Jewel Monster (House Beasts #2)

Spirited Away

Eric raised his head in surprise when he noticed that, not only Dimor had followed him outside, he had come to his car and was standing right outside the door. As if Dimor would never come back in a car now that he had magic at his disposal. That was cute.

"Need a ride?" he asked.

"Don't mind if I do," said Dimor.

He went around the car and took his rightful spot on the passenger's seat. Who else was going to sit there? Not anyone save Dimor. Eric better not dare.

Eric started the car without another word and Dimor took to looking outside.

He caught himself thinking about how strange and different the human's world was compared to his homeland. The straight lines. The lack of colours. He had noticed all of that around the office they had just visited and he was noticing them now more than ever. He didn't really know what to think of it, really. He had stared at those backgrounds a lot until he had been freed and now it was as if he saw them again for the first time, in a new light.

If he wanted, he could change that. Use his powers to break the pavement and grow flowers there, turn the house into trees and the trees that were already there into bigger trees. He had that power in his hands. But he wouldn't use it. Even he knew that it would take more than a few spells to change the state of the world.

The mind would have to be changed first. Maybe, even, the nature of humans.

That brought his thoughts back to Lola - but not in their usual manner of her being the most bothersome person that he knew. He was thinking about her project for the first time... Or at least if felt that was. He had never thought of it critically.

His mother had. The moment he had told her about it, she had gone on and on about how that could align with their plans perfectly if they had a plan to align themselves on. She saw this as an opportunity for advancement. Maybe even for expansion. She had many, many children, and she was already struggling with placing the first someplace where he would have enough space for it to be convenient for him. The first one*. It wasn't going to get any easier by the time Dimor himself was going to have to move out.

But she seemed to forget that the humans had already pushed them away once, and that was before they had the technology they had today. Maybe their guns were still a laughable offence to anything that a good spell could unleash, but the idea of telephones and the internet was secretly terrifying. After all, their strength resided in their numbers.

Dimor was starting to realise that he'd have to make it work. That there was more to it than just money and spending time with Eric. Not that he didn't know that before, of course. Realising those things was not knowing them, it was feeling the dread they elicited in the pit of his stomach.

They were home.

Well, it wasn't really Dimor's home anymore, even if Eric had bought it, especially so that he could have a nice bathtub. Dimor stepped out and looked up at the building. There was a crack on the wall right under the roof. Dimor had a thought for the Green Dragon Burgers and their tragic fate. This felt like ages ago.

He'd miss their fishburgers.

"Let's get inside," said Eric, "it's cold."

Dimor followed him up the stairs and into their flat. Again, he was thinking about something else than the present moment, back to when he had first been captured. He had never liked tight spaces and he was suddenly finding himself locked up in tiny rooms all day. The nightmares he had had at the time were some of the worse in his life. Now he was used to it, he almost never reacted to the sometimes small interiors humans could live in, but it had taken him a while.