Chapter 67: Dragons of the Dark Winter
Brat comes home, to the cave of his mother, missing an eye. He would never know why the gnome did what he did. And yet, he must go home, or face a life without one eye.
Brat:
The thing about dragons is, that we grow up in less than ten years. The main mother, Isola, would turn us all away. For, there is just one stud for her and her sisters. And yet, I wonder, how my father is doing?
For all that the dragonesses tried to keep the donkey shifter away from us, he still picked on his role as the father of a dragon flight. My first memory is of him wiping my mouth clean of mashed potatoes. His smile. I just know he will help.
"Dad?" I hope he is not in the mating room. I don't want to see all the horny sisters right now. Not only that, but I have never been able to understand them. Mate, have children, mate some more. Just where is the point in all of that?
"Dad, are you in here?" I yell once more. My eye is throbbing painfully, but it is not leaking blood anymore. I thank my stars for the small mercy.
"Brat? What happened to your eye?" Dad, who is a forty-year-old donkey shifter, by the name of Thorn, comes over, and cups my face. "Isola should know about this. Did you get attacked?"
I bow my head in shame, and then mumble.
"By an animated gingerbread man," Thorn shakes his head then, and sighs.
"And why were you in his territory? Brat, how many times do I need to tell you, that there are many empty caves by the shore?" He takes a hold of my hand, and then tugs me down a corridor. Not towards the mating cavern, but to Isola's office.
"Thorn? Love, who are you… oh, it is you," well, I could never say that Isola won any mother of the month awards. Unlike Thorn, who always got a Best Father in the Universe Award.
"Mother, I need your blood," with this, I make a step towards her. She scrunches up her nose at me, but I am not to quit so easily. I give her a full-body bow, and then look at her with my one good eye.
"What made that?" Isola asks, and I blush in embarrassment.
"A berserker," I lie, and my dad sighs.
"A gingerbread man, love. Now, please do give the boy some blood. If my blood had the same properties as yours, I would have given it to him. Yet…"
I know that one of dad's biggest disappointments is that he can't heal us. I can see that Isola's eyes soften.
"I can't have one of my sons go around half-blind," she says, more to herself, than to me. "Yet, I can't just give him blood, just because he is in a slight pickle."
"You are calling, me missing one eye, a pickle?" Years of repressed feelings bubble up to the surface. "How come you can't behave like a mother, occasionally. Do you think it will kill you…"
Dad shakes me, and I can see that his eyes are wide. Not even after twenty years, has he forgotten that he is but a donkey, among dragons which can eat him up at any time. And not in the fun way.
"You will go on a quest, alone, and rescue a princess. When you come back, with the girl, you will get the blood that you need," Isola tells me, and then waves me away. Dad comes to the mouth of the cave with me, and runs a hand through his hair, when I am about to step out of the cave.
"Wait, Brat," he says, and I turn towards him.
"Yes, father?" I ask him, and he does his best to smile. The very same smile, which he gifted all of us, growing up. A smile, I can now see, is full of regret.
"You know why you must set in the world by yourself," he tells me, and claps me on the shoulders. "The clones, they… They can't tell their children apart of other people."
"And why do you simply stand by, and let Isola use the clones for breeding? These mindless creatures?" More than once, I wanted for father to tell me if I were the son of a clone. He never did.
"Dragons are a dying breed, you know this. Isola did a big sacrifice for her species. As she was the last one," dad then sighs. "I am trying to talk her into stopping with the mana feed to the clones. To let them finally be free, back to the soul pond, from where she took them."
"Is it true that all the clones were supposed to be like you? Heroes of Ultimate Fate?" I ask him. People speak of the heroes like they are something to be honored. I wonder, just what would they say about my father? A stud, there only to make children, and later, to raise them.
"You should forgive her. She was only trying to keep her kind from becoming a footnote in a history book," my dad pulls me into a hug, and then pats me on the shoulder.
"Is this the life you wished for yourself? Enslaved by one demon lord, and then enslaved by a demon lady?" I snark, knowing full well that I will feel the guilt in my stomach later.
"I don't regret even a single one of you," I don't need to ask him about whom he speaks. Dad has always been like this. A softy, down to his bones.
"Well, I better go and rescue my princess," I get out of his embrace, and look at the horizon with my one good eye. "She will be in for a shock, when she sees me."
"Just don't come back with a prince, son. Your mother won't like that," dad jokes, and I bite my lower lip.
No, I suppose she won't.
But when have I cared about what she likes?
