HOME | DD

Description
3
It Had To Come Out Sometime

I glared at her. She looked just the same as always, which made me wonder if I’d dreamed it all. But when did reality end and the dream begin? It was impossible, but so was the alternative.
“How much do you remember? Topazgem knocked you pretty good.”
Enough. Magic. Dragons.
“Ah. Well, you remember that time I told you I wasn’t supposed to be here?” I nodded. “Well, that’s not entirely true.”
I’m so glad UR here 2 tell me these things.
“Shut up, Will,” Ruby was angry. “You have no idea who I am.”
Probably BCuz U never told me.
“I couldn’t! I’m supposed to be acting like a normal human being! What I did in that alley was irresponsible and stupid. I shouldn’t even be telling you this,” her anger visibly faded. She told me everything she wasn’t supposed to.
It was a fantastic tale. It was a tale of a secret chain of islands, of dragons, of prophecies, of darkness. It was impossible to believe, but I had just seen her turn into a white dragon the size of a golden retriever. I had seen a golden dragon and a blue one fly in to save us. The story fit everything that had puzzled me about her. But it couldn’t be true.
No.
“No what? I don’t understand.”
I had a hallucination. This is stupid. UR playing a joke on me. It’s not funny.
“Will, you saw me use magic!”
I dreamed that.
“Then how do I know about it?” I didn’t have an answer for that. “You humans can’t even believe what’s right under your noses! I’ll prove that you aren’t dreaming.” She subsided into silence for a moment, frowning. I waited.
“I’ve got it.” She took out some chalk and drew another star on the floor and made me stand in the center. “Get down on all fours,” she commanded. I obeyed, mystified. How did this prove the existence of dragons? “Now, four legs, four claws, wings and scales, dragon magic never fails!” she chanted, pointing to me.
All at once, my limbs went numb. I collapsed to the floor, limp as a rag doll. Something tickled my neck and there was a flash of light. I opened eyes I hadn’t know I’d shut. I stood. My perception of reality came crashing down around my ears.
My neck was long and supple. I stood on four legs. A tail whipped around behind me. Black horns rose from my skull. Wings were folded along my scaly back.
I was a dragon.
Then came the second shock of my life: I screamed.
The sound startled me, and I shut up. I had made a sound. I tried again.
“Hel-lo?” I spoke. I spoke. I let out a jubilant whoop and did a dance of joy. I could talk! If nothing else, this proved magic was real.
“Now do you believe me?” a voice like the whisper of a thousand flutes asked. I turned to see Ruby.
Like me, she had tiny spines down her back, but hers were white to my black. I was brown and she was snow-white. My tan chest was plated, but her chest-plates were spiked. She had no horns, but fin-like crests extended on either side of her head. Her face was longer and her tail had a fluted end. Her crimson eyes met my green ones.
“Yes,” I whispered. I began to tremble. Why had I ever doubted her? She had restored my voice and I could never even begin to repay her for it. Strangely, her eyes were sad.
“I’m sorry, Will, I know you think that you can talk again, right? But, I’m so sorry: your voice won’t work when you’re human again. Only as a dragon,” she looked so sad.
“It’s o-kay, Ru-by,” I spoke haltingly. This was harder than I’d thought. Well, I’d only been talking for less than a minute. “I don’t min-d.” I laughed, and it was wonderful. I can’t possibly describe the feeling of being silent for fourteen years, then suddenly being able to laugh. “But wh-at do you me-an a-gain?”
“Couldn’t you talk when you were little? I thought you’d had an accident or something.”
“No-pe. I’ve ne-ver talk-ed in my li-fe,” it was coming easier the more I spoke. “May-be I’ll stay a dra-gon forev-er.” This time, Ruby laughed with me. That was when I noticed her necklace. Even as a dragon, her egg-ruby hung on a green cord around her snaky neck. I looked down and saw that I, too, wore a necklace.
My hip-chain had turned into a necklace-chain. That must have been the tickle I’d felt. From it hung a black thing. Ruby reached over and held it in the palm of her claw. I felt a strange sensation; I felt her claw holding it, as if the thing were a part of my body.
It was long and came to a point, wider where the facets began to slope together. It looked kind of like this:

It was black, but translucent. It was a black crystal.
“Hmm. You’re Blackgem, I suppose,” she said. “I’m sorry; we aren’t supposed to touch each other’s stones. It’s bad manners.” She let it go.
“Huh?”
“We have a system in the Archipelago,” she explained. “Every dragon is born with a necklace, which we call our soul-stones. They’re the physical manifestation of our souls. They give us our names. While we’re little, we’re just called by the gem’s name. I was Ruby. When we reach a certain age, we become ‘gems’, like Rubygem, Topazgem, and Aquagem. After that, we become ‘jewels’ like my friend Opaljewel, or Firejewel. Finally, we earn our own names, which we get to choose ourselves, like Elder Pearleyes or Elder Startoes.”
“Oookay. What gemstones are fire, aqua, and star?” I asked.
“They’re short for fire topaz, aquamarine, and star sapphire. There is such thing as too many names, you know. We also have last names for our personalities. Mine’s Frost.”
“This is…incredible,” I observed. Incredible didn’t even cover it.
“It’s such a relief to tell you,” Ruby, Rubygem, enthused. “I’ve been so lonely and it’s so hard to keep a secret like that from absolutely everybody…! Hey, I know, I’ll take you to the Emerald Isle!”
“Really?” My eyes lit up. “Promise?”
“Promise,” she replied. Just then, I heard a noise from the lower floor of the house. I doubted I’d have heard it if I was human.
“How do I change back?” Rubygem put her claws sideways along my snout and said, “Release.” I went numb again, and there was another flash of light, and I was back on two legs. Rubygem enacted some sort of spell and there was yet another flash of light, this time intermixed with flowers of frost. I tried to talk, only to realize that I was mute again. After the glory of speech just a few minutes previously, I almost cried.
Can I still call u Ruby? I wrote in the dust.
“Of course,” she seemed surprised. “That’s my name.” She stopped, and I thought she looked even more surprised by this statement. I smiled crookedly.
“There you are, squirt!” Raven barged in. “Nick sent me looking for you. It’s sunset, you know.” Without any further ado, I was hauled roughly from the room.
She pulled me along the streets to my house. I was shoved into the house and the door slammed shut, cutting off the light. My brother almost never turned on the lights in the house. Nick sauntered up, looking mad.
“Where were you, squirt?” he demanded.
Ruby’s place, I replied silently. Raven kicked me.
“Who do you think you are, going missing like that? I had to go looking for you!” she kicked me again. I didn’t even ask how I was supposed to know that she was looking for me. It wouldn’t have made a difference. She and Nick would’ve found another excuse to hit me, anyway.
“Runty scar-face,” my brother taunted. “Retarded little mute.” He punched me. I surrendered to the beating, as I had done so often.
Much later, I lay on my stomach in my room. I hurt all over, and my forehead bled where Raven’s ring had torn the skin. My cheek was swollen; I would have a black eye tomorrow. None of these were new sensations. Nick had hit me almost every day since Mom and Dad had disappeared. After Raven had come he hit me even more often, and there were two of them to do it. This was the first time since Ruby had come, though.
As I lay, sore and hungry, (I’d thrown up my lunch when Nick had kicked me in the stomach and I hadn’t had any dinner.) I had a strange desire. I wished I was a dragon again.
Nick would never hit me then. His fists would bounce right off my scaly hide and I could fight back. I could tear him with my claws and bite him with my fangs. I could hurt him like he’d hurt me. I could pay him back for every single punch he’d ever thrown, every bruise and black eye he’d given me. Then we’d see who lay in their room wishing they’d never been born.
My own violence startled me. Even when Nick had stomped on my hand so hard he’d broken my finger and I’d had to go to the hospital I hadn’t felt so angry. Even when he’d lied and said I’d crushed it in a door I hadn’t wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. I had accepted the beatings as a fact of life. Water ran downhill, the sun rose in the east, and Nick punched me until I gasped for air and wished I could beg for mercy. It just happened that way.
I fell asleep eventually, worn out by the strange day.
The next day, I awoke to a gentle shake. I opened sleepy eyes, expecting to see Nick or Raven, though neither of them had ever shaken me awake. They kicked me awake. I flinched back and raised my hands protectively in front of my face. When nothing struck me, I peeked between my fingers to see the last person I wanted to see. The last person I wanted to see me like this:
Ruby.

When I woke up, my head was filled with plans. Now that Will knew, I could take him flying with me. We could go to the Archipelago. I could teach him to swim like a crocodile and he could meet my friends on their own islands. I had forgotten all about being the Promised One, forgotten that I was supposed to act like a human.
Unable to wait and meet him at the corner like I usually did, I ran to his house on foot. The lights were out; he and Nick must still have been asleep. I climbed the cedar in their front yard, thinking I’d look in the windows and see if I saw him.
On the second floor I found him, sleeping on the floor. The room was tiny, and completely bare of any furniture; he didn’t even have a pillow or blanket! I leaned over and tried the window. It wasn’t locked, and I slid it open. I sprang in and knelt beside Will.
I shook him awake, and his eyes snapped open. They were alight with fear. He jerked back and threw up his hands. I was taken aback by this defensive reaction. He peered through his fingers fearfully. That was when I noticed the shape he was in.
In my enthusiasm, I hadn’t noticed that his arms were covered in bruises. I hadn’t seen the cut and dried blood on his face, the black eye and swollen cheek. I’d been blind to the streaks of salt on his cheeks, exactly in the clean lines of tear-tracks.
“Who…?” I managed to choke out. My shock melted, leaving fiery rage in its wake. He shook his head wildly, jade eyes terrified. “I won’t let them do it again, Will. What son of a bitch did this to you?” I swore. He mouthed a word, eyes brimming over:
Nick.
The burning fire in my chest began to slow-roast my heart. His own brother did this to him? I stood abruptly. Will tried to hold me back, but I shook him off. I was going to make that bastard sorry. I set off down the hall, towards what I assumed was Nick’s room.
“And what are you doing here?” I spun around. Raven lounged behind me against the wall. Will stood frozen in the doorway to his room. He looked like a cornered mouse, trembling horribly. I understood.
“You hit him,” I stated flatly.
“Yes, I do,” she agreed, nodding and smiling. The present tense was not lost on me. She had done this before and planned to do it again. I advanced furiously, my mind blazing in fury, completely without a plan.
“What are you doing in Nick’s house?” Raven repeated, unfazed.
“I was coming to see Will,” I said through gritted teeth. Then, he was there, tugging on my arm. I let Will pull me away this time. I couldn’t bear the smug look on the human girl’s face any longer. We left his house and wandered down the road. We went into my house and mounted the stairs. We entered my bedroom and Will stepped into the pentacle that was still drawn on the floor. I recited the spell and released my own spell, and we were free to talk.
“Please don’t do anything to Nick,” Will pleaded as soon as he was able.
“I won’t let him hurt you again,” I snarled. Even as a dragon the bruises stood out against his brown scales. I now saw that they covered most of his body. His eyes were still wild. “Is that how you got that scar on your cheek? Him hitting you?”
“No, I’ve had that for as long as I can remember, and he didn’t hit me when I was really little. How do you plan on stopping him, anyway?” Will asked.
“I don’t know.”
“If you attack him as a dragon, you’ll blow your cover. Look, Ruby, he’s been doing this to me long before you came and he’ll do it long after you’re gone. I’m used to it,” Will told me. He was used to it?!
“You don’t get used to being beat up,” I cried. “And exactly what makes you think that I’m going somewhere?”
“Because you have to save your island, don’t you? And then you’ll go back. You’re a dragon and I’m a human. Besides, everyone in my life leaves.”
“What the hell does that mean?” The fear finally left his eyes, to be replaced by awful sadness.
“I told you: Nick didn’t always hit me. I wasn’t always an orphan, either. Back then, Nick wasn’t a thug. Then, he and Dad had a fight. Nick had seen or done something and Dad didn’t believe him. Huh, I can’t even remember the fight that changed my life. Anyway, Nick was bitter after that. He went away for two days, and nobody knew where he’d gone. Then, one day, I walked into the living room, and there he was, watching TV. Raven was sitting next to him; that was the first time I ever saw her. Mom and Dad weren’t around. I asked him where they were. He smiled and said, ‘don’t worry about it, Squirt. They won’t bother us anymore.’ And ever since, he’s never been the same. I don’t know what happened to Mom or Dad. I was eight years old. I can’t even remember what they called me: what my real name is. Nick just calls me squirt, so I called myself Will,” Will’s voice shook. I was speechless. It was… horrible. A little boy forced to make up a name for himself because his own brother won’t call him by it? I couldn’t bear to wonder what Nick had done to his own parents.
“Will… I’m sorry.” Sorry. What a pathetically inadequate word. ‘Sorry’ didn’t even begin to describe it. To my shock, he looked up and smiled!
“It’s okay,” he said. His eyes were still bright with unshed tears, but his smile was genuine. “It happened six years ago, I’ve come to terms with it. Like I said: everything good leaves sometime. Can I go to your island? You promised.”
“Yeah… sure. Of course,” I nodded. “But first, you’ve got to learn how to fly. Do you know somewhere we won’t be seen?” This time, it was his turn to nod.
An hour later, I looked around in wonder. We were in a jungle of steel beams stretching to the sky. Will had ‘told’ me on the train here that it used to be the construction site of a huge mall, but it had been abandoned. People said it was haunted and nobody came here anymore. It was the perfect place for flight lessons.
The rest of our day was spent jumping from beam to beam. It wasn’t long before Will was as good as I was. We raced and showed off and had aerial battles.
“This isn’t hard at all!” Will called, flipping around onto his back.
“Every human has a dragon inside them,” I replied, turning a neat midair back-flip. “You don’t turn into just any dragon, you turn into your dragon.”
“Ooh, deep,” Will scoffed, rocketing at the ground. He pulled up seconds before splatting on the dirt. We goofed off until the light began to fade.
Reluctantly, we returned to the ground and became humans again. We went to a fast-food place to eat.
“So,” I slurped a soda, “tomorrow we go to the Emerald Isle Where Dolphins Leap, huh? And maybe the other Isles, too.” He nodded and leaned across the table.
It’ll be gr8. He wrote on a napkin.
“I could teach you to swim with the crocodiles,” I dreamily read out my mental list, also leaning in. “You could meet the dragons, we could tease the sharks, and maybe we’d even see the unicorns.”
Unicorns R real 2????
“Of course. Dragons are real, aren’t they? Why not unicorns or pegasi? They each have their own islands, too. We could go see them and chase the fairies…” Our faces were only inches apart, our heads filled with visions of magical creatures. His breath blew in my face. I shut my eyes.
Something smacked the back of my head.
“Get a room!” someone yelled. I sat back. Judging by the burning in my cheeks, I guessed that my face must be as red as my soul-stone. Pressing my hands to my burning face, I stood and fled.

I half-rose to stop her as she ran, but I saw the look in her eyes and stopped. The idiots who had interrupted us were falling over themselves laughing. I stood and walked to the door, giving them the only hand-sign they really understood: a one-finger salute.
I stormed out into the twilight, my head rioting. If they hadn’t thrown that ball of trash at Ruby, we would have kissed, I was sure of it. She’d said that her boyfriend, Opaljewel, was MIA, but she was supposed to save him. She was going to stop this threat to her Archipelago and go back to her island and live happily ever after with her girly-boy. That was how things were.
But.
Why, then, had she almost kissed me? Had she felt sorry for the poor dumb boy? One thing was for sure: the next time we met would be awkward.
If we meet again, I thought, angrily kicking an empty can along the sidewalk. If she doesn’t run back to her dragon friends. I stomped home, not even caring when Raven cornered me, cracking her knuckles in anticipation.

Why did things have to move so quickly? I put my head down and ran faster. I took side roads and back alleys until I didn’t know where in hell I was. I looked up and saw a neon sign:
NED’S BAR
I had heard of bars. They sold drinks that made your head fuzzy, or that’s what Pearleyes had told me. I pushed my way through the door into the smoky place. I definitely needed to shut my head up.
The man at the counter seemed surprised when I asked for a drink, but he gave one to me without comment. The liquid burned my throat on the way down, but it was deliciously bitter. I took another sip.
I made a mental list of the day, just to order it in my head.
1) Nick and Raven hit Will. A lot.
2) Will’s parents had disappeared under mysterious circumstances just as had Raven arrived.
3) Will had almost kissed me.
4) I had almost kissed Will.

Alright, four things. That wasn’t so bad. I made a matching list of things to do.
1) Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure. Will had been right about that, but I had to do something…
2) Again, I wasn’t sure. It was sad, but what was past was past. I couldn’t see a thing I could do to bring them back. Though I wondered if there was a connection between their disappearance and Raven’s appearance.
3) Forget about it.
4) Ditto.

This wasn’t encouraging. I called for another drink and thought some more about numbers 3 and 4. I could forget about it, but I didn’t want to. I should have, but I didn’t.
It was so confusing. I loved Opaljewel, I knew that. Always had always would. And he loved me, too. But, Will… he was my first human friend. He was the only person I felt safe telling all my secrets to. But was that because I trusted him, or because I knew he couldn’t tell anyone even if he wanted to? No! I trusted him, I did!
“Hey there, babe,” some sweaty guy covered in tattoos slid onto the stool next to me. “Haven’t seen you before.”
“Burn in hell,” I mumbled, taking a gulp of the fiery drink.
“Don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he grabbed my arm in a meaty paw. “Come on, let’s have some fun.” I seized his wrist with my free hand.
After that, it was a simple matter of kicking the bar stool out from under him and swinging as hard as I could. He yelped and flipped over backwards, landing on his back on the other side of me and cracking his head painfully on the floor. I hadn’t even left my stool.
“Another, please,” I asked, ignoring the stares of everyone in the suddenly-quiet bar.
“Where’d you learn that?” a boy my age righted the retreating man’s stool and perched on it. I looked over, ready to do the same to him, and had the shock of my life. Nick grinned at me, his spiky hair shining like a star in the bar’s dim lights. “What? You act like you’ve never seen me before.” I composed myself and took a swig of the drink.
“You’re going to get stone drunk if you keep doing that,” Nick noted.
“And what about you?” I returned. “I guess hitting helpless kids is thirsty work, huh?” He sighed and gazed into his own drink.
“I can’t explain that,” he sighed again. “I don’t understand it myself. Alcohol makes me myself again.” The boy took a swallow from his caramel-colored drink.
“Right. That only made no sense at all.”
“Ruby,” he turned the full force of his moonstone eyes on me. They were almost hypnotizing. Now blue, now gray, now silvery-white… “do you believe in magic?” I choked and spluttered.
“Don’t be silly,” I gasped when I had myself under control again. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yeah…” he dropped his gaze to the depths of his glass.
“Why do you hang out with Raven?” I asked, just for a change of subject. To my surprise, Nick laughed.
“You don’t say no to her,” he chuckled darkly. He didn’t elaborate. “Come on, Will’ll kill me if I leave you out here alone.”

Description
3
It Had To Come Out Sometime

I glared at her. She looked just the same as always, which made me wonder if I’d dreamed it all. But when did reality end and the dream begin? It was impossible, but so was the alternative.
“How much do you remember? Topazgem knocked you pretty good.”
Enough. Magic. Dragons.
“Ah. Well, you remember that time I told you I wasn’t supposed to be here?” I nodded. “Well, that’s not entirely true.”
I’m so glad UR here 2 tell me these things.
“Shut up, Will,” Ruby was angry. “You have no idea who I am.”
Probably BCuz U never told me.
“I couldn’t! I’m supposed to be acting like a normal human being! What I did in that alley was irresponsible and stupid. I shouldn’t even be telling you this,” her anger visibly faded. She told me everything she wasn’t supposed to.
It was a fantastic tale. It was a tale of a secret chain of islands, of dragons, of prophecies, of darkness. It was impossible to believe, but I had just seen her turn into a white dragon the size of a golden retriever. I had seen a golden dragon and a blue one fly in to save us. The story fit everything that had puzzled me about her. But it couldn’t be true.
No.
“No what? I don’t understand.”
I had a hallucination. This is stupid. UR playing a joke on me. It’s not funny.
“Will, you saw me use magic!”
I dreamed that.
“Then how do I know about it?” I didn’t have an answer for that. “You humans can’t even believe what’s right under your noses! I’ll prove that you aren’t dreaming.” She subsided into silence for a moment, frowning. I waited.
“I’ve got it.” She took out some chalk and drew another star on the floor and made me stand in the center. “Get down on all fours,” she commanded. I obeyed, mystified. How did this prove the existence of dragons? “Now, four legs, four claws, wings and scales, dragon magic never fails!” she chanted, pointing to me.
All at once, my limbs went numb. I collapsed to the floor, limp as a rag doll. Something tickled my neck and there was a flash of light. I opened eyes I hadn’t know I’d shut. I stood. My perception of reality came crashing down around my ears.
My neck was long and supple. I stood on four legs. A tail whipped around behind me. Black horns rose from my skull. Wings were folded along my scaly back.
I was a dragon.
Then came the second shock of my life: I screamed.
The sound startled me, and I shut up. I had made a sound. I tried again.
“Hel-lo?” I spoke. I spoke. I let out a jubilant whoop and did a dance of joy. I could talk! If nothing else, this proved magic was real.
“Now do you believe me?” a voice like the whisper of a thousand flutes asked. I turned to see Ruby.
Like me, she had tiny spines down her back, but hers were white to my black. I was brown and she was snow-white. My tan chest was plated, but her chest-plates were spiked. She had no horns, but fin-like crests extended on either side of her head. Her face was longer and her tail had a fluted end. Her crimson eyes met my green ones.
“Yes,” I whispered. I began to tremble. Why had I ever doubted her? She had restored my voice and I could never even begin to repay her for it. Strangely, her eyes were sad.
“I’m sorry, Will, I know you think that you can talk again, right? But, I’m so sorry: your voice won’t work when you’re human again. Only as a dragon,” she looked so sad.
“It’s o-kay, Ru-by,” I spoke haltingly. This was harder than I’d thought. Well, I’d only been talking for less than a minute. “I don’t min-d.” I laughed, and it was wonderful. I can’t possibly describe the feeling of being silent for fourteen years, then suddenly being able to laugh. “But wh-at do you me-an a-gain?”
“Couldn’t you talk when you were little? I thought you’d had an accident or something.”
“No-pe. I’ve ne-ver talk-ed in my li-fe,” it was coming easier the more I spoke. “May-be I’ll stay a dra-gon forev-er.” This time, Ruby laughed with me. That was when I noticed her necklace. Even as a dragon, her egg-ruby hung on a green cord around her snaky neck. I looked down and saw that I, too, wore a necklace.
My hip-chain had turned into a necklace-chain. That must have been the tickle I’d felt. From it hung a black thing. Ruby reached over and held it in the palm of her claw. I felt a strange sensation; I felt her claw holding it, as if the thing were a part of my body.
It was long and came to a point, wider where the facets began to slope together. It looked kind of like this:

It was black, but translucent. It was a black crystal.
“Hmm. You’re Blackgem, I suppose,” she said. “I’m sorry; we aren’t supposed to touch each other’s stones. It’s bad manners.” She let it go.
“Huh?”
“We have a system in the Archipelago,” she explained. “Every dragon is born with a necklace, which we call our soul-stones. They’re the physical manifestation of our souls. They give us our names. While we’re little, we’re just called by the gem’s name. I was Ruby. When we reach a certain age, we become ‘gems’, like Rubygem, Topazgem, and Aquagem. After that, we become ‘jewels’ like my friend Opaljewel, or Firejewel. Finally, we earn our own names, which we get to choose ourselves, like Elder Pearleyes or Elder Startoes.”
“Oookay. What gemstones are fire, aqua, and star?” I asked.
“They’re short for fire topaz, aquamarine, and star sapphire. There is such thing as too many names, you know. We also have last names for our personalities. Mine’s Frost.”
“This is…incredible,” I observed. Incredible didn’t even cover it.
“It’s such a relief to tell you,” Ruby, Rubygem, enthused. “I’ve been so lonely and it’s so hard to keep a secret like that from absolutely everybody…! Hey, I know, I’ll take you to the Emerald Isle!”
“Really?” My eyes lit up. “Promise?”
“Promise,” she replied. Just then, I heard a noise from the lower floor of the house. I doubted I’d have heard it if I was human.
“How do I change back?” Rubygem put her claws sideways along my snout and said, “Release.” I went numb again, and there was another flash of light, and I was back on two legs. Rubygem enacted some sort of spell and there was yet another flash of light, this time intermixed with flowers of frost. I tried to talk, only to realize that I was mute again. After the glory of speech just a few minutes previously, I almost cried.
Can I still call u Ruby? I wrote in the dust.
“Of course,” she seemed surprised. “That’s my name.” She stopped, and I thought she looked even more surprised by this statement. I smiled crookedly.
“There you are, squirt!” Raven barged in. “Nick sent me looking for you. It’s sunset, you know.” Without any further ado, I was hauled roughly from the room.
She pulled me along the streets to my house. I was shoved into the house and the door slammed shut, cutting off the light. My brother almost never turned on the lights in the house. Nick sauntered up, looking mad.
“Where were you, squirt?” he demanded.
Ruby’s place, I replied silently. Raven kicked me.
“Who do you think you are, going missing like that? I had to go looking for you!” she kicked me again. I didn’t even ask how I was supposed to know that she was looking for me. It wouldn’t have made a difference. She and Nick would’ve found another excuse to hit me, anyway.
“Runty scar-face,” my brother taunted. “Retarded little mute.” He punched me. I surrendered to the beating, as I had done so often.
Much later, I lay on my stomach in my room. I hurt all over, and my forehead bled where Raven’s ring had torn the skin. My cheek was swollen; I would have a black eye tomorrow. None of these were new sensations. Nick had hit me almost every day since Mom and Dad had disappeared. After Raven had come he hit me even more often, and there were two of them to do it. This was the first time since Ruby had come, though.
As I lay, sore and hungry, (I’d thrown up my lunch when Nick had kicked me in the stomach and I hadn’t had any dinner.) I had a strange desire. I wished I was a dragon again.
Nick would never hit me then. His fists would bounce right off my scaly hide and I could fight back. I could tear him with my claws and bite him with my fangs. I could hurt him like he’d hurt me. I could pay him back for every single punch he’d ever thrown, every bruise and black eye he’d given me. Then we’d see who lay in their room wishing they’d never been born.
My own violence startled me. Even when Nick had stomped on my hand so hard he’d broken my finger and I’d had to go to the hospital I hadn’t felt so angry. Even when he’d lied and said I’d crushed it in a door I hadn’t wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. I had accepted the beatings as a fact of life. Water ran downhill, the sun rose in the east, and Nick punched me until I gasped for air and wished I could beg for mercy. It just happened that way.
I fell asleep eventually, worn out by the strange day.
The next day, I awoke to a gentle shake. I opened sleepy eyes, expecting to see Nick or Raven, though neither of them had ever shaken me awake. They kicked me awake. I flinched back and raised my hands protectively in front of my face. When nothing struck me, I peeked between my fingers to see the last person I wanted to see. The last person I wanted to see me like this:
Ruby.

When I woke up, my head was filled with plans. Now that Will knew, I could take him flying with me. We could go to the Archipelago. I could teach him to swim like a crocodile and he could meet my friends on their own islands. I had forgotten all about being the Promised One, forgotten that I was supposed to act like a human.
Unable to wait and meet him at the corner like I usually did, I ran to his house on foot. The lights were out; he and Nick must still have been asleep. I climbed the cedar in their front yard, thinking I’d look in the windows and see if I saw him.
On the second floor I found him, sleeping on the floor. The room was tiny, and completely bare of any furniture; he didn’t even have a pillow or blanket! I leaned over and tried the window. It wasn’t locked, and I slid it open. I sprang in and knelt beside Will.
I shook him awake, and his eyes snapped open. They were alight with fear. He jerked back and threw up his hands. I was taken aback by this defensive reaction. He peered through his fingers fearfully. That was when I noticed the shape he was in.
In my enthusiasm, I hadn’t noticed that his arms were covered in bruises. I hadn’t seen the cut and dried blood on his face, the black eye and swollen cheek. I’d been blind to the streaks of salt on his cheeks, exactly in the clean lines of tear-tracks.
“Who…?” I managed to choke out. My shock melted, leaving fiery rage in its wake. He shook his head wildly, jade eyes terrified. “I won’t let them do it again, Will. What son of a bitch did this to you?” I swore. He mouthed a word, eyes brimming over:
Nick.
The burning fire in my chest began to slow-roast my heart. His own brother did this to him? I stood abruptly. Will tried to hold me back, but I shook him off. I was going to make that bastard sorry. I set off down the hall, towards what I assumed was Nick’s room.
“And what are you doing here?” I spun around. Raven lounged behind me against the wall. Will stood frozen in the doorway to his room. He looked like a cornered mouse, trembling horribly. I understood.
“You hit him,” I stated flatly.
“Yes, I do,” she agreed, nodding and smiling. The present tense was not lost on me. She had done this before and planned to do it again. I advanced furiously, my mind blazing in fury, completely without a plan.
“What are you doing in Nick’s house?” Raven repeated, unfazed.
“I was coming to see Will,” I said through gritted teeth. Then, he was there, tugging on my arm. I let Will pull me away this time. I couldn’t bear the smug look on the human girl’s face any longer. We left his house and wandered down the road. We went into my house and mounted the stairs. We entered my bedroom and Will stepped into the pentacle that was still drawn on the floor. I recited the spell and released my own spell, and we were free to talk.
“Please don’t do anything to Nick,” Will pleaded as soon as he was able.
“I won’t let him hurt you again,” I snarled. Even as a dragon the bruises stood out against his brown scales. I now saw that they covered most of his body. His eyes were still wild. “Is that how you got that scar on your cheek? Him hitting you?”
“No, I’ve had that for as long as I can remember, and he didn’t hit me when I was really little. How do you plan on stopping him, anyway?” Will asked.
“I don’t know.”
“If you attack him as a dragon, you’ll blow your cover. Look, Ruby, he’s been doing this to me long before you came and he’ll do it long after you’re gone. I’m used to it,” Will told me. He was used to it?!
“You don’t get used to being beat up,” I cried. “And exactly what makes you think that I’m going somewhere?”
“Because you have to save your island, don’t you? And then you’ll go back. You’re a dragon and I’m a human. Besides, everyone in my life leaves.”
“What the hell does that mean?” The fear finally left his eyes, to be replaced by awful sadness.
“I told you: Nick didn’t always hit me. I wasn’t always an orphan, either. Back then, Nick wasn’t a thug. Then, he and Dad had a fight. Nick had seen or done something and Dad didn’t believe him. Huh, I can’t even remember the fight that changed my life. Anyway, Nick was bitter after that. He went away for two days, and nobody knew where he’d gone. Then, one day, I walked into the living room, and there he was, watching TV. Raven was sitting next to him; that was the first time I ever saw her. Mom and Dad weren’t around. I asked him where they were. He smiled and said, ‘don’t worry about it, Squirt. They won’t bother us anymore.’ And ever since, he’s never been the same. I don’t know what happened to Mom or Dad. I was eight years old. I can’t even remember what they called me: what my real name is. Nick just calls me squirt, so I called myself Will,” Will’s voice shook. I was speechless. It was… horrible. A little boy forced to make up a name for himself because his own brother won’t call him by it? I couldn’t bear to wonder what Nick had done to his own parents.
“Will… I’m sorry.” Sorry. What a pathetically inadequate word. ‘Sorry’ didn’t even begin to describe it. To my shock, he looked up and smiled!
“It’s okay,” he said. His eyes were still bright with unshed tears, but his smile was genuine. “It happened six years ago, I’ve come to terms with it. Like I said: everything good leaves sometime. Can I go to your island? You promised.”
“Yeah… sure. Of course,” I nodded. “But first, you’ve got to learn how to fly. Do you know somewhere we won’t be seen?” This time, it was his turn to nod.
An hour later, I looked around in wonder. We were in a jungle of steel beams stretching to the sky. Will had ‘told’ me on the train here that it used to be the construction site of a huge mall, but it had been abandoned. People said it was haunted and nobody came here anymore. It was the perfect place for flight lessons.
The rest of our day was spent jumping from beam to beam. It wasn’t long before Will was as good as I was. We raced and showed off and had aerial battles.
“This isn’t hard at all!” Will called, flipping around onto his back.
“Every human has a dragon inside them,” I replied, turning a neat midair back-flip. “You don’t turn into just any dragon, you turn into your dragon.”
“Ooh, deep,” Will scoffed, rocketing at the ground. He pulled up seconds before splatting on the dirt. We goofed off until the light began to fade.
Reluctantly, we returned to the ground and became humans again. We went to a fast-food place to eat.
“So,” I slurped a soda, “tomorrow we go to the Emerald Isle Where Dolphins Leap, huh? And maybe the other Isles, too.” He nodded and leaned across the table.
It’ll be gr8. He wrote on a napkin.
“I could teach you to swim with the crocodiles,” I dreamily read out my mental list, also leaning in. “You could meet the dragons, we could tease the sharks, and maybe we’d even see the unicorns.”
Unicorns R real 2????
“Of course. Dragons are real, aren’t they? Why not unicorns or pegasi? They each have their own islands, too. We could go see them and chase the fairies…” Our faces were only inches apart, our heads filled with visions of magical creatures. His breath blew in my face. I shut my eyes.
Something smacked the back of my head.
“Get a room!” someone yelled. I sat back. Judging by the burning in my cheeks, I guessed that my face must be as red as my soul-stone. Pressing my hands to my burning face, I stood and fled.

I half-rose to stop her as she ran, but I saw the look in her eyes and stopped. The idiots who had interrupted us were falling over themselves laughing. I stood and walked to the door, giving them the only hand-sign they really understood: a one-finger salute.
I stormed out into the twilight, my head rioting. If they hadn’t thrown that ball of trash at Ruby, we would have kissed, I was sure of it. She’d said that her boyfriend, Opaljewel, was MIA, but she was supposed to save him. She was going to stop this threat to her Archipelago and go back to her island and live happily ever after with her girly-boy. That was how things were.
But.
Why, then, had she almost kissed me? Had she felt sorry for the poor dumb boy? One thing was for sure: the next time we met would be awkward.
If we meet again, I thought, angrily kicking an empty can along the sidewalk. If she doesn’t run back to her dragon friends. I stomped home, not even caring when Raven cornered me, cracking her knuckles in anticipation.

Why did things have to move so quickly? I put my head down and ran faster. I took side roads and back alleys until I didn’t know where in hell I was. I looked up and saw a neon sign:
NED’S BAR
I had heard of bars. They sold drinks that made your head fuzzy, or that’s what Pearleyes had told me. I pushed my way through the door into the smoky place. I definitely needed to shut my head up.
The man at the counter seemed surprised when I asked for a drink, but he gave one to me without comment. The liquid burned my throat on the way down, but it was deliciously bitter. I took another sip.
I made a mental list of the day, just to order it in my head.
1) Nick and Raven hit Will. A lot.
2) Will’s parents had disappeared under mysterious circumstances just as had Raven arrived.
3) Will had almost kissed me.
4) I had almost kissed Will.

Alright, four things. That wasn’t so bad. I made a matching list of things to do.
1) Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure. Will had been right about that, but I had to do something…
2) Again, I wasn’t sure. It was sad, but what was past was past. I couldn’t see a thing I could do to bring them back. Though I wondered if there was a connection between their disappearance and Raven’s appearance.
3) Forget about it.
4) Ditto.

This wasn’t encouraging. I called for another drink and thought some more about numbers 3 and 4. I could forget about it, but I didn’t want to. I should have, but I didn’t.
It was so confusing. I loved Opaljewel, I knew that. Always had always would. And he loved me, too. But, Will… he was my first human friend. He was the only person I felt safe telling all my secrets to. But was that because I trusted him, or because I knew he couldn’t tell anyone even if he wanted to? No! I trusted him, I did!
“Hey there, babe,” some sweaty guy covered in tattoos slid onto the stool next to me. “Haven’t seen you before.”
“Burn in hell,” I mumbled, taking a gulp of the fiery drink.
“Don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he grabbed my arm in a meaty paw. “Come on, let’s have some fun.” I seized his wrist with my free hand.
After that, it was a simple matter of kicking the bar stool out from under him and swinging as hard as I could. He yelped and flipped over backwards, landing on his back on the other side of me and cracking his head painfully on the floor. I hadn’t even left my stool.
“Another, please,” I asked, ignoring the stares of everyone in the suddenly-quiet bar.
“Where’d you learn that?” a boy my age righted the retreating man’s stool and perched on it. I looked over, ready to do the same to him, and had the shock of my life. Nick grinned at me, his spiky hair shining like a star in the bar’s dim lights. “What? You act like you’ve never seen me before.” I composed myself and took a swig of the drink.
“You’re going to get stone drunk if you keep doing that,” Nick noted.
“And what about you?” I returned. “I guess hitting helpless kids is thirsty work, huh?” He sighed and gazed into his own drink.
“I can’t explain that,” he sighed again. “I don’t understand it myself. Alcohol makes me myself again.” The boy took a swallow from his caramel-colored drink.
“Right. That only made no sense at all.”
“Ruby,” he turned the full force of his moonstone eyes on me. They were almost hypnotizing. Now blue, now gray, now silvery-white… “do you believe in magic?” I choked and spluttered.
“Don’t be silly,” I gasped when I had myself under control again. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yeah…” he dropped his gaze to the depths of his glass.
“Why do you hang out with Raven?” I asked, just for a change of subject. To my surprise, Nick laughed.
“You don’t say no to her,” he chuckled darkly. He didn’t elaborate. “Come on, Will’ll kill me if I leave you out here alone.”