Neglected (Anastasia the Nonbinary Dragon)
She was barely holding back tears, not that her daughter or ex-husband seemed to care.
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Fearing what Lance told her in confidence, Mildred resolved to leave The Gloom tonight. There was no point in staying anyway, since her daughter loathed her.
“Are you sure you want to go?” Lance asked.
She folded her arms tightly over her chest. “Yes. Who knows what Aunt Ivy could be doing now?” She paused. “I wish you had told me sooner, though.”
The blue dragon shifter gave her a lopsided smile. “I’m sorry. I was dumb and I didn’t trust you enough to tell.”
The cow shifter leaned back against the wall behind her bed and closed her eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to curse. “It’s too late for regrets. I’m mad that you weren’t honest with me, but at least for now, we are allies.”
Lance tossed his head back with some dry laughter.
When the two shifters exited Mildred’s room, they almost crashed into Demiel. Demiel laughed at their faces. “What were you two muttering about? Anything you could tell me?” His grin was as razor sharp as his tone.
Mildred shook her head at him. “It’s none of your business. But we’re leaving now. Vera clearly doesn’t want to come home with me, and my divorce with Clive will take some time to finalize.”
Demiel glanced at her and Lance with a quirked eyebrow. “I thought you were determined to get Vera out of this place.”
Mildred sighed, her body feeling like a deflated balloon. “Yes, but what’s the point? She keeps fighting me and painting me as a villain. And she’s clearly happy to live at The Gloom. Her father and Natash are here to keep her company.”
Demiel tapped his chin. “Is she really happy here? Or is she just angry and rebelling?”
Mildred glared daggers at him. “She’s my daughter. Do you think you, a stranger, know her better than I do?”
“Sometimes strangers have a better eye than a parent does,” Demiel quipped.
But Lance elbowed him. “Quit bugging her. Get ready to go, or we’re leaving without you.”
It was Demiel’s turn to glare. But Mildred was tired of this useless argument, so she strode off with her packed bag towards the stairs.
Lance was about to follow her when Demiel yanked at his sleeve. Lance groaned. “What now?”
Demiel eyed the stairs until Mildred disappeared from view. He smirked at his brother. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
Lance tried to free his sleeve, but the other dragon shifter wouldn’t let go. “Demiel, what the hell?”
“This isn’t me trying to be a jerk, bro, but you heard Vera. She assumes that you want to date her mom. So do you?”
Lance scrubbed his face in dismay. “Do you think I do?”
His brother smirked. “The truth is, I’m not sure. But it’s not me who needs to make a decision.”
Lance threw his hands up in the air. “This is so stupid. Mildred’s just getting a divorce. Isn’t it insensitive to bring this up before she and her husband are even formally separated?”
Demiel’s smile was spiteful. “So your answer is yes?”
Lance tightened his lips before saying, “No. Mildred and I don’t have anything romantic between us.” He glared harder at his brother, as if daring him to disagree.
The other dragon shifter rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Even if you don’t care about my feelings on the matter, you should at least care about Mildred’s.”
“When did you ever care about how Mildred feels?” Lance shot back. He started marching towards the stairs, wanting to end this conversation.
“I won’t pretend to enjoy her company,” Demiel replied. “But I do have some shred of decency.”
Lance wanted to respond, but resisted. Replying would only egg his brother on. Besides, they would see the other people in the castle soon.
When the brothers arrived at the ground floor, Mildred spotted them. “There you are! What took you so long?”
Lance was spared from the need to answer. Vera tsked and stepped over to the dragon shifter brothers. “Come on. My mom said you were leaving. Natash has some supplies and rations he wants to give you before you go.”
She then trotted off to sit beside her father on a bench. Her eyes were still trained on the dragon brothers, though, her expression wary but also curious.
Natash gave them packages of dried food to take home. Mildred seemed morose as she packed up the provisions. Lance peered around the room and caught Clive staring at him. Clive oddly didn’t appear hostile, though he wasn’t friendly, either.
The bull shifter cleared his throat as his gaze darted back to Mildred. “I will sign the divorce papers when you’re ready.”
Mildred glowered at him and muttered, “Okay.”
Vera looked down and fiddled with a seam on her trousers. Her expression was tight.
Lance thought that, for all Vera’s bravado, she was still a child. Hearing your parents talk about divorce in your presence, even if you agreed to the separation, probably wasn’t a pleasant experience.
After her bag was loaded, Mildred walked over to where her daughter was sitting. In a gentle voice, she asked, “Vera, are you sure you want to stay here at The Gloom rather than coming home with me? We could see your brother!”
At the mention of her brother, something shifted in Vera’s face. She frowned and crossed her arms. “I hope Kallias is okay, but no, I won’t be coming, sorry. I don’t like being sick, and I’m not taking any chances of getting weak again if I leave the castle.”
Mildred glanced at her soon-to-be ex-husband, but Clive didn’t appear sympathetic. She sighed and brushed her bangs from her forehead. “Vera, I — I know you don’t like me right now, and I get it. You don’t have to come with me if you absolutely don’t want to. But do you want to live here forever? You won’t get to see the sun or the grass anymore!”
The teenage girl shrugged. “I’ll be fine. But I’m not leaving the only place where I’ve ever felt good and happy in my life.”
It was heartbreaking to see Mildred’s shattered look. She was barely holding back tears, not that her daughter or ex-husband seemed to care. Mildred sniffed. “But we can stay in touch, okay? Text or call me if you ever need anything.” She glanced at Clive. “That goes for you too.”
Clive nodded grimly. “Tell me if Kallias needs anything. We can…talk about visits later.”
Mildred had a hard look about her, like she didn’t want to crumple in front of her so-called loved ones.
Mildred rode on Lance’s back to fly home to her barn.
But it hurt to tear herself away from Vera and Clive.
As angry as she was, Mildred thought that Clive and Vera felt sorry for her. While Vera hadn’t been friendly, she was less hostile than she was before. Perhaps Natash — or even Clive — had talked her down to be a little nicer towards her mother.
But who could blame her for wanting to stay? Vera was right that The Gloom was the only place she ever felt comfortable and happy. Mildred didn’t have the right to take that away from her.
Demiel flew beside Mildred and Lance, but he later claimed to have something else to do.
Lance snorted at his brother’s departure.
“What was that about?” Mildred asked when Demiel was out of earshot. She elaborated, “You and your brother took an awfully long time getting down to the ground floor earlier. Did he talk to you about something?”
The blue dragon shifter said nothing at first, then he quipped, “Demiel’s just an asshole. Don’t worry about him. Let’s focus on getting back to Kallias.”
A lump of tension solidified in Mildred’s throat. It was her fault for neglecting her son, as she had concentrated so much on her daughter. She murmured, “I still can’t believe that Aunt Ivy would tell you something instead of telling me.”
The blue dragon sighed. “She’s an enigma. I — ” He paused, his wings fluttering against the strong wind in the sky. “She probably thinks it’s funny to tell me, since she believes I’m actually your lover, and wants you to leave Clive already.”
Mildred was silent for a while, gazing at the thick, rolling grey clouds around them. “For what it’s worth, thanks for keeping up the act with me, at least in front of Aunt Ivy.”
She sensed the dragon’s smile. “I didn’t realize I was such a good actor.” He blew out a bit of smoke from his mouth, which drifted safely away in the dark sky. “I really am sorry, Mildred, about everything. I wish I had been kinder to you all along.”
“It’s too late to say that, isn’t it?” Mildred said. At the dragon’s silence, she winced. “I’m sorry. This is just frustrating.”
The dragon blew out a small fireball, but he quickly extinguished it with a breath of wind. “Aunt Ivy probably likes that I’m a dragon, you know, quite a contrast to your bull husband.”
Mildred snorted. “If my husband were a dragon, I wonder if the magic leaf would allow me to conceive.” She was glad that Lance was staring straight ahead and wouldn’t see her flustered face. She had grown more comfortable with Lance over the past few days, especially as he often seemed like her only ally in The Gloom. But it was still awkward to talk to him about something as intimate as her fertility, even if they were technically talking about her Aunt Ivy’s shenanigans.
Thankfully, the blue dragon interrupted her thoughts, “Giving Kallias milk is the only reason why you still want Aunt Ivy’s magic leaf, right?”
Mildred lowered herself a little on the dragon’s back, as if making herself smaller would make her feel better. She had never really told anyone before, but she felt the urge to tell Lance. Maybe because he was both an outsider to her family, and someone who seemed to care — at least a little bit.
“Well, I don’t think I’d want more calves after Kallias. But…” She gazed down at the pretty, pearly blue of Lance’s scales. “I don’t like the thought of myself being…sterile, you know? Even if I don’t want any more children, and don’t need to make milk for my son anymore, I like the thought that I’m still fertile.” Her face must be steaming red by now.
Wind whooshed by them and whipped through Mildred’s dark hair. Lance replied, “Even if you’re not fertile, that doesn’t make you lesser than other cows, if that was your concern.”
Mildred felt like punching him, albeit with some affection. “It’s…I’m not trying to compete with other cows. But I just don’t like thinking of myself as barren.” Tears stung her eyes and started running down her cheeks.
The dragon’s voice was soft when he answered, “You’re not barren, Mildred. You’re worth more than your ability to bear children. Fertility is just…a concept that shouldn’t matter to anyone at all.”
Mildred bit her lip and dabbed at her tears. “That’s easy for you to say, since you can’t bear children. But how would you feel if the healers told you that you couldn’t father children?”
Lance grunted. “I wouldn’t care. I’m not particularly fond of children anyway.”
The cow shifter let out an exasperated sigh. “And here I thought we were finally starting to understand each other.”
Lance laughed, but it was a bitter sound.
When they were within sight of the barn, the blue dragon shot down like an arrow. Mildred hopped off his back as soon as his feet touched the ground.
She raced towards the barn and burst through the doors. She heard Lance shift to human, and he joined her a second later. Footsteps approached, and Mildred’s stomach tightened with dread.
An older woman in her sixties sauntered up to them, a smug smile on her face, and a small bundle in her arms — Kallias!
Aunt Ivy grinned. “Lance, Mildred, what took you so long? Kallias is hungry!”
The baby calf wailed at the top of his lungs, his voice a mixture of grief and fear.
