The last time Rangavar talked to Zark, they made a pact to keep each other's secrets. They agreed to tell no one. Yep, definitely no one. Not a single soul. They'll definitely stick to that agreement.

Meanwhile, after the accident, Rangavar's boss is pushing her plans along more quickly than anyone could have predicted.

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I considered uploading a blank file with an error message as a part of april fool's day, but didn't want to get murdered

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Chapter 20


Rangavar hid in the back of the crowd this time. His boss would still be able to sense he was there, of course. He wasn’t under any illusion that she couldn’t. It just made him feel a little better.

“Alright,” she thought to the room full of still and quiet Darkals. “Here’s how things are going to go. Our first round of supplies was supposed to be arriving in a day or two, but we’re not going to wait around for them to get through customs. We’re not going to wait for anything, at all.” She clasped her paws behind her back. They didn’t get in the way of the flared, gold-tipped wings behind her imposing figure. “We simply don’t have the time. Some of you are going to have to ‘retrieve’ them for me. Only as forcefully as necessary, of course.”

Rangavar couldn’t quite suppress his shudder.

“We simply can’t afford another accident like this. This time it came too close, and it proves the first time wasn’t just an unfortunate fluke.” She gazed around the room at all the serious faces. “The technology here is failing, and we need to take action before it’s too late.”

As she continued, Rangavar shifted to study the Darkals around him as discreetly as possible, but all of them were blank-faced and attentive. They’d do whatever she said without question, so of course they wouldn’t react.

When she’d finished outlining her plans, the crowd trickled out of the room in silence. Rangavar was lost in thought as he trailed towards the back of the group. At least she hadn’t bothered picking on him this time, which was nice.

“Rangavar.”

Oh no.

He paused with his paw on the doorframe. He’d been one of the last to go through. Well, almost go through. He warily turned back to face her. “Yes?”

She took several long strides towards him. Even in his own Glitarian form, she was still taller. “I’m so glad you got to help today.”

Great. She was in one of her more condescending moods.

Her expression became an unfriendly grin. “And you look so lovely today. Doesn’t it feel wonderful to be a Glitarian?”

He suppressed the urge to respond. He knew that any reply he formed could be weaponized against him. She was mostly probing for a reaction.

“I’m sure you see why it’s important to secure our resources,” she continued. “A shame it has to happen so soon. Although perhaps it’s for the best. We’ll make our move to secure the resources, and when we control the supplies that come and go from this world, Karraden will be ours soon after.”

He knew how seriously she took the wraiths, or else he almost would have thought she’d sabotaged the containment cell herself. She seemed excited to get started.

“I hope you’re not worried about what becomes of you now that millions of other dragons will be working for me. You’ll still have a place here.” She reached out and cupped the sides of his face, staring into it with her familiar smirk. “You and Arro. Well, until whenever you get bored of him, of course. I’m not sure how much fun it’ll be to keep protecting him, but at least you know you can give up on it at any time. Discard things that won’t serve you.”

Rangavar bared his fangs and growled. His automatic reaction was to swipe her paws away from his face. Before he even came close, she dug in her talons, and he made a strangled noise instead as several of them pinched the soft flesh on the sides of his throat. He instinctively grabbed at her wrists and tried to pry them away, but her grip was unmoving.

She looked amused. “Well, I suppose you won’t try that again.”

He made an unintelligible noise. She waited a nice, long moment before she relaxed and let go, pushing him off-balance just enough that he stumbled backwards a few steps.

He brought one of his paws up to his throat. When he pulled it away, there was a small amount of black blood on his fingers.

“Don’t try to defy me, Rangavar.” She put a paw up to inspect her own talons. It was hard to tell if any traces of his blood remained on her own black claws. “I thought we were past this.”

“You agreed to leave Arro alone,” Rangavar reminded her hoarsely.

She shrugged. “I agreed to leave him alone as long as you kept your head down and quiet. That doesn’t have to change.”

When he didn’t say anything, she glanced up and took another step forward so that she was bearing down on him again. “I hope you understand.”

“Yes,” he choked out, glowering up at her. “I do.”

“Excellent.” She watched calmly another moment as he attempted to scrape together his composure. “I suppose if you’re ready to head out for the day, you should change down here and go.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t break her eye contact. “I was planning to.”

When she grinned, this time it was more malicious, fully baring her curving fangs. “You seem so tired. Let me help.” She roughly grabbed the side of his head with one paw, digging her talons into the back this time and placing her thumb beneath the horn in the center of his forehead.

He knew he should have predicted some sort of punishment. He wasn’t even sure why at this point. He just knew Glitarian Darkal females didn’t like being upset.

He jerked as his spine cracked, letting out a grunt of pain. He’d been trying to meet her eyes, but ended up squeezing them shut as his back contorted. He tried to wrap his paws around her wrist again and push her away. No matter how hard he strained, her paw didn’t waver as she continued to control his magic.

When there was finally cracking between his shoulder blades and he felt the jolting pain down his arms, he lost control of them, his feet soon following as the bones shattered. He practically hung from her paw, unable to fight, watching her grin at him.

“Oh, isn’t this what you wanted?” she scoffed at his look as his body spasmed, rearranging itself. “You don’t want to be ‘Glitarian’, so here. Spend some time being ‘normal’, or whatever you call it.”

He let out a growl as a searing feeling raced through his wings, the feathers slowly, too slowly, folding and retracting into the flesh.

“You really should be thanking me.”

He breathed heavily. He growled again as his talons suddenly shrank back, pushing hard into the nail beds of his fingers as they retracted to the size of regular claws. When most of his body had finally put itself back together, he felt his fangs slowly retreat back into his gums, all of his teeth radiating pain as they shifted around, but now he knew that it would be over soon.

“You’re welcome.”

The moment it ended, she released him, and he dropped to the floor. He didn’t have the energy or awareness to catch himself, sprawling heavily, panting as he looked back up at her.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked back down at him. “Your shift is over. Go home. See you tomorrow morning.”

He was still barely catching his breath as he watched her strut out of the room.

~

Arro peered curiously at the message that appeared on his wristband.

Zark: are you busy?

Arro frowned. He knew Zark had the morning shift today, but it shouldn’t be over yet. Rangavar hadn’t even come home.

Arro: No. Aren’t you at work?

Instead of answering, the other Faerian replied,

Zark: can you come over? i need help with something

Admittedly, the messages were enough to make Arro curious.

Arro: What do you need help with

Zark: i’ll tell you when you get here

Arro sighed. His curiosity won him over as he swung open the front door. “I’ll be back in a little bit!” he called up the stairs, where Jade was currently. He felt a telepathic acknowledgement from her and continued on his way.

The ride was freezing cold, the wind whipping his bare scales as his hovercycle whirred down the street. He was really regretting putting off getting a winter coat until now, but fortunately, the black-scaled Faerian’s house wasn’t far. Zark opened the door as he neared, without Arro messaging him or knocking. He always seemed to know exactly when the much larger Faerian had arrived.

Arro hurried up the steps and rubbed his chilly paws together once he was finally inside. His gut pressed down heavily on his knees, bouncing with each step, but he didn’t let it slow him. Blubber or not, it was still fucking cold.

Zark quickly pulled the door shut behind him.

“Did you get in trouble again?”

“Huh?”

Arro watched him with a worried expression. “Zark. Did they send you home early? What happened?”

“Well… I mean, I’m not in trouble,” he said quickly. Although he had a somewhat guilty expression. “It’s… it’s harder to explain than that. Can we go sit?”

Those words didn’t make Arro less worried as he followed him to the table that Zark and his companion had set up in the living room. Almost as if reading his mind, Zark said, “My companion’s not home right now, and I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“Why?” Arro was starting to just feel confused. He didn’t usually see Zark so serious.

“He…” The other Faerian faltered for a second. Zark slid into a chair on the opposite side of the table, his chubby love handles squeezing through the armrests. He didn’t seem to notice how tightly the chair pressed into his sides. “To be frank, my companion can’t keep a secret. But I NEED to tell somebody about this.” He was gazing at Arro with genuine distress. “I can’t… I technically promised not to talk about it at all, but I need help… processing it. If that makes sense.”

“No, no, it does,” Arro assured him, although he was only getting more worried as the conversation went on. He decided to squeeze himself into the chair across from Zark, until he remembered the armrests. He stayed standing. “You can tell me. I can keep a secret.”

“You will?”

Arro nodded. “Anything I can do to help.” He did want to help.

“You… you can sit on the couch if you want.”

The fat Faerian tried not to look too relieved as he plopped his ass down, smashing the cushion into the frame as if it weren’t even there. “Now, what’s going on?”

“So, you can’t tell ANYBODY, because I’ll be in huge trouble if someone finds out I told.” Zark took a deep breath. He let it out in a sigh. “I… I think the research facility should be shut down.”

Arro was suddenly swept away by a wave of déjà vu as he recalled Rangavar’s conversation not too long ago. “What? Why?”

Zark looked immensely uncomfortable. “Do you promise you won’t laugh or call me crazy?”

“I promise.”

Zark’s eyes bore into him. “Do you mean it?”

“I do! I won’t make fun of you,” Arro assured him.

The black dragon took another deep breath as he gathered his thoughts. “There are secretly powerful, dragon-like… well, Darkal-creatures that control the facility. They use mind control to manipulate all the Faerians around them.”
Arro kept his promise. He didn’t laugh.

Zark groaned. “Please don’t give me that look. I can see if your brows get any higher, they’ll lift off your face.”

“Zark.” Arro kept his voice soft and calm. He put a paw on his chin, his elbow resting on the huge paunch that took up his lap. “I think… I think whoever told you this—”

“No, I saw them. I saw the dragon-creatures. Or, Darkal, dragon-creatures. Or whatever. I don’t know.” Zark quickly shook his head. “They all looked like Darkals, but, they’re as tall as you, and have huge fangs. And their wings were covered in… feathers.”

Arro struggled not to roll his eyes.

He felt bad about the distraught look that crossed Zark’s face. Zark looked away. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have called you over here. This was a mistake.”

“No, Zark, look— Wait. Look at me.” Arro sat up straighter, no easy feat given the amount of weight sitting on his frame. “Look. I’m sure you saw something.” The black Faerian sounded completely genuine. “I just think, maybe, you didn’t see exactly what you think you saw,” he finished carefully.

Zark scowled. “One of them talked to me! Right in front of me! To my face!” He squeezed himself up from the chair, moving past the table to walk down the length of the living room, then turning to walk back without looking Arro’s way. His chubby gut jiggled as his pacing became more agitated, but he didn’t seem to notice. “He told me I couldn’t tell anyone about it, but I’m not going crazy!”

“Zark, I never said you were going crazy.”

“You’re implying it,” he countered, looking exasperated.

“All I’m saying is that it might be a good idea to consider you might not have seen things exactly the way you think.” Arro watched him steadily from the couch, concerned. “Look, there are obviously dragons that can use mind control.” Arro gestured at Zark. Zark himself was evidence of that. “I don’t know much about it, but I think there’s a limit to how many people you can control at once. Probably not a whole building of Faerians,” he said in amusement. “You’d know better than I would. And the entire time I’ve been on Karraden, I’ve only ever seen, probably, two Darkals total.” One of which was his own companion. He tried to keep the amusement out of his voice as he added, “and they weren’t as tall as me, and they definitely weren’t covered in feathers.”

The smaller Faerian flung up his paws. “I did see things exactly the way I think, and I can’t believe I bothered telling you.”

“No, I’m glad you told me. I want to help,” Arro assured him. “I’m just not sure I can help if I don’t get the, uh, all the facts.” He started to get up from the couch. “Can we maybe talk about this, when, I don’t know… When you’re less upset, maybe? And have thought about this?”

Zark crossed his arms. “The ‘facts’ are that the facility is secretly run by dangerous monsters, and they’re going to use their powers to mind control everyone.”

Arro sighed. “Alright.” He ponderously made his way to the door.

The slightly smaller Faerian followed after him. “Please at least… Please think about what I saw,” Zark pleaded. “Even if you don’t believe me right now, just… I can’t just pretend this didn’t happen. I can’t just ignore it. Who knows what they want? Why they’re here? We can’t just sit around while they get more powerful or something. Or start using their powers on… the rest of us.”

Arro turned back to him briefly when he reached the front door. “Hey. Zark. It’s okay.” He put a gentle paw on the other dragon’s shoulder. “I’ll, uh, think about the stuff you told me.” Seriously, how could he not? It was bizarre enough to distract him all night. “And, I’ll keep your secret, okay? I won’t tell anyone. We can talk more about it later. I’m being serious about that.”

Zark did seem slightly less upset. Slightly. “Thanks.”

The larger Faerian shouldered open the door. “How about, uh. My companion is Glitarian, remember? What if when I get home, I ask him a bit about stuff. Without really telling him what you just told me, of course. Just some vague questions.”

The cold air outside slapped Arro in the face as he trudged down the steps. He was quick to start up his hovercycle. He eagerly climbed onto the warm seat when he heard it whir to life.

Zark stayed in the doorway. He was smart enough to stay inside, even with the frozen air seeping into the house. “I don’t know if the mind control works on all Faerians though, even if they’re Glitarian. He might not know anything.”

Arro waved a paw dismissively in Zark’s direction as he swung his leg over the extra wide seat. “He’s not a Faerian. If it’s true, he’ll know.” He didn’t cast a glance back at the other dragon as he notched the hovercycle into gear and sped away, in a hurry to get home out of the cold.

Or he would have seen the puzzled look on Zark’s face.

~

When Rangavar got home, all he wanted to do was drop into bed. He felt exhausted, and every part of his body ached. He’d been trapped on the floor long enough in that basement to regain the strength to drag himself home, but needed a good, long rest to recharge.

He couldn’t drop onto the bed. Jade was there.

She looked up at him as he entered the room. She scooted over. She’d been busy with something on the wristband on her arm, but frowned as she glanced up at him. “I can tell you feel like shit.”

“Thanks.”

She patted the bed next to her now that she’d made room. “I can go downstairs if you want.”

“I don’t care,” Rangavar groaned as he pulled himself onto the bed and collapsed there. She could probably spend the next ten minutes screaming into his ear if she wanted and he still felt like he could sleep through it.

When he felt something brush his neck, his immediate reflex was to grab it and shove it away. His eyes flew back open. Jade’s paw was hovering over him. She was staring at him with concern. “What happened to your throat?”

He realized he was still tightly gripping her paw, and quickly released it. He was still a bit jumpy from earlier. “What do you mean?” He gently felt along the sides of his own throat and realized that there were still shallow cracks in some of the scales where the Glitarian’s talons had pricked him. “Oh… This is just…” He grappled to think of a response. He couldn’t get away with lying to the Gemian.

Of course, Jade could obviously tell what the marks were from. She just stared at him. “Did it happen at work?”

Slowly, he nodded. “It’s… such a long story. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“What, has it been going on a while?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer that either. Was a year a while? But it had started getting worse more recently than that. Was that period of time considered ‘a while’? He had no idea what ‘a while’ was. “It’s hard to explain.”

She reached out and brushed the back of her paw along his neck again, making him shiver. It also felt really, really good, though. His magic had been creating a slight burning sensation as it tried to fix the injuries, but her Gemian magic instantly took the pain away. He put a paw up to his neck. He was healed. He’d forgotten what that was like.

“Well, does Arro at least know?”

This time, he could more certainly shake his head.

She looked away, out the window, as if she might find her answers out there. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But I do still worry about you, you know.”

“You do?” She hadn’t worried about him very much a year ago.

She could sense the sudden bitter emotion that came with that thought, and returned her gaze to him sharply. “Yes. Of course I do.” She held his stare with her deep green eyes. “Just because I was with Arro, didn’t mean I suddenly… hated you, or something. If that’s what you thought.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘hate’ is what I thought,” he said carefully. “Just… please don’t think I don’t remember who you ‘picked’.”

Jade shook her head. “If I’d known he’d be completely fine with finding out you were alive and back in my life, I wouldn’t have had to ‘pick’.” She snorted. “I should say, ‘more than fine’ with you being alive, that is.” After a moment, her gaze softened. “I’m really glad you two are together, you know. Really. It’s actually kind of a relief for me.”

At his questioning stare, she continued, “Like I said. I never wanted to choose between you two. If I’d just known you’d get along from the start…” She shook her head. “I think that’s why I’m so angry that nobody told me. The problem sort of fixed itself, and we could have spent the past year, just, not worrying about it. You know?”

“I, uh, guess I can understand that.” Rangavar couldn’t really hide the surprise in his emotions. He couldn’t hide any of his emotions.

Not that she could hide hers, either. She was suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed. “Can I ask you something honestly?”

Rangavar stared back up at her with a blank expression. She was still leaning over him as he lay on the bed. “Sure? Go for it.”

She took a deep breath. “I keep mentioning how mad I am at you. But I haven’t asked… Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

It was a pointless quip to dodge the question, and they both knew it. He sighed. “I wouldn’t say ‘mad’ is the word. But when it turned out I hadn’t actually died a few centuries ago, when Glitara got cut off, at the very least, I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“I was happy to see you!” She wasn’t lying or anything. “It just. Well. Wasn’t very good timing.”

“Is there a ‘good’ time to come back from the dead?” he grinned just slightly.

A small smile finally crossed her own face. “Ha-ha. Yeah. Okay.” She shrugged. “You know what I mean though. Arro can get very… well. Emotional.”

“I can completely agree with you there.”

They shared a small laugh over that, too. Rangavar sighed again as he let himself sink further into the beaten mattress, but it was a more relaxed sigh this time. After a long moment of silence, he said, “I can ‘forgive’ you for sending me away, if you forgive Arro and I for getting together without explaining to you.”

She bit her lip. “I wish it were that simple.”

“Well, when you’re ready, let me know,” Rangavar told her. “The offer is open.” He stretched a bit, and yawned. “I think I’m going to take a nap now. If that’s okay.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Jade promised.

And she was. Although, Rangavar was pretty sure he felt the barest touch of a paw stroking his face as he finally slipped off to sleep.

~

Arro was feeling tired when he got home, his mind reeling with Zark’s weirdly insistent story. He wanted to climb into bed, relax, and think. Unfortunately, there were two dragons on it.

“Sorry,” Jade whispered softly, glancing up when he walked into the room. Rangavar was sprawled on the bed next to her. Taking up as much space as possible, of course.

Afraid to say anything for fear of waking him, Arro sighed and turned to trudge back down the stairs. He had to squeeze his belly past the doorframe as he turned, trying not to make too much noise. He jiggled with every step back down, despite being as soft and quiet as possible, and felt increasingly self-conscious by the time he lowered himself onto the couch. He wasn’t exactly the king of stealth.

Jade followed him down the stairs and joined him, her own lithe body making only the barest of sound against the wooden steps. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly as she perched on the opposite end of the couch. “I can tell you have a lot on your mind.”

Arro sighed. “It’s…” He didn’t know where to begin.

Jade watched him curiously from her side, not quite close enough to bump into the chubby roll that made up the bottom of the mountain of lard sprawling from his fat hips. She raised her brows. “It sounds like everyone had a way more exciting day than me.”

Arro shook his head. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“How did your day go?”

She snorted, smiling a bit. “I wasn’t fishing for you to ask or anything. But if you’re actually curious, it went well. I got a job. I get to start tomorrow.”

“Ooh, nice,” Arro said genuinely.

“Thanks. It’ll be the night shift though, so I won’t see you two as often.”

“Technically, most of the hours on this world are night,” Arro pointed out.

She grinned more fully and gave him a playful slap to his shoulder. It rippled down his fat, making everything jiggle again.

It made Arro blush. “I am happy for you.”

“I know.” She sat up a little straighter. “Now tell me what’s on your mind.”

He looked away, frowning again. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Weird, I heard that one earlier, too.”

He shot her a look. He suddenly remembered Rangavar had work today, like Zark, when there were supposedly giant monster-dragons roaming around. Technically, if anything Zark had said was true, maybe Rangavar could elaborate on it after all.

“Didn’t I tell you everything that goes on at the research facility is a bit strange?” he tried to joke lightheartedly. He wasn’t sure it sounded lighthearted, though. And it didn’t really feel that way, and he knew she’d be able to tell. He sighed in defeat. “I went to go visit a friend, and he said some weird stuff to me.”

She frowned. “A friend from work?”

“Yeah.” He tried to think of a way to outline the problem while keeping his promise not to tell anyone what Zark had ‘seen’. What he thought he’d seen, that is. “He… it’s weird.” Arro shrugged slightly. “He told me that he thinks the research facility should be shut down, and it’s weird, since just yesterday, Rangavar…”

Jade understood. “Huh. Yeah, that’s a weird coincidence.”

“Different reasons, though,” Arro chuckled a bit. “He thinks that the owners are secretly monsters.” Was that vague enough? He thought that was vague enough. “Not in a metaphorical sense. Like, physically monsters, and he thinks that’s dangerous.”

She gave him a flat stare. “Like, not dragons?” She raised a brow.

“He described it as more like, monster-like dragons. Said there are Darkals as tall as me, covered in feathers or something,” he grinned. “Like, special Darkals from Glitara, taking over.”

She grinned back. “Better tell Rangavar to watch out.”

“I intend to ask him about it, actually.” Arro leaned back on the couch. He wondered if he should start making dinner. Or, he could grab a bunch of bags and boxes of snacks to bring to the couch and start up the gaming console. “If there is anything weird going on—monster dragons or otherwise—he’ll probably be able to explain what my friend thinks he actually saw.”

Jade nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like your friend needs some things cleared up. For his peace of mind, at least.”

Arro absently nodded, tapping a few buttons on his wristband, and was quiet for a long moment. When he finally finished, he glanced back up at her briefly. “How would you feel about getting takeout tonight?”