The Hike

OUT BACK
Athail was dreaming. Again. Well he knew that was what his brother would call it. He was staring in the distance, overlooking the landscape of backyards and streets from what he liked to call his 'balcony'.
Athail was in fact sitting on a small patch of levelled roof that started at his window and stretched wide enough for him to stretch out on if he wanted to. Today he wasn't looking at the sky so in stead of laying down he was sitting up straight, his back against a pillow to soften the outer wall of the house.
Athail spent a lot of time out here. No-one bothered him when he was up here and he could think freely... sometimes too freely. There had been times he had been lost in thought for hours at an end. He had missed appointments and school sitting on the roof. But that was just the way Athail did things. He could admit to himself he really didn't feel sorry about being there.
"Athail?!" Mikhail shouted.
Athail looked up and sighed. Why did his brother need him now! Of all times... wasn't he supposed to be away on errands anyway?
"Here!" Athail called out after having waited another half of a minute.
"Come down!" Mikhail yelled.
Now even better... "Can't you just tell me?" Athail asked.
"No. It's mom's family!"
That sentence was so utterly normal Athail had to stop and think for quite a few moments before he realised it. Their mother had left them... sometimes it felt that maybe she really was dead, though Athail never allowed himself to think those thoughts through. And now her family was here... her family-shifting family no doubt. 
"Coming!" Athail yelled back, sliding down the smooth back porch pillar. 
His landing was a bit off, but his entrance wasn't entirely lacking grandeur, Athail saw with a pleased smile on his face.
"Hi! I'm Athail." he introduced himself.
"Hi, I'm Draca, your cousin." the tall pale woman said.
"Why are you here? After all this time?" Athail cut to the chase.
"Athail!" Mikhail said, "Watch your manners!"
"No, it's alright, we have little time as it is." Draca continued. "I have an offer to make you and your brother."
"What?"
"How would you like to search for your mother?"
Athail felt the urge to say yes before he had even heard the end of the sentence, but the look on his brother's face told him to keep his cool. Mikhail clearly didn't trust the duo, Athail couldn't imagine why.
"So?"
"I know how you could do that..." Draca said, feeling some resistance to her thoughts.
'They don't seem very interested.' Kale said, just a tad of sarcasm in his voice.
'Quiet you... They're just careful, I would be too.' Draca told him.
"The answer is dragons." she told the boys out loud.
'Wait... Did you say dragons? I didn't know anything about dragons.' Kale said.
'You saw me entering with one. How much more did you need to know?'
Kale shook his head. "Jezus." he said out loud, "You could have told me."
"Is there anything wrong with dragons?" Mikhail asked.
"They are great companions." Draca said, "I've heard no-one complain until now."
"It's just... they're kind of binding."
"Well duh... but they give you a lot of freedom as well. The freedom for my cousins to find their mother."
"If I just wait one more year..." Mikhail interrupted.
"Then she'll be long gone. Besides my dad told me I had to take you. And any others I could find." she turned toward Kale, "So that means you're invited too."
Kale blinked, "I'll come." and then, 'But I won't even come near any eggs.' 
"Your choice."
"I feel like I'm missing something..." Athail started, but before he could elaborate on his feelings his mind made another connection.
"I know others like us!"
The look on his brother's face was one of sheer surprise, that look became even more cartoony when his brother continued, "Her name is Asakti, she's an exotic dancer."
"You know an exotic dancer? Does dad know?"
"Of course not! I know better. Besides I only see her practice, all clothes on." Draca couldn't help but smile at the nearly invisible look of regret on the teen's face.
"I know two as well..." Mikhail finally said.
"But you said you had never talked to any of our kind!" Athail shouted.
"Talked no, seen yes. At the university."
"Fine with me." Draca said, "Let's go to the stripper first."
"Exotic dancer." Athail corrected.
"Whatever."
'I bet she's from the Atasia's line.' Kale told her in her mind.
'What do you mean by that?' Draca asked.
'Hot and .. ehm let's just say not very prude.'
The small group entered the house. Draca couldn't bare to leave the boy's father behind on his own. Though they could be back as soon as nightfall, when their dragons would be covered in the dark she felt it better not to scare the living daylights out of the man. Like she had expected he wasn't happy to see his sons go, but she promised to keep in touch. At the end of the conversation he even surprised her by lending her his car. Telling her to leave it at a parking lot where he could pick it up.
"I'll make sure you'll get the keys back." Draca promised and then led her little band of adventurers out. The afternoon was warm and sunny in LA and Draca enjoyed the feeling it gave her. It felt so good to be around people who knew who you were.

"You're sure it's this alley?" Draca asked again.
"Yes!" Athail shouted, "I'm not a kid. I'm almost an adult."
Draca sighed. If he was an adult, then what was she? Elderly? Well maybe she was in his eyes.
She went a little further in the alley, closely followed by Kale and the two boys.
'You really are free to go.' Draca told Kale.
'And miss an Atasia? You're crazy.' Kale said, though his real motives for staying maybe had a little more to do with Draca herself. there was still something incongruent around her that kept intriguing him.
"So how did you see her first?"
Athail looked at his brother reluctantly and then finally admitted his secret: "I sometimes wander around the roofs up here. My school's just around the block. Watching her dance is like seeing someone fly."
Draca looked at the boy from the corner of his eyes. Athail sounded like he was in love and if this Atasia-descendant was what Kale said she was, Draca knew the boy was getting his heart broken. 
"Just a little further." he whispered and then Draca saw her.
The young woman, dark red hair flowing around her body as she leapt and bounced around the room. She seemed to be doing something like ballet, though some of the moves were strangely arousing. 
'A famous Atasia trick.' Kale told her, 'The art of seduction, if you go for that.'
'She's good.' Draca answered.
"She's seen us!" Mikhail suddenly whispered.
"What are you doing!" the young woman yelled angry.
"We... we.. were watching." Athail said.
"I've seen you before! On the roofs. I could have you arrested."
'Don't do that, please.' Draca asked her. The woman seemed old enough to have shifted.
Asakti looked baffled at the woman. "How did you do that?"
"What?"
"The talking in my head."
"You mean... you don't know who you are?"
"I told you Atasia's line is eccentric." Kale said, "Let me guess your mother was a real help to the men out here and when you were born she ran off?"
"That is not funny!" Asakti cried out, in a few paces she was close to the tall dark man who was still standing firmly next to the pale woman. She lashed out but to her astonishment he just grabbed her hand, twisted her arm around her back. For a split second she sniffed up his scent and licked her lips. Dark Stranger, her favourite... but he didn't respond to her body at all. Asakti let out a screech of pain. Then he let go and pushed her forward.
"I didn't mean anything by it. You're family has been doing it for years."
"Kale,..." Draca said.
"No, she needs to know."
"Let me tell her." Draca said, her eyes hard as steel and not quite matching the image he had formed of her.
"Have you shifted already? I think so. You did a good job hiding your tattoo." Draca pointed at two very soft blue lines above her eyes, "but not good enough."
"I've been sweating."
"We are like you, I've been asked to find more of our people and take them with me. We've been hiding long enough... and we have found worlds still sheltered from prying eyes that would not like what they saw when they saw us."
"Go away? Where?" Asakti asked.
"To Caliente to impress a dragon." Draca said bluntly.
"A dragon?"
"You do know what we shift into, right?" Draca asked, "We are just halflings, but dragons at our sides... I can't say how it's like, but it feels wonderful."
A very exciting vision fluttered through Asakti's mind. There were possibilities here...

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STATS  -  MAIN  -  DRAGONS