The Blue Blaze Chapter 5

The wool bed and blanket felt warm and soft on my scales, but my shoulder and wings were killing me. It felt like they were being hit by a hammer. Then I remembered I wasn’t on wool before, but soft dirt. Wait a minute, Keith! I thought, Where’s Keith!? I woke and shot straight up, entangling myself in the blanket and losing my balance simultaneously. The quilt fell over my eyes, and I felt the stone floor as my face smashed into it. “Oof!” I grunted. I bucked the blanket off of me and then realized that I wasn’t in my human form. I was a dragon. Weird… I thought my body would’ve reverted back to human form by now… To my right, I saw an empty human-sized cot with white sheep’s wool on top of it.
“I think he’s awake now.” I heard Keith’s voice behind a large wooden door separating the room from whatever was outside. Looking around, I saw that the room was kind of simple. It had what I assume was Keith’s cot, stone brick walls, a square opening big enough to poke my head and shoulders out with cloth curtains on each side, the wool I was sleeping on, and that was about it. The room was so big that a giant could sit comfortably with extended legs. The roof of the room was also at least fifty feet high. Why is the room so big? I wondered.
I tried to spread my wings, but I couldn’t. Looking at them, I saw that bandages tightly clung to them, rendering them useless.
The door began to open.
“Hey man,” Keith said, poking most of his body into the room. I was shocked to see his head wrapped in bandages as if he had some kind of turban. As big as the doors were, they didn’t seem to take too much effort to open either.“You’re still in your complete dragon form.” Keith’s eyes widened.
“‘I noticed. It’s good to see you’re good and well. Guess that vase didn’t do too much damage after all.”
“Oh, it did. Didn’t you see the bandages?” He touched his head and winced. “My head still hurts from that strike.”
“As I said, it will,” said a more profound, almost growling voice. “Our healers often refuse to work on humans. You’re lucky that you got help from one of our own at all.”
“It’s not like I was complaining. I’m glad I’m still alive.” Keith talked to his right.
“...Will you let me in?” Said the voice.
“Oh, right, sorry.” Keith walked inside and fully opened the door to reveal a baby-blue colored dragon standing about twenty feet tall with cream horns. I’m starting to understand why the rooms are so big. “My name is Suirauqa. Your name is Ethan, correct?”
I squinted my eyes. “How do you know my name?”
Suirauqa’s golden eyes seemed to sparkle at the confirmation, and he gestured with his head at Keith. “Your human friend told me. I came across you two when I walked into your realm. I had a couple of others help with healing you. I’m not so good a healer, you see.”
“Well, whoever worked on me didn’t do that good a job then. My shoulder and wings hurt quite a bit. And Keith’s head still hurts, too.”
“The healers aren’t miracle workers. Their ability can only heal so much, and then the body must recover independently.”
I gave an exasperated sigh. “Where am I anyway, and why am I still-” I stopped myself from saying anything else, I didn’t think this stranger needed to know about my human form.
“A dragon?” Suirauqa asked. Your friend told me all about you being human before.”
I looked at Keith with narrowed eyes.
Keith raised his arms. “In my defense, the healers must’ve given me a heck of a drug like anesthesia or something. You know, like when you wake up from wisdom tooth surgery? Your human form kind of slipped out.”
I didn’t care for having my information blabbed out, but I gave him a pass under those circumstances.
“In any case, your body was probably in such a state of shock and fear that it decided to lock itself in your current form as a way of staying alive. I don’t know when, if at all, you’ll turn back, though it may be for the best.”
I tilted my head. “Why?”
Suiraqua held his breath for a bit. “Dragonfell’s inhabitants, like the rest of the country, don’t really care for humans. One of our fae healers was reluctant to heal your friend to begin with.”
Fae? As in, like fairies? “Alright, so if I’ve got my mythology down, don’t fae typically look pretty close to humans?”
Suiraqua gave me a weird look when I mentioned “mythology” but answered, “For the most part, yes. But they are typically a head taller than the average human. They can also sense someone when a similar aura is nearby..”
“That's why you didn’t want me to leave the house yesterday, right?” Keith asked.
Suirauqa nodded. “Correct. There is a way to undermine their aura-vision, but we haven’t found your blood type. The most common blood type the fae have is AB Negative, and your O Plus, right?”
Keith nodded.
I tilted my head again. “What does blood type have to do with anything?”
Suirauqa shook his head. “ O plus is one of the rarest blood types in the faes. If the faes can detect some fae blood inside him, he won’t be treated as harshly as fully human. He needs the matching blood type to acclimate to the fae blood well. If Keith were to have the wrong kind of blood injected, he could potentially die. So, he must stay indoors until we find someone with O Plus. Unless he wants to be stoned to death as soon as he steps outside.”
Keith crossed his arms and shook his head. “Yeah… no thanks. One near-death experience was more than enough. I still can’t believe Troy and his gang were not only ballsy enough to attack you twice on the same day but brought dudes with pistols!”
Then I remembered what else happened, and my face contorted as I slumped back on the wool. “And then Troy mercilessly slit my mom’s throat…” I swore as tears started to stream down.
Suiraqua looked at me sad and sympathetically and said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Ethan. Truly, I am.” He laid down to look at me at eye level.
Keith sat down next to me and slowly stroked my neck. “I lost my parents too. We’re in the same boat, you and me.”
“It’s only because I fought Troy and his friends that this happened… Maybe I should have let them beat me down. None of this would’ve happened if I had. Your parents and my mom would still be alive, and we’d still be doing Muay Thai together.” I looked at my paws. “I can’t even do that anymore if I’m stuck like this.”
“You only stood up for yourself. You didn’t know he had a literal gang and would come after you.”
I bore my teeth. “And Troy deserved everything that I did to him. He put me through hell. Only fair that I give him at least a fraction back.” I could still taste the iron from his blood.
“I was knocked out for all of that.” He paused and continued, almost afraid to ask, “What did you do?”
Keith held his mouth slightly agape as I told him, and Suirauqa froze. Was it really that bad that I dismembered the guy who murdered my own mom in front of me? Clawing his face off wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to make him suffer. “Can you blame me?” If I were a human, I would have shrugged.
Keith took a moment and shook his head. “No… I guess not. I would’ve been pretty pissed if I were in your shoes.”
I sighed. “I guess none of us can go back, though. We’re technically orphans now, even in our late teens.”
“I guess so.”
After a moment of silence, my stomach growled, hungry for sustenance.
“It sounds like someone’s hungry after being asleep for a day and a half.” Said Suirauqa
“Maybe a bit,” I confessed.
“A bit?” Keith chuckled. “It sounds like you’re hungry for an entire Vegas buffet. Considering how I saw Suirauqa eat yesterday and how you always eat a lot, you probably could eat an entire line.”
“Follow me, then” Suirauqa stood up.

Walking out the door, I was awestruck by the house’s sheer mass. Every room looked as big as a conference room, from the hallway to the living room, though every room seemed to follow a pattern. It was all simple. There was nothing too magnificent about the house, maybe some pictures that hung on the walls; the living room had a couch or two to accommodate the apparent faes if they were to visit. As for the kitchen, there wasn’t exactly a kitchen like the one I was used to. There were dried spices and braids of garlic hanging from the ceiling, jars with labeled spices on the shelves, and one giant fire pit with a cauldron on top. The cauldron was covered with a wooden lid, so I couldn’t smell the food. Are all dragon homes like this? I wondered.
Suirauqa grinned as he removed the lid, and the familiar beefy scent blasted me. “That smells delicious!” I licked my lips. “What is it?”
“It’s shredded beef stew,” he replied.
Keith stroked his chin. “Hmm… Smells like something you would smell in a Mexican restaurant…”
Suiraqua grabbed a ladle, two large bowls, and a small one. He spooned the red soup into them, then gave me one of the larger bowls and Keith the smaller one. He sat on his haunches, staring at us and then his bowl. I sat on my haunches, closed my eyes, and silently prayed in my head. Seeing that I had no spoons or anything of the sort, I mentally said Screw it grabbed the bowl with my paws and lifted it to my mouth, taking in the broth. I knew it. Birria. It tastes like how my mom made it. I looked at Keith, and he sat on a cushion. He tried to awkwardly lift the bowl to his mouth.
“Oh!” Exclaimed Suirauqa. “My apologies, Keith. I forgot that creatures like you use utensils.” He stood up and turned to the drawers, mindful of his tail so as not to spill his soup or the cauldron. Well, it wasn’t really a tail. It looked more like a stump. He pulled out a wooden spoon and handed it to Keith.
“Thanks!” As soon as he started eating, Suirauqa began to eat as well.
Before I knew it, I finished my bowl, but my stomach wanted more. I offered my bowl to Suirauqa. “More, please?”
He smiled. “Please, help yourself.” Suirauqa nudged the ladle over to me.
“Is this like a draconic recipe?” I asked him as I poured some more birria into my bowl.
“Actually, no. I don’t really know the origin, but the recipe was given to me by a family relative. Dragons normally eat raw meat, but I know it doesn’t fare well with the faes, and I doubt it would do well in a human’s stomach. Meanwhile, a dragon’s stomach doesn’t care if it’s cooked or the animal is freshly killed.”
Family relative? I wondered, Weird… Maybe some of his relatives went to Mexico in human form and got the recipe? “When it comes to dragon shifters, how many are there? There’s gotta be more than just me, right?”
Suirauqa shook his head. “Actually, I only knew of one dragon shifter, as you put it. But he died some time ago. Before him, dragons never turned into humans, or vice versa.” He cringed as he said that the other shifter had died.
“Well, that’s unfortunate. I would’ve liked to have asked him about this whole ability and if there’s some way to unlock my human body from this form.”
“I’m sure he would’ve loved to answer any questions you had regarding that sort of thing. He was a pretty friendly guy unless you were a jerk to him. Some learned that the hard way.”
Keith swallowed his spoonful. “You seem to know a lot about him.”
“Well, he was my cousin. We were pretty close.”
The three of us managed to eat the whole cauldron of birria, well, mainly Suirauqa and I. Keith could only eat two bowls of it.
“I’m still surprised by how much you dragons can eat,” sighed Keith, patting his belly as if he had a fat stomach from eating a small amount. “Just two bowls of that stuff is more than enough. I couldn’t help but notice there weren’t many vegetables, though.”
Birria doesn’t necessarily have vegetables. Maybe some onion and cilantro, but that was about it. I was a little surprised there wasn’t any of that to put on.
“The thing is, we rarely eat vegetables. Sure, we’ll munch on a salad occasionally, but as you can tell,” Suirauqa flashed his fangs. “We’re mainly carnivorous.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“Besides slicing and chopping vegetables with these,” Suirauqa retracted claws from his paw like a cat. “It would be too bothersome. If anything, we would have the fae merchants cut them up for us at the markets.”
We heard a knock at the door. Suirauqa narrowed his eyes. “Who is it?” He asked.
A female voice was heard from the other side: “Paetra and Antania!”.
Suirauqa sighed in relief and walked over to the door.
“Shouldn’t Keith head to the room?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary.” He said as he opened the door.
In came a pink dragon with a white underbelly and straight white horns, with what looked like some kind of saddlebag on her back. A tall woman with a somewhat angled face and pinched ears was by her side. Her skin was white, and her frizzy blond hair faded into scarlet red at the end. So that’s what a fae lady looks like, I thought.
Keith waved. “Hey, Antania. My head still aches.”
“It’ll be like that for a while,” said the fae woman. You better get used to it.”
The pink one looked at me. “You’re Ethan, right?”
I slowly nodded and tightened my lips.
She smiled warmly, “I’m Paetra. I’ve been working on you for the last couple of days.”
“Okay… Is this like a check-up or something?”
She nodded. “Yup!” She looked at my shoulder. “It looks like it healed nicely.”
“What? My shoulder? I guess. It still hurts, though.”
“That’s to be expected.” She walked over to me. I couldn’t help but stare into her sapphire-blue eyes. She then carefully unwrapped my wing’s bandages. “Could you spread them?”
I furrowed my brow. “Hmm? Oh! You mean my wings. I can try.” I slowly spread my wings, but as soon as they were a quarter open, I winced and closed them back up.
She frowned. “I know it hurts, but I can’t help you if you can’t open your wings.”
Suirauqa gently grasped my right wing. “Here, let me help.”
“Thank you, Elder Suirauqa.”
I started to spread my right wing. Once it reached that quarter point, I wanted to close it again, but Suirauqa firmly held on to them and helped open them up.
“Could you lie down?” Paetra asked.
I nodded and lay down like a dog as she inspected my wing. “How is it?” I looked at the dragoness.
“Well, it doesn’t look infected, so that’s good. We won’t need to chop it off.”
I chuckled for a bit. “Wait, are you serious. You would have to chop my wing off if it was?”
“If it was bad, yeah. For minor infections, I would simply give you some antibiotics.”
It struck me as surprising that they knew how to treat wounds, such as infections, with antibiotics and that they knew about blood transfers, too. I thought they were a little more primitive, like stereotypical medieval leech therapy or something. A slight touch at one of the tear sites made it feel like I was touched by a hot iron. I couldn’t help but hiss and turn to her with my teeth bared. Paetra didn’t look at me too bothered.
“Quit being such a hatchling!” Said Antania. “Do we have to muzzle you?”
“No…” I sighed. “It’s just a little tender, is all. Sorry…”
Paetra looked at me with sympathy. “It’s okay. I deal with snappy patients all the time.”
“Heh. Snappy.” Keith chuckled. “I think that’s your new nickname.”
I looked at Keith. “It better not be, or I’ll snap your head off.”
“At least I won’t have a headache then.”
“Yeah,” said Antania. “Then you’ll have a whole new problem.” She finished taking off the head bandage. “No infections here either.” She said as she scanned his scalp. She searched her bag and pulled out a tube of ointment, squeezing just a dab on her finger she gently rubbed it where the vase hit him.
“Ow!” Keith winced. “Could you go a little gentler?”
“I’m already going as gentle as I can, human. Suck it up.”
Paetra looked into her saddle bag and pulled out a larger tube. “This is going to sting a bit,” she warned.
I breathed in and out and closed my eyes. The ointment on my wounds felt like fire. I gritted my teeth and emanated a low growl.
“I know it hurts. Just bear with me.”
After a couple of agonizing minutes, it was over. For my right wing, at least. It was another painful process for my left.
“And we’re done!” Paetra announced as she walked away from my left wing, letting me close them. I just have to wrap them now.”
“...Will it hurt?”
“Maybe a little discomfort, but nothing too bad.”
She grabbed bandages from her bag and began to gently yet firmly wrap my wings. When she finished, she stepped back. “Both of your wings are healing nicely. Drink plenty of water, get plenty of rest, and make sure to take a walk and get some fresh air and sun. It’s actually pretty nice out.” She looked out the window.
“Paetra?” Suiraqua looked at her.
“Yes, Elder?”
“Do you have any other patients after him?”
She shook her head. “Antania and I are free after this.”
Suiraqua smiled. “Why don’t you and your friend take him for that walk?”
“Me? I- I mean, us?”
“Why not?”
Antania looked at Paetra. “I guess I wouldn’t mind… However, we should probably call you a different name here. Ethan sounds too much like a human’s name. Why would your parents name you that in Dragonfell anyway?”
“You may be right,” said Suirauqa as he closed his eyes. “Hmm… How about Eitan. That sounds dragonfellish.”
I thought for a minute, “So, Ey-tan? I guess that’s fine.”
Paetra smiled. “Okay. Let’s go then, Eitan.”