First Demonic Dragon

Chapter 1206: Pathetic Together*

Fiona walked through the halls of her ship with her phone in her hand and Thrudd’s face on the screen.

“You know, your sister is way more high-strung than she looks. I always took her for more of the cool, laid-back type.”

Thrudd laughed at the idea of Courtney as ’cool’ or ’laid back’.

“You just haven’t been around her enough. She’s our family’s adorable little spazz.”

The ramp of the ship lowered and Fiona jumped out of it while they were still in the air.

“Spazz is right. Do you know she ditched me as soon as she put on her dress? And that was after she spent thirty minutes ripping through the first 100 she tried on.”

“Well, what do you expect? Her emotions are much stronger than a human’s, and your brother is the only guy she’s ever dated. I’d be more concerned if she wasn’t having any episodes.”

Fiona reached inside her coat pocket and removed a metallic, silver plate.

She tossed it into the air as she fell. The plate spontaneously lengthened into a board that Fiona landed on gracefully.

Her descent was as smooth as a trip down a lazy river…

“Speaking of dates… I haven’t really heard from your cousin since we went out the other night. Do they not get reception in the abyss or something..?” Fiona laughed halfheartedly.

Thrudd’s face hardened. “Don’t worry, Fi-fi. I’ll go knock that big-headed bitch into-”

“No, no, you don’t need to do any of that.” Fiona sighed. “I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Don’t say anything and don’t go starting stuff on my behalf.”

Thrudd pursed her lips.

“I can count on you, right? You’re going to listen to me?” Fiona asked.

“Yes…”

“Say that a bit more enthusiastically please.”

“I can’t. I have to go ask my brother to pass on a message for me.”

Fiona’s eyes widened. “No, Thrudd! Thrudd?!”

The video call ended and Fiona was on the verge of pulling her hair out from the stress.

Finally, her board carried her into the yard of a suburban neighborhood. She resigned herself to dealing with her best friend later and praying to god that she had just been joking before she hung up.

Fiona’s board returned to it’s previous size and entered her pocket manually.

Dusting off her coat, Fiona began walking across the lawn towards a modern, two-story house.

But as she got closer, she found Courtney standing on the porch, staring into the home from the front window.

“Okay, I know you’re all old and powerful and stuff, but I still think you should know when you’re being creepy.”

Courtney did not respond to her gentle ribbing with a quip of her own.

Fiona walked up the porch steps and placed herself beside Courtney.

Despite her chastising, she too ended up staring inside of her brother’s house like some creeper.

From the window, one could see right into the living room.

There, Aj was lying on the sofa, asleep.

He looked distinctly different from when they were younger.

He’d raided his short hair to form the pattern of a cross in his head.

His beard had grown thicker and fuller, and dotted by a salty grey.

He appeared to have kept himself in decent enough shape. His chest and muscles were broad and firm while his stomach still had a slight softness to it.

A woman was sleeping beside him. She was beautiful with short black hair styled into finger waves and subtle caramel skin.

On the floor, there were two kids. A girl who looked to be around thirteen, was on her phone texting her friends. Beside her, a young boy was scribbling away in his coloring book.

“…Are you going to ring the doorbell?” Fiona asked quietly.

Courtney didn’t respond verbally, but her body trembled.

She turned around and stepped off the porch, her face wet and her smile forced.

“I’m sorry, umm… I think this was a mistake. Can we just go back?”

Courtney had already started walking down the porch steps as if she weren’t going to take no for an answer.

Fiona wanted to say something to dissuade her from leaving, but no words would leave her mouth.

She inevitably ended up following Courtney as they traveled back to the ship. The tears that ran down the dragon’s face were blown by the wind into her own…

–

Dragons can really drink. That was something Fiona already knew from spending so much time around the Tathamets, but seeing a heartbroken dragon drink was something new entirely.

The vessel of the Shining Order of Sacred Mercy is outfitted with technology they labeled matter synthesizers. It reconstitutes particles in the air to create matter spontaneously.

This was the first time in Fiona’s life that she had ever seen the damn thing overheat as Courtney demanded it create bottles of soju over and over again…

Fiona lost count of how many gallons the dragon drank after 600,609.

“What the fuck was I even thinking..?” Courtney burped.

She lay back on Fiona’s sofa with a crushed spirit. The alcohol caused her breath to spontaneously catch fire.

“I was really going to kill that woman. And take a mother away from her kids, and hurt Aj when he just… he looked so at peace.. I’m fucking trash.”

“No you’re not, don’t say that.”

Fiona helped the distraught dragon sit up and gave her her first bottle of water in two hours of drinking.

“You didn’t go through with it. I would say that counts for something.”

“Yes, but how much?” Courtney pushed back her hair. “I sure as shit don’t feel very redeemable.”

“Well, that’s just because you’re feeling a little down on yourself right now. And drinking doesn’t help that.”

“Ah, this is human alcohol so it’s basically lemonade… I was just hoping that it would maybe make me feel a little less pathetic.”

Fiona snorted. “Pathetic? Girl, this barely qualifies. Get a little more dating experience and this won’t even crack your top ten.”

“Somehow I doubt that…” Courtney held her head.

Fiona watched the dragon stew in her misery for a while before deciding to swallow her pride.

“So… I’m assuming you know I went on a date with Nihil the other night.”

“No, actually.” Courtney looked up.

Her cousin didn’t talk about his partners much. Usually, someone just caught him bringing randos into the house, at which point he got scolded and jumped by the other men for his irresponsible, man-whorish ways.

“Yeah, well, it was nice at first. He’s handsome and charming, and I thought we were having a great time. We’d both had a little bit to drink, so at the end of the night we…”

“Slept together?”

“The first time didn’t even happen in the hotel. It was in the bathroom of the restaurant.”

“If that’s what makes you feel pathetic, I should tell you that the really fancy places in Tehom have entire bathrooms for that kind of thing, so I kind of still feel like I’m in first place.”

“Yeah, well, you kind of missed the part where I haven’t heard from him since then and I’ve texted him three times.”

“…Shit.”

“Yeah, embarrassing, huh?” Now Fiona was the one feeling like she needed a drink.

“Wait, but I thought leaders of the order were supposed to abstain from personal relationships?”

“Yeah, well, my dad’s giving foot rubs to a succubus now and I’m the first woman director in nine generations, so I figured I’d change things around a bit. But now it seems like I should’ve just stuck to being single.” Fiona turned her head toward the ceiling. “I’m too old for all of this shit…”

Courtney put down her glass of liquor with a shaky hand. “Well… no reason for both of us to sit here feeling pathetic.”

Fiona chuckled. “Yeah. Maybe we should go to Vegas in an alternate dimension where the currency is something hilarious like-”

The sudden feeling of a foreign pair of lips against hers was stupefying and mildly mind-numbing.

Fiona felt her eyebrows flutter as she started to lean in to the embrace, only to remember the identity of exactly who she was sharing a kiss with.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Fiona placed her hand on Courtney’s shoulders and held her at bay. “This feels very wrong, and-”

“I’m not drunk. And I’m older than you.”

“You’re also my brother’s-”

“In all of the time I’ve been gone, did your brother ever mention me? Even once..?”

Fiona fell silent and looked away.

That was the only answer Courtney really needed.

She reached for Fiona’s shirt and slowly began undoing the buttons.

“Like I said, I’m just… tired of feeling pathetic. But if you don’t want to do this then you should probably say something before I get to the third button.”

Courtney unfastened the second button, and she could see the beginning of Fiona’s chest. She could hear her heart beating loudly against her skin.

As she reached for the third button, Fiona suddenly raised her arms again.

Courtney was the tiniest bit hurt, but she couldn’t say she didn’t expect this result.

“Thrudd is sooo going to kill me…”

Instead of reaching for Courtney’s shoulders to push her away again, Fiona reached behind her back, and pulled down the zipper holding her dress closed.

As Courtney revealed her bare body to another person, her cheeks became flushed with red.

Her bra hit the ground with a silent thud, and Fiona pulled her forward to take one of her breasts in her mouth.

At the same time, her hand slipped between the dragon’s legs and she ran her fingers along her slick folds.

Courtney felt a breath get caught in her throat as her eyes slowly rolled back into her head.

Her vision became tinted with pink and green colors. The temperature of her body rose.

As a thin but dexterous finger pushed past her hymen, she felt a new wave of euphoria that superseded any possible guilt.