Chapter 76 – No experience

Kaela ran her tongue over the back of her hand. The monster's blood was black, thick, with a bitter taste that stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Around her the ground was covered with corpses. The bodies were big, with the green scales broken against the stones of the mountain, with the claws snapped and the yellow eyes open, already dulled.

Kaela finished with her right hand, spat to the side and ran her tongue over her teeth.

"…Yuck. Tastes awful," she muttered, wrinkling her face.

On the other side of the clearing, sitting on a flat rock with a scroll resting on her knees, Celia glanced up.

"All the monsters around here taste like that," Celia answered without much interest.

"The other ones aren't as bad."

"The other ones are just as bad."

"The southern ones aren't."

"The southern ones are worse," Celia cut in, going back to the scroll.

Kaela clicked her tongue and ran the back of her freshly-cleaned hand across her mouth. Then she turned her head and looked at all of them.

They were all scattered around the clearing.

Celia, on the rock, with the scroll. Eris, sprawled face-up on a fallen log, with her arms crossed behind her head and a leaf in her mouth. Virelle, crouched next to one of the corpses, studying its yellow eyes with too much attention. Lisette, sitting against a tree, combing her golden hair with her fingers. Rosalind, standing at the edge of the clearing, looking at the horizon with her hands behind her back.

Kaela clenched her teeth.

"And now what?" she asked, with a voice sharper than she'd wanted.

None of them answered right away.

"…Now we rest," Eris murmured from the log, without taking the leaf out of her mouth.

"No."

"Yes."

"Eris."

"Kaela."

"Eris, no."

Eris turned her head slightly on the log to get a better look at her.

"What?"

"We've got two days left," Kaela cut in. "If we go over the four, our houses aren't going to be able to cover for us when Matt wakes up."

"I know."

"You know?"

"I know, Kaela."

"Then why are you lying down?"

"Because from here to the next peak is four hours," Eris answered calmly. "There aren't any more monsters until the next mountain. And I want to rest for four minutes, if you don't mind."

Kaela clenched her fists slightly.

"I do mind."

Eris didn't answer. She went back to looking at the sky with both hands behind her head. Kaela ran a hand through her red hair, brushed it off her forehead, and turned her head toward Celia.

"Celia. The dragon."

"Yes. What about the dragon?" Celia asked patiently.

"How much actual search time do we have left today?"

Celia looked at the sky for a second, calculating.

"Five hours, if we go back at a normal pace. Three, if we don't want to be late. Then we have to head back."

"I know."

"Good."

Celia rolled up the scroll carefully, tied it with a thin cord, and tucked it inside her belt.

"Kaela," she said then, in a new tone, more serious. "There aren't dragons around here anymore."

"…"

"Finding one is hard as it is. Finding one here, in this world, is nearly impossible. They left years ago. Our species wasn't kind to them."

"They started it," Kaela growled.

"That doesn't matter now."

Kaela took a step forward. Then she stopped. She kicked the nearest corpse, without force, and looked at Celia again.

"So?"

"So we'd have to go to another world. And that's where it all gets complicated."

"Why?"

"Because to jump between worlds you need coordinates," Celia explained, her voice flat. "And we don't have them."

Kaela closed her eyes slightly. And from the tree, Lisette raised the hand she'd been combing with slightly.

"I have a theory."

"Lisette…" Celia sighed.

"About the dragon."

"Lisette, the last theory you had ended with us waist-deep in a swamp."

"This one's different."

Lisette let go of the strand she'd been twirling, settled slightly against the tree, and looked at Kaela with a slightly nervous smile.

"Those things flying above the castle are dragons," Lisette let out.

Silence.

Virelle lifted her head from where she was crouched.

"…Lisette. That's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because the things attacking the castle were small. I saw them in the observer. They were about the size of a large horse, maybe. And a dragon is huge."

"Maybe they're hatchlings," Lisette suggested.

"Hatchlings don't fly like that."

"Maybe they're a new species of hatchlings."

"Lisette."

"It's a theory."

"It's a bad theory," Virelle cut in.

Virelle straightened all the way up, ran her hands over her knees to brush off the dirt, and stepped closer.

"Besides," she went on, "the ones attacking the castle don't look alive."

"What?" Lisette asked from the tree, finger back in a strand of hair.

"What I saw in the observer. It wasn't a living being. It was some kind of metal creature that didn't flap its wings."

"Metal," Lisette repeated. She stopped with her finger tangled in her hair. "Like… a plane from the human world?"

Virelle went quiet for a second.

"Could be."

"Could be?"

"I'm not sure. I went to the human world a long time ago."

"How long?"

"A long time."

Virelle crossed her arms, head tilted slightly, trying to remember.

"Back then they used a giant balloon to fly. It moved really slowly. And they also had a big ship that went from one side to the other with a lot of people inside. But nothing like what I saw today."

"But it looked human-made," Lisette insisted.

"It looked like something a human could make," Virelle corrected. "Yes. That, yes."

From the edge of the clearing, Rosalind turned her head slightly. Her silver hair moved with the wind. She'd stayed quiet the whole time, but now she was frowning slightly.

"…I don't understand," Rosalind murmured.

They all looked at her.

"What don't you understand?" Celia asked.

"Why the humans would attack us. The queen's policy with them is passive. We watch them, yes. We grab an interesting specimen from time to time to bring one over to us, but nothing more. We don't hunt them or do anything to their leaders."

"…"

"Why would they attack us?"

Nobody answered.

Celia stared at her for a second with her eyes slightly narrowed. Then she tilted her head to one side.

"…Rosalind. Now that you mention it. Did the queen really take a human?"

Rosalind turned her whole body toward her.

"…"

"I mean," Celia clarified, "to turn him into her daughter. Directly. Not the other method."

"…Obviously yes," Rosalind answered. "If she'd used the method of extracting the seed, Iris would be smaller, and she'd look really funny sitting on the throne."

"Right."

Celia thought about it and ran the tip of her finger across her chin.

"Right, but then. How do they manage to exist in different bodies?"

Rosalind looked at her.

"…"

"I mean," Celia continued, "the method for turning a man into one of us is one-way. It always has been. And the personality is lost. So, how?"

Rosalind shrugged slightly.

"Nobody knows. But those are the facts," she added, her voice firmer. "Three years ago, when Matt came back, and had that tantrum with the queen, plenty of us saw a boy and the queen called him son in front of everyone who was there. The guards at the cave saw him use the power of the queen's blood. Which means he's a vampire. No doubt."

Lisette lowered her fingers from her hair.

"…But that can't be," she said with curiosity. "A man can't handle the blood of the houses. It has to boil inside him."

"I know."

Rosalind crossed her arms.

"But those are the facts," she finished. "And so far, from what's come out of the royal wing, they're saying he's a girl again. But that he hasn't woken up."

"Shut up!" Kaela shouted.

The five of them turned their heads at the same time.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! We're looking for a dragon, we're not a group of castle servants gossiping in a hallway! Focus! Tracks! Footprints! Weird stones! Anything! Get moving!"

Eris yawned.

"There aren't any dragons, Kaela."

"Look anyway!"

"There aren't any."

"BUT LOOK!"

"Kaela," Celia stepped in, patiently. "I said it too. There aren't any. They left. Looking here isn't going to help."

Kaela clenched her fists so hard her nails dug in. She lifted her face slightly, breathed, and let the air out through her nose.

"…Seriously, none of you care?" she murmured.

"Care about what?" Celia asked.

"Serving someone that weak."

"…Kaela," Celia said.

"Listen. Three years. Three years it took him to come out of that cave with the queen's blood inside him. And now, when he finally does come out, when the queen locks herself in with him, what happens? He doesn't wake up. Whether he's the queen's successor or not, that's weak! I'm not going to serve someone like that!"

Kaela raised her voice at the end, and the echo bounced faintly off the mountainside.

"…Kaela, it's not that big a deal," Lisette said sweetly.

"What?"

"I mean. It's a punishment for the other day, right? We just have to serve him for a while. It's not forever."

"How long is a while to you, Lisette?"

"…I don't know," she hesitated, looking at the top of the tree as if counting in her head. "Fifty years? Or maybe… two hundred, if the queen gets madder and extends the sentence. But no more than that. For sure."

Kaela's eyes opened slightly wider.

"…I don't want to spend even one year near that Matt guy."

"Aw, Kaela."

"Not one."

"It's such a little bit."

"It's NOT a little bit!"

"Well..."

Kaela clenched her teeth again and turned her head to Celia, looking for an ally. Celia had a neutral face.

"Kaela," Celia said in a flat voice. "In case you didn't know, Matt has two ego-weapons."

Kaela went still for a second. Then she let out a short laugh through her nose.

"Ah. Ah, two. How nice. How amazing. How wonderful. Two ego-weapons. And let's see. With those two ego-weapons. Or three. Or four hundred ego-weapons he supposedly has. Let him beat me in a duel. Only then might I respect him."

Eris, sprawled again on the log, let out a tiny laugh that Kaela heard.

Kaela turned her head toward her.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Eris."

"Nothing."

"Eris, what's so funny?"

Eris took two seconds. Then she propped herself on an elbow, turned slightly toward Kaela, and with total calm, with that face of hers that meant she was about to say the most reasonable thing in the world, she said:

"…Kaela, maybe all this frustration is because you don't have a partner."

Silence.

Virelle turned her head slightly. Rosalind turned her head slightly. Lisette opened her mouth slightly. Celia stared at Eris with her eyebrows raised, as if waiting to find out whether that had been serious.

And Kaela.

Kaela turned red. The heat rose from her neck up to the tips of her ears, and she couldn't hide it.

"…What?" Kaela stammered. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with it."

"It has nothing to do with it!"

"It does, Kaela."

Eris sat all the way up. She rested her hands on her knees. And she spoke in a more serious tone, like she was explaining something important.

"Look. I have subordinates. Plenty of them. And they're tough subordinates. With hard missions, and even so they're happy. Most of the time, they're happy."

"…"

"And you know why?"

"…"

"Because they have a partner. Or a breeder. Someone who covers their physical needs."

Kaela's eyes opened slightly wider.

"…"

Her jaw trembled.

"Aren't you ashamed to say that out loud?!" she shrieked.

"I'm just noting a fact," Eris said, calm.

"That's a total lie!"

"No."

"YES!"

"No, Kaela. It's what I see."

Lisette laughed a little, quietly, covering her mouth with her hand.

"…Honestly, Eris isn't that off," Lisette said. "The girls I see happy, really happy, are the ones who do that. It's a pattern. A very clear pattern."

Kaela turned her head toward her so fast her neck cracked.

"…What?"

Kaela opened and closed her mouth twice without saying anything. Then she looked at Virelle, Rosalind and Celia.

None of them said anything.

Virelle looked away back to the corpse she'd been inspecting and suddenly got very interested in the yellow eyes again.

Rosalind turned her head to the horizon with more attention than before.

Celia ran her finger over the scroll she'd already put away, even though the scroll was inside her belt and there was nothing for her finger to run over.

Kaela felt her stomach drop.

'…No.'

"Does anyone here have a partner or a breeder?" Kaela asked, in a voice she wanted to be defiant and came out slightly cracked.

Silence.

"Anyone?"

Silence.

"I'm asking!"

Eris raised a hand slightly.

"Sorry. Clarification. I only noted a fact. Not a personal experience. I still don't have experience in that. But I'm not as bitter as you."

Lisette nodded slowly off to the side, with the same face.

"Me neither. No experience. But I'm not bitter either."

Celia coughed slightly into her fist.

"…Kaela. It's better if we keep looking for the dragon in the hours we have left."

Kaela turned her head toward her.

"…Celia. Do YOU have a partner or a breeder?"

Celia flushed slightly.

"…No. But I share the general idea."

Kaela turned to Virelle.

"Virelle?"

Virelle, without looking up from the corpse.

"…No."

Kaela turned to Rosalind.

"Rosalind?"

Rosalind, without turning her head from the horizon.

"…No."

Kaela stood in the middle of the clearing with her fists clenched and her face red.

"HYPOCRITES!"

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