(Ch 36)Family dinner

Turned out that while seeming easy at first all the spells Faith wanted to create were finicky and annoying to weave. Eventually, Alzeor had to drag him out as he clawed onto whatever surface he could get his hands on, begging to stay.

"Faith its time for dinner, no more magic today," Alzeor said, coming into the testing room.

"But I was so close!!" Faith yelled back.

It didn't matter if he was close though as it had been hours and not eating in favour of magic research was a trait that all parental dragons had to nip in the bud. It was quite a strange sight for the staff of the exodus castle to witness the king of dragons himself drag the prince out of the magic division.

"It doesn't matter if you were close or not, you still have to eat," Alzeor said.

"Not If I learn how to make shadows edible"

"Good luck with that" Alzeor mumbled in response.

On Faith's to-do list making Shadows edible went up a few notches. Along with finding ways to get out of his father's steel hold. He really did struggle all the way to the dining hall exclusive to the main royal family.

"How was your day sweetie" A voice all too familiar echoed across the hall, seeing her son ride in on the back of a dragon just in a much less graceful fashion than what fairy tale heroes usually did.

"It was good, right Luna?" He asked, earning a resounding yelp from the silver rebel sitting in his vest pocket.

'hey, can you not speak outside of telepathy?' Faith asked.

'No, I don't even know your language.' Luna replied.

'Could you learn?'

'maybe.' Luna replied, not wanting to delve further into a topic that would require a lot of work on her end.

"She said it was good" Faith translated to everyone in the dining hall since no one else could understand luna.

"Wait can you communicate with your familiar sweetie?" Eshir asked a bit surprised.

"Can you not?" Faith asked.

"Well no, I wonder what's different," Eshir said, slightly intrigued.

Anything related to Faith she generally took rather seriously but as an owner of a familiar herself Eshir was just genuinely intrigued. Ciza, her sparrow-like familiar was useful and had served her well but never once had Eshir had a conversation with the thing connected to her soul space.

Faith and Alzeor both sat, the latter bringing his two-piece to the question.

"I imagine it's because of the Rexel's unique origin, communication through the soul space would be almost second nature for them" Alzeor enlightened the both of them, sparking the common curiosity of a dragon that lived inside Faith.

Sitting down on the dining Faith pestered his father with questions while devouring the food he was served. Faith found out pretty soon coming to this world that his appetite was by far more gluttonous then he would have imagined. He reasoned it was either because he was a part dragon, or because demons seemed to age slightly faster than humans or at least the ones he knew.

"Dad, how is Luna special?" Faith asked while drinking a juice that tasted like orange juice but was cherry red.

"Rexel's descend from Lurus, god of the silver sun and a kitsune. From what I understand its quite the love story if you're willing to hear it" Alzeor replied

'What do you think luna?' Faith asked as the little silver thing stole some of his food right from his hand.

'I already know the story since my dad told me so I think I'll pass' Luna replied not interested in hearing the sappy love story twice.

"No thanks dad, luna says she already heard it and I'm not particularly interested in a love story," Faith said while wrestling some chicken-like meat away from the silver pest in his vest pocket.

"Oh but I do want to know, have you ever heard of something named Adra?" Faith asked earning a completely dumbfounded expression from his father.

"How do you know about Adra? that's a horror story told to all child dragons to calm their pride. I swear I never told him Eshir… Eshir?… ESHIR CALM DOWN!!!" Alzeor said, dodging a projectile fork with enough force to kill a man.

"I SWEAR IT WASN'T ME!!" Alzeor pleaded, pulling his sword from a pocket dimension ring.

"You can swear anything you want while I fashion your scales into a fancy suit of armour, better yet I could make a cute little matching set for Faith," Eshir said angry and cold, pulling a long sword from her own pocket dimension ring.

'Hey Faith your parents are kinda… violent' Luna noted while Eshir was half an inch away from decapitating Alzeor, both of them easily capable of slaughtering the minotaur that her father had been killed by.

'I prefer to call it brutalised affection' Faith replied unbothered by what seemed to always happen when his father stayed for diner.

The first time it occurred Faith had cried before they could get too far but that came with the downside of deeply upsetting his mother who couldn't bear the thought of causing her son to cry. By the fourth time Faith had realised that they wouldn't actually kill each other… probably.

"I've heard dragon soup is delicious, be a dear and give me a taste," Eshir said.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!!" Alzeor replied, dodging another blow.

"I'm just open to new things"

"AND EATING YOUR SON'S FATHER IS ONE OF THEM?!?!"

"You don't need both your wings"

"YES I DO!!!"

"Maybe you should just try being open to new things then" Eshir replied coming scary close to Alzeor now spread wings.

When in his humanoid form Alzeor could still spread his wings but unlike in his true form, they weren't the size of castles, instead being around a 10 feet wingspan. They were still huge but that much was needed to carry the weight of a human. They looked majestic with their pure black scales lined across the membrane tips… problem was they were also giant targets.

'So this is normal for you?' Luna asked while Faith enjoyed his juice.

'yeah pretty much' Faith replied nonchalantly, at this point the fight was just dinner entertainment.

Alzeor and Eshir continued their fight to the death, though it was rather tame consider neither of them had used magic and were more just dodging and weaving each other's blows. Any servant that came in was both shocked and horrified at the display so it quickly became Faith's job to calm them down.

"WILL YOU STOP YOU INSANE WITCH?" Alzeor shouted. he'd long since folding his wings back not willing to test how serious Eshir's threat was.

"I'll stop when I get my dragon soup or you apologise to Faith for scaring him with that bullshit story" Eshir replied, slamming her long sword's hilt into Alzeor perfect jaw.

"FAITH, I'M SORRY" Alzeor said holding his jaw while dodging the sharp side of the pointy metal stab stick.

"Accepted" Faith mumbled through the chews of his dinner.

Like a switch had flipped in her head Eshir went back to eating as if she hadn't just been trying to kill Alzeor. He honestly wasn't sure whether to be shocked by her easily switchable mood or the fact that his son wasn't bothered in the slightest by what just happened.

'Why did I decide to have another child with this fucking lunatic?!?' Alzeor thought, questioning his own choices.

"So anyway can I hear about Adra now?" Faith asked, adding that he'd found it somewhere in a library this time to save his father another beating.

"it's just some tale meant to scare little dragons, about how if they get too prideful the thing that lives in the darkness will swallow them whole" Alzeor replied sitting down and finally getting to enjoy his food properly.

"Oh… neat" Faith replied.

He honestly understood how Adra could be made out that way if you weren't part of the family. Faith had got a free pass while others probably weren't so lucky. Seemed Shadow magic was getting more handy by the second.

"oh right, mom you know that pit you were talking about?" Faith asked remembering his last question unanswered by Adra.

"Yes, what about it?" Eshir replied.

"Well I was just wondering if any other member of the exodus family went near there, they would probably be around my age" Faith asked.

"Hmm… I don't think so no, all children regardless of their branch in the royal family are given a strict warning about the pit. It was one of the rules passed down by exodus himself." She answered.

'Well that doesn't make sense, Adra said the kid was an Exodus family member' Faith thought.

"Actually sweetie, I think there might be someone who matches your description, from what I understand Exodus himself was chased out by the evil that lived in that pit after getting his familiar. Even he barely escaped with his life, do you see why I warned you now? He was your age at the time to so it would match." Eshir stated blindsiding Faith with a strange and weird realisation.

'Oh my exodus it was him wasn't it' Faith thought, stunned by that sudden reveal.

"Oh yes I forgot to tell you until now but I also have more good news. You're getting another sibling sweetie" Eshir added, making quite a lot of cherry-coloured juice spill onto the table as Faith was blindsided once again midway through his sip.