.”

“You said that.”

“Even Singe being our protector seemed like corroboration,” Lotus continued, “We didn’t need protection until you came along, and he clearly focused on you more than the two of us.”

Skylar wished she could deny it. She was going to have a proper confrontation about that with Singe.

“Evia and I have learned not to care. It’s survival when you’re trapped in our way, but you care so much. Every fiber of your being has been taught to care, and you refused when given power over people. Your care moves to us, this world. I think you were born for this.”

“For what?”

The Phoenix was born for a lot of things. Skylar had already rejected most of them.

“Saving the day,” Lotus said, “You knew I’d be exhausted by teleporting a dragon, and refused to let me exhaust myself further because I matter to you. I was able to say I didn’t have the energy to teleport and you asked a town that hated us for nuts.”

“You asked for them first.”

“You asked louder, and asked again after taking care of Evia. I’d already forgotten by the time we were in that building. You even took care of Evia! You and Singe have good reason to hate her whole family, and you took care of her, which I didn’t expect from you.”

Now Skylar was offended.

“That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“Yes, but it’s not what most people would do, and even if you already care for him, you insisted Singe, our protector in nigh invincible scales, rest so he could heal. I didn’t even notice he was hurt, but you caught it twice!”

“I trained in medicine at the Forge.”

Lotus watched her.

“You don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?”

“Yourself.”

Skylar needed a break from nonsense. Luckily, Singe was at the kitchen island, with a beer Skylar didn’t even realize they had.

“Where’d you find that?”

He leaned down and pulled one out of one of the cabinets, which Skylar knew hid a mini fridge. She gladly took it out of his hands.

“You didn’t mention that to Lotus and Evia, did you?”

“It’s our secret.” They clinked their bottles and each took a sip. There was something refreshing about Earth alcohol that lacked the pretense Magek always gave it.

“Speaking of secrets,” Skylar said, dreading the response, “I think we should stay one.”

They hadn’t spoken face to face for months, but there had been something of an agreement since last they’d seen each other. They were something, and they would continue to be. Especially now that Lotus acted like she was something special. She needed someone who knew her.

“I think your cousin’s suspicious,” was all Singe said, but he avoided looking her in the eye.

“Lotus isn’t the problem. They know how to keep a secret, and frankly, they don’t really care about most things.”

“So this is about Evia,” Singe acknowledged, “Because she’s Renuean.”

Skylar nodded.

“Uncle Burns doesn’t seem to have a problem with her,” Singe said.

“And ordinarily, I would trust his judgment, but…”

Singe gave a lean that told her to continue.

“…I don’t trust why her father would just let her go. He’s a piece of shit, but he values his kids as tools if nothing else.”

“Was that politics from the Ember Phoenix?”

She leveled a glare at Singe. No one else felt comfortable commenting on the Phoenix thing. No one else felt comfortable.

“So you think Anarri gave her an assignment while she’s here,” Singe explained, “And you don’t want a report coming back confirming us together.”

“Because neither of us need that fallout, especially you.”

Singe snorted.

“What issue do I have if I’m in a relationship with you. You’re the one dating below your station.”

“Because people already think the main reason Draconis put her vote behind you is because you’re a friend of hers, even if you proved yourself. The Queen of Avalon is old friends with Draconis’ mother. Add me into the mix, especially with knowledge we met while I was visiting my godmother, not when you impressed everyone, and it gives validity to discredit your knighthood from all kingdoms.” She’d thought about this for months.

“Because you put in a good word for me.”

“Which I did because I was a witness, but I was just one of many. Anarri was probably the most emotionally invested of the seven sovereigns when it came to your appointment, which is why he refused so adamantly, but if he can discredit you using me…”

Singe begrudgingly nodded. Skylar didn’t like it either, but politics were bound to follow them.

“She could just have been told to seduce you,” Singe said.

Skylar spat out her sip of beer, scowling at Singe’s smirk.

“That’s so much worse.”

“Why? Is she that bad looking.”

“Oh she’s lovely,” Skylar said, “Just not my type.”

“Then what is your type, your highness,” Singe leaned in, “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Skylar looked outside to make sure Lotus and Evia were focused on something else. They were focused around a mint plant.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked.

“I want to know who I’ll be jealous of ahead of time.”

“Well he’s tall,” She said.

“I’m a he, and I’m tall.”

“Strong.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“Affectionate in some of the strangest ways.”

“How strange?”

“Would put out my hair with a scaled hand if it caught on fire.”

He smiled in a way that barely hid laughter.

“And is that a normal hazard for you?” he asked.

“Not very, but I like a man who’s prepared.”

“Sounds hard to beat.”

“Doesn’t he?”

She pulled him in for a kiss. Tangling her fingers in his hair. She’d take these secret moments with all the care she could muster. She felt comfortable around Singe.