Events of Arrival

Episode 9: Homeowner's Association

That wasn't the only sound of happiness. From the doorway, the unfamiliar duelist was squealing with delight, and that was attracting more of the basket's attention. They were now trying to climb out--over each other mostly--and say hello to the new person.

Calder picked Anora up from where he'd faceplanted on the bedspread and set him back in the basket. She pushed the others back away from the edges and said sternly: "Stay." The climbing stopped, but the little chirps and squeaks and the squirming around did not.

Now Calder beckoned to the girl. "Come say hi," she said. The girl went starry-eyed and rushed over, offering nose scritches and incohesive baby talk while Calder did her best to set up the blankets in the most out-of-danger corner the room had to offer.
"I'm Violet, by the way. It's nice to finally get to meet you," the new girl said in a normal voice. "Usually it doesn't take me two weeks before I can introduce myself."

"Almost three weeks," Calder corrected. "Nice to meet you, Violet. How long have you been a member?"

"A couple years. 2017, maybe? It's been good." Violet rambled for a couple minutes, about living in Aegis and arriving here and complaining about the walk, then transitioned into advice on meeting people. Calder kept quiet while she listened and continued unpacking the box of dragon stuff she'd moved in from Zebulon earlier in the morning. Violet's normal conversational tone was intermittently broken up by bouts of baby talk, when the squeaking from the basket crescendoed and it sounded like multiple someones were trying to escape. Whatever incoherent babble Violet used, it worked, and the noise from the basket subsided for another minute or so before picking up.

Calder had been so absorbed in Violet's chatter that she hadn't even realized she'd unpacked everything but the final box. It sat nice and quiet in her hands, and it wasn't until Violet gestured to the box and asked "what's in that one?" that Calder realized what she was holding.

She cracked open the box, and the eye peered out from underneath the tissue paper. "Ahhhh... a special talisman," she fumbled, slapping the box closed and tossing it onto the bed. "It's part of the reason I can call the dragons without being anywhere near them."

"What's the other reason?" Violet asked, reaching for the box.

Calder grabbed the box before Violet could get there and shoved it in a half-open drawer. "Me," she said as she slammed the drawer closed. "And I had that talisman commissioned years ago. I have no idea how it works or what might potentially break it, and I can't afford to have it broken. It's also freaky." She scooped Anora out of the basket and cradled his teeny black body in her hands before setting him down on the new blanket pad. He fluttered a pair of iridescent rainbow wings uselessly and settled in for a nap.

"You seriously think me taking a look would break a magic token?" Violet asked. Calder shot her an unimpressed look, complete with one eyebrow raised as she rose from a crouch. Cinder's little green and purple nose stuck itself out of the basket for scritches. Calder complied before scooping him up and leaving him with Anora.

"I'm not risking it," Calder insisted. "Can't afford to lose it. I need a hub for these guys to sleep and eat, and a shortcut directly to that hub. Otherwise they'll get scattered all over the globe again."

"What do you mean again?"

"Most of the flock weren't native to wherever I picked them up. They'd portaled themselves randomly into a habitat they couldn't survive, or were being hunted, or whatever. If I ask them to portal anywhere other than 'to me' without an anchorpoint, they'll get scattered again." She swallowed around a lump in her throat and set Saffire down on the blankets where her siblings were waiting. "I can't have that."