Adventures in Summoning

Chapter 20

I woke up in a little hollowed out depression with my head in Quin's lap and her undamaged wing curled over me. She was sleeping while sitting so as to not put pressure on her bandaged left wing, and her tail was curled around me like a safety belt of sorts. It was a very intimate position, especially considering the state of her clothes, which were worn and so full of holes now that they offered glimpses to parts of her body that I probably shouldn't be peeking at. I'm sure wherever her husband, mate, partner, whatever was, they wouldn't like me looking at her thighs or stomach. Especially when it made me want to see more, and touch or taste them as well.

Shifting slowly, I rolled over to my back and looked across the small clearing to see Dee and Helen still asleep, with Dee's head in the crook of Helen's neck. They looked adorable in the dim morning light. My movements must have alerted Quin, as her tail started to twine around me more, pulling me closer to her legs as I felt her breathing change and she started to stretch above me. I tilted my head back to see her smiling down at me, and I smiled back, my belly doing a little flip at her smile.

"How are you feeling? Any better?" I whispered.

She frowned, then winced a bit as she tried to move her injured wing. "It feels better, but not whole. But I can tell there was some progress, even with the short rest."

"Good, I'd like to see you healthy again," I admitted. "It was scary seeing you floating in the water yesterday."

"Thank you again for getting me back to shore," she smiled softly.

"It wasn't me, I'm not sure what happened. It was some magic," I tried to explain what I had seen, and she looked pensive for a moment.

"Dee and Helen said it wasn't them?" Quin asked.

"Right, they had been doing something else, I think they struggled to get to shore as well. Could there be someone else on the island?" I tried to remember if I had seen anything else. Could there have been a water creature? Did this planet have whales or dolphins?

"Justin, I'm quite sure it was you. What you described sounds just like summoning an elemental, and having it do your bidding. If you have received some of your grandfather's powers, that could easily explain it just like Helen has her foresight power," Quin looked down at me while I looked up at her in amazement. Could that really be true?

"I didn't mean to do that," I said, wondering what else I could do. "How do I control it? Could I heal you with this magic?"

"Well, healing is a no, there are no elementals that heal. But control we can practice with. Summoning elementals like that could be an important part of freeing this world," Quin assured me.

"How many types of elementals are there?" I asked, curious as to what I could use them for.

"Well, you saw a water elemental yesterday when you got me out of the sea, and an electrical elemental powering the base. There are also air, earth, and fire elementals," she told me.

"And they're each like their element I assume?" I ventured.

"Yes, exactly. You can either leave them free, which is what you probably did yesterday, or bind them to an object, and collect the excess of their element, which is how that power box was working at the base. It takes quite a bit of power to pull an elemental in without trying, so you must have a lot of potential," she mused.

"This planet has a lot of water, could I flood that base?" I wondered. "Or burn it?"

"Perhaps. I don't know what is possible yet. I would prefer not to have a fire elemental loose on our planet, but an earth elemental could be handy in the tunnels of the base. Several air elementals could blow away those flying machines, and an electrical elemental could provide power, but we have no machines that need it! Luckily, we can't go anywhere just yet, so we have time to decide," she summarized.

"Even when you're healthy, we have to be careful of that weapon they attacked you with yesterday," I pointed out.

"What was that?" She asked. "I've lost many friends and family to whatever it was."

"We call it a missile. There is a technology called radar, and it can see you from many miles away. The missile will follow the radar to you before you even know you're under attack, and then explode. It needs something big to see, and you're obviously big enough," I tried to explain in a rudimentary way, not that I could have gone too much more in depth.

"I thought those flying machines were bad, but those missiles seem much worse," she complained bitterly. "We have no way to fight something like that."

"They are. We'll have to come up with another way to defeat them. Find magic to make you invisible to the radar perhaps," I thought out loud. Stealth dragons, that sounded kind of awesome.

Movement from the other side of the clearing drew attention to the fact that Dee and Helen were now awake and sitting up, rubbing their eyes, and stretching. "Any of these trees grow pillows?" Dee grumbled.

"I think we could make nests out of the leaves maybe. I'd bet we'll be here a few more days before Quin is healthy enough to fly," Helen ventured.

"We have to take out the missile launcher before she can fly too," I pointed out.

"Do you have any ideas about that?" Helen asked.

"Not yet. But Quin thinks I summoned the water elemental, so I might have to practice and see if something like that could help," I suggested.

"A big wave might do it," Helen acknowledged.

"So, if I could make a big wave, and wash away the people, maybe you could breathe fire on the missiles?" I asked Quin.

She tiled her head at me and looked confused. "Breathe fire? What does that mean?"

I looked at Helen, who was giggling at me, and Dee, who was looking as lost as I. "Justin, dragons on this world don't breathe fire, that is just in books and movies," Helen finally choked out through the laughter.

Well fuck, good to know.

I looked back over at Quin, smiling ruefully. "Sorry about that, some days I'm just an idiot. We'll come up with a new plan."

"The wave plan is good though," Dee piped up. "I'm fairly sure that missiles and electronics won't like to be wet. It would mess them all up."

Helen and I all looked at her with grins on our faces. "Where did that come from?" Helen asked her, while kissing her on the cheek.

"Hey, I read too," Dee blushed furiously. "And look at your phone! It's probably toast like mine!"

"So, does this mean I don't have to learn to breathe fire?" Quin joked. I looked at her in shock, I don't think I'd ever heard her make even a little bit of a joke. Is that a dragon thing? Were we rubbing off on her?

"No, you don't," I chuckled at her. "But it does mean you need to help me learn how to summon an elemental on purpose."

"I can do that. Helen may want to help as well, since she has some of your grandfather's powers as well. It might be that you can work together, I'm not sure. But that means we should head down to the water," Quin decided.

"You guys do that, and I'll grab more fruit," Dee promised. "Then I'm going to see if this sun can give me a tan!"

I unwrapped Quin's tail from me and then helped her to her feet, then we headed off to the water to see what kind of magic we could make.