The Dragon and the Hybrid

(4) Touching

"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." 

-Aristotle

Rogan

The next day, we continued on with life with the addition of Arius. Now, the rule was that Arius, Dad, and Ragor need to keep out of sight around the clinic. They stayed mostly in the back or in the barn. They spend most of the time tending to the horses, frolicking in the meadow or, in Arius’s case, resting on his bed. It’s been a habit to all of us that it has come to a point where he’s just acclimated to the family.

There was also another chore added to our days, and that’s changing Arius’s dressing, which is often Mom and Dad’s job. Today’s strange thing is how easy my parents trusted Arius when they’re usually the ones who are often wary and guarded.

“Do you think it’ll rain?” Ragor says to me. There aren’t a lot of people in the clinic right now, because for some reason, during festivals, every ailment they’ve complained about the day before is temporarily gone, but the next day it would’ve been worse. As a precaution, only Ragor can be in the clinic with us since he’s more comfortable hiding under the table.

“What is it with you and rain?” I ask him. Taking a bite of the cookies Mom baked in the brick oven that Dad rebuilt in the house. There isn’t much electricity here out in the outskirts of town, though we use some energy stones to light the whole room or some candles if there are some.

He purses his lips and gives me that look as if he’s going to tell a secret. I keep forgetting that he’s still young, mainly when he acts so grown up around Mom and Dad. He imitates anything Dad does and tries to be this independent boy with Mom. Moments like this have become rarer and rarer. “Can you keep a secret?”

I smirk. “Of course, who else am I going to tell?”

“every time it rains, I see a wild dragon in the sky. It’s big and dark like it had violet or black scales, and thunder always comes with it” He smiles. “I think he’s calling me”

“A wild dragon?” I don’t think I’ve heard any dragon sailing through the skies before. It’s been a while since I’ve seen an actual wild one, though they often come and go flying through the east and west to their volcanic nests. Dad often told me that all dragons are restless, and they’re meant to keep flying instead of being kept in the aviary.

That is why most of the dragons in the aviary are small and are often used for racing rather than the usual conquering ones. Dragon Racing has been a rising sport these days, and they prefer the smallest and agile one, but there is something about the large wild dragons that enthrall my family and me. Dad says that Esaria is one of the most gigantic Dragons in their family Aviary. She lived long enough to watch over the start of her old family.

Ragor sighs. “I know you won’t believe me”

Smiling softly, I caress his cheek. “I believe you”

His eyes widen “Really? Doesn’t it sound too crazy?”

“Little dragon, you worry too much” I kiss his forehead and lean back onto my chair. “What did this dragon look like?”

“It looked like a Northern Dragon.”

“Ah, the hibernating one. Quite large, which makes sense if he travels during the rain. He won’t be heard by the people below him”

Ragor’s eyebrows knot together, the way it always does when he’s thinking deeply of something or something confuses him. “Why…do you think he does that?”

I shrug. “He’s probably nesting and wants to keep his nest a secret. His mate is holed up in their cave somewhere, and he’s quiet during the rain.”

“Or he could be a she” Ragor says. “She’s probably looking for a nest to hole up to or find a mate.”

“Could be” I smile at him. A northern dragon is the most enormous dragon there is, they were often used as war dragons, and the largest could cover two towns under one wingspan, but that dragon was also Aegir’s son. One of the oldest living northern dragons. Though all four species of dragons are his children.

“Rogan”

My eyes snap to Dad, who is standing by the doorframe. He’s sweaty and looks as if he’s been chopping wood and doing hard labor all day, which is probably true. “your mother and I won’t be able to change Arius’s bandage; I hope you’d be able to do it”

“Why can’t Mom do it?” Ragor asks. His face in a tight expression.

“She’s…not decent” Dad’s lip twitches up slightly, and I already know what that means.

I groan. God, he could’ve hidden it better. Ragor won’t understand, but I do! I always do when they’re trying to cover up that they were fooling around. “I’ll do it.”

“Why is Mom not decent?” Ragor suddenly asks me.

“Uh, I think you’ve forgotten to get the horses their rations for today” I quickly stand up at the table with a pat on my apron to make him hurry. “And I need to change those dressings”

Dad was already gone from our sight by the time I exited the room with a whining Ragor. His shoulders slumped forward as he stepped out of the clinic and the front door to get to the barns. On the other hand, I took a metal tray with fresh gauzes and iodine to disinfect his wound.

My steps were slightly slower when Ragor was gone. No part of me wants to do this, and my fires for sure seem to agree as I could feel them literally dimming inside of me with every step I take towards his room.

When did Ragor’s room turn into his? I shake those thoughts away the moment I knocked on the door. It really doesn’t matter whose room it is, but how he just acclimated to the family and how we accepted him is strange even for us.

“Come in” His voice is a peculiar thing. So peculiar that even I like it.

The room is cleaner than before, and I know it’s because he cleaned it with Ragor’s help. The other day Ragor kept pestering him about dirty rooms meant dirty minds, something my Mom instilled in all of us. Arius just seems so amenable that he agreed to clean his room as long as Ragor helped since he was still injured.

Arius is just sitting by the bed with his back on the headboard and a book on his lap. The blouse is far too small for him since it is Dad’s, and he left some buttons open. Half of his torso is wrapped in bandages around his body, and only his pecs are exposed. I avoid looking at his bare skin and snap my gaze to his face.

He’s staring at me, which made me blush. God, he caught me ogling him. I clear my throat to brush it away and step towards him.

“I’m going to change your dressings” I sit on the bed beside him while pulling a stool from the side to put my tray. “Has there been any pain?”

He shrugs.

I gave him a pointed glare “That’s not an answer”

“I’ve been stabbed and slashed before”

Right, he’s some sort of warrior or mercenary or something traveling back home. All of the scars and his body is a testament to that. I take out the bandage scissors, the one with a blunt side, and showed him my two hands just as if I spooked him.

“Just going to cut this, and you would have to sit up for me” I slowly say.

He raises a brow. A slight smile tugging at his lips as he says, “I’m not going to hurt you”

“And I won’t either” I answer back. I don’t particularly like the way he’s acting right now. He feels incredibly like an arrogant, pompous aristocrat. I won’t be surprised if he is one and is doing this warrior thing just because he wants to

Only an aristocrat can have a bloody hobby like this.

I cut his bandage without looking at his face. My fires were gone. I can’t even feel a slight simmer anymore. I ignore it for now and continue to cut till everything is free. “Please sit up” he does what I ask. He suddenly takes off his shirt. “What are you—”

“You won’t be able to change it with my shirt on” He answers. Looking down and throwing the shirt on the side. His whole upper half bare now. For some reason, it made me swallow all of a sudden, and I try to brush it off.

“Yeah, thanks”

I quickly pull the dirty gauze and tried really hard to be quick with my hands. I take the iodine and rub it around the wound. It’s still healing and not at all safe to move in, but he is a shifter, so that’s a different thing altogether. My mind got distracted at the ripple of muscle on his abdomen. All of it was hard and pure muscle, which made me think if he ever ate anything that made him fat.

“Is there something wrong?” the tone of his voice made it evident that he’s having fun.

I don’t answer him and take out the new dressings to wrap around him. This was the tricky part. I have to put my arms around him to encircle the bandage around his body. This time I bite my cheek every time I put my arms around him. He’s so large that I have to press my ear to his chest just for my arms to reach each other.

I like it. I don’t admit it though, I even stop that thought before it becomes a problem. At the last wrap, I quickly tie it together, but my hands don’t cooperate. My fingers trembled, and my palms all of a sudden feels like it’ll release my fires. Biting my lip, I take a step back.

“What’s wrong?” he says, alarmed.

I don’t feel the simmer of my fires. The simmering is always the warning that it’s going to unleash itself. It’ not there, then why does it feel like it will? There’s a trickling heat under my skin, though. I stared at my hands and waited.

“Hey” His shadow covers me. I look up, and he’s there, with his hands going up to cup my cheek. “What’s wrong?”

There it is again. It’s worse now. It’s dancing from my cheeks then down my body. Traveling in my body like it wants to swallow me whole. What is happening? “I don’t know” I whisper.

His thumb rubs my cheek. His eyes searching for something on my face, and I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I hope he doesn’t find it. I hope he keeps looking at me this way like he’ll crumble if there ever was something wrong with me.

Who is he? Why is my body acting this way? I hold on to his wrist, which made his eyes snap back to mine. My heart beating like a war drum in my chest, hard and fast.

“It’s nothing” I softly whisper again. This heat is consuming me, and I have no idea as to why it’s happening. Although, now that I think about it, this is a different feeling than my fires. This feels…pleasurable even. “I’m fine, just got scared”

Leaning back, I unlatch myself from him and take all of my stuff away with it. Feeling like fleeing is the only way to escape this. I close the door behind me. My chest still feels like my heart is going to leap out of my chest.

“Rogi?”

I jump in my bones. “Ragor!”

“What’s wrong?” Ragor touches my arm. He looks up at me with a bit of mud on his face, which only meant he was shoveling manure again. Some sweat dropping from the side of his face

I force out a smile and shake my head. “It’s nothing, Ragi”

“Really?”

I nod. Touching my cheek, I finally feel the simmer in my blood coming back to me again. My whole body relaxes at the heat, which made me feel incredibly relieved that it’s back. “Just a bit tired. I think I’ll go to the hill and catch some air”

“But it’ll rain” Ragor says. “It’s why I came back when I was done with the horses”

“It’s okay, I’ll bring an umbrella” I say. “Now, go get a shower. You smell disgusting”

“Like you don’t” he teases.

I laugh. “Yeah, yeah”

Putting the tray back in the clinic, I throw the dirty dressings away and take a step out of the clinic doors. I stretch and feel the air on my face. Right, I just need some air, and everything would be fine. It’ll be fine.

I untie the apron around my dress and, for now, carried it with me to the hill that I’ve always found relaxing since we moved here. A part of me still believes that we’ll move away to another place if we did anything wrong, like show ourselves fully with the people in town. It happened before; it’s why we had this stupid system to never show ourselves all together. It’s safer this way.

Sitting on top of the hill and under the shade of the tree, I gaze at the horizon, where I could see both our house and the barn and also the sea. I could see the little port and the houses that littered around it. If my sight was of a real tamer and shifter, I would be able to see the people walking around their homes without any problem whatsoever.

My mind wishes yet again that we were expected. That we could walk out of our doors and the humans or Dracone won’t cast us away from the town. But I guess this is better than nothing. Better than being orphans