I waited until I could gather my words, wanting to say the right thing without sounding too rehearsed. It was important, maybe as important as anything I’d ever had to say before. I needed him, I knew, and I had to make him believe I needed him. How I needed him or why, I couldn’t exactly say. But I did. My magic didn’t exactly mesh with his, but it didn’t either with Kevin right away. And it still didn’t, not completely. But it wasn’t the same. Gary had magic. Tiggy did as well to an extent, given he had giant’s blood within him. It would never mix like mine did with Morgan’s. We weren’t the same. I was human. They were not. Magic was different to different species.
But I could feel him, like I could feel them, though nowhere near as strong. And I didn’t think I could convince him to leave this place behind to give us time to bond like I’d done with the others. I thought it would be too much too soon. I didn’t know how much time we had, so when I spoke, I wanted it to be the right thing to say.
“You said you knew Morgan of Shadows,” I said finally. “Or knew of him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know Randall?”
I didn’t miss the way he twitched. “Yeah—yes. Um. He’s scary.”
That gave me pause. “Have you ever met him?”
He shook his head. “No, but the year after the star dragon came to me, I woke and heard whispers of a wizard unlike any that had ever existed before.”
And that— “How old were you when the star dragon came?”
“Oh. Uh, I was… seven. Seven years old. Just a kid. I’m old enough now, if that’s what you’re thinking!”
I closed my eyes. “Seven hundred years ago, the star dragon came to you. About me.”
“Yes? Why?”
Why. Why, indeed. Why had the star dragon prophesized me to Zero seven hundred years ago, well before I had been born, before Morgan, before Myrin, even before Randall had been born? And if that was the case, why couldn’t Myrin have been stopped the first time around? What was it about this time that was different? Why now?
Why me?
“Did I break you?” Zero asked, stretching out toward me. He moved slowly, as if unsure, his hood tucked to the side of his head. He didn’t look as fearsome now. Still snakelike, but he reminded me of Kevin in a way, and it’d been a long time since I’d been afraid of Kevin.
“No,” I said, but it came out as a croak. “No. Just… surprising, is all. It’s not what I expected to hear.”
He didn’t pull away, just rested his head on the ground, closer than he’d been before, eyes on me. If I stood, we’d probably be eye level, given how big he was. “It’s the truth,” he said. “Time is different for me.”
“I can imagine. It must be difficult, jumping through the years like that.”
It almost looked like he shrugged, but since he didn’t have shoulders, I couldn’t be sure. “I guess. It’s hard to make friends that way, given that they’d probably all be dead by the time I woke up again.” His eyes widened. “Not that I want friends or anything! I don’t need friends. I don’t even want friends. Friends are way lame.”
“Sure,” I said easily. “I totally get that. Friends are difficult, sometimes.”
“Right?” he said. “And even if they aren’t, they don’t live. One time, I made friends with a squirrel right before I went to sleep and thought I could keep it with me. When I woke up the next time, it was nothing but bones.”
“That’s… a really sad story,” I said. “Dude, what the hell.”
“Now you see why everything is about pain,” Zero moaned. “No one understands me, not even squirrels who die on top of me and leave their stupid bones for me to find when I wake up. I mean, who does that?”
“That damn squirrel.”
“Right? That damn squirrel. Whatever. I didn’t need him. I didn’t need anyone. I still don’t. I have my trees and flowers. That’s all I need.”
“I think everyone needs someone,” I said quietly. “It helps. In the long run.”
He didn’t say anything, just looked off into the dark forest around us.
“I need them,” I admitted. “The others. Maybe not Ruv, but then I don’t know him. He’s… not a part of us. And I don’t know that he will be.” I didn’t think that was any slight against him. It just didn’t seem like he fit. I thought maybe he needed to find his own path, if he ever decided to break away from Vadoma. But that didn’t seem likely.
Zero mumbled something that I couldn’t quite make out.
“What was that?”
He sighed the weary sigh of the put-upon. “I said, Kevin seems all right. And the unicorn. And maybe the giant.”
“Have you… ever met another dragon before? You didn’t seem surprised to see him.”
“Aside from the star dragon? No. I don’t think so.”
I frowned. “What about your parents?”
He chuckled bitterly. “How can you not know anything about dragons when you travel with one? Ask your Kevin. He should tell you.”
He had a point, though I wasn’t going to let him know that. “What do you think about the knight?”
Zero huffed. “He’s full of himself.”
“Yeah,” I said fondly. “But he’s pretty awesome.”
“You love him, huh?”
“I do.”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, and I was sure he wasn’t going to say what he wanted. But then he blurted, “What’s it like? Being in love?” Then he groaned and turned his head to the side, curling his face against his serpentine body, hiding himself away.
I blinked at him. “Um.”
“Forget it! I don’t know why I asked that.” His voice was muffled. “I don’t care about stuff like that—”
“It’s pretty great, if I’m being honest.”
“It is?” he asked, unfurling himself, eyes wide. He moved closer until I could feel his breath on my arms. “Like, okay. Just… what’s great about it? You should tell me. Not that I care about that at all. Or anything.”
I tried to keep the smile from my face. I didn’t know how well I succeeded. It would be just my luck that my fourteen-year-old emo snake dragon was also a closet romantic. It seemed par for the course. Yeah, he fit. Somehow, he fit. “Well. I guess it’s… it’s the moment, you know, when you wake up first in the morning. You open your eyes and your thoughts are muddled. You’re still partly asleep and you’re warm and don’t want to move, but you know you have to get up anyway. So you stretch and it feels good, but your arm hits something next to you and you look over and… there he is. Still asleep. And it’s the first clear thought you have, and you think, Hello. Hello there. Hi. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re next to me. And then for some reason, he must feel you watching him, because he wakes up too, you know? And he’s blinking and looks all soft and beautiful and then he sees you and he smiles. Like all it takes for him to be the happiest he’s ever been is to see you there. Next to him. That’s… that’s what’s so great about it. That’s what it feels like.”
Zero was quiet for a long time. I let us sit there, next to his trees, lost in our thoughts. Me thinking that that’s something Vadoma could never understand. The love I had for Ryan. She could never know what it meant to me. What he meant to me. I felt sorry for Ruv, sure. But I would never give up something I’d worked so hard for. Vadoma wouldn’t win. Not in that respect.
Then Zero sighed and sounded just like any other fourteen-year-old I’d ever known. It was really rather startling. “That’s so cute,” he squealed. “Oh my gods, I want that. That’s what I want. Like, forever.”