Mazareth Arra paced back and forth in the waiting room. The humans looked at her in fear, and overall general discomfort. They’ve probably never met a witch before, let alone a Zodiac.

I sigh. When will this nonsense stop? Mazareth has been calling me out to meet for tea almost twice a week since the whole war debacle. At first, I thought she felt guilty that I had to stop her faction from murdering another, but now I’m starting to think it isn’t about that at all.

When we do meet, she talks about nothing in particular. She tells me about her daughter, and her husband. She makes fun of the other Zodiacs while joking that she’s “spilling the tea”. I laugh along with her, but I really wish it would stop.

And now, even with Annie literally giving birth three floors above us, Mazareth is still here. Did she plan on drinking energy drinks from the vending machine? Because that’s the only thing I could stomach right about now.

“Zodiac Arra, so nice to see you!” I say as heart warmingly as possible. The formal title “Zodiac” both weighs us down for a moment. I used to just address her as Mazareth, but overtime, I’m beginning to see how insensitive that is to her rank in this society. Mazareth prefers her name compared to the title, but it didn’t feel right to call her by anything else.

Mazareth stops pacing the hospital floor and looks over at me. She would normally return my half hearted smile and hurry over to greet me, but not this time. This time, she looks half dead with exhaustion. She looks the way I feel.

Her hair was ratty and pulled back into a messy bun that says ‘I don’t have time for this’. Her eyes dart nervously around as she walks over to me. Was it because we were in a human-run hospital? It couldn’t be. Humans and witches got along normally for the most part. Now that it was considered taboo to burn, hang, and murder witches, humans left them to do what they wanted most of the time...

“Come. We must talk in private.” Mazareth grabs me by the wrist and pulls me into the nurses break room. I was just getting used to the fun Mazareth and now what? Something has gone wrong and ruined it for me.

“What’s this about?” I ask as we walk into the small break room. The few nurses still in the break room cleared out as soon as we entered. They didn’t really need to leave, but as humans, they would probably do their best just to avoid all supernaturals as a general rule. I gave up my last dollar fifty for a can of Monster and fish it out of the vending machine.

“A witch was taken two nights ago. She isn’t the first. No witness and almost no substantial evidence, but there’s a few suspects.” Mazareth’s voice stays even as she explains what is going on. So this is what put her off balance? A few witches go missing and suddenly she looks like she’s just escaped a mental hospital. And why on Earth was she telling me? It’s not like I could do anything special.

“I see. Uh, is there anything I can do?” I reluctantly ask. I mean, what else was I supposed to say? ‘Huh, how weird. My friend is upstairs giving birth but you have fun with those missing person cases’? I snap open my Monster can and take a sip. I knew I was going to regret the energy drink later when I was bouncing off the walls, but for now, it was nice.

“Would you look into it for me? The witches are panicking and looking to me for guidance. I’m trying my best, but I can’t do everything.”

So, essentially, she’s pushing all of her problems onto me. And I had no will in me to tell her no. Perfect. Just what I needed: a reason to fail all of my college classes. I am starting to see why none of the other Zodiacs get involved with other factions’ problems. It is such a hassle sometimes.

Despite all my inner complaints, I knew why she came to me with this. If it was the Warlock faction causing trouble, it would cause serious political backlash for Mazareth to come out and blame them. Tempers were still flaring red from the almost-war last month. And if it was… the draguls... then she definitely needs my help. I shivered at the thought. I wanted to live a normal life and ignore all the problems that included being supernatural. Can’t anything ever just be easy?

“I- uh, yeah. I’ll look into it.” I pause to think. What can I even do? Am I supposed to go sniff out the crime scenes like a dog? Would that even do anything? “Meanwhile, what are you going to say to the others?” Others being the Zodiacs.

Ever since the almost-war, Mazareth has been limited with her powers during council meetings. The warlocks have absolutely no say at all until all of the trolls are satisfied with their equal share of power among the other eleven factions.

“They are aware of the situation, and are taking precautions in their own factions in case it isn’t an isolated incident.” She says. At least they were aware of the problem. If nothing else, we should make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“And you said this has happened before? How many times?” I ask. I am rushing now. I feel like any minute Colin would burst in and tell me that Annie already had the baby and I missed it. I couldn’t miss it. I am the Dragon Zodiac. I am supposed to bless the child as a part of my colony. Only, I didn’t know how to do that, and I didn’t know who was going to teach me quite yet.

“It’s hard to say. Three witches have gone missing this month, but nothing links the incidents together. More concerning, there’s reports of several other missing people from other supernatural factions. I’m not sure it’s Warlocks, but we can’t rule it out yet.” Mazareth finished. She brushes a stray hair from her face.

“Okay. Send me all of the information when you get a chance. I’ll look into it before the next council meeting.” I reassure her. “Please excuse me now. My friend is waiting for me upstairs.” I offer my hand as a professional Zodiac would. No one would even be able to tell I was nineteen and don't have any clue as to what the hell I am doing. Just kidding.

She shook my hand. “Tell Annie congratulations for me.” Mazareth smiles for the first time today. I nod as she retreats out of the nurse’s break lounge. As I leave, I smile wearily at the nurses who were waiting outside the room for us to finish talking. They stared back at me like I was an alien.

As I walk back to Annie’s suite, I think about what Mazareth has told me. Three witches taken. Other supernaturals taken from other factions as well. No trace. No witnesses or evidence. This didn’t sound like the warlocks doing. It was too careful. Too well thought out and planned.

Warlocks were doing their best to get over the loss of their Zodiac’s power, and the loss of free labor. Carmen was doing well as a Zodiac. These days, she always looked tired and ready to pass out. Being a stand-in Zodiac ordained by the troll god must have been hard.

Entering the room, I was surprised to find Ethan and Colin already at Annie’s side. Why hadn’t they told me they were here? I wouldn’t have rushed Mazareth so much if I had known Annie wasn’t all alone up here.

“You’re doing great, Annie.” Ethan tells her. He lets her squeeze his hand every time she is in pain. I could tell that Ethan is trying his best to not look like he is in bone-breaking pain from her grip. Annie is unnervingly strong.

Colin smiles at me like he does every time he sees me. I will never get used to the feeling of my heart speeding up when our eyes meet like this. It beats faster when he grabs my hand and pulls me over to Annie’s bedside. If there really is a Zodiac God out there, could they please explain to me why I feel like this?

Annie groans in pain for another hour while the attending doctor coaches her through breathing and pushing. He asks that only family stay for the rest of it, so Colin and I went to wait out in the hallway.

“I can’t wait. One day, that’ll be us.” Colin says fondly. He stares happily out a window. Luckily he doesn’t see my ears burning red. What am I supposed to say to something like that? I am a nineteen year old boy. Any thoughts of kids were far, far away, and deserved to stay far away for a very, very long time. Kids were for adults. I’m not even close to being an adult.

Wait- I’m nineteen. That technically is an adult. Dammit.

“Uh-”

“Stop overthinking. I’m talking about the far away future.” He assures me. That didn’t exactly put me at ease. But to avoid thinking about it any longer, I let the subject drop.

“So, what did Mazareth want this time? More tea spilling?” It seems that Colin has become a second hand gossip. Every time I get home from a meeting with her, Colin begs me to ‘spill all the tea’ about the other Zodiac members.

I can’t imagine why he is so interested in that kind of stuff, but I feel bad for not being able to include him more. Just because he didn’t have the Zodiac mark, he gets ignored by everyone else. It didn’t make sense. They all had mates too, so why didn’t they respect them equally? If the god chose us as zodiacs, that god surely chose our mate to be our equal.

“No. She wants me to look into some disappearances.” I tell him. Technically, by law, I wasn’t even allowed to talk about council business with anyone who isn’t on the council. But Colin would always be an exception. He deserves to know what I was up to. Probably because I wouldn’t be able to do anything on my own without his help. I hate that I was so dependent on him when it came to supernatural stuff.

Maybe that’s why I like being in the human world so much. Colin never has a clue about what’s going on when we go shopping in human stores, or eat human food. It makes me feel more normal. Like I have a place to belong after all. If I had to spend the rest of my life explaining human things to Colin, I’d be a happy man. But that’s selfish, and I knew it.

Something about being dependent on each other made me feel closer to him though. Even if, sometimes, we weren’t that close.

“Tell me more about it later. Do you know what you're supposed to do once Ethan and Annie have bonded with the dragon part of their child?” The question itself gave me anxiety.

Master Wei has gone over the basics with me. I’m supposed to cradle the baby, and pronounce it as part of the Colony. And none of that was specifically difficult, other than the fact that I’ve never held a baby before. But the idea of everyone watching me as I try not to make a fool of myself? That gave me more anxiety than I deserved to feel in a lifetime.

“What if I mess it up?” I stare at the ingrained tile flooring. I couldn’t help but worry. Apparently, a baby’s pronouncement into the colony was part of a dragon’s identity. The colony you come from will follow you for a lifetime in their culture… just another thing I didn’t have.

“You won’t. And if you do, that dragon will spend the rest of it’s days knowing it was the Zodiac who did that thing they won’t remember because it’s just a baby.” Colin teases. Very funny. Just an absolute knee-slapper.

“Oh yeah? Well, who did your pronouncement?” I challenge him back. Of course I already knew that Colin has had the name burned into his memory. Who else would it have been, other than Master Wei? Master Wei won’t let him forget it for as long as he’s alive. His grandfathers take every opportunity to remind him that the only reason he lives in that colony is because of them. I laugh every single time.

“Fine. It’s a little important. So, don’t go messing it up.” He tells me pointedly. We are right back where we started! I knew it was important. I’m doomed to mess this up. I throw my head back and groan. Colin is no help.

Dr. Nell comes out a few minutes later and peels her gloves off into the trash can. A few nurses cleared out of the room as well, and I could only assume that the baby was just born. A crashing came from in the room. That was definitely Ethan transforming, and accidentally knocking everything over. I hope it goes well.

The baby’s cries could be heard from the hallway. The nurses all sigh a breath of relief. A cry meant that the baby could breathe. I felt the relief go through me as well.

The baby’s crying abruptly stops though. Dr. Nell and the nurses are about to storm back into the room, but I throw myself in front of the door. They can’t intervene now. It’s imperative that no one else is there.

“It’s fine. The baby is still breathing, it’s just in a different form for a moment. You can’t go in right now.” I explain. The nurses look skeptical, but back off. I hope they understood that I wasn’t trying to kill a child from neglect. That was not my intention, I promise.

More rattling came from inside the room. The baby’s cries once again fill the hallway as Ethan opens up the hospital room door.

“You can come in now. She’s fine. Everything is fine.” Ethan said. The baby’s gender. A girl. A baby girl. My heart rushes with excitement.

The nurses rushed in without hesitation and started doing tests to make sure the baby is still alright. The little girl’s cries could be heard from down the hall, and I was grateful. She’s breathing, and sounds very healthy. The connection between her and her family has been solidified. Being premature wasn’t putting her at risk. I thank the Zodiacs above for the baby girl’s life.

“It’s your moment, Mr. Zodiac.” Colin slaps me on the back as we walk into the room. Oh, Zodiacs. I hope he doesn’t start calling me that all the time now. It’s so not attractive.

Annie was holding the baby close to her chest. She nuzzles up close to her baby, and doesn't care that the baby is screaming her tiny head off. The baby really was small. So small it made me worry that I might break her if I held her incorrectly. I’ve never held a baby before, and I didn’t really plan to until I was thirty and considered myself old.

“Here she is. Her name is Lana.” Annie hands the baby to me with a gentle touch that I worried I couldn’t mimic.

Okay, Lana. Please don’t break. I gently take the baby from Annie’s hands, and try my best to hold her correctly. At first, she struggles and screams in my arms. ‘Please stop moving! I don’t want to drop you!’ And then, just like that, she stops. Lana’s eyes are still closed, but her arms and legs shuffle up and down fitfully. Without the crying, I could at least focus. Hopefully, that would be enough.

“I, as the Zodiac of the Dragons, pronounce you a part of the Colony, and a part of our family. As a dragon, you will one day live in harmony with a mate, and they will be welcomed in our colony and our family as well.” I pause, as that was the end of the pronouncement. I look down at her.

She seems everything I didn’t. A family, a proper colony, and a bond with her rightful parents. How could I be so jealous of a one day old baby? I sniff as my throat tightens up and my eyes burn. I said I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t cry in front of all these people.

So I choke the tears back. With a cracked voice I say, “You’re going to do great things one day, Lana. I know it.”