More Maycor
#18 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Jarzyl's afternoon adventure with her young cousin draws to a close.
I've been punching ahead with writing my longer stories, but I wanted to stick with my one upload a month minimum. Plus, in these times it's always nice to have something light-hearted and casual. So here's another little Jarzyl slice-of-life tale that I quickly threw together in two hours. (2,446 words)
Jarzyl strolled around the study, looking across the bookshelves and cabinets. "What else is interesting here?" she wondered aloud. Normally the study room was a very adult place for her parents to do boring adult things like paperwork, serious discussions, or relaxing without being bothered by their daughter, but today they'd left the door unlocked and Jarzyl was exploring.
Another young dragon was also in the room--her friend, Atlas. He was looking over a complex device that resembled a shallow basin on a pedestal, shaped almost like a bird bath. The basin was filled with white, fine sand, and small crystals could be seen glinting around the inner rim of the device. "Is this a full-spectrum light field projector? It looks expensive."
Jarzyl walked over to stand beside Atlas. "Oh, that? Yeah, my father uses it to come up with designs for his architectural work. But the best part is it comes with sound control, so it can play all sorts of music. Listen to this..." Jarzyl tapped at various buttons on the light-field projector until she found the switch which turned it on. Instantly the inside of the device seemed to fill with light and motion, as channelled magic made the sand swirl into abstract geometric shapes that rapidly changed colour.
"Are you sure you should be playing with that?" Atlas asked.
"No..." Jarzyl admitted, though she was quite sure Atlas had already assumed that. "But as long as I don't break it, it'll be fine. Now how do I get it to play music?"
Before Jarzyl could figure out the multitude of controls running around the light field projector's rim, Atlas cocked his head to the side. "Do you hear that?" he asked.
"No I haven't even turned on the music yet," Jarzyl instantly replied, but then she quietened for a moment, and then she realized that Atlas wasn't referring to music.
"Eek! Eeeeek! Yardar mar... Eeek!" Distantly from the adjacent room, she could hear the chirping and squeaking of a hatchling. Her cousin Maycor had just woken up, and was demanding attention.
"I don't suppose we could just ignore him," Jarzyl suggested, as her cousin continued to chirp loudly.
"He's been sleeping for hours. I doubt he'll go back to his nap now," Atlas replied. He paused for a moment, with his ears perked up and turned towards the wall. "Hmm. He's out of the cot; I can hear him scratching at your room door. He's definitely not going to sleep until night time."
Jarzyl let out a sigh. "Babysitting is just the worst. I should have asked to be paid for this... I don't understand why anyone would want to spend time with a child. They're so needy and noisy."
Atlas raised an eye ridge. "Why don't you ask your parents why they chose to have you?"
"Maybe I should. If I was me, I wouldn't want a tiny version of me that's always being irritating," Jarzyl declared. She glanced over to the balcony window, where the sun was getting increasingly low in the sky. "It's almost dinnertime. My parents will be home to pick me and Maycor up for the clan annual reunion dinner soon. Just a bit longer and this ordeal with babysitting will be over."
"It wasn't that bad," Atlas replied.
"It was," Jarzyl insisted. She used a hindpaw to scratch at an itch on her side, then she got to her feet and headed for the door. "Oh, hey! Listen. Maycor stopped chirping. Maybe he's gone back to sleep?"
"You should go check on him anyway," Atlas said.
"Fine. Never let it be said I am not responsible and mature." Jarzyl strolled out of her room, and Atlas followed after her.
Walking down the corridor, Jarzyl went to her bedroom and opened the door. For a moment she didn't react as her eyes adapted to the darkened interior of her bedroom, but then her neck frill snapped up and she let out a panicked yell. "Hey! No!"
Atlas was still walking down the corridor, and he froze up as Jarzyl rushed forward into her room, yelling frantically. "No, no, no! Maycor!!"
Atlas hurriedly scrambled forward. "What's wrong? What's the matter?" He entered through the doorway, only to find Jarzyl engaged in a battle with her young hatchling cousin.
Maycor was chewing on something bright, colourful, and string-like, while Jarzyl had the other end in her jaws and was trying to pull it away from him. "He got into my candy stash!" Jarzyl growled, her voice muffled as she refused to her bite on what Atlas now realized was a long, stringy piece of sugar-coated, chewey, stretchy candy. "It's mine!!"
"Nhhh!" Maycor squealed, also biting on the candy string and trying to pull it from Jarzyl.
Atlas blinked. As a nocturnal dragon, his eyes were meant for the night at it was easy for him to see around the bedroom even though the opaque curtains were drawn--he could clearly see that Maycor had climbed out of his cot and must have been scratching at Jarzyl's room door, and right beside the door there was a small cabinet with a bowl on top, which had been partially filled with candy. Now the wrapping for one of these candies had been torn apart--clearly the work of a hatchling looking for something to eat.
"Thief! Traitor!" Jarzyl yelled.
"Eeek! Eeek!" Maycor squeaked. Neither hatchling nor fledgling budged, both trying to pull at the candy.
Atlas walked calmly over the balcony window and pushed aside the curtains, letting in the warm evening sunlight and a gust of cool wind. He strolled back to the tug-of-war and sat down. "Jarzyl," he said.
Jarzyl's eyes snapped to her friend. "What? It's my candy string. I saved money to buy it, and my parents only let me eat it once a week or so. I was saving it for a bad day, but now this pest just stole it!"
Atlas said nothing. He continued staring at Jarzyl.
"I let Maycor sleep in my own bedroom, and he abuses his guest privileges!" Jarzyl continued. She opened her jaws, but only after she'd grabbed the end of the candy strict with her paw. "It's not fair! He doesn't get to take what's mine! Children are just the worst. So immature. So selfish."
Atlas said nothing. He continued staring at Jarzyl. His eyes were dark and expressive, and Jarzyl found herself unable to stare too long, lest she feel too judged.
Jarzyl growled at Maycor, then she growled at Atlas too. "Grr. Stop that. Stop judging me! I am entirely allowed to reclaim what is mine."
"Neeehhhrrr mrrnenrr..." Maycor babbled, sounding upset, but also not letting go of the candy.
"I could just snatch it back. I could just wrench it back so easily, snatching it from your tiny, thieving jaws, you irritating thing. You have no idea how kind I'm being, even giving you the chance to let go."
Taking a deep breath, Atlas said, "Jarzyl..."
"Alright, fine! Fine! I know I should let him have it. I know that... that I shouldn't be trying to snatch back some candy from a hatchling, even though I want to." Jarzyl's neck frill drooped completely flat against her neck, and she reluctantly let go of the candy string.
Maycor immediately scampered away, carrying the candy in his mouth to run and hide under Jarzyl's bed. He let out a series of victorious, elated chirps. "Ooodz! Arrr. Yah!"
Jarzyl shook her head irately. "I am... so mature and kind, helping to take care of my irritating cousin, and also forgiving his misappropriation of my precious candy."
Atlas made a slight nod of his head. "Does it help if I tell you that you did the right thing?"
Jarzyl sighed. "Yes, yes it does. I guess I shouldn't eat so much candy anyway. Mother always says it isn't healthy. Fine, Maycor! I hope you're happy. You win."
"Yaryil." Maycor slowly padded out from his hiding place under Jarzyl's bed. The candy string was now half eaten, but he walked up to Jarzyl and dropped the remaining piece at her feet. "Yar," exclaimed the tiny young hatchling, looking proud with himself.
Jarzyl scowled at her cousin. "No. You do not get to pretend that you are the generous one. It is my candy, and I am generous to let you have it. It doesn't make you generous even if you give it back."
Maycor opened his jaws and made a happy, incoherent noise. "Ahhhh!" He nudged at the candy, push it closer to Jarzyl. "Yah."
"Bother on you!" Jarzyl muttered. She picked up the candy string but refused to eat it--not because she was worried about hygiene (she would happily have eaten it off the floor if she'd dropped it), but because she didn't approve of Maycor's happy look from how generous he thought he was being.
Instead she offered the candy string to Atlas, who looked surprised for a moment, but then took the candy and started chewing on it. "Oh, thank you."
"You're welcome. Arrgh. Whatever." Jarzyl snatched up Maycor and put him on her shoulder. Turning around, she walked out of her bedroom and headed back to the study. Atlas was right behind her, still chewing on the candy.
Back in the study, with her cousin still perched on her shoulder, Jarzyl managed to get the music going. It took some fiddling, but then she pressed the right button and a quick, lively beat started rocking out from the light field projector, accompanied but a flashing flurry of moving patterns inside the sandy display surface of the device.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Jarzyl spun the volume knob and the music pumped up, though it did have an odd tinny quality. Nevertheless, it was good enough. Jarzyl tapped her paw to the beat--once, twice, three, eight times, and then she broke into motion. Bouncing between alternating pairs of her four legs, she nodded her head to the beat and started dancing. "Dragons in motion..."
"Gon!" Maycor exclaimed, and the young hatchling smoothly leapt from Jarzyl's shoulder. For a moment he stayed crouched on the ground, staring up at his cousin with a shocked, amazed look on his face, and then started to try and copy her movements.
Jarzyl threw her wings open and close, in exact sync with each the music. She shuffled between all four paws and waved her tail about. "Up in the clouds! Way above the sky," she sang, filling in the lyrics to the music that was booming through the room.
"Sai!" Maycor sang along (completely incoherently) and awkwardly flailed his wings about, matching Jarzyl in enthusiasm, if not skill or grace.
Jarzyl danced her way over to Atlas, who was just standing by the side of the room. "Dance!" she invited him, but Atlas looked embarrassed and he shook his head.
Dashing towards the closest wall, Jarzyl did a smooth, flipping somersault with wings open. She landed softly on all four paws, right as the music came to a brief lull. The music stayed quiet for a few seconds, then it kicked off again and Jarzyl was back into motion. The fledgling bobbed her head up and down, and she did a smooth, sliding reverse walk across the room. Maycor followed after her, not quite doing the shuffle but just walking backwards until he smashed tail first into Jarzyl.
In one swift motion, Jarzyl picked up her cousin and rolled onto her back to toss him up into the air, before rolling back upright to catch him with her outstretched wing. "Wheeeee!" squealed the hatchling.
Jarzyl rippled her wing to drop her tiny cousin back onto her shoulder, and then rolled her shoulders and bent down to smoothly deposit him back onto the ground. Maycor eager jumped up and down, waving his wings.
Atlas didn't dance, but he did nod his head to the music, and his tail tip tapped to the catchy tune. Movement suddenly caught his attention though, and he jumped to his feet. "Jarzyl!" he said.
Jarzyl was caught up in the music and the motion, and she acknowledged Atlas with a nod, in between a series of rolling back flips. "That's my name!"
"Uh..." Atlas pointed to the window, but Jarzyl didn't pay much attention... at least until a sudden gust of wind rushed in. Jarzyl's neck frill was almost flipped forward to cover her eyes--she flicked it back and spun around, then froze up at the sight of her father, who had just landed on the balcony.
Galon Mintaka furled up his wings, and his own neck frill perked up as he watched Jarzyl scramble over to the light field projector and hurriedly shut off the loud music.
"Oh. Oh! He--hello. Greetings. You're home slightly earlier than expected..." Jarzyl stammered.
Her father looked amused. "The clan meeting was growing tedious. Your mother kept dozing off, especially when it was your grandfather doing the presentation. But it's almost over now, and I came to pick up you and your cousin for the dinner." His gaze swept from Jarzyl and Atlas, who both looked nervous and awkward, over to Maycor, who was still happily dancing even without the music. Galon trotted over and patted Maycor on the head, and then Jarzyl too. "I see you've managed to get into the study, and you've also been playing with the light field projector."
"Uh..." Jarzyl hummed.
However, instead of issuing a reprimand for toying around with the equipment, her father strolled over to the light field projector and switched it back on. Music started playing again, though quieter than before, and still oddly tinny. "The outer air interface isn't plugged in." Her father twisted something with the structure of the device, and suddenly the music gained all those full, complete tones and frequencies that it had been lacking. "Now that's music to dance to."
Jarzyl grinned, and she threw open her wings. "Yes!"
Galon spun the knob until it was as loud as before, and then in unison he and Jarzyl both started dancing to the beat, doing wildly different moves but with the same, careless confidence. Maycor hesitated, and then he started dancing too.
Jarzyl danced her way over until she was right Atlas, who was still resolutely seated. "Come on, Atlas. Dance!"
Atlas shook his head. "I'm bad at it!"
Jarzyl grinned and she did a sideways roll over her friend, so that briefly she was inverted and back-to-back against his seated posture. "One day I'll make you dance! One day I'll teach you that it's not about being good, but about having fun."
END