Friday, December 4, 2020

Chapter 13

South Beach

Marina Harbor


 


Fiona watched the dragon wade into a bush of red flowers, ducking its head to take a bite and then raising it to watch her.  It did not look interested in immediately attacking.


"What do you think?" Fiona whispered.  "It might attack if we move.” 

Jay kicked at stones that had not been there five minutes ago and looked straight ahead. 

"If this dragon wanted to kill me, two of its friends had a chance and let it go. If we want to move, we move."


With a sudden shrug of hanging ivy and white roses and a flutter of candlelight a tall man in a sleeveless top and knee-high boots walked through the middle arch calling the child’s name.  “Alisana!”  

The dragon paused nibbling on the flowers, looked in his direction but stayed where it was.

  
"Alisana!" He watched Fiona and Jay as he stepped down.  

"What," she said simply. The crow standing next to her squawked. 


He descended, put his hands on her shoulders and said in something less than a gentle voice, "What are you doing here?  How did you get through?  We’ve told you…did your friend bring you through again?" 

“I saw the lights," she told him, avoiding answering the question about the friend.

“Go back, find Vaun and tell him I need him.” She looked obstinate, and he added in a firmer voice, "Alisana, go on, there's no time, you know that."



She went but with no good grace, glancing behind her at them with a final smile before padding silently under one of those arches.  Jay took a step forward and the man immediately ordered, “Stay where you are.”  

Jay stared right back at him.  “That's not an order you can give.  You're the one who called me, not the other way around."

A woman suddenly strode through an arch on the far left. She carried a knife in a sheathe on her right hip visible only briefly before her short coat covered it.  


She approached the man and they spoke together in low voices as they watched them, two pairs of intent eyes, both hard but neither hostile.  “When did they arrive?” she asked.

“I'm guessing not long. I thought you’d already left.  Where’s Vaun?"

“He left on the first ship, he didn't explain why.” 

Both of them stared down the stairs and out across the grass at Fiona and Jay.  The man said, "I can’t hold this door alone if Pirene is here."

"They won't be here, you know that, but I'll look for you."

Striding silently past Jay’s car, paying it no attention as if she saw cars all the time, she stopped and looked out at the marina.  There were no boats anchored on this side but she watched those on the other side of the harbor as they bobbed up and down at the piers.   The marina restaurants were busy at this time of night. 

She was silent, serious, but still not hostile.  Like Alisana, she had strange, inorganic eyes, yellow though instead of green.


“There’s no one here but these two. What would you do with them?”

He hesitated, took a quick glance in their direction and then looked back at the woman.  “The boy may be the one Kenley was expecting.”

She shook her head.  “We leave this to you then, I have the ship to meet.” 

The man waited until she'd returned the way she'd come, right through the stone arch and the white roses into the dark, then he walked down the stairs and took a few steps away from them. 

"I’m Drake Alcaide of the Viridis Company.  Are you Jaegar Lombardo?"

Fiona wanted to reach out and shove Jay or step on his foot or anything to keep him from answering.  Because she couldn’t, she grabbed the moment before he could.  “What if he is?”

Drake Alcaide almost smiled.  “If he is, Kenley Dirac asked us to send a message to him.”


The dragon raised his wings. “Kenley Dirac is my mother,” Fiona told him, struggling now with a combination of fear and frustration. She was losing track of things; this was becoming all about Jay.

“I know,” said Drake Alcaide. 

His focus was entirely on Jay who now asked, "What kind of message?"


The man studied him for a long moment. Jay quit even looking at him at all and was silently watching the creature with the wings on the other side of the grass. 

The animal raised its wings higher and pulled them down with a thud and a shudder in the air that had nothing to do with the feathered wings of a bird.  "What did she use?" he repeated.

“A flight of dragons.”

7 comments:

  1. Argh, ending with a cliffhanger I cannot deal with this! lol Great update and it only keeps getting more and more interesting with these dragons.
    I'm curious, is there like tear in time or some sort of portal opened up so these people are able to get through, as well as the dragons?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes there's something like that going on although it's not something these people can control. If it's connected to Fiona's parents' disappearance, it's dangerous. The dragons appear to be following their lead, or in the case of Alisana, a child, trying to tag along to protect her.

      I'm going to have to build a new terrain to move on and it's kicking my ass right now. I'm trying to step up my pace but that's going to slow me down a bit. Thank you for continuing to read this and leave me a comment!

      Delete
  2. Alcaide...now there is a name from the past. This is a very intriguing storyline!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL it's a coincidence. You're undoubtedly the only one who would catch that, but there's no connection. Thank you so much, and I hope all is well with you.

      Delete
  3. The dragon sitting in the corner, nibbling at flowers is so cute!

    This is getting really interesting! I wonder if the little girl Alisana sees is Jay's little sister. Alisana mentioned seeing "the lights", and Hailie did give Fiona that dragon toy after all. That would be so sweet, those little girls with extraordinary powers being best friends. I hope that's the case <3

    These new mysterious characters are so cool. I really like how you wrote their interactions. Neither the reader nor the main characters know what they are up to, and yet their actions and what they say seem very coherent. They clearly know exactly what they are doing, and seem to be very professional about it.

    The detail about their eyes was really cool, and it made me wonder if whatever's happened to their eyes is the same thing that's happened with Kenley's eyes too. Perhaps these characters also have the same kinds of mystical tattoos under their clothes. I'm excited to learn more.

    Oooh it's all coming together now. I really like both Fiona and Jay's reactions at the end. "A Flight of Dragons" made me grin, since it sounds like the title of a fantasy novel.

    As always, absolutely gorgeous pictures. You really are great at capturing the mood, great character shots and with stunning backgrounds and views. /Ani

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The flight of dragons - I'm so glad you noticed that! I needed a word to describe a group of dragons like a herd of horses or a flock of birds. A flight seemed a good choice.

      Alisana is certainly responding to someone she considers a friend. She said as much when she appeared on the pier. Hailie did give Fiona the toy dragon and those lights called to Alisana. Alisana is determined not to give it away. She wouldn't with Fiona on the pier and she's not here. Drake is exasperated but not angry.

      I'm so glad the relationships between the new characters come off as professional. That's exactly what's going on. They're not as close as best friends although they're comfortable with each other - she tells him what he wants to know at the moment and leaves to take care of business.

      The eyes do set them apart as something other than pure human. They're not quite like Kenley's though.

      Those shots were really hard to get. The lights across the harbor drove me crazy. I've had the new characters for a long time and was happy to finally be able to put them on stage! I don't want the usual fantasy outfits either, particularly the long dresses. Those medieval dresses were confining and intended to hide women's legs. I've always wondered how in the world they're supposed to do anything but hang around if they have to wear the dresses all the time. I'd like to keep the male clothing pretty time-neutral too. For one thing, I don't want to be forced to dress Fiona and Jay in something medieval. The woman armed with the knife is wearing something equivalent to what Drake is wearing. I hope to be able to find enough similar clothing to keep it up.

      Thank you so much! I'm finally managing to finish another huge set and move on, and your support is helping me do that. Thank you!!

      Delete
    2. Right, like a murder of crows! Really clever <3

      I bet those shots were tricky! I checked out those lot imposter window lights of Honeywell's that you mentioned, and they sure looked fiddly! But the result in your pictures is really quite amazing, so it's definitely worth it. I need to try them out some time.

      I love your choice of clothing! You successfully made it feel like fantasy, even though it wasn't medieval. Really well put together.

      I'm happy to hear that you're making progress <3 Keep up the good work, you're doing amazing. /Ani

      Delete