the beggining

chapter 13

his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open slightly

"but your only 19" he paused "right?"

"right now yes i am, but i have lived in different times before"

"care to enlighten me?"

"have you heard of people talk about 'past lives'?"

Toby sighed and shuffled his feet loudly along the floor, half sat half fell into the armchair against the wall, then channelled his oceany grey eyes to me with an expectant expression.

"go on then" he said

"shapeshifters and some monsters have 'lives' were our bodies die but our soul doesn't. after a certain amount of time has passed we get to restart from the beginning of our new life. humans have the same thing but their lives are limited, they only have a certain number. i think its 7 for most. the only difference is that monsters have memories of what happened 3 lives before the one they are currently living. humans have no recollection of theirs"

"but ive heard of people who remember their past lives" Toby interjected

"then they werent human".

Toby was silent

"its not uncommon for humanoid monsters and shifters to intermingle with the gullible human species. in fact from what ive heard, its a sport. I dont know the rules but i think it goes something like, you mingle with a human and you see either how much you can scare them, or make them believe in what other humans say is non-existant"

"so how long would a shifter be 'dead' for?"

"it depends on how memorable the shifter was and how long they lived for"

toby raised an eyebrow as i continued

"the more memorable a shifter is, the longer they need to be dead for, so the humans will either forget about them, or doupt their existance or something, im not fully sure how it works"

"and its the same for humans?"

"yes but with humans the person is almost always reincarnated into the same family".

"how?"

"say there is a family, but the children resemble mostly the mother. the children have children who also have children, all of which resemble the now great great grandmother. this continues for a few more generations until a son is born who remarkably resembles the first father who would be dead at this point"

"okay" he sounded like he was beginning to see were i was going.

"the boy is the grandfather reincarnated, its part of how genes get passed down through families."

"but what if the kid remembers his past life?"

"no, that's the difference between monster and human reincarnation. monsters can remember their lives but humans generally don't. its only every few centuries that a human will remember one of their past lives. plus they only remember them for that life. besides if a human ever mentions that they think they're their long dead grandfather others usually act irrationally."

"okay i think I understand now" Toby said clearly proud of himself "but what does that have to do with that jewelry armour thing?"

"nothing really" I admitted "but I do have an old soul, and as I come back that armour stays with me untill I need it. But thats not the point. When there were dragons on earth, we lived in group- like families. We would get along and work to hunt toghether. But even though we are usually peaceful, we do fight, and thats why I have armour".

"but you could tear through metal if you wanted, how the hell would this help you?" he wondered

"that 'metal' is not from earth, its not even technically classified as metal"

"what is it then?"

"its called star shrapnolite in english. we use it because its stronger than any earth metal and its good at absorbing impact energy. Plus its lightweight, and reasonably flexible so I can fly and move easily while wearing it"

"wait, let me get this straight. Im holding a star?" he asked skeptically

"yes" I answered flatly

"GNAH" he gasped and dropped my armour. I tensed ready to catch it, then realized that during our talk I had moved to the other side of the room. I walked in his direction while he just stood there staring at the dropped armour. when I reached him he looked at me with his bright ocean eyes full of exitement.

"so how does it work? Do they form together to make the armour, or mabe when theyr all worn by a person it makes some kind of force field thing. Can more than one person wear your armour and make a huge force field? Maybe if we..."

As Toby rambled on with his questions I couldnt help but be reminded of the small male boys I saw in the movies. Curious about everything having no patience to wait for an answer, creating an answer with their imagination, only creating more rediculous questions...

"Sakina? Sakina you okay?" the sound of my name broke me from my thoughts. It took me a moment to figure out what he had asked me. "yes yes of course, why wouldnt I be?" I answered quickly

"you're staring at me" he said trying to hide a smile

I glared at him untill I realized he was right then I immediatly dropped my eyes. He laughed and reached for a hug but I shrugged away. It seemed like an hour before there was sound.

"So?" he let the word draw out into a question.

"so what?" I asked him confused

"how does it work? You never actually answered my question" he spoke with a genuine smile on his face. One of those smiles you only saw on couples in the movies. If I could have blushed I would have. my heart skipped a little and my eyes once again dropped to the floor while I spoke.

"I, uhm, I dont actually know," I stumbled over my words at first "but I can show you in the woods if you like". The words practically fell out of my mouth without me even thinking about them,

I mentally slapped myself. One of the things I know not to do when trying to be secrative is to invite humans that make me act stupid and say things that I shouldnt into the woods alone with me to show him part of said secret when I dont plan on killing him after. Stupid me

"wait, woods? arent we in the city?

"nope, when you passed out when we first met I flew to my car pretty fast. Plus I have a car thats built for speed".

"so we're away from the city?"

"damnit boy your slow" I grabbed his sleeve careful to avoid skin contact, and dragged him down the stairs to the front door. Opening it to reveal a forest full with sweet smelling pine trees and overflowing with the smell of nature.

***

Hey guys thanks for reading, I've proof read it for the most part, but If you see any mistakes let me know, and be sure to vote and comment!