Chapter 16
Clarence Moonscale
Moonscale London Under the Reign of Clarence and Medwin Moonscale
We were at Medwin’s flat. It was my first night out of the hospital and we’d only been married for a couple of hours. It had taken us all of five minutes to free ourselves from the ritual ropes, but we’d spent hours going around tied together because having the visual representation of our bond just felt right.
After our handfasting ceremony there was a short speech where I addressed the public but didn’t take any questions. My carrier-in-law played it off as I needed more time to recover from my injuries, but I just wanted to be alone with Medwin. We never did get a proper matingmoon.
I didn’t know then that Medici was looking out for my best interests. For over a decade I had horrible headaches and developed blind spots that came and went from my vision. Colors would change randomly and for years the shiny things in my life were even shinier. X-rays showed that somehow my skull and the three broken vertebrae in my neck had all repaired themselves. Even the scans of my actual brain showed more healing than the medical staff thought possible. Despite knowing that dragons and alphas usually heal particularly fast they still weren’t sure how I walked out of the hospital of my own volition just a few weeks after being crushed by a boulder. I put it down to ten percent being knocked unconscious which meantI was moving around with a broken neck and smashed skull and ninety percent sheer audacity and determination because I wasn’t leaving Medwin.
During my decade of healing, I was prone to bouts of irritability that made me loathe the company of anyone who wasn’t Medwin. I tolerated his parents and friends, but I found that I myself didn’t consider many people friends in those days. I had Medwin, his parents, and Volex. Those were the people I could trust, beyond them were merely people to be dealt with. I wanted them to all lead happy lives and stay safe and fed but I didn’t want to deal with any of them in person. Meeting with the leaders of other groups was the worst because most of them were across the Atlantic Ocean and had little to do with the day-to-day lives of Moonscale dragons. I made most of my trade agreements with shifters and groups to the east of us. They were happy to discuss how we might handle the global climate change recovery we inherited from the non-shifters and how we might make that easier for each other without prying into my personal life. Like me they simply didn’t care about the personal lives of others because they had enough of their own problems to deal with, unlike the loud and boisterous lot on the other side of the ocean who always wanted small talk about things that were frankly none of their business. Medwin was and is still better at the social aspects of leadership than I will ever hope to be.
That night Medwin had fallen asleep with his head on my chest. He was wearing our handfasting string around his neck like a necklace a child might make. Pras’s book was still in the satchel that now hung from the edge of our bed at the flat. My brain was jumping from thought to thought as it tried to process a world without him and my parents. A world where I had the power of Roster Moonscale but was nothing like him. Both Volex and Medici had told me I’d have to break a few heads to provemyself at some point and should get more comfortable doing it. That comfort wouldn’t grow inside me for years. Even now, if I can get everyone out of a conflict with their head on I will. Unless, of course, they threaten my family. Then all bets are off and their heads could join Roster’s on the list of those I have removed.
I also pondered, as the healers had, how I had recovered. Back then I didn’t know how to let things be because I feared everything I didn’t understand would be as sinister as my parents. Of course, that wasn’t the case and looking back if I were one of my own children I’d have found them a therapist straight away, but we didn’t do that back in the day.
“Clarence,” a voice whispered and I blinked, thinking perhaps my mate had woken up for another romp. I smirked at the thought of his warm body all pressed against mine. We’d need to buy more condoms soon.
“Don’t smile at me like that, brother,” it said and looked up to see Pras standing there ethereal at the end of the bed.
“Pras!?” I almost sat up, but he held up one hand to stop me and pointed at my sleeping mate.
“Don’t wake Smokey up. He needs his sleep to put up with your ass,” he grinned. “Come on. We have to go.”
“Go where,” I asked him, wondering if my brain injury was worse than I thought. I knew ghosts were as real as reincarnation but once you’re hit on the head by a boulder you question everything.
“He’s real,”my dragon chimed into my thoughts.“Let’s see what he wants. We owe him. Without him we’d probably be the ghost.”
“I need to get dressed first,” I said, wiggling out from under Medwin and sliding a pillow under him so that he still had something to snuggle.
“I forgot how you living are about your parts,” Pras shrugged. “Bloody hurry up. There are whispers out there. Ferrick might be locked in the book, but I can come and go short distances sometimes. He still has those who would’ve seen him remain in power forever. They can’t find the book. He’s an angry cunt now.”
“You want me to fight a horde of Ferrick’s followers in the middle of the night? Isn’t that more Volex’s thing?” I asked, grabbing my pants from the chair near the bed.
“No, you’re going to take the book to the Other World. We’ll go far enough away from Earthside that none of them will ever find it. Given long enough they’ll forget about him.”
“Won’t they forget about you too?” I asked.
“You and Smokey will be around to remind them. Just take care of Haen and make sure our kids get a fair shake of things,” he said. “What else did I die for? If anyone can whip these dragons into shape its you and him,” he nodded at Medwin.
I followed my dead brother into the Other World that night. Despite hearing about it many times over the years it wasn’t a place I had ventured often and that night was a double-edged sword. It was when I said goodbye to my brother and left him to his own accord with a crazy omega locked in a book and the firsttime I snatched up a shiny elven item. It was a brooch left with some clothes while some elves skinny dipped. Medwin still has it. Up until now I’m not sure he ever knew where it came from. I’m not saying the price for ridding ourselves of Ferrick was Pras and the wars with the elves, but maybe it was. Peace has always been a fickle thing. Then again, the wars with the Meadow Clan Elves were probably unavoidable as I saw so much of my parents in their leadership.
When I arrived back at the flat, I took a shower, found a little gift box to shove the brooch into, and crawled back into bed with my mate. I ached for my brother but couldn’t stop myself from looking ahead. With my beautiful, strong mate by my side my life was going to be pretty great, right?
***Notes from the editor: I advised Clarence not to disclose the exact location where the book was hidden to avoid future sightseers disturbing nearby folks. I also championed Pras’s request that his brother limit what he shared of their final conversation to protect the identity and number of children he sired before his death. One never knows when a dead leader will regain favor and those of his children and other descendants who wish for privacy deserve it.
Epilogue
Medwin Moonscale
Modern Day Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
Tomorrow was the day we’d say goodbye to Pras for good. Well, we hoped for good, for his sake. Okay, a little bit of our sakes too, but mostly his. I longed to go home. Our nest down in the Burrow was comfy but it wasn’t home. After checking with several older dragons and draconic healers we knew we could technically fly our egg home. Dragon eggs were made to stand up to high altitudes and air travel in case they needed to be moved in an emergency, but moving our egg felt unnatural. Perhaps we’d grown too comfortable as modern dragons. Sure, I could scoop it up and fly away in a pinch, but how much of a pinch was this? Tomorrow, Pras would leave and either Ferrick would still be stuck in his book, or he’d break free and have to be banished. Magical practitioners from all over the world were flying in to witness the occasion. Since the three murders the day of the storm, the GGB leadership along with Canton and Philip had been more on guard than ever and I didn’t blame them.
I lounged in the nest with Clarence, scrolling through texts our children, grandchildren, and friends sent us as they read their copies of our book. We both feared that they might find our story and thus ourselves lacking. Defeating Roster and Ferrick didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t something that we did on our own. We received a lot of requests for more information about Volex, mostly from those who try to keep up with the family tree of Frost and Juda but we decided to ignore those requests before we ever released our story. Volex will make himself known or not in his own time.
“Soon,” Clarence nodded at the egg and took a swig of sweet iced tea. It was such a stateside thing, but he’d taken to it during our time in the Burrow. I didn’t begrudge him his newfound liquid sugar addiction because the last months of our lives had been difficult, like sludging through mud in flipflops.
