Origin (Scales 'n' Spells 1)

“It’s not a matter of how far back,” Alric explained. He took the phone from Cameron so he could prop it up against the stacked books. “It’s the side-branches. We’ve looked at your family before, the main descendants, but no one showed any talent.”

“This was about six generations ago, Halmeoni,” Cameron tacked on. “And we’re not main, right? You told me that once.”

“No, dear, we’re a side branch,” her voice floated back to them. “Hold on one moment, I’ve got this all in binders; I can fill in the gaps, I think.”

Yeah…this was going to take a while.

Cameron blew out a breath, a little nervous about this whole idea. Baldewin and Ravi had talked him into coming out onto the playing field with them. Apparently, back in the old days when they had lots of mages and dragons, they had their own sport. They’d explained the rules, and it kind of sounded like Quidditch and soccer combined. The dragons had a ball they tried to get through multiple hoops around the field, goalies guarded each one, and mages flew with the dragons, both trying to knock the other players in the air off-kilter, but get their own balls in through the hoops. It sounded totally fun, but now they didn’t have enough people to form two teams, which was sad.

At any rate, they wanted to both give Cameron a chance to fine tune his magical control by throwing a ball around and give them all a chance to cut loose and have a little fun. Cameron perched up in the stands next to one of the goals to give himself the right vantage point, and both Baldewin and Ravi were in full dragon form. He’d not seen Baldewin’s dragon form before. It was rather impressive, truth to tell, sort of matching the man’s human form. He looked solid, like a scaley bulldozer, his skin so dark in hue to look blood red. Stretched out, he could probably measure a football field in wingspan alone. Cameron felt like taking a picture, then gave into the impulse of snapping a shot of them lazily doing loops around the field, ready for Cameron to get the massive red ball into the air.

The ball was built for abuse, that was obvious. It was made of metal with a thick rubber coating. And it still had some questionable dents in its sides. Cameron sucked in another breath, and spoke the spell. “Vente anti gev adi.”

The ball shot up straight into the air, soaring high above his head. Ravi shot past him in a blur of blue, snatching up the ball and heading straight for the goal.

Cameron had been told Ravi was the fastest in the clan, but Baldewin was no slouch in that department either. He chased right on Ravi’s tail, almost biting at it. No wait, he was biting at it.

“No biting!” Ravi called back.

“There are so many bad jokes I could make,” Cameron laughed, watching them zoom for the goal. “Oh my god, seriously. It’s a shame they can’t hear me up there otherwise I’d let loose.”

Ravi got the ball into the hoop, Baldewin having to swerve at the last second to avoid sending himself into the same hoop. Then they looped around in a tight circle, and the ball was tossed back to Cameron.

This too, he had to use a wind spell for, as the ball would flatten him or break an arm otherwise. Cameron aimed the spell dead center of the ball, batting it back. “Vente anti gev adi!”

It went harder and farther than he intended to, and he winced a little. Cameron was channeling the fresh mountain air to power the spells, and it was strong today, gusty. He’d misjudged the power level a little. It was a two in power, sure, but a storm was coming in, and so it was edging closer to a three. Maybe a 2.5 or something.

The ball almost went out of bounds—which said something; this field was the size of five football fields combined, at least—but Baldewin was in the right position to catch it. He caught it handily and started to swoop for the goal, forcing Ravi into defense. Or at least, that was likely his goal. It didn’t work out that way as Ravi zoomed past him, swiping the ball out with a knock of his nose and catching it before it fell more than a few feet.

“Ravi!” Baldewin growled in frustration, chasing after him. And as close as he was to Ravi’s side, he couldn’t seem to quite get far enough ahead of him to actually snatch the ball back.

Cameron sniggered. Ravi was definitely good at this game. No wonder he’d been so excited when asking Cameron if he wanted to come play. Baldewin had probably come along just for shits and giggles, but he was totally into it now. What would it be like to have two full teams again? To be able to play this properly with them? Cameron was almost wistful thinking about it, but really, there was a good chance in the near future, it wouldn’t be just a pipe dream.