18

The supper was perhaps the liveliest one Kaz had ever attended, Ishvara and Saphana were enthralled by the intricate taste of human cooking and recipes, Tasi must've gained another twenty pounds in this meal alone. Afterwards Kaz asked Ishvara to stay awhile longer to watch over him as he tried his hand at some magic with the book she lent him. Kaz flips the book open and reads the first page, "Technical spells, followed by water, fire, earth, then lightning spells." He reads from the table of contents. "Spell one, appraisal. Displays the status of an individual, or identifies a singular item." He follows along. Kaz continues to read, he turns to Tasi, "Hey Tasi, come here for a second." He asks. Tasi obliges and slides over to him with a puzzled expression. He then holds his palm up in front of Tasi and concentrates, "Appraise!" As he shouts, several bright blue lines shoot from his hand and scribble out a paragraph or so in front of him in midair.

"Amazing, on his first attempt!" Ishvara gasps from beside them. "Hmm?" Ishvara mumbles. She walks up behind Kaz and points at the bottom of the floating mass of information, "Current Status: Healthy, Expecting." Kaz reads aloud. His voice trails off, "What? Expecting!" He repeats himself hysterically. "Tasi, what! How?" He continues shouting. He breathes deeply and calms himself down, he thinks and remembers. "That morning in the bathroom, and in the bushes that one night." Kaz recalls out loud. Kaz sits down next to Tasi and lays his head in her lap.

Ishvara interrupts the commotion, "I have to…" she pauses, "Thank you for supper Kaz. I erm, I must really be going now." She stutters, Lucia gets up from her seat and shows Ishvara out. "You're welcome back anytime Miss Ishvara!" Lucia calls out as Ishvara leaves. The kobold's smile turns to a scowl as she stomps back into the main hall. She grabs Kaz by the collar of his shirt and drags him out of Tasi's lap and into the back room. She drops him on the floor and demands an explanation. Kaz lets out a long sigh and retells how he had met Tasi, the events in the hot spring, consoling her after she was fired. Lucia was listening intently and when Kaz finished she slapped him across the face to snap him out of his daze.

Kaz winced in pain, Lucia sees this and leans over him, "Ah! Master Kaz. I apologize, I let my emotions carry me away." She tells him in a regretful tone. "But honestly Master, if you did that to her you shan't lie around and act depressed. You must support her and be there for her, she is in a vulnerable state and you must step up and take responsibility! Be a man!" She cheers him on with confidence in her voice.

Upon hearing Lucia's pep talk, Kaz rises to his feet and marches out of the back room. He makes his way to the bedroom where Tasi had retreated to during their talk. Kaz calmly opens the door and steps in to find Tasi bawling into a pillow. He closes the door behind softly and steps over to her. Lucia sneakily tiptoes up and puts one of her large ears to the door, Saphana heads outside and stands with her neck up, placing her head as close to the wall outside the room as possible. Roarke sees them eavesdropping, rolls his eyes and gets ready for bed himself. Kaz sets himself next to Tasi on her bed, he takes her pillow and sets it aside, "Tasi, I need to tell you something." Kaz opens up. "I'm not upset. To be honest, I’m a little nervous. Finding out about something this big in a way like that, I just wasn't expecting it." He speaks softly as he wipes a tear from her scaly brow.

Tasi hiccups a bit and quickly wraps Kaz up in her coils. She pulls his upper body down closer to her stomach, Kaz presses his face to her cream colored scutes with a smile. She then pulls him back up to meet her face to face, Kaz leans in ever-so-slightly and the two of them lock one another in an intimate kiss. "That's all I needed to hear Kaz." She pauses their moment to tell him, then they immediately rejoin their lips.

Lucia and Saphana can barely contain their words for how smoothly Kaz handled the situation. "It's too quiet now, what's happening?" Lucia groans to herself. Saphana heads back around the manor, comes inside and curls up on the floor next to the roaring fireplace, moments later Lucia decides to give it up for the night and head to bed herself. She is stopped when she hears crashing and wrestling sounds coming from the room they were in. Lucia groans as she stomps off to her room and gets in bed and pulls her pillow over her head in an attempt to drown out the noises from the adjacent room.

The following morning Kaz and Tasi both get up from a good night’s sleep, on their way down to the main hall to grab breakfast, Kaz sees Lucia sitting in a chair next to the cooking pit. The pot begins churning out a thick black smoke, Kaz runs down the stairs and quickly removes the pot from the fire and wakes Lucia, “Hey Lucia, Hey!” he says as he gently shakes her awake. “Oh.” She yawns, “Good Morning Kaz, and Tasi.” She greets the two. Kaz sighs and points at the pot full of burnt food. Lucia slowly looks over at it and when she realizes what happened, she snaps up to her feet and apologizes right away. Tasi, who was watching from the other end of the table, snickered a bit at seeing Lucia get all flustered.

After Lucia and Kaz finish airing out the room Lucia sits down and explains to Kaz that she had trouble sleeping last night. Kaz thinks back, he looks over at Tasi with a small grin. Tasi on the other hand, starts bellowing in laughter. She laughs as she slithers up and gives Lucia a hug. Roarke comes dashing down the stairs shouting about smelling smoke, but when he arrives in the kitchen all he finds is Tasi with Lucia wrapped in her coils, and Kaz sitting at the table with his face in his palm looking completely out of it. Roarke doesn’t even bother trying to ask what happened, he just goes along with it. He brings a sack of biscuits out of the storeroom and passes them out.

Kaz snaps out of it and bites into his biscuit, “Has anyone seen Saphana this morning?” he inquired. The others just shake their heads, just as Kaz finishes his breakfast Saphana comes through the main doors. “Hey! We were just wondering about you. Where’d you run off to Saph?” Kaz nudges her foreleg as he asks. Saphana drops a book from under her wing into Kaz’s arms. He takes the book and looks at the cover, “Caring for your Serpent?” he reads aloud. “Yeah, I suppose I should look into this stuff soon.” He thanks Saphana, who had already crept back outside without a word and lies down in the training yard. Kaz wonders what is wrong with her, his gaze turns back to Tasi.

She is still stuffing her face with biscuits, Kaz watches in awe as she swallows each biscuit whole. He sneaks over behind her and slips his hands around her waist and rubs her belly. Then he grabs the book Ishvara had lent him and tells everyone that he’s going to try some magic in the training yard.

Kaz arrives in the yard, he decides to sit next to Saphana. She was currently basking in the sun taking it easy. Kaz looks over at her face, "You seem down lately Saph, what's on your mind?" He asks her as he cracks the book open to water magic. Saphana rolls over onto her stomach with a groan, "I can't really explain it that easily Kaz." She tells him in a somewhat depressed tone. "When I see you fooling around with Lucia or Tasi, my chest feels tight. I miss when it was just you and I. '' She continues. "So you just want some attention, is that it? How about some one on one, you can help me practice. How about it?” Kaz asks the big sullen dragon. Saphana nods and gets up on all fours.

Kaz reads the introduction for water magic out loud, "Spells for controlling liquids. Warning: Along with all spells, water magic can become especially unpredictable and have various effects if cast incorrectly, be sure to double and triple check the pronunciations!" He reads. "Okay Saph! I hope you don't mind getting a bit wet. I'm going to try the first spell!" Kaz shouts at Saphana across the yard. She takes a ready stance, preparing to deflect the incoming spell.

Kaz holds the book in one hand, and raises a finger with the other. "Water should spout from my finger." He talks to himself as he casts the first spell. Upon finishing the incantation, a small jet of water spews from the tip of his index finger. Saphana was ready, she shielded herself from the torrent with her wings but she still got soaked quite a bit, as the volume of water was much greater than she was expecting. She lowers her wing, "I guess Mister Sage has a knack for water magic." She teases. Kaz laughs and flips to the next page, he readies his finger once again. As he begins the incantation, Saphana whips her wing out once again, a bit of cold water flies off the membranous film of her wing and hits Kaz in his eye causing him to wince. Kaz is caught unaware and botches the words of the second spell, a shining bolt of silverish water flies out from of his finger and strikes Saphana causing both of them to fall over unconscious in the training yard.