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[center][b]Wishes

Chapter Three

By: VeronicaFoxx

For: Revakulgr[/b][/center]

Revakulgr slipped from between the trees to settle on the grass beside the small lake and wait for the human to take notice of her. It was the third night that he'd shown up, and she was rather intrigued by him. He was an unusual specimen, from what she knew of humans. On their first meeting, he hadn't shown any fear or even surprise. She had been swimming in the lake and enjoying herself near midnight when he had wandered into the clearing and plunked himself down on the shore to watch, a bottle in one hand and a rolled "joint" in the other. The smell of the dried, burning leaves was rather rank and pungent, and Axel's memory had identified it as "weed," an illegal substance in this region. It was the odor that had alerted her to his presence, and she had ducked herself beneath the water to try and wait him out. One hour passed then a second, and he just kept drinking from his bottle and smoking his illicit material. When he put the bottle into the pack he carried with him, she had thought he was going to leave, but then he pulled out a second one and took a swig. That was when the dragon became impatient.

She had learned much in the week since coming to the cabin. This was private land, personally owned, with a clearly marked border and signage to indicate that trespass was disallowed. She was therefore within her rights to defend said land against intrusion. Or, well, Alex was, but it amounted to the same thing. Besides, she was a dragon, not bound by human law save for what she chose to [i]allow[/i] to restrain her. She could easily devour the intruder and none would be able to naysay her. He had invaded [i]her[/i] territory uninvited, and he sat there performing unlawful actions, having [i]seen[/i] her, [i]knowing[/i] that she was present, without any fear that she might object. Plus breathing water tickled her throat.

So she snaked her way through the water to the shore and burst forth with wings spread wide, talons brandished, and her lips pulled back in a snarl. The man gave a cry of startlement and fell backward, but then just held up his bottle in a salute as he pushed himself back up into a sitting position, then took a swig.

"Hey, welcome back," he greeted her and took another drag on his joint. "Thought maybe you'd gone away when you saw me watching. Sorry 'bout that, didn't mean to treat you like a peepshow, but you looked like you were having fun. Didn't wanna disturb you. You're really pretty, y'know?"

Her fearsome snarl became an expression of confusion, her threatening claws tucking against her chest abashedly. She lowered herself back to all fours and craned her neck towards the human to examine him more closely. He wore jeans and a t-shirt that had a logo on the left breast which her stolen memories indicated was for a fast food restaurant. There was a pendant around his neck that Axel's studies indicated was a shamanistic symbol associated with magic, but a quick detection spell showed that this human had no spark of it about him. He was not a practitioner or summoner, as Axel had been, yet he was unsurprised by her appearance and not the least alarmed. He seemed young but of adult age, not nearly young enough to be enthralled by the wonder of her existence and most certainly old enough to know that beings like her were not supposed to exist in this realm. Her irritation fled before puzzlement and curiosity.

"Are you not frightened by me, human?" she had inquired, truly interested in the answer, and he had just shook his head in the negative.

"Nah, you're a nice one, I can tell," he had answered. "I can always tell. Well, not always, but usually. If you were gonna try and hurt me or make me do something bad, you wouldn't have tried to scare me away. The nasty ones tend to be a lot more sneaky, usually don't let me see them unless I can catch them off guard, and they tend to be hella ugly. You? You're... beautiful. I don't feel any heaviness coming from you, so no, I'm not afraid."

"Nasty ones? You have seen beings like myself before?"

"Oh, yeah, sure!" He bobbed his head several times then took another swig of his body. The acrid scent of the fluid inside was heavy on his breath, and she suspected that he was heavily drunk aside from being high from smoking the weed. "Grandpa called 'em spirits. My shrink calls 'em hallucinations. Doesn't matter much which you call 'em, so far as I can tell. Either way, it's stuff that no one else sees. Probably better thinking of 'em as spirits, 'cause that makes me feel less like I'm crazy, and I really hate taking the meds that they keep pushing on me. I can deal, y'know? I just don't let the nasty ones get to me, or I try not to. Sometimes they win and drag me down, but I can usually fight 'em off."

Spirits? Hallucinations? Her benefactor had been a shaman, and the pendant was known to Axel. She used a careful talon to indicate the symbol, drawing the human's attention to it.

"Oh, this? Yeah, Grandpa was a shaman, and so was his dad and his dad's dad, and so on. Come from a long line of 'em, though my dad didn't buy into it. He left the rez and married a white woman, never looked back. Grandpa tried to teach me before he died, but dad didn't like that," his voice took on a mocking tone, "antiquated, outmoded pagan bullshit. 'My son is going to get [i]modern[/i] medical care, not some hokey snake oil pitch!' So I've been seeing shrinks since I was twelve."

He gave a shrug, took another drink from his bottle, then a long drag from his joint, and let the smoke out to swirl upwards from his nostrils. "I mean, it's not like I'm some kinda sociopath or anything, and it's not like I go around shouting at the walls. I just see stuff, hear things, get urges every now and then. Like you. Well, not [i]exactly[/i] like you. I've never seen a dragon before, but other things. I'm sensitive to the spirit realm, or that's what Grandpa said."

The dragoness furrowed her brow ridges in consternation and cast a glamour of true seeing while sending a light ball into the air above them. She caught flickers of movement from the corners of her vision, but what was most startling was the pitch black vulpine creature that crouched pinned by the light and hissing a few feet away from the human. It was like shadow given form, wispy and smoke-like at its edges, and it snarled towards her, spitting wordless vitriol. She snarled back at the creature, and it fled. The human watched it go and raised his bottle towards her once more.

"Oh, thanks for that. Howard's an asshole, likes to try and get under my skin sometimes when I drink and smoke, but I just let him talk all he wants and ignore him."

"Howard?" She was certain that a creature of that kind would not have such a normal-sounding name, though she supposed it was possible.

"Oh, yeah, I name 'em all. The ones that don't give me names to call 'em, anyways. They're a little less scary if they have dumb names. Oh, speaking of which, I'm Aziel Storm, or Az for short. Some people call me Ass, but..." He gave another shrug, rolling his eyes. "Well, they're assholes, mostly just the same jerks from high school. You got a name?"

"I am Revakulgr," the dragoness answered formally, then decided to offer him the courtesy of a slight bow, ducking her head and extending a foreleg. "It is... perhaps a pleasure to make your acquaintance? I am not yet quite certain."

"Well, heya, Reva. Neat name. I'd offer you a drink, but I know most spirits can't interact with normal matter, and I don't think this'd do much for you anyways, as big as you are. You'd probably need to drink a tanker truck worth to feel it. I can waft some smoke at you, if you want. Nephila likes that."

He gestured towards his shoulder, and she noticed a small mouse-like creature perched there, peering out from beneath the fall of his long hair. It sniffed towards her, and she politely returned the gesture, then it waggled a small hand-paw at her by way of a greeting before retreating beneath the cover of his tresses.

"Hey, she likes you! Don't worry, she's just shy. So am I, really, but I'm... just a little drunk and high, and spirits don't really count. Don't have to watch what I say so much, 'cause you already know I'm crazy..."

He propped his arms on his knees and hung his head, and the dragoness saw a felinoid creature, flattened like a shadow against the grass, creeping towards his back. She snarled at the fiend, lashing out with a slash of fire towards it, and it let out a piercing squeal. The human turned to look at the writhing beast with wide eyes, and Revakulgr pumped energy into the spell until the creature burst into a momentary bonfire flare, ending in a slow shower of falling ash. Aziel turned a beatific smile upon her.

"See? I said you were one of the good ones. No one [i]ever[/i] tries to fight Clyde. He likes to sink his claws into me when I'm feeling low, make me feel worse. He's a bit of a bastard, kicking a guy when he's down, but that's life, I guess. Thanks a lot, though. I should've realized he was creeping up on me. But, pretty lady, I think it's about time for me to head home. Gotta work tomorrow afternoon, and I should probably be at least mostly sober for it. Hope I get to see you again, Reva. It was nice meeting you."

He stood and offered her another salute with his bottle, chugged a few more gulps from it, capped it, put it away into his pack, and wobbled back off into the woods, presumably in the direction from which he'd come, leaving her mystified. She saw several creatures trail after him through the knee-high grass, some of them walking boldly, others slinking secretively, and a few of them flitting between shadows, nearly invisible even to her spell-shrouded vision. She cancelled the true seeing, and most of them vanished from view, only some of the shadow creatures remaining apparent, and she had to pay careful attention to even notice them. She let the light globe fade as the human disappeared between the trunks and sat contemplating for several long minutes before heading back to the cabin that she shared with her enthralled mate.

There was no need to discuss this with Alex, she decided. The green hen need not worry herself over this. Revakulgr found the transformed human to be rather high strung and prone to panic, but that might be an effect caused by her change in form and situation. It was not an easy thing to find oneself bound to the will of another and transmuted of body, particularly in a realm where such things as magic were not supposed to be possible. She would hopefully settle down soon. The dragoness also decided that she would visit the lake again the following night. Perhaps the human would return. The summoner's studies indicated that such people were possible, those who could see and interact with "spirits" of this realm without having the spark themselves, more accurately known as magical creatures that had learned to shroud themselves from human perception so as to survive in this world. Nothing of power enough to challenge her had survived into the modern era, making them mostly annoyances and potential sources of stored magic that she could siphon. This new human was the kind of person that Axel had been hoping to find as a mate, someone in whom to foster a magical aptitude, though the female kobold seemed quite happy to have Moxthurirl now. Revakulgr would have to study Aziel further to see if he might possibly be useful to her.

He was there again the next night. She had hidden herself under a light illusion, blending in with the edge of the forest, waiting for him since just before sunset. It was again near midnight when he put in his appearance, and she sat watching him with her true sight active, seeing the various beings and creatures that gathered around him. The shadowed beasts kept to the edge of the clearing, obviously wary after her demonstration the previous night, though the smaller, more colorful entities gathered around the human. He had a bottle with him once more, but he was drinking from it much more slowly, and he did not produce a joint to smoke. He gazed out over the lake with an expression of peace and serenity. It was much different from his previous demeanor, and it made her wonder at the cause. Had the shadow creature that she destroyed been truly tormenting him so badly? Were the other creatures equally horrendous? Her pilfered knowledge said that this could very well be the case. Such beings were forced to subsist on what they could in such a magic-poor environment, and human emotions were a ripe source of energy for those that could feed from it, particularly with those who were more aware of them. There were other creatures, stronger ones, who would feed on the flesh, but most of those that remained in this realm were weaklings, parasites.

There were also the less harmful beings, such as... Nephila, had it been? The little rodent-like creature sat atop Aziel's head, forelimbs spread and raised towards the shining moon, basking in its radiance and drinking in the peace. Axel's memories had less to say about entities like Nephila. The summoner had not spent much time in study of the more benign spirits, as they had less to offer in terms of power. Some of the more malevolent ones had been harnessed or captured as sources of power to fuel spells, burning them up in the process, but they had more to offer than the cute little mouse-thing did. The darker phantoms actively fed, where those of more positive mein were more symbiotic, fostering that which they needed to survive and enjoying the benefit of the excess. It made the dragoness curious to study these beings further. They might be useful, knowing how to survive in this realm far better than she. It also made her feel... strangely glad that Nephila stayed with the human. It seemed to make him feel happier, and she felt herself wanting that for him, oddly enough. He seemed something of an outcast, even within his own family, with a demanding parent who refused to understand his drives and desires, his only supporting relative now deceased, trapped in a hopeless cycle of pointless labor with no prospects of a better future.

He seemed to give up after about an hour of waiting, stood and put his bottle away. Revakulgr found herself in motion before she realized that she was going to act, rushing to cut him off, standing before him with her illusion shattered, feeling a pulse in her chest that was nearly painful. It ached her hearts, and she did not understand why. She stood before him, head lowered to look him in the eye, and he just put his hands on his hips, grinning at her.

"Stay," she said, attempting a command but hearing it come out as nearly a plea.

"Well, hello again, pretty lady," he greeted her. "I like that you're shy, too. Makes me feel less bad. You're all kinds of big and powerful, and I'm just a nobody loser. If someone like you can be shy, then I guess it's not such a bad thing."

"I'm not... shy," Revakulgr protested, rearing her head back in offense. "I'm wary! You are an unknown, and I am new to this realm. It is perfectly understandable that I exercise caution, particularly around individuals of whom I have no knowledge. I am still learning how to survive here."

He laughed, [i]laughed[/i], at her! She scowled and brought her snout down to give him a piece of her mind, or possibly to take a small bite out of him, and ensure that he understood her displease, but was surprised by Nephila. The mouse leapt from his shoulder to the end of her muzzle and clung there, nuzzling between her nostrils, letting out happy chirps and waggling its thin, furred tail, much as Moxty would do when he was happy to see her.

"I told you she liked you. She doesn't like many people, and not most of the other spirits, either. Oh, and thanks for getting rid of Clyde. I dunno what you did, but I can't even [i]feel[/i] him any more. Really blasted the fuck out of 'im. So, thanks for that. I haven't felt this... balanced in a long while." He shrugged the shoulder over which he had slung his bag, sloshing the liquid inside the bottle stored within. "The drinking probably doesn't help much, but we all deal with our demons as best we can, right?"

"I suppose so..." She twitched the end of her snout, trying to gently dislodge Nephila, and the rodent leapt up to scurry along the ridge of her snout, hugging against her skull between her eyes instead. With a huff, she gave it up as a lost cause, and settled to the ground with her foreclaws tucked beneath her chest. "Can you tell me more about these... spirits? I am familiar with some, those like... Clyde, as you called it, but I know little of creatures like Nephila."

He let out a disbelieving snort that rocked him back on his heels, giving her an incredulous look. "I thought all you spirits knew all about each other. None of the others have ever asked me about that."

"As I said, I am new to this realm."

He shrugged and settled to the ground with his legs crossed and drew forth his bottle once more, taking a long pull. "Okay, then. Sure, why not? I got nothing better to do, and I have a short evening shift tomorrow. Gotta be gone by six so I can get some sleep, but otherwise I've got all night. Shoot."

"Shoot?" She consulted her appropriated data. "Ah, you mean to proceed. Yes. Hm." The dragoness carefully brought a talon up to scratch at the scales between her eyes and came away with Nephila clinging to it then scampering onto the palm of her foreclaw when she turned it upright. "Tell me more about her. What does she do for you? What does she take from you? What use would she be if, for instance, you were in dire need of assistance? She seems to have remarkably little power, especially compared to such creatures as Clyde and... the other one."

"Howard." Aziel nodded slightly, then shrugged. "You're thinking about it wrong. Nephila doesn't... [i]do[/i] anything for me exactly. She's more a neutral spirit. She tries to foster peace. Balance. Like dawn and dusk, the full moon and an eclipse, light and darkness together in equal measure. She likes the quiet, but not, like, dead silence. Like now, with the bugs chirping and all. Background noise, but peaceful. But... well, I guess she kinda opens the door for others, too, a little. Like, one time I was gonna kill myself. Like, really really kill myself. Clyde and Howard and Randall had been really eating at me pretty bad, or... y'know, I was severely depressed and suicidal, however you wanna put it. Didn't seem like things could get better, y'know? I'd been so far down for so long that it just didn't seem like it was worth the effort to even try to feel any better, so I was just gonna end it all. They were getting ready to feast on my soul after I died, which would probably have hurt pretty bad, but at least it would have been done and over with then, but Nephila intervened.

"Just as I was about to cut," he drew a finger down his inner forearm from elbow to wrist, "she gave me everything she had. Nearly killed her, but she gave me peace. Just a moment of it, but that was enough. In that moment of peace, I realized that I [i]could[/i] end it all. I [i]could[/i] give up, but then Clyde and Howard and Randall and Ziggy and all of them would just go find someone else to eat at. So long as I'm alive, they'll stick around, taking little bites out of me whenever they can, clawing out chunks, because I'm a bigger, better meal than most other people, or else they wouldn't be after me like they are. So... it's not much of a reason, but I decided to keep going out of pure [i]spite[/i]. If they want me dead, then they're gonna have to damn well do it themselves, 'cause I'm not doing their dirty work for them. That's also when Dakota showed up."

He gestured with his free hand, and she followed it to find a wolf-like being sitting beside her haunch. It was a deep grey, almost blending with the shadows but for the wisps of white that threaded through its form, like streamers of light trapped by acrid smoke or lightning flickering through storm clouds. She blinked at the creature, surprised at the restrained power that she sensed in it. Or, more accurately, the caged and chained strength that it fought to bring forth. She saw a thin stream of barely visible luminescence trailing from its chest and followed it back to the human. A leash of sorts? Or merely a connection?

"Pretty sure he's courage," Aziel explained. "Or something like that. He lends me his strength to keep going. Heart of the wolf, and all. He's gotten a good bit brighter since you went all smitey on Clyde, so I guess that's a good thing. He's supposed to be, like, silvery or something, I'm pretty sure. I think. I know he's not the right color, anyways. I dunno. I get... kind of a sense of most spirits, what they're about, like an instinct. Like, you, you're the strongest spirit I've ever come across. I really don't think you need me for anything. I guess that's why you stick around here, more attached to a place than to a person." He looked around appreciatively. "It's a good place to be attached to. I like coming here, and I'm glad you're here now, too. Gives me another reason to come by."

"I am [i]not[/i] attached to this place," the dragon corrected. "I could leave at any time I so desired. I just do not know enough about this realm yet. I would like to remain here, and also to remain free. I would not want to jeopardize that by acting in haste. When I am prepared to do so, I shall venture into the world and pursue my destiny."

"Huh. Well, okay then." He shrugged and took another drink. "Any more questions?"

She considered for a moment. His explanation had given her the germ of an idea, and it was slowly blooming. Axel had made use of the darker beasts, trapping them and inverting their nature to pull forth the energy that they hoarded, turning it into magical power to fuel his rituals and spells. The summoner had used trinkets and objects to hold them captive until he made use of and expended them. This human was... rather surrounded by the malevolent entities. They hid in the brush surrounding the clearing. It was partly out of fear of herself, but she could sense another reason that most of them kept themselves hidden. This was a peaceful, calm, quiet place that brought Aziel a measure of serenity, even when "Clyde" and "Howard" were attempting to feed from him. And only those two had seemed either strong or brave enough to venture within the protective ring of trees to do so. As a dragon, her entire being was predicated on the storage and channeling of magical energy as directed by her consciousness. She could trap these creatures, bind them to herself, drain their energy and use it to fuel her transmogrifications. It would vastly increase the speed at which her plans could come to fruition and free her time for more study of this realm's rules and society.

"These dark ones," she said, lowering her voice to a rumbling whisper. "Are you... fond of them? You seem to enjoy the company of Nephila. Do you enjoy theirs as well?"

He let out a derisive snort. "Oh hell, no. I mean, I've gotten used to them. They were the first ones I saw, back when I started seeing them, around about when I was five or so. But, [i]like[/i] them? No. [i]Fuck[/i] no."

She flashed away from him, hearing a soft squeal of protest as Nephila tumbled to the ground. It took the shadow beasts a moment to realize her purpose, and the first few were ensnared by her spell without a fight. Then they were fleeing from her, and she sought the largest and strongest of them, pouncing, sheathing her talons and fangs in pure magical energy to rend at their murky pseudo-flesh, devouring them as they attempted to devour Aziel. The hunters became the hunted, and the huntress was quite invigorated by the game. They were no challenge, to be sure, but they were worthy prey nonetheless, or at least worthwhile to exterminate. Much like the insidious dragonflies that would sometimes swarm in her homeland, infesting kobold, drake, and dragon alike with their eggs with the hatching larvae thereafter burrowing their way outward and killing the host in the process, these creatures deserved nothing but to die so that they would plague the world no more. When she at last returned to the clearing, the human stood staring at her for a long moment before carefully packing away his bottle and leaving without another word.

She had been afraid that he would not return, but he was there again for the third night in a row, sitting quietly and occasionally taking a sip from his bottle, staring out over the lake. She had not masked her approach, and he was much earlier this time. He [i]must[/i] have heard her, if nothing else, but he did not greet her nor acknowledge her appearance, so she merely settled on the grass and waited. Nephila came to visit with her, sitting on her fisted foreclaw and chirping up at her in a chiding fashion before snuggling in the crook of her forelimb, and Dakota gazed at her from a distance halfway between the two of them, but Aziel continued to ignore her. Eventually he produced a joint and took a few long drags from it before glancing at her sidelong. Then he looked back out over the water, and her heart sank. She wasn't quite sure why it should do so; she had no ties to this human, no reason that she should feel disappointed or hurt, and yet she did. She shuffled a little closer to him, halving the distance so that she lay beside the lupine spirit, and Aziel looked at her again. He took another long swig from his bottle, then thunked it against the ground in an almost angry manner.

"So what the hell are you?" he demanded. "You're not a normal spirit. You're stronger, for one, [i]way[/i] stronger. I can [i]feel[/i] it. If you're a hallucination, then you're the realest one I've ever had, aside from maybe Nephila, but she's not much. No offense, girl, but you're... tiny." He held his fingers a few inches apart, and the mouse chittered at him in offense before settling back down. "And... I have no idea what you did to all the feeders. They're gone. [i]Gone[/i]. Like, not just away for a bit, but gone gone. What did you do?"

"I ate them," she explained, feeling a bit smug with herself. "They shall trouble you no more, Aziel."

He blinked at her, unbelieving or perhaps just processing the information, and fell silent for a long minute. "Okay, so what do you want from me, then? Are you really one of the bad ones, and you're just really good at hiding it? I know Sparky fooled me for a long while, but I eventually realized that being manic isn't much better than being depressed. So, what is it that you want from me?"

It was the dragoness's turn to be silent. She considered for a long moment, pondering if she was really going to do what she felt the urge to do. Then she made her offer. "If you were given a single wish, what would it be?"

"You mean besides a million dollars or a private island where I could be left the fuck alone?" He shrugged and took a drag from his marijuana cigarette, letting it stream out of his nostrils once more. "Well, I guess... someone. Y'know, to have someone. A friend, a person who could understand me, who got what it was like, or at least wouldn't think I'm fucking nuts. Someone I could talk about this shit with who isn't judging me and trying to decide which pills to shove down my fucking throat. Someone to just... listen, and... y'know, maybe a shoulder to cry on every now and then..."

He cut off, wiping away the tears that were trailing down his cheeks, and she felt the ache in her chest again. "And in return, you would help me to learn more? You would... You would be my agent in this realm?"

He let out a soft snort, shaking his head. "Sure, whatever, so long as you don't try and get me to do anything bad or get me in trouble. I don't need another Randall."

"Granted, then. But we will need... something to seal the bargain. I will need some of you... essence."

"Oh, there it goes." He saluted her with the bottle, though in a rather sarcastic manner this time, and took a long pull, his throat working repeatedly to drain down a good portion of the contents. "So you want me to cut myself," he continued at last, wiping at his mouth. "Figures. I guess emotions aren't enough for someone your size. Fuck it, why not."

She had been shaking her head from the moment he mentioned harming himself, but she hastened to speak when he pulled out a small knife from his pocket, gripping his hand in her foreclaw to keep it closed. "No! No, no, blood is a useful conduit, but there are other methods. I had... something else in mind."

He stared at his enclosed hand, straining the muscles of his arm and fighting to open his fingers for a few moments, then turned his gaze to her, amazed. "You... You're touching me. Like, really touching me." He patted at her foreclaw with his free hand and traced over her scales with a finger. "You're really real. You're... a [i]real[/i] dragon?"

"Yes, and I am offering to grant your wish. I am offering you a companion in whom you can confide who will not judge you for seeing the spirits. I see them as well, in case you were not certain of that, and they are just as real as I."

"And..." He glanced towards the edge of the forest, bare of flitting shadows this time. "You'd protect me from them? Keep them away?"

"Of course. I would not never allow a friend to remain beset by such beasts."

He looked at her for another long moment, and she could see the painful hope in his eyes, the eagerness to escape the pain that had plagued him for so very long but the fear that such hope was a trap to leave him even more bereft and forlorn. At last, he nodded. "Okay."

Revakulgr felt her heart flutter, which was an equally ridiculous thing to feel as having it sink, but she nodded as well. "Good, then. We shall proceed."

[center][b]The End[/b][/center]