CHAPTER 81

"Um...not quite. You need to master sleeping on your own first. Then you can decide if you want to sleep with somebody else. It's kind of a personal decision."

"You speak with much wisdom, humanling."

"Just call me Mike. I need to stop for something first."

They walked through the centaur village and he stopped a couple of centaurs and asked for their help. They lead him to one of the nearby storage yurts, then left to complete their duties. Once inside, he dug around through their supplies for a few minutes before finally spotting what he needed.

Quetzalli had stayed outside, her eyes on the blue sky above. He called her in to help him, then handed her a bag of salt.

"What's this for?" she asked.

"Don't know yet. Rule number one of being a human: be prepared." He grabbed a couple of horseshoes that the centaurs had made. Though they technically didn't need them (centaur hooves were magically durable), he had learned that they often utilized them for treating hoof related injuries to ensure that they healed properly.

"What are those for?" she asked, indicating the horseshoes.

"They're for luck, but you gotta hold the open end up, or all the luck will run out." He tucked them partially into one of his pockets. "Rule number two of being human: you're gonna need all the luck you can get."

"Isn't all the luck going to run out of them like that?" She squatted down. "I don't see anything coming out of them."

"Oh, I'm not grabbing them for their luck. C'mon, I want you to meet somebody."

He led her out of the yurt and to the other side of camp, where the portal had been set up. They were about to walk inside the building when she stopped and turned her vision to the sky again.

"Everything okay?" he asked her.

A slow smile crossed her face. "There's a storm coming."

He scanned the cloudless sky and shrugged. "If you say so. C'mon, let's go."

The guards standing by the portal let them pass, and they walked through it and into the front yard of his house.

"That's my home," he told her, pausing for a moment to let her see it. In the light of the morning, much of the front was still cast in shadows, and it somehow looked ominous with its latest addition stuck onto the front. "It's also your home for as long as you like."

"Thank you," she said, and he held his breath.

Nothing happened. He scanned the front of the house, wondering if a new room had popped up in the back or something. He shrugged, and walked over to the garden.

It didn't take him long to find it. Along the edge of the maze that was closest to the street, he could see that a fairly large patch of bushes had giant gaps in them, and the dirt beneath looked more like sand than soil.

"Hey, Abella?" He raised his voice and squinted, his gaze traveling the length of the roof. "I might need you in a moment. Can I get you in the air?"

After a couple of seconds, he saw her shoot into the sky, her dark figure now circling overhead.

"That's Abella," he explained. "She's a gargoyle."

"Oh." Quetzalli gazed wistfully into the sky. "I miss my wings. I feel so heavy being trapped on the ground."

"Yeah, I bet. If you're ever in need of a ride, you might be able to convince the Jabberwock to give you one." He pointed out the beast where it lay hidden against the far wall of his house. Its wings were folded up, and it looked like it might be sleeping. However, he knew that it didn't need sleep, and was constantly watching the entrance, just in case.

"Maybe later. I seem to be having trouble with my balance already." She dropped the bag of salt on the ground and then put her hands on her breasts. "I'm so confused by these in particular. Why are they so heavy? If I turn too fast, I feel like I'm being pulled forward by them." She turned around and shook her butt at him. "At least if I had a tail, I feel like I could use it as a counter weight or rudder."

Oh boy. He didn't even know where to begin. "That is probably a question for the others. Hey, can you open that bag for me?"

"Yes, I can." She knelt down and swiped her fingers at the top of the cloth sack. Frustrated when nothing happened, she tried again, but this time snagged her fingernail on the cloth and let out a holler of pain.

"Humans don't use their nails like that," he explained. He showed her how to operate the string on the bag. She pulled on it and the bag opened up.

"It's a good thing your kind reproduces so quickly," she grumbled. "Manlings are so breakable."

"And stubborn, too." Yuki's voice was bitter, and Mike flinched as the temperature dropped around him. He hadn't seen her approach, and when he looked at her, he saw that she had small bags under her eyes. "And they make shitty choices."

"Yuki, I—" he began, but she stepped into him and hugged him so tight that his voice became a squeak and his back popped.

"You're such an asshole," she told him, then stepped back and gave him a light shove. "I'm so glad that you decided to go to the faerie realm just to nearly get killed by almost everything."

He winced, then held out his hands apologetically. "Look, Yuki, I'm really sorry that—"

"No, absolutely not. I don't want to hear any of your bullshit excuses, or..." Yuki sniffed the air and turned to face Quetzalli. "And who is this?"

"I am the dragon Quetzalli." She held out a hand and Yuki took it. There was a loud pop on contact as the kitsune received a shock, and then the dragon counted to two out loud while vigorously pumping Yuki's hand.