Beetle

Intro
I wrote this from a prompt Firefly Writings gave me: ''your character is a fantasy hero who acquires a disability. ''I have to say, I'm really interested in where it's going. But here is the blurb:

Ael is a cynical girl, permanently crippled in an incident she entirely blames on someone else. The old Ael was famous, member of a vigilante crime-fighting group, tamer of dragons, a success story. The new Ael reads a lot of poorly written books, eats leftovers, and turns away from the life she once loved. She's still reminded of it, though; her roommate has refused to leave the aforementioned vigilante group, the Mambas, and no one as scarred as Ael is going to forget.

This story will follow Ael as she starts to reconnect with the world, finds a path, and falls in love with a perfect soul or two. I'm probably not going to update much, but I'll keep writing. I also have clear ideas about what makes a chapter, so just because one is published does not mean I'm done with it.

Warning for some violence and straight talk about relationships. It's PG-13, I promise, but if you don't want to hear about ruined muscles, depression, and kissing, don't read.

PS: The title will make sense. Eventually.

Chapter One
“You going out again?”

Luro stops at my question, frozen with his house keys already warming in his palm. “Uh… yeah. It’s nothing major, just a little spat, but Mila--” He cuts himself off, a little late.

“Oh, if Mila called you out, you should listen.” There’s so much sarcasm in my words they’re brittle, about to snap in my fingers.

“C’mon, Ael, don’t you think it’s time to let it go?” Luro looks pained, caught between a rock and a hard place-- the boss of his vigilante crime-fighting group and his wheelchair-bound roommate. “She apologized.”

“She didn’t.” I set down my book and cross my arms, giving him the glare that used to tame dragons. But because walking people have a great advantage, he skedaddles. Well, that was dissappointing.

***

Luro and I were friends the second we met at a sparring session for magic-touched individuals. I beat him smartly, but even as bruises turned his fair skin green he laughed at my joy. And then he healed both of our bumps, gave me his address, and promised to practice for next week. He was funny, raw, empathetic like me, soft to my wild side. We joined Mila’s group together, and after my injuries we started rooming together. He’s seen all the worst of me since then, but he rarely shys away. He’s about the only person I can count on.

I can’t trust him, though. Not all the way. He’s still with Mila, even after everything. He sees me-- a girl living on oatmeal and leftovers, a girl who hasn’t left the house in weeks, a girl who does no cooking, no cleaning, no work, no nothing-- and he’s still with Mila! I throw up in the middle of the night because my night terrors left me crying so hard, and this boy talks me down, cleans up, sits with me until I sleep again-- and he still goes back to Mila, the person who caused them.

I can’t focus on my book. It’s not even hard to follow, just a love story. Fictional happily-ever-afters exist halfway between escapism and an obsession for me, and I usually resort to them when I’m having a bad day. I put it aside and go to the bathroom. I walk most of the way, but when my legs give out and let me smack to the floor, I’m not surprised.

At first, after my injuries, I couldn’t walk at all. My femur was shattered, the muscles smashed, and even if they hadn’t been my balance was totally gone. I had no motor control, either; I couldn’t write for a while there. My balance has improved, but it’s still not great. I get verdigo, too, which is not fun. I can write again, but even though my bone and muscles are whole walking is out of the question. My limbs give out randomly. Luro says I’m about as healed as I’m going to get. You know how frustrating that is? I used to be graceful, powerful, and now I can’t manage something two-year-olds have down.

***

I write for a bit, letters to my parents I’ll never send, while the fancy grandfather clock Luro loves more than life itself ticks off the hours. I write to my sister, listing my goals. We agreed on goals together years ago, before my abilities came in and things got complicated, but all of mine have changed. When Make Mila pay appears on the list, I throw it in the wastebasket.

Luro doesn’t come home for dinner. I eat cold pumpkin soup and turn on the radio to drown out my thoughts. Cheerful, plinky music, the kind at weddings. I can’t listen to news anymore. I remember how excited I was the first time I had an interview on the evening news, but that’s not me anymore.

I’ve picked my book back up when Luro does appear. I’m nestled in the sofa, debating going to bed, and he barges in with a girl in a hospital uniform. They’re mid conversation, laughing about someting. Luro moves with frantic energy, taking her hat and pulling out chairs, and she teases him for being so polite. She spots me before Luro does.

“Hi,” she says, waving. Luro does receive a slighly suspicious look for having a girl who is very obviously not his sister at home, but then she frowns. “You’re that girl from the Mamba posters, right? Aeleerisi?”

“Yup,” I say. “I room with Luro.”

“Haven’t heard much about you lately,” the girl says, picking up energy again. She clearly follows the actions of the Mambas. I hate fans. “On a break?”

I nod to my wheelchair. “Sorta. Not going to be back anytime soon.” I’d probably slit my throat before going back to Mila, but this girl doesn’t need to know that.

“Ooh.” She perks up. “What happened?”

“Tell you later,” Luro cuts in. Sometimes I love him. “Kita, you should probably go, unless you want dinner.”

“There’s food at my place,” she says, not seeming miffed by the dismissal. “And I can catch a trolley alright. Night!” She kisses him bye and leaves. A kiss on the cheek, but still.

“So it’s a girl this time?” I ask. Luro turns off the radio. He’s so light right now, happy from his curly brown head to his old boots, but his question snags him back to reality.

“Hey, I’ve gotta shake things up sometimes,” he says. Luro usually brings boys home, but that’s more a personality preference. He’s like me in that. “And she’s nice.”

“And underage.”

“Kita is eighteen, Ael! I did check.” The boy before last was seventeen. Luro’s twenty-two (two years older than me) so while the age gap isn’t significant, it’s enough.

I smile. “I believe you.”

Luro smiles at my smile and then shakes himself. “I’m gonna bathe. Need anything?”

I tell him I’m good and he goes. I hear the shower turn on. I try to get back to reading, but something nags me. ''Ooh. What happened?'' Everyone always wants to know, always, and they usually get Mila’s version-- impersonal, innacurate-- or Luro’s, which is one sentence of event and a list of injuries. He’s heard mine, but he lets it rest, because he hates being between Mila and me.

This is my version: We were doing some crime bust, the Mambas. Stormed in like we owned the place, and nameless goons with clubs met Perr’s fires, Mila’s lightning, so many weapons magic and not. We found the center of operations, confronted the ringleader, everything fine. Then one of the goons let the dragon out, and things got complicated.

All the good crime bosses have dragons. You can buy one for a couple thousand suna from the right dealer, this traumatized infant. Our city is infested with them, giant geasts with clipped wings and mental disorders. The dragon was why I was there. My ability, my magic lets me connect with monsters, lets me control them. So everyone else turned to the foons and left the dragon to me.

She was big. She had to have been at least forty years old, to be as big as she was, with sweeping ox horns and dull scales I think were once dappled the colors of orange and lemon peels. No distance weapon, as far as I could tell. Dragons vary a lot. I got in front of her and started my thing. Our minds met, and I projected an idea of freedom, of the sky. She hadn’t seen the sky in a long, long time. She missed it. Captive dragons always do, so that’s where I began, reminding her of the simple pleasures of breezes and clouds and stars. In return, she told me of what she knew.

She knew confines and cages, hunger and fear, scales flaking off and leaving raw sores. She didn’t know what to think of me, so I pictured an open hill, the wind catching her wings, me beside her. She liked that. I showed her all the other dragons I’d freed, how healthy some of them had gotten when I’d visited again. She managed to drag me from my script, though, as the layers of our memories met. Her cage became the cupboard my brother used to lock me in. Her fear became mine. Her hunger, so constant, clenched my stomach. We started to mingle, to go from two beings to one. She shuddered, I shuddered. And that was when Mila decided to hit the dragon with a bolt of lightning.

Oh gods above that hurt. The dragon was still me, and the pain was unreal, this living thing that lunged in fury and caught me in her jaws. Her bite was hesitant, not yet crushing the first bit of kindness she’d had in forty years, but she hurt too much to take too much care. Her teeth dug into me, us, making us scream. Mine cut off as whatever neurotoxin she had in her bite started to work. A second lightning strike hit her, seizing all her muscles and clenching her bite. If I hadn’t been mostly in her mouth, her tongue under my face, my body, that would have killed me. It almost killed me anyway, bit through my arm and side and leg to the bone.

As she shook off the strike she let me go, dropped me to the floor and stepped over me. She turned her anger to the others, roared her challenge. But even as her lighting enemy drew up another strike, a sneak attack blindsided her.

I don’t know if it was Kanatora’s sword or Mila’s lightning that really killed the dragon, but I felt both. The remains of my mind meld still tied us, pain and then nothing as she slipped away. She fell heavy just beside me. I know Kanatora stabbed her again, and if I could’ve I would’ve screamed at him. Let the dead stay dead, murderer.

Luro came to me, wrapped wounds bleeding too little, and gave me a sedative. I woke up two days, seventeen tooth scars, a concussion, mild nerve damage caused by secondhand electric shock, severe nerve damage caused by dragon venom, and two broken bones later, and I cried for that dragon. I still cry for her all the time. I know, let the dead stay dead. But sometimes, always, I mourn the dragon who never, not once in her life, got to fly.