I wait, irritatingly hopeful, until a moment later, I hear them too.Humans, quite a few of them.
You can come, Agrippa says.ItisLiz!
Tromping around the corner of this mountain is irritating in this form, my feet crushing rock, trees, and scree.Even so, I move as fast as I’ve ever moved as Azar without flying.And when I crash down a small decline, I slide to a stop by a rocky outcropping...
And I finally see her.
My heart swells at the sight.
Liz is standing at the front of a large column of humans, all of whom are staring up at us with dangling mouths and wide eyes.There are at least a hundred of them, maybe a few more.There are females, males, and a few forms I can’t differentiate thanks to the clothing and head coverings.Some are tall.Some are very short.A few are rounded.A few are bony.The hair colors that are not covered are as different as the blessed scale colors—some striped, some dark, and lots of light, golden.
“See?”Liz is smiling as she turns back to face them.“Majestic, right?”
“I want the red one.”The rounded human beside her has bright red hair, and he’s pointing at me.“I call dibs.”He tugs on the bottom of his puffy blue jacket.
“You can’t call dibs, Norm,” Liz says.
“Oh, wait, is he still yours?”the rounded human asks.“Or, like, you said that’s ended, right?”
I am not hers; she is mine.
Quite a few of the humans turn toward me when I declare Liz is mine.In general, I’ve heard that the incidence of brights among the human population is quite low.Maybe one in a few hundred or even a thousand humans seem to shine to us—those are the ones we can bond.
Out of the hundred humans Liz brought, we’d have been lucky if one or two were glowing.
Somehow, there are more than forty.
How did you find so many brights?Agrippa asks.Is that what took so long?
Liz beams.“Can you please identify which of them are brights?”She turns toward the humans.“As I told you, we’re not totally sure what makes someone a person who can be bonded, but unless you shine for them, they can’t bond you.I still ask that you not disclose what you’re witnessing here today, even if you’re not eligible to be bonded.”
“You really don’t want to harm humans?”the rounded one asks.“You just want to get this heart thing so you can have baby dragons again?”
If some of them do go to the government with information, I hope they’ll pass along our good intentions.That would be nice.
We indeed only came to recover our people’s heart,I say.We’re dying off without it, and now things have gotten even worse.
“You really can’t eat?”a woman with long, dark hair in braids asks.
That’s true,Agrippa says.A dear friend of Liz and mine, another blessed Liz saved when she fled from the humans who held us captive, recently expended too much energy and died when she couldn’t replenish her reserves.
“Which of us can help?”a tiny human with a big ball of fuzzy hair around her face asks.
If you can line up, we’ll point out the ones who can,Phileas says.And if you’re not opposed, Agrippa and I would like to try bonding two of you right away.Until recently, the earth blessed couldn’t fly, and we couldn’t bond humans, either.
“Because you’re earth dragons,” the fuzzy hair woman says.“And only the water and electric ones could?”
Exactly,Agrippa says.And if we still can’t bond humans...
“Then they’ll all die,” Liz says.“So we’re hoping that when they got wings and a power upgrade, they also became able to ensnare humans.”
Why would all of you come to join us?I ask.Did Liz offer you something?
The humans begin talking too fast for me to understand them.
“Their reasons differ,” Liz says.“Some of them just want to help, and some of them have always wanted to find purpose in their lives, but for many of them, including my friend Norm, he’s always felt like there was more in life than what he had.He’s always longed to be a part of something like this—what we humans call fantasy.”
Perhaps the strength in his heart called to him, I say.Because he’s bright.
