Episode 136: Elixir (Aadya)

“Molly, to answer you question….” Greg said. He moved his arm behind her neck and pulled her toward his chest.

She cuddled against him, ready to hear whatever he wanted to share about her. Molly wasn’t something she wanted to be between them, not in the possibility that she came back to life nor in conversation. Mr. Divorce, after all, was far from a forbidden topic,  considering how often he was around.

This is what she wanted: openness and to be themselves together, completely.

She ran her hand across the soft hairs of his chest.

“We grew up together, next door neighbors. She thought it wasn’t fair that we didn’t have a tree house, so she made a rope ladder and hung it over our fence so we could get into hers. Once…there was a kayak race, if you know what kayaks are, but it was an event for boys and they wouldn’t let her sign up. So she got a snorkel and mask and swam the race. Guess who won.”

At first, she laughed. When she was done, and his hands entwined themselves in her hair, she leaned against him as much as her belly would allow, to comfort him. It was the way that he spoke about her, the love and nostalgia, that she heard the most.

She hadn’t lost Mr. Divorce, and she hadn’t known Drey long when he died. To lose someone you had grown up with would make for an impossible void. They related so much, in so many ways, but this grief she could only experience through the loss of memories; through the loss of something she didn’t even know.

To lose something that was so much of who he was must have made for an excruciating year, and to lose his sons in addition would be unbearable. It was a mark of his strength, of what made him attractive and desirable to her.

She hoped he would be someone she could share her own pain with, not in competition or because she had to, but because that’s what they were to each other.

She had spent all of her memorable life not having someone she felt at ease beside.

She pulled against his chest, drawing his attention to her, “She sounds tenacious.”

“She was,” he agreed. “Tough, smart, resourceful.” He turned toward her and breathed in her ear, “Maybe not that different from you.”

His lips dipped toward hers and the heat of his skin melted against her own. She met each kiss with her own and relished in the taste of his mouth.

He pulled away and looked back toward the stars, the arm wrapped around her drawing pattern on her shoulder.

“Maybe the difference is how we apply our traits to life,” she suggested.

“Probably,” he said under his breath.

She moved into a sort of angry seal like sitting position. “If you need to slow down, at any time, you just have to tell me.”

He moved away from her so he could see her face better, “Is that something you need?”

She laughed under her breath. No, she wasn’t going to slow things down because they seemed too fast, not when she knew better than to ask for something she didn’t want.

She had the lingering feeling that slowing down was the wrong choice for them, that they should speed things up because of something coming soon.

She searched the feeling, for whatever it meant. To speed things up, to use the elixir together, to protect him. No, he didn’t need it yet – but her children did.

“Did you mean what you said, last night?” she asked.

“Which part?”

She moved back into his arms, “Hmm?”

He laughed and nuzzled her neck and cheek, then kissed her head, “Shy?”

“Never,” she said, a wide grin spread across her face. She let the feeling settle more, the urgency.

She could say it, move forward with Greg at lightning speed, for her children. “I was curious why you offered to marry me, after just meeting me. If you meant it.”

His hand held her closer, and relief flooded her.

“Because I covet power and your kingdom has too much unclaimed aluminum to resist,” he joked. Already, with so little to go on, she knew when he was joking. She wondered if it was so obvious to others or if it was something she had picked up, something she had attuned herself to.

She wasn’t left to wonder long, because he did have a response for her. “Because, I don’t know.”

She laughed a little.

“It would be a shame if your kids missed out just because you were having a bad year,” he said.

“Am I having a bad year?” she asked. It was hard to tell, next to him.

“I found out from another source that dragons mate for life.”

Her jaw tried to drop, but she held it together. Instead, she got some sort of burny feeling in her chest – something along the lines of heartburn.

Except, heartburn was something she had heard about and never experienced.

“Alum told you?” she asked.

He kissed her cheek, which she was almost certain had changed to a slight hue of dark pink despite her skin tone. “Mister Divorce. He didn’t seem to know not to.”

Aadya hummed, annoyed and amused with Meldrick.

“Were you ever going to say something?” she asked, trying to wrap her mind around him knowing, him being here, the Molly talk.

“I was going to sleep on it,” he replied.

She laughed, “You can sleep on it.”

She could offer him a night, but she would need him to have a good night’s rest to make the decision.

“Is it safe?” he asked, his hand ran down her body.

She held her hands in the air in a small ball. “When the mates show up, they’re about this size.” Alum was nearly as large as Dancer, and was now the second largest dragon in the barn. “He’s been here quite awhile, sure of himself.”

“How does anyone know he’s mine?”

She laughed, “Ask him.”

He was a confident dragon, he would find a way to visually rub their romance in Greg’s face. He may even share with her. She kept her mind open to the prospect.

“Dragons,” she began. “Are one thing. I need to convince you of bigger things before these babies are born.”

She wanted to say before he slept, but it felt a bit forward. Not that the night wasn’t headed there, but she could try and be tactful about it. People did experience anxiety when too much was shoved in their faces at once.

He let her nestle back into his arm. “What bigger things?”

“Just that you’ll never want to leave me in ten thousand years,” she teased. “Or you could convince me you don’t need or want my line’s strength. Pain exists regardless of healing ability.”

She also needed to be sure he knew what the risk was of being with someone like her. She hadn’t lead an easy life and she had yet to refuse being at the center of attacks and disdain from multiple sources. She tried her best to be a peaceful and reasonable leader, but it didn’t stop her from having some enemies.

Air escaped from Greg’s body with such force that her own moved more against him in the gap. “Ten thousand years.”

If that was what he wanted to fixate on, she could roll with it. It was much smaller of a topic than the elixir.

She wasn’t sure where to begin, so she looked to him. Their eyes met, hers hopeful (she hoped) and his green and deep.

“Does it ever scare you?” he asked.

“My first thousand scares me far more than the remaining ten ever could.”

Once again, he held her close. It was something she wasn’t used to: Mel may have been close to her, but the way Greg held her was more than his arms wrapped around her, more than their bodies in contact with one another’s, it was intimate and longing and comforting.

“What’s the worst?” he asked.

“That I can guess everything now, with the luck,” she replied without thinking.

It had been on her mind too often; the more she was at the festival and seeing familiar faces the more she had feelings that she didn’t want to have, the more she wanted to run and hide. She had no idea how to lose the magic. So many were jealous of Bentley and Shea’s abilities, Cheyenna and Weston’s, but all she wanted was to return to being naive.

His hand fell to her waist, “What have you guessed?”

The way he was there for her felt entirely new and incredibly satisfying. Mel had his own ways of being. There, but Greg’s was much more touchy, more open, more emotional.

“Earlier,” she began. “My mind was thinking about how Drey and Meldrick are brothers. It was a surprise to find out they aren’t. Nor is Fenton.”

“What are they, then?”

She breathed him in, and thanked whatever was out there, hopefully not the luck magic itself, for him coming into her life. As it was, his dragon had shown up around the time she had gotten the magic.

“Drey fathered Meldrick, and he fathered Fenton. With me,” she admitted. It was the first time she had realized she did have other children, outside of the ones Meldrick had admitted to. It had led to too many other thoughts.

Greg’s skin began to heat up.

She knew why Mel had tried to protect her from the truth. Part of her had always known, which is why she had never asked. It had stood between them, hanging like a weight.

“He lied to you?” Greg accused.

“I don’t think he knows,” she said, about the Drey part.

“Should he? Does Drey?”

His investment in the kingdom, in her life, was something she could devour. It made marriage sound like a reasonable request.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “And… yes he does.” Drey knew, and it must have been one of the things that made Drey so miserable all the time.

“So he lied to you,” Greg concluded.

“Yes,” she agreed with a laugh into his chest. “He did. More withheld, I suppose.”

They both watched the stars for a moment. He didn’t say more, perhaps because she had  defended an ex, and she could see how that wasn’t the best of routes to take.

Perhaps he didn’t know what he should say next, and it had nothing to do with her defense.

Either way, they held each other in the silence of the night.

Held in that place, Aadya let her mind wander to the elixir. She wanted it to feel romantic, but there was something beneath it. What was it.

Something had changed in the past few days. A change, because this was new. The attack was coming soon.

She felt something inside her ignite with the thought. She would be part of the attack.

“Who is Ionia?” Greg asked.

She focused on his question, because her own answers were too difficult to want to think of.

“Titania’s twin sister,” she said. “Titania was Drey’s mom. She’s been working toward a claim against us, but her military is very small still.”

“Was she Meldrick’s mom? Someone else pale had to have been.”

“She had the elixir,” Aadya replied right away. She let her mind wander across various pale, Alandrial, people she knew. She blinked a few times and swallowed the truth before she said anything to Greg.

“Drella was Drey’s twin.”

She hoped when she next saw Drey, in their future as friends, he would let her be there for him. Not as a romantic partner, she could feel the strength of his bond to Khale, but as a friend that understood.

“Titania was the last queen?” Greg asked.

“Yes. She was the one who imprisoned me.”

Greg had so much to learn. She didn’t want to overburden him with facts, but she wanted to answer his questions in a clear way so he understood the components that came together to form the events they were talking about.

She hoped he wasn’t lost. She wanted him to feel at home, to feel like he was fitting into her life without friction.

“I would’ve rebelled too,” he concluded.

Aadya smiled. “It was a good thing. I don’t regret it, or how much everything has improved.”

If the cost of helping others was taking the brute end of suffering and anger from others, she would be the shield of her people any day.

“I was looking at it wrong, trying to figure out what kind of person would just volunteer to die like that. The way people talk about him…” Greg mused.

“He was very self centered about most things,” Aadya told him. In many ways, he was a frustrating person to deal with.

He had, though, done the most selfless thing ever. His children with Rylena were an act of selflessness too. Never telling Mel the truth, to protect him, was selfless.

Drey, in so many ways, was misunderstood, even by her.

“He has a strong sense of honor,” she explained to Greg. “He hated his parents.”

“He was just a guy, in a shitty place.”

“Yes. I knew he would die long before he did, and I often asked about his dream palace. Everyone insisted my plan was impossible – the size, especially. When he comes back, I hope it’s what he imagined. This room…” Aadya looked up at the ceiling. She caught her breath and her mind after the words had come pouring out of her, the desire to share. She pointed toward the two stars, endlessly circling each other. “See that blinking star?”

Greg was silent for a moment, then once he found the stars said, “Yeah?”

“You can see it all year from here,” she noted. “He used to say that’s where he’d want to go when he died. So I built the room to have a view of it.”

She had designed the entire palace for Drey, but it wasn’t in desperate need it was because he had given so much for her to have this, and she wanted him with her always. The star, the kingdom.

Now, Greg was here to guide her.

She realized, as she watched the stars blink, that Mel had never given her that resolve. Greg did. She let it settle into herself, and told him, “I don’t need the comfort anymore, but it’s a reminder of where this began; to keep going.”

Greg hugged her.

“Why do you think she’ll be back?” he asked.

She felt flutters, knowing he trusted her enough to talk about Molly.

She was anxious too, because she had never talked about an ex with someone before. She wasn’t sure what was normal, how much was normal. She wanted to support him.

“Molly again?” she groaned. She kissed his arm, so he knew she was joking, and relaxed against him. She tried to sort the feelings out. She wasn’t sure what would draw her to the main group, but Drey and the people he was with were coming back as a unit. She couldn’t pinpoint why: she imagined one of their sons dying, random chance, and mutual friends. Nothing stuck.

“I think something draws her to Drey’s area, so when they return to life she is given the same opportunity. I think she takes it.”

That was the best she could offer.

She would work on more, on helping him understand things the best she could, though.

Greg leaned toward her ear and began to whisper, “Once, two trees were planted in the same square of dirt. Their roots and their trunks were indistinguishable, but in the sunlight they grew in different directions.”

He pressed his lips to her temple and leaned back.

“I’m not worried,” she promised. With Greg, with the bond and the way he looked at her, she didn’t see worry as a possibility. They both had histories, and hers was much closer than his – in distance and time since splitting.

What mattered to Aadya was Greg. “I just want you to be happy. I don’t mind talking about her, at all, either.”

“Same for you, and Drey, and Mister Butterfly, and Mister Divorce,” he listed, in an endless list of people she had been within in two decades.

“Maybe,” he said, his fingers weaving down her body, “the last one a little. Unless it’s ammo.”

Aadya laughed, “I have plenty of ammo.”

She had no desire to discuss Mister Divorce ever. Mel was a portion of her life, and he had been good to her. Now, Mel was her past.

“He was decent, today.” Greg’s tone was lower, relaxed, honest.

It would be nice if someday they got along; she would be working with Mel for years, if not for her entire life.

“He’s very decent most days,” she agreed.

“How well do you know his girlfriend?”

This was nice – they were talking in a way that didn’t feel pressured or jealous. Everything was honest and calm. It was her, sharing herself, and him, sharing himself. She wanted to know more about him. By his tree analogy, it sounded as though most of his stories would involve Molly. Meeting Molly in the future would make the stories all the more real. Perhaps someday she could see where he grew up too, and she could show him where she grew up.

For now, he had asked her a question though. “She’s one of my closest friends. In the end, we split because there was a permanent shadow over our union The secrets and pain and years I’ll never recover. The force. We both needed something different, something new.”

She wanted to add something you, but she knew that sounded lame. Someday he would discover she loved simple rhymes.

Greg kissed her cheek, “You should talk to her. She looked like she misses you.”

She missed Giana too. She missed their friendship and their conversations. It would take time to rebuild the trust, not because it had been broken but because of the uncertainty between them.

As is stood, she was working to rebuild their friendship. To prove she harbored no ill feelings toward Giana and their relationship.

“I’m working on her apartment,” she told Greg. “Their apartment. I’ll talk to her, though. It’s just been busy, and you’re here.”

“Can I help with it?” he asked.

“Yes. With anything.”

Again, she felt impossibly close to him, to his desire to help her. She was helping him recover his sons, and she could feel the certainty that it would be successful, but she wasn’t sure what else she could do for him.

When something came up, she would help.

“You’re far more than I ever expected,” she told him. “I wanted you before I knew he was in the barn. I would want you regardless of a dragon.”

“I wanted Spaden first, but then I found out he wasn’t interested.”

She stifled her laugh, and sighed in its place, “That’s too bad, for him.”

He squeezed her against him, and the babies kicked in protest. He looked down where they pushed against her skin and smiled, then looked back to her face. “Don’t forget, I asked before I knew.”

The wedding talk again.

“Are you sure enough to agree to the magic thing?”

“Whose dragon found whose?” he asked.

“Okay,” she breathed. “It’s permanent and faith based. Like the bond in reverse. And permanent enough to be annoying to break. I’ve never considered it by choice before. I want you to have it.”

His lips found hers, like magnets drawn together, “I want it. Faith. Forever.”

“When? It’s just a drink.”

Silence filled the space, she wondered what was going through his mind. She didn’t ask, because she knew that she was already asking a lot.

“Whenever. Now if you want.”

“When we marry?” she suggested, except it felt wrong.

He flopped onto his back, spread out, “You want to get married now too?”

He looked at her and grinned.

“I’m very demanding,” she agreed.

“What does your luck say?”

That now, before whatever trials tomorrow brought arrive. She didn’t want it to be the answer, but it was. She stood and crossed the room. She kneeled at a chest and unlocked it, then pulled the elixir reserved from after tonight’s wedding out.

She carried it to the bed. The shimmering silver and red swirled in the cup as she moved.

“It’s just a drink,” she said, again. She wasn’t ready to face whatever was about to happen. She took a sip to start, then tipped the cup further to coat her tongue and fill her mouth. It was a mix of floral and intense, metallic and warm.

“What is it?”

She tried to steady her voice, to not sound like she was asking so much of him, after all there were ways out of it. “It’s elixir,” she stated.

“No. I said, what does your luck say, and now you look miserable.”

She tried to grin, “It’s a classic wedding day look. It’s not working for you?”

He looked at her, like someone who was going to get their way: firm, decided, tough. She set the drink down and crawled into their bed. “Weeks means this one. Not even all of it.”

“Isn’t that early? Will they be safe?”

“They will survive my temporary death,” she said carefully.

“Like how you killed Mister Butterfly?” he asked. He sounded less alarmed than she expected. “Why?”

“Something changed. I’m part of the upcoming attack now. I realized it while we were talking, so I don’t know what changed.” She grinned at him, “The elixir will last this week and you can decide all over again next week.”

It was a joke, but also a consolation incase he did have any doubts once he realized what the elixir meant.

She handed the cup to Greg, who took it and drank from the same spot she had. It sent a chill down her spin, icey and wanting. He set the cup down on the end table, “I’ll decide the same.”

His arms wrapped around her, “How temporary is it?”

Her length of death depended on a few things.

“A few hours,” she said. It would be more significant than most deaths, enough to send her to death realm.

“Maybe that’s why you think Mister Waiting-for is coming back. Maybe you’re going to him, and it got confused.”

She would see Drey soon.

“It’s related,” she replied. “But he comes back later too, I still think.”

“Well, can’t you fight it? Are you just going to let it happen?”

Again, she let the luck guide her through a series of possibilities.

“From what I understand, it’s for the best.” She set her hand on her stomach, “and they’ll survive.”
She kissed him, “I will recover. I promise. Can you trust me?”

“I trust you, or I wouldn’t have had that stuff. I don’t trust the world.”

She ran her nose across his cheek and caught his eyes, “You are the only world I trust.”

He reached for her and pulled her lips to him.

Their bodies began to heat up, matching one another. She could feel the elixir – the need to fulfil the spell.

He pulled away, his skin glowing. “So that’s it? Forever married? Does it have any warning labels about keeping kids away?”

What she needed was a warning label about him and his ability to tease and torment her.

“I keep it locked up,” she replied. “And not yet, but you’re skilled at the other part.”

She let her hand find him, and she pulled him toward her.

He adorned his face with a new sort of smile, something between a grin and pain, “I have an idea.”

“Yes?”

He moved away from her, then trailed his finger down the center of her body. “Let’s see how long we can go without activating it.”

She dug her head into the pillow. “Okay. Good night, Greg.”

She closed her eyes.

“Good night, Aadya.”

He was going to be the death of her, not whatever attack was coming. He would torment her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. But if he wanted to wait, or needed to wait, she would. She would forever, if she had to.

She didn’t have forever.

He knew that. He was messing with her.

She wondered if she should kiss him, and see if he returned the kiss with passion or commitment to his idea.

Before she could, he burst into laughter.

“Some of us are practicing self control over here,” she reminded him.

He moved on top of her, hard and wanting. “How’d that go?”

“Not well.” She kissed him and adjusted her body to fit with him. His skin burned as they met, her skin burned too. They were consumed in the fires of passion, fire’s favorite emotion. Their bodies ignited and no other element, except air to ensure she was comfortable, interfered. He moved with her, their bodies hunger demanding more until they were both left with hearts beating out of their chests and singed bedding.

Singed fireproof bedding.

He pulled a frayed piece of sheet up to examine. “That was different.”

“How do you feel?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t having regrets already.

“In love. You?”

She looked at him, all of him that she could see. This was the man she had agreed to elixir to, had a dragon bond and a normal bond with, couldn’t get enough of.

This was the man that had changed her life in a day, but had changed his own even more.

“I love you, too,” she teased.

He engulfed her in his arms.“G’night,” he said, a final time.

“Good night,” she replied.

The stars above her blinked, onward without her.

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