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Posted by Jonah on May 23, 2009, 1:18 am, in reply to "Dragon Holiday, part 9"
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“That’s because I’ve been playing Tesseract Invaders on my link since you got weepy-eyed over Mommy Dearest.” He tapped his eyepieces for emphasis.
“Actually, they were talking about their families during and after the Landing,” Val supplied.
“When the aliens dropped the dragons off?” said Susan. Val nodded.
Shadow cackled. “Heh. It wasn’t any weirder than what happened to my folks. Since most of my kind is smaller than most dragons, I think they didn’t scare the humans as much. The first place they tripped over was a neo-hippie commune, and they ended up getting to know them pretty well.
“When the contact team found them they were all high tripping balls out in the woods.”
Everyone roared at that. Susan was laughing so hard she was bent over hanging onto Shadow’s thin arm. Val beamed over at her, it was a long time since she saw her laugh like that. And for the first time, they all seemed to relax around one another.
* * *
Hours later, with the sun setting behind the cypress trees, the distant bayou growing a mist over the dark indigo water, Seth’s guests were ready to leave. Goggles departed with Dax, who hid in the back of an old beat-up Hummer. Surprisingly, though, Shadow volunteered to walk Susan home and take the bus in the morning.
Seth looked out the living room window with Val, and shook his head watching Shadow and Susan leave together. “That is odd. I thought Susan no longer felt insecure about going home alone.”
Val smacked him playfully on the arm. “I guess you weren’t paying attention to what Shadow said. He said he was going to take a bus home ... in the morning.”
“Oh?” He still looked puzzled at that for a good few seconds. Then his heavy eye ridges rose. “Oh! Well, I hope that means that she’s still my pet.”
“I’m sure she is,” said Val. “But now maybe she’ll have two dragon protectors instead of one. Definitely a good deal for her. Now I’m going to go clean up.”
Seth nodded, affectionately slapping her butt as she walked past. He looked at the dragon and human disappearing around the distant corner, wondering where that path would really lead those two.
Jonah
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My gratitude in writing this story goes to an Unnamed collaborator.
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