TWENTY-ONE
Tor growled after the millionth pothole. Of all the roads in Central America, he was on the shittiest of them all. Basketball-sized rocks embedded in dirt and mud was the only thoroughfare to the side of the mountain where the UFO supposedly landed.
If he wasn’t concerned about villagers, he’d strip and fly in dragon form. But he couldn’t take that kind of chance. He could have sent another team in to search, but with the last one not making headway, he decided to handle this himself.
The folks in Costa Rica and surrounding countries along the narrow strip of land between Mexico and South America based their lives on mythologies and superstitions of the past. Someone seeing a dragon come in for a landing nowadays could create a whole new culture and tear these people’s traditions apart. That was the last thing he wanted. He had enough of that earlier in his life.
Though he had to admit, the medieval times where great fun. King Arthur and his whole story around the knights, fire-breathing dragons, and damsels in distress. Historians would absolutely shit if they learned that knights and dragons were a lot of times one and the same “person.” Really, he thought, did humans believe a three-foot-long piece of steel wielded by a puny human could kill a scale-protected beast of a dragon with fire and could fly?
Of course, back then, there were many more of them around than today. Many more. Their population had dwindled to just a few. And thanks to his two brothers finding mates and quickly spitting out dragonlings, his race once again had hope to rebuild. If the Noir left them alone, that was.
If there was some way to find their lair, he’d wipe it out in a heartbeat. The Noir had a witch working with them at one time, so he had no doubt magic was employed to hide their nest. What baffled him the most was that he didn’t understand why that group wanted to destroy the Drachen still.
The Drachen line was royalty in their old planet, and the Noirs felt they should’ve been the leaders. But that way of life ended eons ago. They were forced to leave their planet in search of elsewhere to support their lifeforms. Their royal family and a few others went a different way than most of the dragon families.
They came to earth while the others went somewhere else, further than earth and hopefully better. Then they discovered the Noir had followed them to earth. On this planet, the Drachen no longer had the power they had long ago. They still had their dragons, but there were abilities they’d lost when they got to earth. The dynasty was over. Why hadn’t the Noir moved on?
He had no idea the fate of the rest of his world. He hoped that those in the other far away planet had found mates and continued to grow their kind. For all he knew, their few were it. That thought broke his heart, nearly cracking his soul. Such a strong and advanced species to be destroyed because of petty jealousies and grudges.
And that was the reason his ass was being battered on the shitty road of boulders leading him into the jungles of nowhere. If there was a possibility that another ship had found their way to earth, then by god, he was going to find them and bring them home.
He rounded a sharp bend and the road stopped. Died into a group of trees. Fuck! He slammed on the brakes and threw the transmission into park. Son of a bitch. He’d been driving for hours to get a few miles. And now that was nothing but a waste of time.
Pushing the door open, he climbed out of the truck and looked around. The air in Costa Rica was warm compared to his mountaintop homes, but cooler than the beaches hundreds of feet below him. The groundcover in the jungles was thick. As if determined to keep human feet from trespassing. But according to those he’d talked to in the area, “in there” was where he needed to go.
Tor leaned against the truck and took a deep breath. These trees were so much different than what he was used to. And the animal sounds and scents were curious also. So much more lush and variable. Yet, something was familiar. Very familiar.
He lifted his nose higher and breathed deeper. Yes, there it was again. He stepped away from the truck, trying to locate the direction of the smell. Striding off the dirt and rock lane, he headed into the jungles. The bugs and critters seemed to sense him and moved away from his path. His dragon was letting them know to stay out of the way. They were on a mission and the bugs were food to his shifted form.
Sweat gathered on his brow as he pushed through dense brush and vines. The sun didn’t penetrate the canopy in some areas, leaving the ground cover sparse and easy to travel, but those areas weren’t nearly long enough to allow him to move any amount of distance in a short time.
The terrain suddenly went from forest to rocky mountainside. And the rocks weren’t the normal make and model. These were high in metal content. He’d never smelled anything like them. And that made sense for a UFO, or anything that didn’t want to be scanned, to lie among the stones. The only type of wave that could correctly penetrate the area would be infrared and the ship would be the same temperature as the surrounding area.
Despite that fact, Tor was sure he wouldn’t find the ship with its abilities to hide and blend into its environment. He’d continue tracking the scent his beast said to follow.
Stumbling to a break in the tree line, he took a path back into the woods. The trail was in better shape than the road he drove the last hour. Voices and sounds of humans met his ears. He was coming to some kind of village or homestead. He smelled livestock and heard dogs barking.
Several hut-like structures came into view. Tan dogs jumped around each other, playing whatever game suited them for the moment. He came to the back of one of the larger buildings, and a door opened. Looking up at him from knee height was a rosy-cheeked smile, one baby tooth missing from the front.
She waved him inside, opening the door wider. Her bare feet padded against the dirt floor. He followed the young girl around a hanging piece of material and froze in his tracks. In an old rocking chair sat an even older woman.
She stopped rocking and looked up from her lap and the basket she was weaving. “It’s about time, boy. Much longer and I would’ve been dead.” The little girl covered her mouth with a giggle escaping anyway. The old woman stuck her arm in the air for Tor to help her up. Gently, Tor took her forearm and pulled. She easily got to her feet and punched him in the shoulder. She winked at the gigging girl. “Don’t treat me like I’m on old lady, Tor. My dragon will eat you for lunch.”
Finally overcoming his sudden inability to speak, Tor asked, “How did you know my name?”
She mumbled words in a language he didn’t know, which had to be alien because he knew all of earth’s dialects. Who was this woman, he wondered? If she hadn’t called herself a dragon, he would’ve questioned that.
The old dragon looked down at the little girl watching them in awe and said in the mountain people’s words, “You’d think a great-great-grandson would remember his nana before she kicked his butt to the moon.”
His nana? Grand matriarch Shela? On earth? Once again, he was speechless. This woman was the epitome of every male’s nightmare, mated or not. She kicked ass and took names. Even the Noir were afraid to cross her on their home planet. But she didn’t look like the nana he remembered.
She harrumphed at him. “You live another thousand years and tell me you don’t look different. All this hot, sexy man you show will only look hot and sexy to your mate.” She turned to him. “You are mated, now, aren’t you?” After looking him up and down, she walked away. “Good to see you are. I told your parents to come this way when we left home. I’m glad they listened to at least one of their elders.”
Not only could this woman know what you were thinking, but so many other things that he now remembered. Man, his brothers were going to trip out when he showed up with Nana in tow.
“Nana,” he managed to say as he followed her into the next room, “what are you doing here?”
“Just like your father,” she said, “always asking the dumb questions.”
In the other room, many children gathered around another female elder while a mother and teen girl made food. The woman in the middle of the children looked up from her storytelling. She said, “Ahh, your visit is over. He’s finally here.”
Tor couldn’t help but roll his eyes. How could he have gotten there any quicker without giving away his alter ego? Then the importance of those words hit him. It wasn’t the meaning of those words that surprised him, but the language they were spoken in. His home planet.
Nana hugged the storyteller. “It was good to see you again, Rama. I’m glad you made it here safely, too.”
Rama had been living on earth and he had no idea. Were there more dragon elders here he didn’t know about?
He asked, “What about your mate, Nana? Is he here, too?”
Nana hugged the little girl who had opened the door earlier. “Naw. I left his draggin’ butt,” she winked, yeah, he got it—draggin’, dragon, “on the other planet. He’s not needed here. I am.”
“You are?” Tor asked. “For what?”
Nana picked up a cloth bag then patted him on the shoulder. “You won’t understand, boy. It’s a woman thing. Trust me, you won’t get it.” She stood straight and grinned. “I’m ready, let’s go.”
“Go where?” he asked.
“To your home. Where else would the babies be?” she asked. “I’m not going to just let them die.”