Roar of Dragons

[Xander – 12 years]

"-and there was a muffin, and there was a potato," I say. "And it was really weird."

"I'm sure it was," Ms. Katie says without looking away from what she's doing.

She asked me how I slept last night and I mentioned I had weird dreams. After I said that, she asked me if I wanted to share them. I did make the mistake of thinking she was just asking if I wanted to share them, but she wasn't upset and just let me know that I could share them if I wanted to.

So now I am. They really were weird.

"They were hugging each other."

"That is weird," she looks at me. "How were they hugging each other?"

"I don't know," I answer. "Now that I'm fully awake, I'm not really sure what was going on. Or even how they were hugging. It's all a bit blurry. Not blurry. Hm…"

"Maybe 'hazy' is the right word?" She asks as she returns to pulling stuff out of cabinets. "It's there, but not fully clear?"

"Maybe that would work," I say. "Was it a weird dream? I thought it was weird, but maybe I'm just wrong."

"No," she says. "That was definitely a weird dream. And then there was-whoa!"

I grip the seat of the stool tightly as my heart starts pounding hard and fast. These things spinning is not something I knew they could do and it's my first time sitting on one. It's one of the stools that sits on the dining room side of the counter which separates it from the kitchen, and they're a little bit high but not too high. Ms. Katie said it was okay to sit on it.

And it just spun when I shifted my feet a little.

"You okay?"

"Maybe," I answer. "I don't know. My heart is still pounding really hard."

"You were about to tell me something else," she says. "Another dream?"

"Oh, right," I say. "So I had another dream that was even weirder than the first one."

"Really?" She asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "Is it okay to ask questions?"

"It's about breakfast?" She asks.

"Yeah," I answer.

"Sure."

"Is that the bread we baked last night?"

One of the things she pulled out was a loaf of bread, and we baked some last night after I got back from Greyson's workshop. I was allowed to return for a little bit after dinner to do more work on the AR set since I needed more data from Greyson's database and a couple of more items for what I wanted to do with it yesterday.

The preliminary version should be complete now, so next is just improving it and doing the other stuff I don't remember Luke saying he has to do with the generator. But I should do that for the AR set as well. I should ask Greyson, I'm pretty sure he does all that stuff, too.

Which isn't really important right now. My mind is wandering. It's started to do that a lot lately, hasn't it? Ever since my brain got all fixed up, I think. Or at least, it's doing it more since then. I'm not sure if how often it wandered before.

It's doing it again.

What was I thinking about? Oh, right, the bread!

"Xander?" Ms. Katie asks. "You look like you got lost in thought."

"Sorry," I say. "Is that the bread we baked last night?"

It looks like it.

"Did I already ask that?" I realize.

"It is," she answers. "And you did, then didn't respond after I answered. You okay?"

"Maybe," I answer. "My mind wants to wander."

"Make sure it puts its shoes on first."

"But you can't put shoes on brains?"

"Never mind," she chuckles. "Did you have other questions?"

"Right," I say. "Yeah, I did. I've been making guesses in my head about what you're making for breakfast, but I wasn't sure on it. And then you brought out a loaf of bread. Two loaves."

She pulled out another loaf as I said that. We baked ten loaves of bread last night, which is pretty fun. Also partially because of how much I eat. An entire loaf can go into making sandwiches for me.

"A variant on french toast," she tells me. "They'll be french toast rolls. We'll slice the bread, then put a filling on them, roll them up, give them a good coating, then bake them. While they cook, we'll fix up bacon, sausages, eggs, and a fruit salad for the sides."

"The fruit salad that's just a bunch of fruit and that glaze thingy you do?" I ask. "Or the fruit salad with layers and yogurt and stuff?"

"A parfait?" She asks.

"Oh, right, that's the name."

"Do you want a parfait?"

"Is that okay?" I ask. "I like them."

"Sure," she says. "We can make you a parfait."

"Okay! Thanks, Ms. Katie!"

"You're welcome," she says. "So about your other weird dreams, you said you had a lot last night?"

"Yeah," I nod. "So after the one where the muffin and the potato hugged, there was another dream with a muffin, but this time, there was a banana instead of a potato. And the banana said to the muffin 'I WILL CONSUME YOUR SOUL'," I try to deepen my voice for that. "In a deep voice sort of like that but also better and maybe a little bit more… rough? I don't know if that's the right word. Anyway, the muffin then laughed and said 'I'd like to see you try! I'm a muffin, I've got no soul!' and the banana then sad 'THEN I'LL JUST CONSUME YOU' and talking like that makes my throat hurt so I don't think I'll do it again even if the pain goes away fast 'cause I heal that fast. But anyway, before the dream showed me what it's like for a banana to eat a muffin, a turtle showed up and ate both."

"Do you normally have dreams this weird?" She asks. "When you're not having nightmares, that is?"

"Yeah," I nod. "The ones I remember, anyway."

"I see," she says. "What other strange dreams from last night do you remember?"

"There was a duck speaking French."

"A duck speaking French?" She gives me a confused look.

"Yeah," I nod. "It was talking about its favorite foods. That's all that was going on. We were by a pond. He likes insects and molle juste. I think it was supposed to be 'juste mou', though, because 'just soft things' makes more sense than 'soft just'. Though that doesn't match up with insects, since most of those are actually hard."

"It was probably 'mollusque'," she tells me. "The French word for 'mollusk', which includes snails. Wait. You know French?"

"I don't know how, when, or where I learned it, but I do know it."

"For how long?"

"I don't know," I answer. "I only discovered I knew French when I had that dream. It was better than the bear speaking in Japanese, though. That was during last night's dreams as well, and it was asking for directions to the zoo so it could make fun of the animals there for not getting to eat the fish it caught."

"What kind of fish?"

"I don't know," I answer. "It didn't say and I didn't see."

"I see," she says. "Are there any other languages you know?"

"English," I answer. "And Swedish. I learned those years ago. I don't remember learning them, but I maybe learned them from the old man who lived down from the first home I was in. The group home before my last foster home. The place I was living when I got hit by a car. There was an old man who lived a few doors down, and he moved here from Sweden, but he also knew English."

"Interesting," she says. "Back to your dreams. Were there any other strange ones you want to tell me about?"

"I got to ride a dragon in one," I tell hr. "That's definitely strange. Grandpa Adrian's the only dragon I know of and I doubt he'd let me ride on his back. I doubt he'd even transform back to his dragon form. He even told me that he's not a dragon, but I could tell he was lying."

His mana was honest.

"Who's not a dragon?" Mr. Trey asks, and I turn to look at him, but the stool spins a little too much and I start to fall off. "Got you!"

Mr. Trey catches me before I fall and makes sure I'm seated properly before letting me go. He touched me. He touched me. He touched me. I was touched. I was touched. I was touched.

"Are you okay?" Mr. Trey asks. "Sorry for grabbing you, you were about to fall and I didn't want you to hit your head."

"I… think I am," I tell him as I try to get my breathing under control and my heart to stop pounding hard and fast. "But maybe I should get off the stool. That's twice now."

"Use a little bit less force and you should be fine," Mr. Trey tells me as he sits on the stool two right of this one. "You said someone's a dragon but is denying it?"

"Grandpa Adrian," I nod. "I could tell it when I saw his mana. Oh. Also, he asked me if I knew a good time for him to come over. I told him I'd have to ask you since I don't know that sort of stuff. That's why I came down, but you weren't down yet. Ms. Katie and I were talking about my dreams last night. They were really weird."

"What kind of weird?"

"Two cheesecakes were boxing and the peach cobbler won."

Mr. Trey just stares at me in response. Does he think I'm stupid? I know I am stupid, but… or maybe he's just confused and doesn't know what to say.

"Peach cobbler isn't a cheesecake," he says.

"I didn't make the dream," I tell him. "It just happened. But I think the peach cobbler was influenced by Greyson. It blew up the boxing ring."

Mr. Trey laughs a little.

"You can tell your great-grandpa that anytime after eight works."

"Okay," I pull out my phone and text Grandpa Adrian to let him know, and he responds quickly. "He says he'll be here at eight. That's not after eight, though…"

"Eight works," Mr. Trey tells me before I can type out a response.

"Okay."

We watch Ms. Katie make breakfast, with Mr. Trey talking with her as she works. Breakfast itself is nice, and it turns out to be rolled french toast with cream cheese and strawberry filling and a slightly-crunchy cinnamon coating on the outside. It's really good, but I like the parfait better.

Nothing else really happens until it's time for Grandpa Adrian to show up, so I wait by the door once I have nothing else to do. Mr. Trey keeps walking around checking things for some reason. If I did that, he'd probably yell at me and send me to my room.

But adults are always getting to do things kids get into trouble for, so I just wait as patiently as I can by the door.

"Hello, Grandpa Adrian," I say as Mr. Trey opens the door to let him in once he arrives.

He's made himself look like an old man again, and it's messing with my vision.

"Is it okay to ask you to not look like an old man?" I ask.

"Xander!" Mr. Trey's tone is very scolding.

Oh, no! I messed up!

"It's okay," Grandpa Adrian says as Mr. Trey closes the door. "I was hoping a spell I cast would prevent that from happening, but it seems it's still affecting you, huh?"

"Y-yeah."

"To explain," Grandpa Adrian looks at Trey. "Do you really think a mage thousands of years old has to look like an old man?"

Mr. Trey's expression says he hadn't thought about that. So it's not just me being stupid, but even adults might not think about.

"I alter my body's biology to look like an old man," Grandpa Adrian tells Mr. Trey. "Ordinarily, no one should notice it. Xander's a bit of an unusual case in that he inherited my perspicacity. I explained it to him when we met the other day, but magical perspicacity is the ability to see what is real. In short, Xander can see the truth when someone or something uses magic to disguise it. He can see through illusions and even see things which are ordinarily unseen. This is separate from his magesight, that's a different beast altogether."

"It's a beast?" I ask.

"That's a metaphor."

"Oh."

Grandpa Adrian shifts to his real appearance.

"This is what I really look like," he informs Mr. Trey. "Xander's perspicacity makes him see both this and my old man form when I'm in the other one."

"Dragons have some really amazing powers," I tell Mr. Trey.

"I'm not a dragon, Xander," Grandpa Adrian says.

"Including the ability to fool my ability to tell when people are lying," I add. "His mana is very honest in being a dragon's."

Mr. Trey's phone rings, and he pulls it out while I look at Grandpa Adrian.

"It sounds like Ms. Johnson is here," I tell him.

That's what the person who called Mr. Trey is saying. Since my good hearing comes from Grandpa Adrian, he can probably hear the other part of the call as well.

"That was your case worker at the boys' home, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Probably coming to see how you're doing."

"Overwhelmed," I tell him. "Want to see the AR set I made? It's not done yet, I have to do tweaks and optimizations and stuff. I don't know what all I have to do, just that I have to make sure it's good before it's really usable. And then make more of them so that I can play with them with my friends. I'm making a zombie shooter game because I think they like that sort of thing, and I know they like laser tag. So this is me trying to mix the two together for us to play."

"Sure," he says.

"Mr. Trey," I say. "Can I show it to Grandpa Adrian?"

"If you want," he says. "Though Ms. Johnson is here and she might want to talk with you."

"I know," I hold out my hands and focus. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaand there!"

My backpack appears in my hands. Sort of. I have to catch it a little, but then I open it up and pull out the AR set and hand it to Grandpa Adrian. He examines it a little, then pulls it on. Ms. Johnson is let into the house as I explain to Grandpa Adrian how to use it.

"Those are zombies," he says. "Did you make those?"

"They were in Greyson's database."

"Xander?"

"Yes, Grandpa Adrian?"

"It really feels like I'm being bitten by a zombie."

"Well, it wouldn't be done right if I didn't include that," I tell him.

What I want to tell him is that he was supposed to use the accompanying gun to shoot the zombies rather than let them bite him. Telling an adult what they're supposed to do is very bad, though, and I don't want to get into trouble.

"Does it have tastes as well?" Grandpa Adrian asks.

"Also from Greyson's database, so I know they're proper," I confirm, then feel like I have to admit something. "I'm scared to ask why he has all this data for magitech AR stuff."

"I would recommend removing all three of those for the game," he tells me.

"How come?" I ask. "Isn't it supposed to be as good as possible?"

"Sometimes," he says. "Things can be too good. The feeling of being bitten by a zombie, and the smell of rotting flesh isn't exactly pleasant and can make people sick. Same with tastes, if splatter gets into their mouth."

"So I messed up?"

Why can't I do anything right?

"No," Grandpa Adrian says as he pulls off the set and hands it to me. "You did too good. I can see uses for that, but not for a zombie shooter. We can talk more later, okay? I wish to speak with Trey, and I'm sure Ms. Johnson here wishes to talk with you."

"Hello, Ms. Johnson," I put the AR set back into my backpack, then pull Trenton out. "This is my great-grandpa. My biological one, not Mr. Trey's grandpa or something like that. He's my birth dad's dad's dad."

"My name's Adrian King," Grandpa Adrian reaches a hand out for Ms. Johnson to shake, and she suddenly looks very nervous. "Trey was looking into options for helping with Xander's brain damage and reached out to me for help, as the only option he found was far too expensive for nearly anyone. When I looked into the situation, I discovered Xander was one of my own descendants. It's a bit complicated on why I didn't know about him before, but I promise I'm not here to try and take Xander away.

"He seems quite happy living with Trey," Grandpa Adrian continues. "And I wanted to meet the man himself and speak with him a little. Xander's not my first descendant I didn't know about until a decent time after they were born and I have a few things I do in that situation. Taking them away from a good home isn't one of them."

The background check that he did was probably far more thorough and in-depth than what the boys' home did, and in less time. That's the sort of power the most powerful man in the world has. If he thinks this home is good, then that means it probably is.

I agree with him. It definitely seems good so far.

"I see," Ms. Johnson accepts his hand for a shake.

"Ms. Johnson, do you want to see the classroom where Mr. Trey has a private tutor helping me try to get ready for 8th Grade? Wait. Mr. Trey, is it okay if I show her?"

I mixed up the order of asking and I hope that's not too much of a problem.

"Go ahead," Mr. Trey tells me. "If she wants to, that is. You can show her anything you're allowed to go to or use."

"Okay," I say. "Ms. Johnson? Would you like a tour?"

"Sure," she says. "I'm here to see how you're settling in, so if you want to show me around, you can."

"Okay!" I say. "This way, please."

I lead Ms. Johnson to the classroom, which has a few posters up on the walls and the beanbag chairs in their places.

"We'd normally have a class right now," I tell her. "But with Grandpa Adrian visiting today and me still feeling overwhelmed from the holiday and Wednesday, we decided to cancel them again today. I think we'll be back to normal on Monday."

"So you take classes in here?" She asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "I sit on this beanbag," I pat the green beanbag. "And Trenton likes this one," I pat the purple one. "Luke likes this yellow one – he lives next door and comes over for the lessons so it's not just me and the teacher. And Parker comes over, too. Parker's Luke's friend and lives on the other side of Luke from here. Parker likes this blue one. When S.G. was filling in while Luke was away, he sat on it, but also on that green one there."

"S.G.'s one of the boys from the bowling alley, right?" She asks. "One of the friends of Mr. Thompson's son? I think Paul called him 'Sig'."

"Yeah," I nod. "Only people he's close to are allowed to call him that, everyone else has to call him 'S.G.' I was at his aunt's house on Wednesday. I spent the night there Tuesday and didn't have any nightmares! They were super nice, too! And we helped with the back yard, 'cause it's a new house for her but an old house that needed fixing up and stuff. Mr. Trey came over and did some grilling for dinner."

"That sounds nice," she says.

"It was!" I agree. "And I even got to see Hunter again! Oh. I don't know if I ever told you, but my old foster brother once got punched by Hunter. He's sixteen now, so it wasn't even like it was an older person. He got angry at my old foster brother for not being nice to me."

"And Hunter is…?"

"Mr. Fuller's son."

"And who is Mr. Fuller?"

"A coworker of Mr. Thompson's," I answer. "He came over to help Ms. Rachel. Her new house has a pool. Want to see Mr. Trey's?"

"Sure," she says.

I lead her out of the classroom, but get an idea and show her the training room.

"This isn't the pool," I tell her. "But Coach Evan – that's the other teacher – does some fitness stuff in here. Martial arts on the padded floor, and then exercises over there. Dumbbells, bodyweight stuff, and jump rope, for example. The lessons in the classroom are to help me not be stupid, but the stuff in here is to help me gain weight and not be weak. Look!"

I lift up my shirt and point at the side of my stomach.

"You can see it kind of," I say. "But my abs are starting to get defined. Just very, very, very slightly. So you have to squint. But that means I'm on the way to being healthy, so I'm happy with that. I've even gained weight! Since the end-of-school checkup, I've grown nearly an inch and gained about 17 pounds. I weigh about 80 pounds now! Coach Evan says that it's because I had so little meat to start with, the muscles are able to show more easily as they develop."

I poke my stomach, then lower my shirt.

"It's nice to see you're filling out some," she says. "You seem pretty happy here, Xander."

"I am pretty happy," I tell her as we leave the fitness room. "But also scared Mr. Trey is going to decide he doesn't like me anymore and send me back. I really like this place and don't want to leave it."

"We can hope," she says. "Xander, is that the Adrian King? Of the Lumaria Kings?"

"Yeah," I answer. "Apparently, I even have super-regeneration that's from his side of the family, but it wasn't active because I was subconsciously using a bunch of high-level, mana-intensive spells to keep myself alive with the brain damage. I didn't have enough mana for my regeneration to work. Then Greyson – that's the dork's real name, by the way – realized I wasn't doing that on purpose and gave me some mana potion. A few hours later, my brain was all fixed up from my regeneration. Mr. Trey still wants me to see a doctor to make sure it's really fixed, so I'm hoping Grandpa Adrian talks him out of it. I don't want to go back to the doctor's."

"You never do," she says. "You wear glasses now?"

"Apparently, my vision being wonky isn't supposed to be normal."

"No, it's not," she says. "You never said anything at the home."

"I just thought it was puberty," I tell her. "Mr. Trey gave me a puberty talk. I was too nervous to tell him that I got one at the boys' home, too. Though the one he gave me was a little bit different than the one Mr. Evanson gives the fifth-graders. He didn't seem as comfortable giving it, either. And was making sure I knew rules for sexual stuff and for what to do if someone ever tried to pressure me into it, even if he says that probably won't happen for awhile."

"It probably won't," she says. "If ever. Let's hope it doesn't."

"I learned how to breathe fire," I tell her. "So if someone tries to force me, I can just do that. I doubt they'd ever try again. Wow. That's the first time I've been able to get the full thing out. Mr. Trey always interrupts me."

I look up at Ms. Johnson, who looks like she's trying to hide a laugh. This is very serious! It's important to be able to defend oneself!

"Sorry, Xander," she covers her mouth. "I've just never expected to hear you be willing to harm someone, even if it's self-defense. You're right that it's serious, but it might be better to learn a spell that isn't as damaging. Maybe something to bind them while the police arrives?"

"I also learned how to teleport," I tell her. "So I could just teleport away. And here's the pool room!"

I show her the indoor pool, then take her to the changing rooms and show her my swim trunks and the full-body swimsuit.

"This lets me pick," I tell her. "So if I think I can be comfortable in just the swim trunks, I can wear those. If not, I can wear the bodysuit. But I don't like wearing just the full suit because it's kind of skintight. Not super skintight, so it doesn't like, do anything inappropriate. But it makes me feel naked if I don't wear the swim trunks as well so I wear both the suit and one of the trunks if I'm wearing the suit. Swimming class is on Mondays. There's an outdoor pool, too."

I lead Ms. Johnson out back and show her the outdoor pool, then lead her back inside and to Mr. Quinn's office.

"Hi, Mr. Quinn," I say. "This is Ms. Johnson, she works at the boys' home and came to see how I'm doing. Ms. Johnson, this is Mr. Quinn. If I want to get driven somewhere and it's not Mr. Trey taking me, I can ask Mr. Quinn. That's basically his whole job, along with being a bodyguard for me."

"We met when we were vetting Trey," Ms. Johnson tells me. "Hello again, Quinn."

"Hello, ma'am," Mr. Quinn says. "How are you?"

"Doing well," she says. "Xander's giving me a tour. This place has changed a little since we did the inspections."

They inspected the house?

"Trey wanted to make sure it had the stuff needed," Mr. Quinn tells her. "Renovated some rooms to make learning and training areas for Xander."

That's all that's really said here, so I lead Ms. Johnson to the theater room.

"I watch documentaries in here," I tell Ms. Johnson as she looks around the room. "And I played a game in here with S.G. and the others. It was fun and I want to play again, but I'm too stupid to figure out the puzzles on my own so I'm waiting until they come over again for the next time I play. Mr. Trey sometimes watches stuff with me. After Ms. Katie and I baked bread last night, we watched a documentary on vortex bears. They come in two main varieties: air and water. There are ones for other elements, but they're rarer. Greyson claims to have wrestled a stone vortex bear before, but I think he was just dreaming."

"Do you just use it for that stuff?" Ms. Johnson asks.

"Yeah," I answer as I walk over to the snacks and drinks area. "Mr. Trey says I can use it for other stuff, like watching movies and shows or playing other games, but I'm not sure. Plus, I'm not sure what kind of other stuff to watch or play. This is the snacks and drinks area. Refreshments, I think? Look! Mr. Trey put signs on things so I can know how to use them. I'm allowed to get snacks in here whenever I want, but I usually get them from Ms. Katie in the kitchen if I'm not doing something in here."

The next place I show Ms. Johnson is the bedroom Mr. Trey's letting me use.

"That's a lot of stuffed animals," she says.

"Mr. Trey buys me lots," I nod. "Usually one or two, sometimes three or four, when we go shopping. If he keeps doing that, the bed might become super full of them and they'll need to be stacked on each other. Trenton sits in that middle spot."

"He buys them for you when you go shopping?"

"If we're at a store that sells them," I nod. "I keep looking in that direction without realizing it and then he asks if I want one. I do, but I don't want him to buy them, but I can't say that because that'd be wrong. But then saying I don't would be lying and I'd get into trouble for that. So I just say I do. And then he takes me over and lets me pick one out. More if I'm feeling unhappy. And then I take awhile to decide because I do want one, but I don't want him to buy one for me, and then I want one that's more expensive but I don't want him getting mad at me for asking for it so I try to look at the cheaper ones. Then Mr. Trey's just like 'Xander, just pick one out. If it's too expensive, I'll tell you'. Oh. But I didn't get all of them from Mr. Trey. That lightning wolf came from Luke. He got it when getting the video game it's from. I don't remember clearly, but I think he was hoping to get Trenton a friend? And also to try and get me to like him, but he's too noisy. Not the way I am when I get comfortable like this, he's loud and very full of energy."

Ms. Johnson and I talk a little bit more as I take her back downstairs to where Mr. Trey and Grandpa Adrian are talking, and Mr. Trey looks at her.

"Tiffany," he says. "I noticed that there are some foods Xander can eat with some convincing, and others that he'll absolutely refuse even if it would mean getting into trouble. I asked him if he had a list, but he wasn't entirely sure."

"Of course!" She smacks her head. "I didn't think about it when making the binder for you. We do actually have one made up, including the levels of aversion. It's normally used when someone from the other home is covering since we all sort of just remember it now, so it slipped through the cracks. I'll get a copy made for you."

They're talking as if I'm not standing right here. That's very rude, but saying that would be very bad since I'm just a kid and they're adults. Kids aren't allowed to tell adults they're being rude.

"Thanks," he says as Grandpa Adrian steps to the side and beckons for me to come over. "Go ahead, Xander."

"Okay."

"Also," Ms. Johnson says as I start to walk off with Grandpa Adrian. "While Xander's tastes don't really change, some of what he'll avoid can change, but don't try to force it. It'll just happen on its own. One example is bananas – he refused to eat anything banana, even if it was just in taste, when he first came to the home. About a year and a half ago, he started eating bananas, as long as they were a part of something or cut up. If he cut them up, at first, though eventually started eating ones others cut."

"Landon helped me with that," I say, and they both look at me. "Sorry, Grandpa Adrian."

"It's okay," he says. "Who's Landon?"

"Yeah," Ms. Johnson says. "Who's Landon?"

Fuck. I messed up and mentioned him when I really shouldn't have.

"Um…" I squirm a little. "He's someone I've met a few times when I'm out."

"It's at one of your safe places, isn't it?" Ms. Johnson asks.

She figured that out really fast, but I really don't want to say anything about where this safe place is or what it could be. Even though she apparently knew about the street with the shops I like going to, I'm absolutely certain this one is unknown to her. Privacy and secrecy is kind of one of their big things.

"Maybe."

"Is Landon a therapist?" Mr. Trey asks. "Though you didn't add the 'Mr.' in front, so I'm guessing he's a kid?"

Why did that sound like a question?

"No," I tell him. "He's an adult, but he prefers to be called 'Landon' over 'Mr. Landon'. I don't know his last name. He refused to tell me. And he's not a therapist, he's a supervisor. We were talking about bananas last January and he asked me if I didn't like the taste. I told him the taste was fine, I just don't like bananas. Actually, they taste really good to me.

"He put a banana on the table," I say. "And said 'so you won't eat this'? And I said 'no'. Then he put a plate with a slice of banana bread in front of me and asked why I wouldn't eat it. I wasn't really sure. I just… didn't want to? Ever? I don't know why I didn't want to eat it, I just didn't. The taste and texture were fine. So Landon helped me to be able to eat it. After I was eating banana bread and banana chips and banana nut muffins for a few weeks, he suggested trying to cut up bananas to put into cereal. That's really good."

Doing that won't work for something like beans or mustard, though. Nothing anyone can say or do will ever get me to willingly eat those.

"Sometimes," Grandpa Adrian says. "It can be a matter of how something is prepared, or presented. Xander, would you mind giving me a tour while they talk?"

This could have been done with the tour with Ms. Johnson, but saying that would just get me into trouble.

I show Grandpa Adrian around the house. He's quiet and doesn't ask very many questions, but I think he's examining the magics in the walls and stuff. It's been made very clear to me that he's very protective of his family, so he's probably wanting to make sure the protective magics here are good.

When I finish showing him everything important enough to be shown, I take him down to where Mr. Trey is talking with Ms. Johnson. As we reach them, Ms. Katie walks over and gives me a milkshake.

"It's strawberry-banana," she tells me. "And just a little bit of caramel, like you like it."

How did she know I was going to ask for one? She had it prepared for me when we got down here and everything, so she had to have known in advance.

It's possible she's psychic.

"Thanks," I say.

"No straw?" Grandpa Adrian asks.

"No straw," I drink some of the milkshake. "That limits how much I can drink at once. They have metal straws here, but those feel weird on my lips."

"You don't use straws at restaurants, either," Mr. Trey says.

"All straws feel weird on my lips."

"As someone who has lived many times longer than straws have existed on Earth," Grandpa Adrian says. "I can agree with Xander on them feeling strange."

"As someone who has-" Ms. Johnson begins to repeat him in what sounds likes a question, but cuts off as her eyes widen. "You're not one of the Adrian King's descendants who has the same name? You're actually him? You've always looked like an older man in media."

She looks a lot more nervous around him. Why did she become nervous just because she realized that he's Grandpa Adrian? I would've thought that was obvious by him being my great-grandpa. She was even asking me about him being the Adrian King.

"I use magic to alter my biological age," Grandpa Adrian tells her. "As most people wouldn't accept or believe a being as ancient as me looking like I'm nineteen or twenty. Xander has a special trait he inherited from me which causes him to see both what I currently look like and what I actually look like at the same time. There's no reason to make him deal with that, so I saw no reason to hide my real appearance. The intention is to have people accept me on sight, not to mess with the vision of others."

In other words, it's not because of me specifically that he's looking like his real self but because of magical perspicacity.

"O-oh…"

"Xander," Mr. Trey says. "Ms. Johnson would like for me to give her a tour as well. Do you want to join us?"

They probably have adult stuff they want to talk about and the "good" answer is probably that I don't. That's also the honest answer, as I don't want them talking about me with me right there again. It's very rude.

Also something they're probably going to do if I walk with them.

"If it's okay," I say. "And he wants to, can I show Grandpa Adrian the AR set some more? He didn't get very long to look at it."

"Sure," Mr. Trey looks at Grandpa Adrian. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Grandpa Adrian says. "I'm glad to hear Xander's found something he likes, especially with his cousin having not influenced him too much."

"What does that mean?" I whisper to him.

"Cousin?" Ms. Johnson asks.

"I'm sure you know of him," Mr. Trey tells her. "It's 'the dork'. I'll tell you more during the tour."

They walk off, then I look at Grandpa Adrian.

"Want to try and play the zombie shooter I've programmed so far?" I ask. "I can't promise it's any good, but I can promise that it works."