I cracked the door open before fully opening it, the heavy wood creaking softly as I stepped into the room, the office while it didn’t have that veil like feeling of an even smaller pocket dimension, it was larger than I was expecting; the same dark hardwood covering the floors with the curved glass left wall filling the room with that strange stale sunlight, a fireplace centered on the back wall flanked by two tall, thin windows, various bookshelves and pieces about the room with a couch and table facing the fireplace and a large cabinet filled with teas and a tea set along the back wall, centered on the right wall was a massive dark wooden desk shaped like a C with a dark leather chair set in the center, everything had that dark, rich aesthetic as the rest of the school.
“Vlad” Aden said from the desk, “You should have told me you got here, I would have met you at the gate” he said as he stood, he was dressed in a starched white dress shirt, the top button open with the sleeves pushed back, a dark gray vest and navy trousers with black dress shoes, hair probably freshly taken down from having it back because it coiled down his back to between his shoulder blades in these tight waves, he pushed it back off his shoulder while I was mentally keeping myself from just staring.
“I didn’t want to interrupt your class or something.”
“Oh, please, my first class isn’t till next period” he said as he motioned over towards the couch, but as he walked past the desk was when I first noticed it,
“Your…your arms.” I said motioning to my own, his limbs were covered in scales…but not the rough, spiky, dry scales of a dragon like I was expecting, they were sleek, even and smooth diamond shaped ones in shades of emerald, evergreen and black with this Kelly-green shine to them making them look…moist for lack of better phrase, his claws were longer and sharper, they coiled past the edges of his shirt coiling up his neck and with the light I could see the shadows of scales on his body past his shirt, the scales covered his ears and the edges of his face peppering out across his temples and the contours of his face, scales replaced his brows and that dark green of his eyes had ballooned out to cover the white and paled to a sickly neon green tone with large oversized slit pupils, a long, long thin scaled tail coiled off the small of his back with no blade at the end like it would if he was draconic or demonic.
“Oh, yeah…I don’t really need to hide myself around here” he said with a shrug as he used the wheeled cart beside the huge thing of tea as he set a tea pot softly twirling as it levitated about a small fire as he picked a canister of tea.
“You’re…a snake?” I questioned
“Ish” he said, “So, what was it that you wanted to tell me about?” he asked as he walked over and sat on one of the large white armchairs flanking the fireplace, as I sat centered on the couch, I suddenly felt like I was back in school, and I was getting told off by a professor.
“It’s…a long story”
“I’ve got an hour and a half” he said
“Well…” I started before going off into this huge spiel about everything that resulted of Kal finding his Bond then of Zavi finding theirs, he listened attentively to my entire giant story even when he walked back over to get the steaming teapot and walked over to the table as he set the teapot floating above the coffee table. “So…to get to the point…you’re…you’re mine.” I said as I looked towards the floor, looking at my feet as I felt my entire body crumble in on itself as I gripped my hands tightly as I had my hands on my knees, the tension causing the sun along the back to flash for a split moment.
“I see” Aden said, “And you’re…afraid that because I am this…bond, you say, for you…that that means that something out of the woodwork will raise its ugly mug to pose itself as a threat to everything and anything around us?” he asked, I nodded softly, my hands were trembling causing my magic to flash and crackle along the golden markings along my hands and arms, my eyes were watering, everything was trembling and I just felt…terrible about myself for breaking down like this. “Vlad” he said, his voice quieter as I heard something shift before the couch shifted to my side, “Please…please don’t cry” he said as I felt my face tilt towards him, though there was no hand on my face, at least not one of Aden’s actual hands, but a near translucent green spectral hand to avoid touching me directly. The thumb of the arcane hand softly dragged along my cheek as I felt it smear a tear away along my cheekbone.
“Aren’t you…upset?” I asked
“Why would I be upset?” he asked confused, softly shaking his head, being this close now showed of his extremely sharp teeth and his forked blue-black tongue. “A lot of species have all sorts of things like this.”
“I know, but…I thought you’d want to know…”
“I do appreciate you telling me, but…I do also understand your concern” he said, reaching over towards one of my hands, hesitating for a moment as he was watching me for some kind of reaction before he slowly rested his hand over mine, his hand was…icy, icy cold, slowly letting his thumb trail over the back of my hand as he looked towards me.
“Aren’t you…scared? Didn’t you see everything that’s happened in the past couple of years?” I asked
“Everything in the news about that Conclave thing? Of course, I was a little surprised when you told me your name due to the fact that I did recognize you from the news…I don’t recall anything from the year before though.” He said, “Well, all of you handled it, no?”
“We did, but…there was so…so much destruction…so much death” I said, “I’m a doctor, Aden…I’m a fucking neurosurgeon…but I…I had to kill people to protect myself and protect my family. How can uphold my oath…the oath I’ve built my entire career on…when I have to kill people sometimes?” I asked, looking down towards my feet and closing my hand tight enough that I’m surprised that Aden didn’t wince as I felt his fingers nearly get crushed in my grip.
“Well, it’s two jobs, no…your job to the people as a surgeon…and your job as a warlord to the world” he said, “I have a job like that too that I don’t really like.”
“You don’t like being a professor?”
“I love being a professor…Its more so because of what I am, that job I hate.” He said, I looked over towards him, feeling a tear or two slip down my face as I was crying in a bit of anger at myself now. “What I am…I have this innate power where…whenever, wherever a snake or serpent if harmed anywhere in the world…I feel its pain and my magic lashes out without my control…to punish those who harmed the snake.”
“Why…why do you have to do that?” I asked
“Because of whom my family’s ancestor is.” He said looking towards this huge painting above the mantle that showed this…massive hulking creature clawing and crawling out of this massive ravine in the ground, the front half this tectonic anthropomorphized snake, but this huge sweeping neck ending in a serpentine head with no shift from the neck to the head, but as the neck faded down it merged into these hulking shoulders with two muscled arms breaking through mountains as the torso shifted into this withing, almost endless looking serpent body.
“…what?” I asked, he sighed softly as he let go of my hand as he stood before standing in front of the painting, the shades of green of his scales were the same as the creature in the painting, nearly the same eyes, but the painting had yellow eyes.
“I am…Yig-born”
Comments (0)
See all