Customs
With a drawn out sigh, Reika opens her newly bought diary and begins
to talk as the diary writes in itself her words on the first page. An
errant hand brushes through her short black hair as she lays back on
her bed, sighing in an almost irritated mood as she tries to relax.
"If the damned school therapist didn't think I needed it I wouldn't
even do this."
Actual Except from Diary
Dear Diary-chan (Reika shudders as she dictates the words for the
mystical diary to write down.)
Hi. It's me. Reika. You know, Reika the super powered? Really strong,
really tough girl? Bench presses jocks for exercise yet is extremely
sensitive and loves to cuddle under the starlight and.
Look, let's be direct. You don't think I'm too aggressive do you? I'm
perfectly normal.
(Diary doesn't respond, it simply sits on her desk and writes.)
You believe me. Trina-chan believes me too. So what does the snotty
school shrinks know?
I think only Trina-chan and my best friends knows me well enough. I
don't see why I have to write in this. (book flaps pages) Alright.
Alright. I mean your doing the writing. (book settles down).
It's degrading. I'm a valuable member of the damned school, got a ton
of trophies proving my excellence in sports and such, and even do good
deeds now and then. Nobody really gives me a break, everybody's so
bossy except my friends. and Trina-chan. She understands me.
Trina. She's my class partner in the Guardian Academy where us humans,
non-humans and the like train to become Dream Guardians. That and also
to get a regular school education in a place where we don't have to
worry about accidentally blowing up our classroom or getting into
fights with ignoramuses.
She's a half-dream dragon. Big, crème colored and fuzzy like a walking
carpet/lizard in one form, and cute and cuddly (long blonde hair
flowing down her perfect shoulders, cute twinkling eyes of aquamarine)
in her other human form. Most people don't get seriously attached to
their dragon partners. but I sorta have a major crush on mine. I don't
think she notices though, I'm too young (as a race) for her to even
notice the feelings of a little human girl. Anyway, she's probably
turned on by the female blackwing dragon that just signed onto school
a few weeks ago. I've seen her in the showers, she's got a mean human
body to go with her dragon form. mean of course as in to die for sexy
and well built but that's just me.
You know, all hormones and no brains. Sorry, diary-chan, but I'm just
a downright incurable physical love type if you ask me. and oh dear
goddess, am I'm talking to this thing like it's a real person?!?
(stops for a few seconds to let the situation sink in) DAMN THE
SHRINKS OF THIS SCHOOL! THE FREAKS!!
I. (stops again) Sorry, Diary-chan, I got carried away, I. (??)
(Shrieks inaudibly in a way the diary can't understand, then starts to
pound her head against the near wall for a few seconds. Finally calms
down and starts again)
I really want to tell Trina how I feel. but it'd just be an
embarrassment. I'll blather like an idiot, she'll say comforting
words, then she'll transfer away and I'll never see her again. story
of my life.
"Reika! Come quick! Something's wrong with Trina!!"
.and then something's wrong with Trina. Guess I could tell her then,
she can't run away if she's bed ridden and. (?) (picks up diary and
reads it) .I don't remember writing.
"Reika!!"
".oh!" (rushes out the door without even closing her diary, leaving it
to sit and take notes.)
Trina did not move her head, she laid quietly brooding and pouting in
her dragon form.
In this form she was like any dragon, only with more fur. Otherwise
her form was the same.
Her eyes dim and face drawn in anguish. For an hour her own tears were
the only sound that could be heard on top of the quiet hill she often
sought refuge on when she wanted to be alone.
She had laid there quietly for sometime now it seemed, neither moving
nor acknowledging the presence of anyone else including Kismet (female
elf SpellThrasher) and Ami (female human Advocate, training to become
a Judgment), both friends to herself and Reika.
Once (before running to get Reika) the catgirl Mi'Shari (another
friend) tried to talk to Trina, but was shooshed away by a swing of
one of Trina's wings, killing any hope of talking to the sulking
dragon. That's when Mi'Shari went to get Reika, after all if anyone
could get Trina talking about her erratic mood swings it was her
school partner Reika.
When Reika finally arrived the others briefed her on what happened, as
the newly arrived human girl turned to look at the sulky dragon lying
beneath her favorite tree, not even noticing her arrival. Slowly,
Reika began to walk to Trina, each step measured and precise, meant
not to bring a nervous reaction out of the giant dream dragon.
Finally, after many terse seconds Reika was close enough to Trina to
touch her.
As Reika reached out, slight thoughts of wanting to rush forward, to
hold Trina-chan tight and comfort her friend overwhelmed her, but she
forced her feelings down. 'I don't want to disgust her.' Reika thought
glumly to herself, 'Don't want her to know. be sickened by my feel.
just focus on her.' Reika suddenly chides herself, redoubling her
concentration. Reika slowly, and gently, touches Trina's wing,
whispering slightly
"Trina-ch--"
Suddenly all hell breaks loose. Trina swings her head in a quick swipe
at Reika with jaws open and teeth flaring, she snaps her teeth shut
and is slammed hard by a wave of fear and pain as Reika crumples onto
the ground. When they became partners, the two women were bonded
spiritually so they could work together better as rider/mount, but the
link was causing Trina pain for some reason! It was as if Reika
suddenly was hit with severe pain and it telegraphed right into Trina.
Trina rolls on the ground for a few second, dazed and stunned as she
holds her head with her clawed paws, finally coming to a stop as the
pain recedes turning into a strange numbness. But Reika. she couldn't
feel her partner anymore. it was as if her mind was crystal clear. as
if sleeping or.
As Trina rolls over, mouth slightly slackened, something falls loose
from it. Trina looks down confused. She snatch a purse Reika was
holding? A tooth was jarred loose from the snap? She reaches down to
pick up the object obscured by her own shadow and raises it to eye
level.
Trina's heart nearly stops as her eyes go wide in shock.
In her confused state she accidentally bit off Reika's hand!
Reika laid on the ground stunned into a merciful unconsciousness,
holding the stump where her hand was. Trina stumbled back slightly,
and started to come undone crying and shaking as if in a dreadful
fear. Her emotions were out of control, but luckily Kismet was still
in control of her emotions. As Mi'Shari cradled the girl in her arms,
Kismet storms up to Trina and retrieves the hand quickly, barely
sparing her friend a glance as she works to put Reika's hand in place
using spell craft magic.
"How could you?!?" Mi'Shari exploded, her Nekochanian temper getting
the better of her, "You ripped off Reika's hand!! She just wanted to
comfort you."
"I DIDN'T KNOW!!" Trina howled in pain, "WHY DID YOU PUT HER IN
DANGER?!? YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!! WHY DID YOU PUT REI-CHAN IN
DANGER?!?"
"YOU PUT HER IN DANGER!!" Mi'Shari countered.
Trina slumped onto the ground, crying. She knew it was the truth. She
knew that Reika was concerned and even if the other girls tried to
stop her, she couldn't stay away from her even if it meant losing a
hand. She just wanted to take Trina's pain away. Trina shifts back to
her human form, curling up into a ball as she does from the shock, but
Ami won't let her. She pulls the dragon girl onto her feet, even as
Trina tries to shake herself loose to wallow in her own guilty self
loathing.
"Don't shut us out again! Please! You hurt Reika, so you owe her an
answer! Why are you in pain for? What hurt you??" Trina shook her
head, moaning in a delirium to herself, feeling herself wanting only
to crawl down on the ground and die from shame.
"Trina-chan."
A small wispy voice reaches the two, causing both to turn towards the
source of the words.
Reika, healed yet weakened from the incident, lies in Kismet's arms,
motioning with her good arm (the one that wasn't healing) for Trina to
come near her. Carefully the girl dragon stepped towards her, each
step slowly measured as Reika's was earlier, until finally she fell
onto Reika, holding onto the girl as she cradled the human girl in her
arms, rolling over to hold onto her instead of the other way around,
eventually
propping herself and Reika (in her arms) up against the nearby tree
she was lying under mere minutes ago.
".Trina-chan. tell me. just tell me already. tell me." (that's all
Reika could say, her emotions still unraveling from the jumble it was
in seconds before).
For the longest time Trina said nothing, until finally she summoned
her wings (different set of wings in dragon/human form, these wings
being angelic like) and pointed at one of them. Her left wing
shuddered slightly, bent in a slightly awkward position. Almost as if
the wing was broken and was still in the process of healing itself.
"Goddess." Reika whispered, "What happened to you?"
Mi'Shari tapped the wing and shrugged. "You've been taking the flight
track too fast in human form again, haven't you. Like the last time
you dislocated your arm didn't teach you anything."
"It wasn't dislocated, it was sprained." Trina said in her own
defense.
"Reika did a hefty yank on your limb for a sprain. Looked like she
popped it back into your."
Trina smacks Mi'Shari on the head with an open palm, "That's not even
the point of the discussion, dammit."
"Then what is?"
Trina goes silent again, allowing Reika to gently touch and massage
her wing as she regathers her courage to talk again. ".dragon
customs."
".say what?"
Trina sighed, and tried again, "Dragon Customs. The long standing
traditions of dragon culture."
The blank stares didn't help her cause very much.
"Dragons are different from humans, Reika. You see, when a dragon
female reaches a peak age of physical development she goes into. well,
she starts to exhibit. I mean when." (starts to blush)
Mi'Shari - "Oh! You go into heat? Me too! Isn't that a coincidence!"
Trina slumps her shoulders as the other girls sit down near her/Reika,
"Is that supposed to cheer me up? Sigh." (refocuses) ".into (ahem)
"heat" for the first time. This WAS unique for dragon females."
(glances over at Mi'shari who innocently waves as she is stared at)
".for a dragon female to go into heat is for her to become sexually
attractive to males though she isn't filled with an obsession to have
sex herself." (expression straightens out, as she recovers from the
earlier shock) "For generations it's traditional for males to mate
with a female when she goes into heat."
"One male?" Kismet asks, "Any male really attracted to the female.
It's usually the old axiom of being in the right place at the right
time, and all that. A female in heat for a few weeks is ready for
breeding but this doesn't affect her overall sexual performance in her
long lifetime, and it never guarantees that she'll get pregnant
regardless of her mates. that is of course why dragons are still a
rare species."
"So in other words you can still score even after you stop being in
heat." Mi'shari notes.
Trina turns and gives Mi'Shari an odd expression, ".you go straight
for the throat, don't you." (sighs) "This is a custom of dragon
culture that goes through any dragon bloodline. My mother became
pregnant this way, so did my grandmother, great grandmother, and so
forth. It's traditions. It's customs."
Reika swallows hard, and with dimmed expression meekly asks the
obvious. "So. when did you fall for the perfect man?"
"It wasn't love. that. I mean I'm not in love with a guy. not this.
not him. I mean."
".what."
"Rei-chan. I. I mean to say. I'm." (rests her head on Reika's
shoulder, bringing her head close to Reika's as she talks) ".it wasn't
that beautiful or loving I'm afraid. or that permanent."
"So you scored in a bar like the rest of us working girls!" (whacks
Trina in the arm once) "Yeah! You go, gi. mmphh?!?" (Kismet quickly
covers the catgirl's mouth with her hand)
"Trina-chan. tell me."
For another few seconds nothing, then slowly.
"I. well I was sleeping up here, in dragon form. It was late and I was
up here napping. All I remember really is falling asleep up here,
beneath the stars, thinking of." (looks over at Reika and suddenly
skips ahead, not mentioning her thoughts) ".when I woke up I was lying
on my back. somebody forced my transformation to humanoid. There was a
male (dragon in human form). and when I was fully in human form he.
well. I mean to say we. I mean him. no, I mean we. mated."
Reika at first couldn't understand, which gave Trina enough time to
wrap Reika up in her wings before realization set in. Slowly Reika
begins to roll and shudder in Trina's arms, tears slowly welling up in
her eyes as she realizes it all at once. ".he. he raped you."
"You don't understand, Rei-chan. I was in heat. it was only natural. I
mean, it's customs."
".no." (Reika begins to meekly struggle to be let go, but can't, or
won't, muster her strength to hurt her friend) ".it's not fair. he
raped you. he RAPED YOU! It's not. fair."
"But he was a dragon too. It's not rape, it's customs. He can't help
it, he was born into a culture that believes in these things, he
couldn't help it. It's in his blood. We mate in our dragon half forms.
It's."
"No. nononoNONO!!" (Reika begins to sob as she tries to roll free of
Trina, only to be held tight by the dragon girl's wings) "He HURT YOU!
He bent up your wing, he raped you, it's NOT FAIR!" (breath draws up
shorter, she begins to hyperventilate) "If I catch him. I'll kill him.
I'LL KILL HIM!!"
(her sobs harder, breath catching and wracking her chest with painful
sobs and gasped breaths, taking Trina a few minutes just to calm her
down so she wouldn't work herself into a heart attack.)
"You don't understand. It was an accident."
"Then why were you crying?!?"
"Because he was bred to be the way he was! You don't understand! When
a female dragon is in heat we are taught to accept the mating as a
natural extension of our logical culture, and the males are taught
that the mating is perfectly justified and that we're made to humble
ourselves to them. He couldn't help himself, his breeding made him do
it. just like my breeding made me unable to stop him.." (a tear falls
on Reika's shoulder) "No dragon female has been forcibly raped by a
male in 900 years! The rules and laws of our kind has eliminated the
temptations of such. human things. But even evolved species has it's
flaws and our. mating customs. just so happens to be one of our
flaws."
It takes a few seconds for Reika to find her voice, however meek it is
now. ".you can't say that sanctioned rape of females is justified.
It's not fair. you know it."
"I don't know it. please, Rei-chan. I don't know it. I don't."
".you know it."
"I DON'T WANT TO KNOW IT!!" Trina suddenly explodes, gripping Reika
tighter in her arms as tears slowly flow down her face. "Do you know
what that means? It means that my mother was raped! My grandmother.
and so on. raped! Every woman probably in my family was raped! And
worst. I have a little sister who becomes mating age next year. what
happens to her if I'm not around and she. oh goddess. I don't want her
to wake up one night only to have the same thing happen to her. I
can't."
"I know what you mean." (after a long bout of silence, Kismet speaks
up) "We all had that in our families. Maybe that's why we're such good
friends, because we were drawn together by our pain as much as by our
love." (begins to draw symbols on the ground as she talks) "While my
mother was doing her apprentice training as a young SpellTrasher in
the north, she was. mated by a stranger. She was taking care of sick
people at a hospice along the road to Judgement, and was assaulted
while she slept in the guest house by a male nurse. I only found that
out when." (sighs) ".I guess I wanted to know why I had two loving
mothers and no father. well, now I know." (suddenly looks up at Trina
questionably) "Did the male stay with your mother? I thought dragon
culture forbade single parent dragons?"
"They do. My mom couldn't get the male who did it to her to help her,
but while in hiding she met a human male and he told off the Dragon
Council when they finally hunted my mother down and became my mother's
new mate and our father." At this Ami raises her hand. "This isn't a
press conference, Ami." Trina speaks with a bit of surprise in her
voice, "You can ask me something."
"What was it like? Having a human father?"
"Hmmm.." (seriously considers the question) "Having a human father? It
wasn't any different than having a dragon father (I had a dragon
grandfather because the brother of the dragon who.. "mated" with my
grandmother was more of a "man" than the dragon who. "mated" with
her.)" (pauses to get back on track) "He was kind, stern yet gentle,
and he always had time for us. Eventually he and mother had their own
child together, a dragon half girl unable to turn into full dragon
form. but still, when mother gave birth to her. and knew it was out of
love and not customs, with a caring father with her to care and love
their bundle of joy. she was the happiest I ever saw her when she
delivered their child and had a husband who stood by her faithfully
for her birth and the long years afterwards."
Suddenly Reika pops the question (since Mi'Shari was staring at the
two of them with such a glazed expression it looked like she was
suffering from a sugar crash and was paralyzed in place with her gaze
stuck fast) "I know this may sound ridiculous but."
"Could I have been. mated. by my own natural father? No. The dragon
that did it was too young, about my age, so that's not possible. It
doesn't matter anyway. All my family history says he'll never think
twice of me again. and it doesn't matter because nothing will come of
our. mating."
".why?" Mi'Shari finally finds her voice, mostly out of insatiable
interest than anything else.
".because I'm sterile."
"Sterile?" Reika asks in a slight hushed voice. "Why. did he hurt."
"No." (turns head away so she's not looking at Reika) ".I didn't want
to get pregnant, if it meant just being pregnant because of customs.
so I had an operation a few months ago when I was nearing my age for
going into heat. I thought being sterile would make me miss my cycle.
but I was wrong."
(shys away from Reika abit, wanting to draw away herself) "I didn't
want to lose the faith of. I mean. I didn't want you to reject me
because. I was afraid so I. I mean. I."
Reika draws Trina's head around and stares into her eyes. "You knew?"
"The spell is a little double edged. It's hard not to see your
feelings like an open book, and know your heart beats fast whenever
we're near, and you can't stop thinking about me when we're flying. I
knew, and I didn't want to lose your love even if it meant. but I
didn't want you to love damaged goods, so."
"You didn't tell me."
"I thought you would be hurt. Or angry. I just. didn't want to damage
the perfect image of me you had. the image of me in your mind is so
unattainable I didn't want to ruin it for you."
(Reika draws Trina closer and touches forehead to forehead) "Did my
view of you change?"
For the longest time Trina said nothing, but finally. ".no. but."
"Then it never will change. I love you. And nothing that happen will
change it. I thought you were my unattainable love. you'd never accept
loving a human."
"My father was a human. guess I always wanted a mate who was like my
father."
"TRINA!" (Reika playfully pushes the dragon girl sideways before
pulling her back up into sitting position and hugging her) "We'll make
this work out. somehow. we'll make it work out."
"And if it doesn't then lots of drinks and a motel room works best!"
Mi'shari chips in.
"." (all three girls turn and give Mi'Shari an askewed expression).
".what?!"
Trina leans her head on Reika's shoulder and starts to smile for the
first time since this whole conversation started. "I love you."
"I love you too."
"And I love you!" (Mi'Shari jumps in and hugs the two)
"I have mildly expressive feelings of love in a friendship manner,
though not romantically." Kismet adds, hugging the three.
But for Trina & Reika, just to be in each other's arms, it seemed the
world was a distant thing and they were the only things that mattered
on that hill and they were the centers of their own special world.
The male, the incident, everything just seemed to not matter. Only
their love.
And isn't that what's important? Love? I think so. Or so it goes at
least.
The End.
Trina's stomach suddenly rumbles. "I just remembered I didn't eat
since last night."
Everyone else faints.
Kismet sighs. "I guess we can find a YOHOP (Ye' Olde House of
Pancakes) that's open. and that hasn't banned Trina from the buffet
line for life because of her appetite."
"It's not that bad."
"You ate the buffet line dry and drove the cooks in the back nuts.
They had to shut down for several hours just to recover from your idea
of "breakfast"."
"I didn't know I'm desperately in love with such a cute little piggy."
"Reika!!"
Mi'Shari - "Iris us out already before this gets worst please."
(story closes)
".thanks."
Back to Original Fiction Shoujo-Ai Fanfiction