The Dragon and the Hybrid

(1) The Fires and Fyre

There is no remedy for love, but to love more

-Thoreau

Rogan Massi

The land of Dracone, that's the country we've come to be born in, the only nation that would accept or at least take both my parent's union. They don't particularly approve of it, but as long as we keep to our wagon and the two horses that we own, then they let us be.

"Rogan," Dad calls for Mom just outside our new temporary home. His silver hair is gleaming through the sunlight, which almost made it look transparent. His vest looks tight, but it hugged Dad's dragon body.

Mom drops her bucket, turning her head in the direction of Dad's voice, she smiles, and almost immediately, I see Dad's face lighten. They are mimicking her. They've always been this way, in love and addicted to each other. They say the fyres pulled them together, and now they're meant to burn till the end of their days. That's becoming rarer for Draconi as eons start to pass, and people aren't pining for their other halves of the fyre anymore. Not much as they used to, at least.

I heard the royalty had opted out and preferred arranged matings for the bloodline's purity and to keep their riches within themselves. They were hoping that their wealth and power would stay within the same family.

My attention gets caught from looking out of the window. I see their faces start to press with each other. My face burning as even though they've done these a thousand times, I have not grown used to it. Ragor, however, just pulls a disgusted look that I often see mar his 8-year-old face.

"Dad is back, so that must mean something," I say to him, trying to take his attention away from our affectionate parents who were comfortable enough to kiss outside of our home.

Ragor clutches at his book. His hair is silvery and darker than our Dad, which can only I describe as snow white. "We might leave again, then," a sad look looms over his face.

I snap my fingers in front of his face. It flickers some flame-like a lighter or a stroked match. "don't think of that."

His thick brows furrow together. "But we really might."

"But it can also mean something else" I look around the home we've accommodated ourselves in. This same home was once so dilapidated and dusty that every step felt like a thrill for junkies. We've managed to fix the floorboards and the masts of the ceiling. Mom dusted the floor; I help Dad with tools as he mended the wood, and Ragor does whatever Mom asks. "It could mean that we can stay now."

Ragor doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't protest or say anything. Instead, he flicks his fingers to imitate what I've done earlier. His brows furrow in concentration, and his lips pressed tightly together. The tips of his ears are turning red as the second goes by.

"Ragor," I sigh. "Stop that."

He pauses and looks at me from the floor. His legs crossed together, and the closed book lays on his lap. "I might be able to do it too, Rogan."

"Ragor, you shouldn't hope for this" I smile kindly at him and caress his cheek.

"Why not?" he blinks.

I freeze. I couldn't pull enough words to explain it to Ragor gently. Do I tell him that the fires in me aren't a gift? It's a curse that pushes our family to move from town to town, not only because our mother is human. "What is taking those two so long?" I change the subject almost immediately, trying to evade the question.

I move towards our door to find out and ignore the smaller human trying to catch my attention. I wasn't prepared for what I see, though; I expected Dad to be holding Mom in his arms and just dancing to an imaginary beat while enjoying the sun, which they often do.

Dad gives me a guarded look. His silver hair is now pinkish, and his violet eyes seem a tad bit menacing right now.

"Keep the door open" He pulls someone through the door, and right past me, the scent of blood and ash singes my nose. A person covered in a brown blanket walks right past me but more limped past me. "Ragor, take the horses in the stables."

Ragor stands straight as a rod from the floor at the tone of our Dad. It was blunt, dangerous, and urgent. He quickly nods and scurries outside to get the horses back to the stables. Mom closes the door behind Ragor and follows Dad towards the rooms.

"Rogan" She stops when she sees my startled look. Her dark hair that is incredibly identical to mine is a mess now. She usually keeps it combed and pristine while down on one shoulder. touching my arm, she gives me a pleading look. "You know what this means, right?"

I nod. "Keep the fires within."

She smiles. "Help me nurse the man back to health."

"Is it another straggler?"

She shakes her head. "I have no idea, but you know how your father gets when she sees an abused draconi."

"Yes," it reminds him of himself.

I follow Mom towards Ragor's room, where Dad laid out a bloody Draconi on Ragor's bed large bed. It came with the house, but it shocked us that the mattress and bed frames were still useable and just smelled of dust.

The Draconi is massive; he quickly took the space of the large bed. His blood is oozing out from a gash on his side that was as long as my arm. I'm shocked at the sight of it, the smell of his blood stings my nose too, but he should've died minutes ago from the looks of it.

Mom takes out her clean blankets and pushes them on the gash to stop the bleeding. Dad holds him down as the man looks delirious and in a panic. He keeps shouting things in Draconian, which I'm not fluent in. Dad tries to soothe him by answering him in the same language, but it doesn't help.

"Rogan!" She shouts. "Give me some antibiotics and sutures."

I quickly went to Mom's makeshift office in the kitchen, where we kept all the medicine for Mom's little part-time as a doctor for the townspeople. I took the antibiotics and syringes on a metal tray and the sutures she needed to close the gash. There is havoc in Ragor's room, while the delirious Draconi seems to overpower Dad quite a bit. That can only mean one thing, and that's he's a shifter instead of a rider.

"Dad!" I shout in surprise when he's thrown to the other side of the room. He skitters on Ragor's hardwood floor with a loud c***k, and I wince at the sound.

Mom yelps and steps away from the shifter. She moves to Dad, who is splayed on the floor, gaining his consciousness. "Rogan, don't get any closer to him."

It's too late. The shifter stands from the bed with great effort. The gash on his side widening at the action and blood gushes out of the open wound. My hands are trembling. I hear the bottles quaking in the metal tray. I'm tempted to lift my hand and let the fires take him and turn him to ash, but his fierce gray eyes held me in place. The anger in them, the outrage makes me tremble, and everything in me isn't cooperating.

He is taller than anyone I've ever seen with muscles that bulged angrily on his sides with scars that looked old, deep, and painful. He steps towards me, his hair a darker shade of pink as Dad, which I know is just from the blood. I step back, but he growls, and I see his teeth lengthening to sharp canines.

I've never seen a shifter this close before. During our travels, I've caught glimpses of Draconi's that my Dad has talked to, and some of them are shifters. But I've never gotten as close to one as I am now. I've always hidden whenever Dad has a conversation with a Draconi shifter since they're more stuck to the old ways more than average. People would find it strange that a girl with violet eyes and dark hair is walking beside a dragon rider, and they would immediately know that I'm not entirely human nor a Draconi either.

"Fire," he growls or rasps. I don't know at this point, but I keep staring at his face. It's caked in dirt and grime, but now it has his blood smearing his well-defined face. He reaches a clawed hand towards me, touching my cheek, and I almost wanted to incinerate him in fear of him.

But my fires oddly didn't work.

"Rogan!" Dad shouts. He runs towards the shifter and tackles him to the ground. They fall loudly and slowly on the floor, and I hear a sickening thump, then an irritated growl.

"Dad," I put the tray down the floor and let my fires flicker in my palm. Feeling its heat go through my skin, but it doesn't hurt me, no light can hurt me. Still, my fires won't cooperate, which has never happened before. It flickers and fizzles on my palm, then it dies, I could see the heatwave still, but no red flame manifested.

It flickers on my palm like a small fleeting firework. We used the same ones to light on our birthdays or on holidays that celebrated the monarchs of the land we're in. Mom suddenly grasps my wrists, and I shake her hand away in shock. I hear the distinct sizzle of her skin, and I'm horrified of it.

"Mom, you're getting burned," I hiss.

She grips my wrist tighter. She glares at me with her brown eyes with so much emotion that I froze. "Stop it, your father and I can handle this without your fires."

"But, he's—" I look at Dad's direction and see that he's on top of the shifter. He doesn't look in danger, though. The shifter seems unconscious under him and still bleeding on the floor. "he's okay."

Mom lets go of my wrist. I can both see and smell her flesh has been burned, but she didn't seem to care. Guilt gnawed at me at the sight of them. She helps Dad put the shifter back on Rogan's bed with her injured hands and beckons me closer to her.

"Give me the antibiotics," she says.

I do what she says, and all I can do was stare at her burned palm. Her already rough hand will get even harsher because of the burn, and I feel the shame. Dad looks at her palm, and then at me. He gives me a look, and all I can do is scurry out of the room and to Mom's office. I take what's necessary for healing burns, which we always have for Mom.

No fire can burn someone with dragon's blood.

Ragor sees me in the kitchen. His pants are slightly muddy. Wallowing in my guilt, I take a wet cloth and wipe the mud away from Ragor's pants, and he gives me a sad, questioning look.

"I hurt Mom again," I whisper. I look away from his violet eyes. If I stare long enough, then I'd be able to see the specks of brown that he got from our Mom.

"Rogan," his voice is thick. I know he's going to cry soon.

I look at his face, and I smile. I give him all the tenderness that I can muster and caress his cheek with one hand. "You see, gifts are not necessarily good or bad. They're given to you still, and you hope that you'd be able to use it and control it with respect. You have gifts of your own, and you should hope you control it well instead of hoping for other people's gifts. Nod if you understand."

He sniffs but nods anyway. His perfect teardrops roll down his cheek.

"guard the front door and keep people away till we're done" I kiss his cheek and take the poultice and salve to where everyone was. Mom is still trying her best to stop the bleeding, but now it's Dad who is pressing on to the shifter's open and gaping wound. It's calmer now compared to what happened minutes ago.

Mom sees me. "What is that?"

"For your hand," I say.

She gives me a funny look as if I've said something ridiculous "My love, I don't need it" she rolls her eyes and pushes Dad away to start stitching the shifter's wound. She slowly pulls out the cloth and makes sure first if the bleeding has stopped. "My daughter can never burn me."

Dad gives me an exasperated look before sighing, and his face goes gentle. He kisses the top of my head and pulls me close to his body. "I'll take that for your mother. We'll also add more to our exercises to keep them under control."

I nod. Tears stinging my eyes, but I don't want Mom to see me cry or she'd get flustered. I bury my face on Dad's chest instead even though it's soaked in the shifter's blood, instead of the usually rusty smell of it, there is a hint of a cinder smell to it.

"Did Ragor take the horses to the stable?"

I nod on to his chest.

He sighs. Enveloping me in his arms while he coos. His hand rubs circles on my back, and I hear him humming the Draconi lullaby that he often sings to Ragor and me. "Your Mother is fine, little raccoon."

I nod again. I was still frustrated and irritated at myself for being so stupid. All these years we've spent trying to control the fires, and yet I couldn't fizz it out when Mom touched me, my emotions got the better of me, and she had to reign me back.

What kind of gift could this even be? It feels a lot like a curse to me.

****

Later that evening, we were all exhausted, but I had enough energy to cook everyone dinner. Mom is quickly exhausted, being human, especially when we had to clean the Draconi blood that splattered all around Ragor's room as if we slaughtered something in it.

 I helped Mom as she can. She tries to hide her wincing or the fact that her palm is hurting from the burn, but she has her limits. She insisted that she cook, but she's already pale, and we won't have it. Ragor sets the table for the four of us, and I set aside enough of the stew for the shifter in case he wakes, and he's hungry.

Gathering on the table, Mom's hand is finally in a poultice, which I know Dad applied for her because she's too stubborn for this world or any world there is. After all, she left everything for Dad. The promising career in the capital city, the human family that loves her, and the life she once knew just to be with Dad and to have us.

They've turned everything into a bedtime story as I grew up. Telling me of the day they met in the Academy where humans and Draconi learned side by side and though they'd like to boast of the peace inside the campus, there was still the discontent from within it. Mom is the only human to top on other Draconi during her studies on medicine while Dad floundered by until he realized Mom is his fyres. They've gone through a lot until they graduated and decided to flee. There was no way that Dad's family would quickly agree to their union or even believe it, but he never liked his family.

Dad came from a long line of distinguished Dragon riders that could take the most massive and most potent dragons from the eastern volcanoes to tame and fly. Dad even told us about Esaria, his old dragon, that he tamed when he was six. He had to leave Esaria since his family would quickly discover where he and Mom would be hiding. It tore him inside since dragon riders can only ride one dragon till either one of them dies, but Mom was his fyre. Nothing else could ever compare to the pain he would endure if he had to leave her or lose her.

Ragor likes the stories, and I often linger outside his door whenever my parents tuck him in to just listen to the stories. I adore it too, even if I am far too old for bedtime stories. The sound of my parent's voice as they tell it to Ragor makes me nostalgic.

"Now, that the hard part is done," Mom suddenly says on the table. Breaking my thoughts and taking my full attention. "Where on earth did you discover that shifter?"

Dad sighs. This is the part he dreads the most. It's him who mostly brings the ailing patients to Mom more than the patients coming to her. "I got approved by the local council to stay temporarily in the village as long as we don't parade in the town center.--" He looks at Ragor and me in a warning. "—when I saw him on the side of the road near the port. I think thieves ambushed him by the looks of it as he didn't have anything on him except the clothes on his back. I took him in the wagon, thinking he'd need us, and he did.

"My soul, didn't I warn you about how dangerous these Draconi's you bring home," Mom moans. She rolls her eyes even, but I know she's glad that Dad brought him for her to save.

"He's not something I couldn't handle. At least that's what I thought. His hair looks like a high noble, but I don't particularly recognize him. I don't think he's a noble now though, he has too many scars and far too strong to be one."

"He looks like a dragon gladiator," I say. Reminded of the encyclopedias that littered my room and the random things that it teaches. "The way his body is built looks like he's experienced"

 Mom stares at me, then glares at Dad. "You brought a draconi warrior in our house and almost killed our daughter."

Dad sheepishly shrugs. "I handled it."

"Why don't I handle you?!" she sneers.

Ragor and I laugh at Mom's face. Her innocent-looking face feels a bit off whenever she sneers. She tries to look threatening, but she's far too human to be one. Dad laughs at her face, too, which just makes her even madder.

"Quiet, the lot of you," she grumbles.

I wish I knew then that the shifter in our home would change our lives that that shifter is no ordinary draconi that comes to our doors that ask for our aid. If only I knew then what I would come to learn in the future as to who he was. 

Perhaps, I would've avoided the bloodshed that came with the following days with him.