Fractious (24 page)

Next stop; Balor the dragon.

And Fractious the mule.

It was a long trip. Cu and Fiacha walked beside Bob while I lay over Bob's neck, my
arms dangling down at his sides and my head resting against his black mane. I couldn't do much
else. It was much better doing this on Bob's back rather than draped across the back of my old
pony. At least my hands didn't drag on the ground. And while I looked forward to seeing my old
buddy, Balor and my even older buddy, although not in years, Fractious the mule, my heart just
wasn't in it.

"Maybe he just misses home," I heard Fiacha saying. She and Cu were walking ahead of
Bob. Cu was holding the reins, even though we all knew Bob would follow us to the ends of the
worlds, whether he was being led or not.

"Maybe," Cu said. "Or maybe it's the girl."

"Maybe both," Fiacha suggested. "He just looks so down. Makes me sad."

I heard the sound of Cu kissing her. "He'll be okay," Cu said. "I'll have him back in his
home world in no time. Then he can get back to his real life. I'm sure Crista will be there,
too."

"Are you really going to find him a house in Beverly Hills?"

"Yep," Cu said. "That was the deal. He upheld his end, and I'm sure Mac Gréine
will hold up his."

Fiacha laughed lightly. "Even if he doesn't, I took more than just one emerald."

"You did?"

"Yes, I did," she said. "Lots more." I heard the sound of her kissing him. "But what do
we do with him in the meantime?"

"Maybe Balor will cheer him up."

Balor did cheer me up, but only just a little.

We came across the dragon and his soccer field the very next day, after spending yet
another safe night in woods and not getting eaten, or even eaten slowly by what Lug had called
the Slow Eaters. Balor was overly excited to see us returning safely, and so was Fractious the
mule. Fractious the mule galloped over to me and bowled me over, ass over neck meats. I
laughed, feeling better than I had in days. I had hoof marks on my chest and mule drool on my
face, but I was glad for it.

Balor turned on the Michael Jackson music, roasted a couple of pigs on multiple spits
over roaring fires, and brought out marshmallows and chocolate and the Tuatha Dé
equivalent of graham crackers so we could make s'mores.

We introduced Bob and Fractious the mule. They had a lot to talk about and began
swapping stories instantly. I drowned out their braying and neighing after a while and bobbed my
head to various tunes.

"You know," Balor said, as he sat before one of the fires, roasting a marshmallow on
one of his long claws, "I finally taught that mule how to play Tic-Tac-Toe."

"You did?" I said, surprised.

"Yeah," Balor said. He winked his pus-filled eye at me, the very reason for his name
although I still wasn't quite sure on the tale behind the other Balor who had a poisonous eye.
"Once he got the hang, he was all over it!"

Fractious the mule gave a quick bray in my direction.

"Good job, old buddy." I gave him a thumbs up.

Fractious the mule lifted a hoof in reply and went back to his conversation with
Bob.

I took a bite out of a gooey s'more and let the chocolate get all over my fingers so I
could lick it off with relish. Then I stuck another marshmallow on my stick and held it over the
fire until it caught fire. I brought it to my mouth to blow out the fire. Then I stuck the entire hot
and sticky marshmallow in my mouth. It was sweet and delicious and was one of the best things
I'd ever tasted. There was no way it was a normal marshmallow.

"So what do you do to these marshmallows, Balor?" I said as I greedily grabbed another
one.

"I soak them in chocolate liqueur." The dragon puffed at a flaming marshmallow.

"Really?" I said.

"Hell yeah, boy! Soak 'em, let 'em sit, then roast 'em."

"How do they not go right up in flames?" I blew out the fire that had attached itself to
my current marshmallow.

Balor only lifted a scaly eye brow ridge at me and grinned, showing all his pointy teeth.
He devoured an entire s'more in one gulp, and then loaded up another marshmallow on his claw.
"So where ya'll headed next? Back to Murias?"

Cu nodded.

"Then back to my own world," I said.

Balor blew a warm breath in my general direction. "You mean to go back afta havin' so
much fun in our world?"

"Yeah," I said, startled somewhat. "What else would I do?"

Balor exchanged a look with Cu that I couldn't read. Then he popped a flaming
marshmallow into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "Just askin'."

I looked into his eyes, both his pussy one and his regular one, but couldn't figure out
what he was trying to convey. So we all just sat and roasted marshmallows for the rest of the
night, swapping stories about what had occurred in our lives since we first parted.

It was fun. It was entertaining. Balor even laughed his dragon ass off when I told him
my full name again--at his request, of course. I even laughed when he rolled on the ground. But
still, something was missing. Maybe not missing...

Maybe it had just never been there at all.

We stayed the night in Balor's cavern. Fractious the mule curled up next to me and slept
like a snoring, albeit extra large, baby. I didn't get much sleep though.

I couldn't. I tried really, really hard. I shut my eyes. I counted wooly sheep. I counted
wolverines. I counted Fractious the mule's snores. I pretended I was someone else who was fast
asleep. Nothing worked.

So I got up and went outside onto the soccer field.

Balor was lying on his back in the middle of the field, his two arms tucked behind his
head and his wings neatly tucked behind his back. He was blowing smoke rings into the sky,
watching them dissipate into the air. He looked so peaceful that I almost didn't want to disturb
him.

But I did. "Hey, Balor," I said as I walked up to him, my hands in my pockets. I'd been
careful to remember to get dressed before going outside this time. Balor had had one look at my
junk; he didn't need a second.

"Hey, Fractious!" the dragon said, angling his head to get a better look at me. "You ain't
naked this time!"

I glanced down at my pants. "Yeah, I figured there was no need for nudity right
now."

Balor winked his non-pussy eye. "Good thinkin', bro. Whatcha doing up?"

I sat down by his head, which was the size of my entire body. I leaned back on my
hands and looked up at the stars that filled the night sky. "I couldn't sleep," I said. "The mule
snores. I thought maybe I'd sleep better out here." I was lying through my somewhat crooked
teeth but I knew Balor wouldn't notice. He was a dragon, after all. There would be no sleep for
me that night.

"Yeah," Balor said, "He does snore somethin' fierce."

I sighed and closed my eyes for a bit, but I didn't fall asleep.

Balor didn't seem bothered by the silence between us. I didn't mind either. It was
comfortable. After a while, I opened my eyes and looked back up into the beautiful skies. There
were more stars in this realm than I'd ever seen in mine. I liked it. I liked it a
lot
.

"I know whatcho thinkin'," Balor said quietly.

"Really?" I said. "What?"

"You thinkin' about dat girl." He turned his good eye toward me.

I shook my head. "Not at all. I was thinking about all the stars."

"Stars?" the dragon said. "What da hell is that?"

I pointed at the tiny pinpricks in the velvet night sky. "Those."

Balor gave a grumbly laugh. "Them ain't stars."

"If they aren't stars then what are they?" I was watching him gaze thoughtfully at the
sky.

"Those are the souls of our ancestors." He pointed a clawed hand upwards. "Don't know
what they are in
your
realm, but here, when you die, your soul flies up into the sky and
becomes a light. Just like all them other little lights."

"Really? You aren't pulling my leg?"

Balor stared at his hands. "My hands right here. 'Course I ain't pulling your leg. I ain't
pullin' your nothing!" He gave a chuckle.

"So if they aren't stars, what do you call them?"

"
Anam Oiche
." He paused, breathing a dragon sigh. "It means 'Soul of the
night'. Basically. In, like, old Irish or something. Maybe Gaelic.
Anam Oiche
."

"Ah," I said. "Good word choice."

The dragon gave a one shouldered shrug.

I smiled. "
Anam Oiche
. There's a lot of 'em up there."

"Lotsa folks die," Balor said.

"So how do you know which ones are your ancestors?"

Balor blew a ring of smoke, and quickly blew a second that passed right through the
first. "Ya don't. That's the beauty of it. You look up dere, you ask for guidance or whatev, but
you neva know who ya askin' it from. Might be you lookin' right at your grandpap or you might
be lookin' at the Balor of the past, the one with the poison eye. You know?"

I wasn't sure if I did know. But I said, "I get it."

Balor gave me a half smile, lifting one corner of his scaled, dragon jaw. He winked his
eye once more, and then turned his attention back to the skies. Back to his ancestors.

"What do you ask them for?" I said after a while.

"Strength," Balor said. "And compassion."

"Compassion?" I was surprised.

Balor grinned, this time showing his row of pointed dragon teeth. "Everybody got to ask
for something. I haven't always been a good guy, you know?"

"Well, I like you," I said firmly. "You're a good friend."

"Me?" the dragon exclaimed, a scaled hand on his chest. "Me? You callin' me a
friend?"

"Yeah," I said. "Why not?"

"I ain't never been anybody's friend ever in my life," Balor said.

"Well," I said. "You're mine. Is that okay?"

Balor was quiet for a few minutes before saying, "Yeah. Yeah, I like that. You mine,
too. Fractious. I guess. You and that mule."

I smiled at him, but he wasn't looking. I liked having a friend, even if that friend was a
smoke-ring blowing dragon who had a pussy eye. And I liked him. I liked Balor.

* * * *

Fractious the mule decided to stay on with the dragon. I didn't blame him; Balor was a
lot of fun to hang around with, especially if you liked Tic-Tac-Toe and Michael Jackson.
Fractious the mule liked both and even liked Balor, too.

We said our goodbyes. The mule gave me a big wet kiss with his pink tongue, and the
dragon, although he said he was tempted to do likewise, simply knocked knuckles with me. He
gave Cu the same goodbye and winked knowingly at Fiacha.

"I'll be seein' ya," Balor said to us as we all climbed up on Bob.

Bob gave a whinny and picked up into a trot after I nudged him with my heels. Cu and
Fiacha were behind me, clinging to me and each other.

We didn't have far to go before we reached Murias and our journey came to an end. We
reached Tat's cottage that day, but didn't do much more than stop for lunch. We relayed our tale
to him but he'd already heard it.

"Who'd you hear it from?" I said.

"Girl passing through," Tat said. "She said she'd heard all about Amergin's death and
told me all about it. I'm semi-disappointed that it wasn't my sword that killed him."

"It wasn't anybody's sword that killed him," I said.

"I heard," Tat said. "Peach cobbler."

"Peach cobbler," I repeated, thinking back to that leap through the flaming hoop that
Bob and I had done just before Amergin choked to death on the very thing he was allergic to. Tat
even made a joke about Cu's cobbler being too good to pass up that even Amergin couldn't resist,
allergy or no. Everybody had a great belly laugh at this, but I only chuckled.

We had a quick lunch, and then we were on our way again. With Bob as our
transportation, we got along a lot faster than we had with our two ponies, especially since Bob
did all the work. At dusk we reached the city limits of Murias. Bob had kept up a good jog for
the last ten or twenty miles. Even he was excited for our journey to be done.

We were so excited that we passed right through Camhail, the place I'd originally
thought of as Pub Town. We only stopped for two or three pints each when we could have had
twenty. Our tale had reached Camhail already and the townsfolk toasted us, but we left quickly
and only slightly drunk, ready to get back to Murias.

"You're gonna be living high on the hog in Murias," Cu said to Bob when we reached
the city limit, which was really just a break in the woods. "The king will be sure to give you the
best of lodgings and all the alfalfa you can eat."

Bob gave a snort and whinny.

"And a girl friend," Cu added, "If you want one."

Bob gave a happy neigh and clicked his back heels together, nearly throwing all three of
us from his back. Yet we laughed. We almost went flying over his neck but we laughed. It felt
good to laugh. It felt good to be in Murias. And the place had apparently been waiting for
us.

A huge group of the Tuatha Dé were gathered before the king's place, all standing
around looking bored. When they got a glimpse of the three of us on horseback, they continued
to look bored. Until Cu said, "Hey, folks!" and waved his bright green top hat.

The crowd broke into a cheer, tossing stuff up into the air. Other hats flew, some bright
green and some typical brown and black. I saw fruit fly, mostly peaches in honor of what had
killed Amergin. I even saw a brown and orange tabby cat go flying. It screeched when someone
caught it; or I assume someone caught it because it disappeared into the crowd.

The crowd parted and the king, Mac Gréine, suddenly appeared. He strolled down
the cleared space, scepter in hand, wearing a long, red cloak with white fur trim. A crown of gold
and berries sat atop his head, holding down his shaggy hair.

"Welcome back, my heroes!" he called, throwing up his hands. His scepter went flying,
but I don't think he noticed, or perhaps didn't care, even when the crowd scattered to avoid being
hit by it. I saw someone come up with it and run off, happy to have such a souvenir.