Stormbreacher - Book 1 of Titanomachy Series

Chapter 8: Selflessness

After riding the Tower of Gods for the fiftieth time and watching Stinger vomit at least once, I'd gotten pretty sick of the rides and decided to just take a walk along the boardwalk. But doing that only made me sicker. I passed drunk teenagers (yes, teenagers; there was no way these kids were old enough to legally drink), thrift stores with shitty merchandise of pop culture and bad music artists, and small food joints with blinking, broken lights that featured desserts that would probably cause your sugar content to explode and didn't even taste that good. I mean, I didn't expect the boardwalk to be as cool as what I remembered, seeing as I last visited it three years ago, but good Lord, it really sucked.

"I've become a stranger in a familiar land," I mumbled tiredly. I was bored. I was disgusted.

Almost disgusted enough to trespass into that stupid abandoned building, but I didn't say as much. I'd be giving Stinger ideas.

Speaking of which, Stinger was cradled up in my sweatshirt pocket, nursing his belly after belching it out not so long ago. He'd been in there moaning for about five minutes now, and it was starting to concern me. "Oooh..." he moaned. "Ooh, Athena? I don't feel too good, Athena."

"You want me to get you water?" I suggested.

"No. I think if I eat anything, I'm going to go barf again. Urp!!" Stinger burped so loud and forcefully he tumbled through my pocket and almost flung himself out of it. I had to catch him before he fell onto the ground. "Ow..."

"No, I think you do need water." I insisted, reaching blindly for the water canteen in my backpack. "Here."

I retreated to a secluded corner of the boardwalk behind a carnival game, simultaneously fumbling for my stupid canteen. Kneeling down and placing Stinger on the ground, I eventually found it and unscrewed the lid, wondering how I was supposed to feed it to him. Stinger rolled onto his back with a moan and wrapped his wings over his belly. "You're super nice to me, Athena." he mumbled, even as he writhed painfully over the wooden plank floor. "Did I ever tell you that?"

"No, but I appreciate it." I smiled at him, though I could only distantly feel my muscles curl my mouth. It wasn't that I didn't care, but it communicated more than one meaning to me. I'm not exactly a mother hen, so being called 'super nice' is...a little strange. I had linked it to Stinger not having a good standard for nice—I bet very few people had treated him very well.

That's...kind of sad. I thought morosely.

I decided to ask him, "You didn't have a whole lot of friends at Project: Basilisk? Were you...the only dragon or something?"

"Oh, no. There were a lot of other dragons." Stinger shook his head. "Most of them were bigger than me. Bigger than you! But there were some that were my size."

"Well, sorry, what I meant was were you the only dragon...like you. Small, and color-changing." I asked, unscrewing the canteen's lid. I set it down in front of Stinger and held it to his mouth. "Drink up."

Stinger splayed his mouth open and began lapping water out of the canteen. He wasn't a clean eater—he ended up sloshing water all over the place with his tongue despite my futile attempts to prevent him from doing that. "Mmph," he mumbled, pulling away from the bottle. "Oh, that feels a little better, Athena. Thanks."

"Yup, you're welcome." I said. "Anyways, continue."

"Oh, uh...what was it all about?" Stinger rolled onto his stomach, but didn't stand up and just laid flat like a pancake on the pavement. "Oh yeah, about other dragons at Project: Basilisk. The ones like me. That's right. Well...uhh."

Stinger paused for several awkward moments, flicking and curling his tail uncomfortably. I frowned; repeated myself. "Were any of them your friends?"

"Uhh...no. Not really." Stinger shook his head. "We didn't like each other very much. I mean, I tried to be friendly...but they wouldn't talk to me. They called me foolish and immature."