Four on the Floor: Part Twenty
Part Twenty
The world goes dark. Inky. I don’t feel the water. Fuck, fuck, what’s happening…
I hear Shan behind me, roaring, sinking. I… run? I’m on water, how am I running toward him? And I’m moving fast. It’s cold, so cold, so cold.
The world is wispy, gray, so many shades of gray, lifeless, keening in my ears that I am not wanted, that-
My hand touches Shan, still a dragon and sinking into murky water, the rocky bottom fast approaching.
I can’t lift a dragon!
No, he’s a dragon. I’m a sorcerer. They have to do what I tell them.
The words escape in bubbles in the water, screamed to keep the water out of my mouth, out of my lungs, “Human!”
A flash of light, and the shadows dissipate, and a tall, well-dressed black man, sinks down, unconscious, but I know what to do. I put my arm around his neck, and start kicking upward. Upward. My legs are momentarily refreshed by the panic of adrenaline, the will to live. I will not die. I will not let Shan die.
Kick. Kick. Kick.
Can’t stop kicking. Upward, toward the light, toward air. Can’t stop. Won’t stop.
Fuck, I don’t want to die.
Up, up, up.
Legs are tired. I barely feel them moving. Am I still kicking? I have to be. I can’t stop. Can’t drown.
Can’t die.
Not like this.
Not like-
I hear a splash, my arm splashing the water. Were my eyes closed? How would I find the surface if I weren’t-
I open my eyes, and fill my lungs, coughing, spitting, pulling Shan and I toward the shore. He’s unconscious, but I hear his breathing. It’s weak, but he’s getting air.
We reach the shore, and I use up the rest of my strength to pull him onto his back. I join him, looking to the sky and never enjoying the simple act of breathing as much as I am now. The silver seems to be gone, maybe assuming we died. That would be nice, but I doubt the other necromancer would believe it. He’d probably want to see a body.
Multiple coughs snap me out of it, and I roll Shan onto his side so he doesn’t choke. He spits a few times, several rocks hissing as they’re splashed with acid. “Thank you.”
“I’m the one who climbed on your back.”
“I’m the one who dropped you.”
I rest my head on the shore. “Fine. Split the difference. We’re both terrible at this.”
“I’m surprised you saved me.”
“Are you kidding?” I turn on my side to properly admonish him. “I get that sorcerers are hated, and yeah, you tried to kill me earlier today, and I fell several thousand feet and I’m going to need a fuckton of therapy, plus money to pay for it, to work through everything that’s happened in the last two days, and that’s without bringing up magic and dragons and fairies and all of this shit.
But do you honestly believe I’d let you drown? Do you think you’re that disposable, that I would just cast you aside because some sorcerer was an asshole? You have no idea, no idea how much I want to tell you to fuck off right now. Seriously. Just…” I fold my arms and look away.
“I weigh over two tons as a dragon.” He turns my head toward him. “Two tons. I am surprised that you were able to save me, not that you were capable of the mercy or pragmatic enough to know you’ll fare better with me at your side instead of lifeless on a lake bottom. Now, shall we leave this place, or would her majesty prefer an additional moment’s indulgence of her righteous indignation?”
He lets go, and gets up. I know the clothes are probably magic or an illusion, but I’m a little angry that he looks cover model ready while I resemble a drowned sea hag. “You still owe me a shoe.”
“That I do.”
A flash of light, and again he’s an ebon dragon, and he raises a foreleg and extends a dagger claw, wedges it under one of his larger scales, and growls as he pries it off. His teeth are gritted as he resumes human form, one of the buttons missing on his suitcoat, and picks up his scale. “Take off your other shoe.”
“Why?”
He exhales, forces a genial smile. “I destroyed your other shoe and dropped you from the sky while I was distracted by a blood duel. This is the least I can do to make amends to a sorcerer. Take off your other shoe. Please.”
I’d rely on manners but I have no idea what the etiquette is when someone literally peels off some of their skin to make you a new pair of shoes, which is odd because I did go through a body horror phase in my teen years. The procedure he’d use will likely be stomach turning, but out of morbid curiosity I untie my remaining Doc Marten.
He picks it up, appraises it, and works his fingers into the large scale, forming it into two shapes. The black dragon takes my foot in his hands like a death metal redux of Cinderella, then the other, and when he’s done, I’m wearing Doc Martens in a much truer shade of black, with a deep scale pattern.
Black dragonscale Doc Martens.
I am wearing the most Goth footwear imaginable, at least to me.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://vaughndemont.com/2018/06/22/four-on-the-floor-part-twenty/
Reading this from the start is still on my to-do list. Not having a strong reading habit has delayed me considerably. :(
Please check out my post about the SBD price drop.