The lake house was lovely. It was everything Beryl promised it would be but before Jondi’s bedtime ever rolled around I knew there was no way he was sleeping in the room that was set up for him. It might’ve been Beryl’s room when he was a kid but there were too many new and distracting things. After a couple of stories and a gallon worth of ‘one more glass of water, please’, I almost gave up on him sleeping on his own. He would close his eyes but pad after me when I left.
“Don’t you like your room, buddy?” Beryl asked, squatting down to get on Jondi’s level.
“I want to be with Dad,” he said. “I can hear the hunting birds outside.”
“They won’t get you. They’re afraid of dragons,” Beryl grinned.
“I am not a dragon,” Jondi sighed.
“Come on,” he reached for Jondi’s hand and I almost stepped in. Jondi and I also had the unspoken rule of he didn’t have to be alone if he didn’t want to. When he headed to the door I almost slid in front of them, but didn’t want Jondi to think Beryl couldn’t make good choices.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“On the back side of the porch,” he said. “There’s a rocking chair out there.”
“So that Dad can rock me,” Jondi said.
“I thought I’d rock you for a bit,” he said.
Jondi thought about it and glanced at me. I did my best to keep my expression neutral. I wanted them to bond but didn’t want to force things.
“If you want him to, it’s okay,” I finally said when Jondi didn’t look away from me.
“If I get eaten by a hunting bird, I’ll haunt you!” Jondi said, reaching for the doorknob.
“You’re not going to get eaten by a bird. Owls don’t eat otters.”
“So you say,” Jondi sighed, stepping outside.
I figured Jondi wouldn’t put up with it for long so I sprinted into the kitchen to wash up the dinner dishes. While the pair were still outside I headed upstairs to brush my teeth, wash my face, and change into my pajamas. When Beryl and Jondi were still outside, I headed out the kitchen door and crept around to where I spotted the rocking chairs earlier.
“Shhh, mate,”Beryl whispered over our mating link.“He’s out cold.”
“No way,”I thought more than said to him but as I rounded the corner there was Jondi in otter form out cold against Beryl’s shoulder. They’d come a long way since Jondi accused Beryl ofbeing Ferrick. I sank into the other rocking chair and tried to imagine how it must’ve been all those years ago when it was little Beryl who had been rocked in this chair by his mother.
“For hours on end,”he said over our mating link.“We’d sit out here and watch the birds and other animals come and go. I think it was times like these that made me take so long to realize my other parent wasn’t around. She didn’t leave a gap. She filled my life.”
“Are you mad at her?”I asked now that we were far away from everyone we knew.
“No,”he shook his head.“I can only imagine what the world must’ve seemed like to her if she wanted a baby but thought she’d be better off on her own. Part of me thinks she was waiting for Bree, but was worried she’d never meet her and wanted a family anyway. Sometimes I’m frustrated, though, because it feels so unfair that half my family tree is just filled with question marks.”
“Mine too, but for different reasons,”I said.“Like on my carrier’s side we can trace it all the way back to these dragons who originally entered Earthside somewhere in France. On my sire’s side, they lived a lot of generations in the Wildlands back when it was still called that. No one really kept records. It’s not the same.”
“It is, though,”Beryl said.“It’s someone else’s fault you don’t know. I don’t know how much history you’ve studied but people kept the Wildlands that way for a lot of shitty reasons. They made those things happen.”
“I know. Believe me, I have more reason to study that history than a lot of people. As a kid, I wanted to knoweverything about what gave my sire panic attacks. I tried to sign up for all the defense and fighting classes when I was too young for them.”
“It sucks that you had to do that.”
“I didn’t have to do anything,”I laughed over our mating link.“I mean , no one hid the panic attacks from me because it’s important to see older people managing their emotions and mental health, but no one told me I had to learn why or defend my parents. Hell, if anyone was going to defend the family while my sire had a panic attack it was my carrier. I’m telling you now, don’t ever cross that dragon. He’s a sweetheart but if you cross him he can be sneaky and deadly.”
“Noted. Though, I don’t ever foresee me fighting your carrier. Without him, there’d be no you,”he smiled at me.“And no Jondi.”
“Jondi would still exist,”I reminded him.
“Not like he is now. I’m sure they’d have found him a place to belong but we wouldn’t all be rocking on the back porch of a lake house together.”
Eventually, Jondi was asleep deeply enough so that Beryl could carry him back into the house. He laid him in his little bed and turned on the baby monitor. I’d hear him over our link way before he made enough noise to let us know he was awake, but I appreciated the thought, nonetheless.
