ΔV Pt. 04

Qasim set the vase down but was so distracted by this weighty pronouncement that he missed the table entirely and the vase shattered on the floor. The dragon peered at it. "Oh, it's okay, we can fix that," he said.

"Where's Ning?" Qasim asked, looking around the room for some clothing. He was naked, after all.

"Oh! Your consort was also dead," Hua said.

Qasim froze.

"But we raised her too!" Hua said. "She's in the harem, meeting our other consorts." He nodded. "She's very exotic – but, I mean, of course she would be, she's a human! Just like you!" His eyes shone. "The only two humans on the entire Earth! And beautiful too. If you know what I mean." He wiggled his eyebrow ridges expressively. Qasim slowly turned to look at him. Hua wiggled his ridges more. "...I mean I wanna fuck her too."

Qasim frowned. "Fuck?"

"Y-You know! Shapeshift into a sexy form liiike...this!" Hua flashed, and when the light faded, he was sprawled on his side – looking now like a human man crossed with an alligator. He had the narrow snout, the black scales, but his mane was now more like a normal set of hair, clustered atop his head. His belly was flat, his shoulders narrow, and one of his legs was cocked up, to show the rather impressive set of balls and his long, golden cock. "And then take her to the celestial garden to touch the clouds of heaven. If you know what I mean." He winked. "I mean fucking."

Qasim turned back to trying to find clothes. What he found was a wardrobe filled to the brim with scarlet robes, golden silk leggings, emerald green buff jackets, and more. Hua – having resumed his smaller form – leaped onto his shoulder. "Uh, you seem kinda light on the talking, Glorious Prince of Heaven. But that's okay! I was hatched with a silver tongue! Why, once, my instructor grabbed me by the throat and-"

Qasim grabbed the small dragon by the throat.

"Like that!" Hua said, seeming entirely unperturbed by how tightly Qasim was gripping him. His scales felt like solid steel, and no matter how hard Qasim gripped, he didn't feel them bend or give even slightly.

"I am not the Glorious Prince of Heaven," Qasim said, his voice flat. "I am Jianhong Qasim, a spacer in the People's Liberation Army Astroforce. I do not want nor need an annoying pipsqueak of a dragon. I am not here to do anything but to find Ning and get back to Earth."

Hua blinked. Then sniffled. His eyes suddenly filled with tears.

Qasim felt his stomach slowly flip over. The small dragon vanished again. The blankets at the base of the bed suddenly lumped upwards, as if the dragon had simply appeared beneath them. Any other day, that alone would have been enough to crack Qasim's normal mask of imperturbability. But today, it was just another thing to file under not his problem. From under the blankets, he could hear a sound he recognized from the People's Shield: The sound of muffled, barely controlled crying. Many spacers broke down in the tight confines of a starship, far from anything they had ever known and all the people they had ever known. He turned back and picked out the least gaudy white shirt, the least gaudy set of black leggings – though both felt almost sinfully decadent.

From under the blankets, he could hear Hua whispered: "S-Stupid. Stupid, Hua. You're a stupid failure, just like Grandpa said. Stupid."

Qasim stepped to the door. His hand closed on the handle as he stood there.

"Stupid..." Hua whispered, and when Qasim looked back over his shoulder, he saw that the small dragon had curled up even tighter under the bed. And deep in his breast, Qasim felt the iron hard shell around his heart snapping into pieces. He sighed, very loudly, then walked over to the blankets, yanked them back, grabbed onto Hua and slapped him down onto his shoulder. Hua gripped so tightly that his claws almost pierced Qasim's skin.

"Where is this harem located?" Qasim barked. "I need to find Ning. You said she's there. Where is it?"

"Yaaaaaaaay!" Hua cheered.

"Don't make me regret this," Qasim said, frowning.

"I will definitely not," Hua said. "We're going to be the best bound companions ever."

Qasim already regretted this.

The door chose that moment to open and another creature from mythology presented themselves to Qasim. In this case, it was a beautiful woman with pale white skin, sea green eyes, hair the same color as snow, and a huge profusion of massive, white fox tails that seemed to fan out from behind her sleek silk robes like a sunrise. The tails were so massive, so fluffy, that Qasim felt a primitive urge to reach out and pet them. He restrained that urge, as he restrained so many others. Hua, meanwhile, leaped from his shoulders and landed on the tails, giggling as he landed in the fluff. The woman, who was holding an ancient slate tablet in almost the exact same way the shift officer on the People's Shield would have held a technological tablet, blinked, then scowled.

"T'ien Lung Hua Ling, what are you doing here, you should be in the tutors room!"

"Sagacious and Wise Secretary of Rice Collection and Distribution!" Hua said, his head emerging from the fluff of her nine white tails. "The Glorious Prince of Heaven has chosen me as his bonded companion!"

"You what!?" The fox-woman glared at Qasim, baring her teeth. She had very sharp teeth. Qasim frowned at Hua.

"I take it you have broken regulations," he said.

"Broken-" the fox-woman spluttered. "Only all of them!"

Qasim pursed his lips.

The fox woman grabbed Hua by the scruff of his neck. "You better not have actually bonded with..." She shook her head. "Glorious Prince of Heaven, I beg pardon for this breach of protocol and this most unusual of events that has led to Hua bothering you so much." She reached up to her throat, then drew out a small amulet from the folds of her silk. The amulet had a small dragon carved onto it and it flared a brilliant white. She blinked, then looked at the amulet, then thrust it at him again, frowning as she did so. IT flared white again.

"You accepted him?" She asked, her eyes boggling.

"Apparently," Qasim said, frowning slowly. "Is that bad?"

"Bad would be...breaking that two thousand five hundred year old vase," the woman said, pointing with her stylus at the pile of rubble that Qasim had left near the nightstand. "Bonding the Glorious Prince of Heaven, who is destined to strike down the Dark Lord and free the world from his grasp forever to Hua Ling, the dragon who placed last in every single test, every single trail, every single interview...is a catastrophe!" She flung her hands up, her fox ears flattening back against her head, all six of her tails flaring up like a kitten that had been spooked.

Hua, who had appeared back on Qasim's shoulder again, shrank down. "I-I'm not last in every test..." he whispered.

The woman put her hands over her face.

"Can I see Ning?" Qasim asked.

"Oh, fine," she said, shaking her head. "My name, by the way, is Huxian."

Huxian led Qasim down a corridor that made every Neo-Maoist bone in his body vibrate with distaste. As Qasim had never exactly been ideologically pure, this was only a mild discomfort – easily ignored in the greater discomfort of a common worker seeing what had to have been built on the backs of millions of them. Gold, jade, silver, silk, all of it thrown about with a wild abandon, creating a decadent beauty that put anything he had ever imagined to shame. And the servants: There were hundreds of them, and most of them were red skinned and horned, with black hair and muscular bodies. They bowed to him as he walked by, and he heard them whispering softly to one another. As they bowed, Huxian spoke.

"This is the Jade Palace," she said. "The home of the Dragon Emperor, master of the Dragon Empire, the land that stretches to the Sur in the far north to the tip of the great Island of Salt and Poison."

Qasim, who had never been big on geography, nodded curtly.

"The Emperor is your adoptive father," Huxian said. "You and your consort were fished from the southern sea by our Imperial Navy – the sky ship you had ridden in is being collected, in as many parts as can be found. You were terribly wounded and it took significant amounts of magic to bring you back from the lands of the death." She shook her head. "Normally, we wouldn't use so much magic, but...well, the prophecy didn't say that the Glorious Prince of Heaven would strike down the Dark Lord as a ghost."

Qasim worked his jaw slowly. A twinge was beginning to form in the corner of his mouth. "I was dead?" he asked.

"Yes," Huxian said, turning to face him. "It...was not unpleasant, I hope. The ancient scrolls describe some of the things that those who have been raised...see. They are fit to give most people nightmares."

Qasim considered the vast, vast blackness that he had regraded. The emptiness. The nothingness. No coffin. No questioning angels. Nothing.

He shrugged one shoulder.

"Qasim is too tough for that kind of thing," Hua said, puffing up his chest, as if Qasim's impassiveness reflected positively on him. Huxian scowled, then continued walking. It seemed as if miles of palace stretched between the bedroom and the harem.

"What is this prophecy, exactly?" Qasim asked.

"A human will arrive – from legend and myth – born upon wings of fire, where he shall do battle with the evil one," Huxian said. "And as there is only one evil one in living memory, it must be the Dark Lord."

"Who...was?" Qasim asked.

"A necromancer of terrible power," Huxian said, her voice soft. "When he walked, the whole world trembled, from the Kingdoms of Sunset to the Feylands to the Sur." She shivered. "Even the Ten Thousand Vedas hid themselves in their mountain fastnesses. The Dragon Empire, of course, sought to battle him, but he raised many dragons as his own undead servants." She sighed. "It was only when the Empire aligned themselves with the Elven Council, the Surlords, and even several Vedas that he was finally banished."

Qasim pursed his lips.

But then they rounded the corner. A door had been burst open and two Oni guards stood to either side of it, their spears in their hands. They both looked utterly discomforted – as if nothing in their training had ever covered this situation. It was so similar to the look on a political officer's face when asked to do actual work that Qasim nearly burst out laughing. But between the oni, he could see what it was that had confounded them so.

Ning, her muscular body clad in only a sleek white breast binding and a silken loincloth, was backing away from the doorway, holding what looked like an ivory candlestick in her hands. She glared at several equally scantily clad women.

"I don't care what you say, or who you claim I'm supposed to serve!" She snarled. "The first man that touches me gets his dick bitten off!" She snapped her teeth, glaring at them. "I'm not a piece of meat, I am a citizen of the People's Republic of China, and if any of you put a damn finger on me, I..." She lifted up the candlestick, waving it around.

"Honorable concubine," one of the oni said, reaching out for her. Ning swung the candlestick at him and it struck – shattering his wrist. The oni's face went so pale he was nearly pink. Ning backed away from him – then swung her gaze to Qasim. For just a moment, she didn't seem to recognize him. Then her entire face lit up as she sagged with relief.

"Holy hells," she said. "Qasim! Lets get the fuck out of here!"

"I like her!" Hua said, puffing up his chest.

TO BE CONTINUED