Chapter 4: The Raging Hurricane
SOME time had passed since Julian left.
“Lushera, guest, what happen?”
“Mom…?”
Kaphal had come down to check on Lushera, who was sitting alone in the café thinking about what had just happened.
“Everyone came back,” said Kaphal.
“Oh… I should probably tell them all then.” She gave up on running it through her mind anymore. She wasn’t going to get anywhere on her own.
The biggest impression that was left on her from meeting Julian wasn’t that he was threatening, or an uncertain factor, it was just that something seemed…odd. Like something didn’t add up. A queasy feeling took root in her chest, like she was getting motion sickness in a carriage.
She had thought there was a chance everything was just going to work out, even when accounting for optimistic hope in the equation, but seeing Julian erased any hope of that. There was an air about him that made Lushera feel she should be ready to expect anything from him.
She knew they were prepared for the worst possible situation, but she was surprised to find how heavily this weighed on her. It looked now that in the end, the paths of fate would diverge depending on whether or not she could win the support of the dragons.
Her resolve was firm; she wouldn’t retreat even one step, but there was a limit to what resolve and optimism could compensate for. Managers often had the mindset that they were the ones to guide those adventurers who had a tendency to solve problems with sheer willpower.
Being stubborn wasn’t really in Lushera’s nature. Especially after having her spirits doused this many times. There was also the huge difference in power between her and real dragons, whose mere existence was a matter of fact. Then there was her ridi-quest (adventuring slang for a ridiculously difficult request that went beyond your capabilities), as well as the weight on her shoulders from knowing everything depended on that same ridi-quest.
But she couldn’t give up, so she had to come up with some way of winning.
“Wait, Lushera,” said Kaphal, then she went right up to the café’s counter.
She came back, her hands hidden behind her, then she pulled them out in a big reveal. In each hand she held a cone of some baked treat filled with a creamy paste, one of them bright red.
“Good job,” said Kaphal.
“That’s…ice cream? Right?” She was surprised to see that here.
Kaphal smiled happily. “I ate when Lushera go castle. It yummy.”
Lushera took one of the artistically decorated ice cream cones. It felt nice and cool. “Thank you…” She looked at the small treat in her hand, her mind going back to the life she’d led.
How long has it been since I’ve had ice cream? Even before I became Lushera, I hadn’t eaten it in a while… I was frantic just trying to keep up with working and living. And I needed every penny for Giselle, I couldn’t bring myself to waste it on anything I didn’t need…
She licked off some of the ice cream.
“It’s sweet…”
It was really cold, but the sweetness spread through her. There were dried tart raspberries and their juice mixed in, making a flavor that gripped her chest.
“Human children ate this. Look yummy. I ask what is it,” said Kaphal.
“Oh, really?”
“It yummy?”
“Yeah, it’s really good.”
Kaphal bit into her ice cream, a deep green color. If you described her positively, you might say she ate with gusto. If you were going for something more negative, you might say she ate with bad manners. And if you wanted something more neutral and analytical, well, you’d just say she ate like a dragon. There was something funny about the sight though, since she was laying into ice cream, not freshly killed prey.
“Lushera smiled,” she said.
“Hmph…” Lushera smiled even more as Kaphal stroked her cheek so vigorously she smushed her face about, tickling her. “Do dragons also give their children gifts to cheer them up?” she asked.
“No really. Dragons have few things. No cook much. This human way. Not just humans…humanoid people?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“I learn this way, make Lushera smile.”
Lushera nearly cried hearing that, knowing that was the unvarnished, honest truth.
No matter how much she struggled, Kaphal was a dragon and she refused to be anything else. But she studied humanity, learning more tools for communication. She likely did that for Lushera, and only Lushera. That was why she started studying her language, and why she learned to create this fragment form.
“I’m no match…” muttered Lushera. It wasn’t just in terms of strength. She realized now how tremendous mothers were.
Lushera made a vow to stand by Kaphal as her daughter. How should she do that?
She couldn’t see the future, but it was likely she would never be equal to the dragons. While children may someday grow into adults, Lushera would never grow into a dragon. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t learn from Kaphal.
“Hey, let’s talk in Draconic,” Lushera suggested.
“Hm? But no ring…”
“I don’t have it, but I feel like I got an idea of how to do it when I was speaking it with the ring. I think I can do it.”
“Okay, I will. But why xxxx?” Even if she did seem confused by the sudden request, Kaphal switched to Draconic.
A torrent of multi-layered meaning crashed into Lushera, all held into short, animalistic sounds. Great! I got about half of that!
Giselle’s Ring, the magic item that gave its wearer the ability to speak Draconic, was currently with the royal court. When she used that, Lushera knew how to use the language, almost like the knowledge came to her as a divine revelation from the heavens. Or like she had a dictionary and grammar guide that she could always flip to the exact page she wanted.
She didn’t have that now, but having the experience of speaking it once was a huge step forward. Both processing and speaking Draconic was outside what was normal for languages, but she could lean on her experience of having used it before.
If she was going to be Kaphal’s equal, she first needed to learn Draconic. It came down to her feelings in the end. It seemed shameful of her to refuse to budge, getting by with what they already had.
“No real reason,” answered Lushera. “I’ve just been thinking lately I should try. Hm. How do I say it…? Ah… Uu… Ooh…”
“Xxxx difficult. It xxx that xxxx not xx humanoid languages.”
Just imitating the sounds was nothing more than as if they were speaking a humanoid language. It used a form of compressed speech similar to the incantation for a spell in order to layer the meaning into the sound. It had much more utility but was also far more difficult.
“…Mom?” Lushera finally managed to say, and Kaphal’s eyes shone as bright as huge glittering gems.
“So good! That xx so good, Lushera! Xxxx a genius?!”
“Aaah, haha.”
With her ice cream still in one hand, Kaphal used her free hand to pull Lushera into a hug so she could nuzzle her face against her. Still holding Lushera, she sat in a chair and pulled her onto her lap. Lushera just went along with it.
“This xx tea xxxx. It’s xxxx, but good. Xxxx to try?” She held out the cone, a quarter of it already gone from the one bite she took earlier.
Lushera licked the opposite side when Kaphal offered. “It’s an odd flavor… Bitter, but sweet. I never realized tea ice cream would taste like that.”
“Lushera, there’s xx on your cheek.”
“Really?”
“Don’t move.”
Lushera felt Kaphal’s warm chest press against her back as she leaned over, looking at her face while she was still in her lap. Then, with a quick peck, she licked Lushera’s cheek.
“Ah!”
“Got it.”
Lushera nearly jumped up from shock from getting licked out of nowhere. “M-Mom, I told you before, humans don’t really do that…”
“Xx saw xx human parent xx to xxxx child.”
“Y-You saw a real example…? I-I guess there are some people who do it…”
Kaphal was full of confidence since she saw humans doing the same thing and decided it meant it was fine. She wasn’t wrong, but Lushera wanted to add lots of additional explanations, like it really depends on the situation, and it’s embarrassing to do it in front of other people.
But it was the sort of thing that you learned through feel. It was a bit too early in Kaphal’s learning to expect her to know the finer points of these things, and Lushera didn’t want to tell her it was never okay.
“Sigh…”
“Are you mad? Do you xxxx?”
“I’m not mad, and I don’t hate it.” Lushera pouted and looked the other way. She didn’t hate it. Really.
Dragons probably didn’t go around licking just anyone. If she were being honest, Lushera would say she could feel Kaphal’s love in the action. She was able to do something like that so easily because she cared for Lushera. Thinking of it that way gave her a tickly feeling, like butterflies in her stomach.
She just didn’t want anyone she knew to see it. Especially if it was someone who knew her before she was Lushera.
“So… I came ’cause there’s something I wanted to talk to ya ’bout…” came a voice from a man in a suit with slicked-back hair, standing idly nearby.
Lushera froze, her heart racing.
“Never thought you’d make that face,” he said.
“Wait.”
“Sorry for interrupting your family moment.”
“Wait.”
“I mean, I know people adapt themselves to the situation, but…”
“Don’t abandon me!” Lushera cried, her shout echoing futilely through the café.