The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 191: The Peach of Immortality

Densissimus Imber gasped. With a pop, he shrank back to human height.

As well he should, Flicker thought. How many star sprites had gotten to see a Peach of Immortality up close? For that matter, how many gods? The Queen Mother of the West surrounded her precious orchard with walls higher than even the Dragon Commander at his full extent, and no one but her most trusted gardeners was allowed inside during the three thousand years that it took the fruit to ripen. Every six thousand years, she hosted a banquet under the trees, to which only the most senior gods were invited to partake of the peaches. The lowliest of the dragon kings wouldn't even have heard about the details of the banquet.

Nor, to be honest, would a second-class clerk. Flicker himself knew only because Star had described them to him, and not even she had attended one in person. As the Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Sky, she would organize the next one, but it wouldn't be for another couple thousand years.

Chastened by the honor Star did him, Densissimus Imber bowed so low that his nostrils brushed the grass. "Heavenly Lady, I don't know how to thank you. To make Flori immortal – "

"I am not here to confer immortality on the mage," Star interrupted.

"You're not?"

The dragon froze with his snout still buried in the grass. The breeze rubbed the blades against his scales with scratchy whispers that were the only sound in the campsite. His large nostrils twitched, and then his snout and throat convulsed as he tried to hold back a sneeze.

"Achoo!" Mortified, the dragon flattened the entire length of his belly into the grass and squeezed his eyes shut. "Excuse me, Heavenly Lady!"

Star's face remained as serene as a lake on a windless day, but Flicker could see her shoulders tense as she squashed a laugh. "Jade Emperor bless you."

Since no divine punishment for his rudeness seemed imminent, the dragon opened first one eye, then the other, although he didn't move the rest of his body. "If I may be so bold, Heavenly Ladyship, why have you brought a Peach of Immortality for her, if not to grant her immortality...?"

"I did not bring it for her alone. It is destined for her and the boy."

Flicker winced at her choice of words. He knew it was just a poetic turn of phrase, but any mention of "destiny" was skating dangerously close to Lady Fate's domain. The former empress and current star goddess was never as careful as a star sprite clerk would have been. Before she could get into trouble – or rather, into any more trouble than they'd all be in when the theft was discovered – Flicker broke in. "A single Peach of Immortality confers eternal life on the one mortal who eats it. Split between two healthy mortals, it will grant them both long lives, potentially long enough for them to awaken. Split between two dying humans, however – " he regretted his own word choice when the dragon gasped – "it will restore them in body and soul."

He steeled himself for an embarrassingly emotional outburst expressing the deepest gratitude that Star would risk expulsion from Heaven for two mortals she'd never met.

The dragon's gaze flicked between the tent from which the mage's uneven breaths rasped, and the forest from which the human boy's painful panting drifted. His claws dug into the earth. "Forgive my ignorance, but if you went to the trouble of bringing one peach, could you not have brought two?"

"Two!" Flicker exploded. That ungrateful serpent! Give a snake four legs, and suddenly he thought he owned Heaven! "Two Peaches of Immortality! Do you know what it took to get ONE?!"

Star raised a hand. Let me handle this, said her glance, and he choked down the rest of his tirade. While he clenched his hands inside his sleeves and stewed, she explained calmly, "As Flicker said, and as I am sure you are aware, Peaches of Immortality are not easy to obtain." (Understatement of the millennium, Flicker thought. No, of ETERNITY.) "That we were able to obtain even this one was a miracle of sorts." (Should you be admitting that to an Earthbound dragon, even a minor one unlikely ever to speak to anyone in power?) "In addition, while you may desire immortality for the mage and boy, have you considered their wishes? To live on forever, while wave after wave of your loved ones die and move on to their next lives...that is not something everyone wants."