The Dao of Magic

98 - Ministration

"Dragon" I say.

"Flight member." She replies.

"Flight"

"Flight"

"You are a dragon."

"...you are a member of the Flight."

"Draconic."

Rhea now narrows her eyes at me. "Are you messing with me? You said:'Flight-ish'. That isn't a real word."

I nod at Rhea. "Thanks. I sometimes forget that I have this translation process running."

She looks at me weirdly, shrugs her shoulders a bit and continues to relax on deck. I am standing behind the wheel of the Ascent while my students and guests are asleep. Only Ket is awake, but he is studying in his room.

"Do you have a word for your species instead of the name of your group?"

"What is this sudden obsession with language?"

"Where did the name Flight come from?"

"Are you going to steal them all? We left all three islands in an absolute chaos."

"Why do you suddenly care?"

I stare at her again but decide to break eye contact quickly. I ignore her smirk. Instead, I sink my senses into my ring. Four skulls are hovering frozen in the void of its storage space. A black, a white, a metallic and a purple skull are glittering in a neat row. Halfway done.

Rhea is lying on a couch, staring up towards the stars. We sail for at least an hour before she breaks the silence. "Do they seem closer to you?"

"The stars?" I cast my own sight upwards. A dense carpet of twinkling lights split in half by a band of denser starlight. It's not called the milky-way, so how do you call the visible galaxy in a different world? "I guess they don't look so far away now."

I look down at the dragon lady chilling on the couch. How would her life have gone had I not pestered her? What if I didn't start making massive mana waves every few days? Would she have slept through my entire existence on this planet? I have no desire to spend a thousand years here and there are no terrors in between the stars and planets keeping me here.

Light plays across her sharp cheekbones, her white lashes bouncing the starlight back at me. That light travelled for aeons only to end up in my eyes. How many years did I spend travelling through that interdimensional space just before I arrived here? Is anyone I knew back then still alive? Why did I suddenly change my modus operandi, where did this need for semi-permanent company come from?

A warm finger touches my face. Grey eyes stare at the wetness on her fingertips. Was I crying?

"Don't think those things. They don't suit you at all."

"How would you know?"

I look upwards again. So infinitely big. A speck inside a speck inside a speck. The warm hand is back again. Why do I feel so shit all of a sudden? I ignore the processes telling me about hormone levels in my brain and just try to feel nothing for a bit.

"Stop, I told you it doesn't suit you." I sense her weaving a small construct of qi around the steering wheel as she takes my hands. She puts me down on the couch and I feel another warm presence jump on top of us. Lola, Rhea and me spend the rest of the night snuggled up warmly on the couch.

⁂

"What's the plan, Teach?" Selis looks at me with hopeful eyes.

"There is no plan."