Page 17 of Meet Me in the Stars

“When he was drunk and made fun of Sequin’s name,” Teddy said. “Don’t punch him again. He had to have his nose set that time. I think I got the point across.”

“Fair enough,” I nodded. “Lotus named him. Don’t you make fun of anything my dead wife did.”

“This could be the greatest discovery of our lifetime!” Clarence tossed his hands in the air.

“Did any of the scrolls say time was of the essence?” I asked.

“No, but—”

“You’re impatient,” I grinned. “Well, go visit Cade or something. I plan to spend some time getting reoriented before I go to any lab. I have family to catch up with. Not everything moves on your time Clarence.”

“What if it is Lotus?” Clarence asked.

“That’s a low jab, but if it is, she’d want me to reunite with the kids and make sure everyone’s okay before I jump on a spaceship.”

“Who says your going on the spaceship?” Clarence growled.

“My phone has the only map there.”

Clarence scanned the scroll with his own phone, but nothing happened.

“See,” I shrugged. “I’m not doing this to be an asshole, but some things are more important than alien space dragons across the galaxy or wherever they are. Thought you’d have learned that by now.”

Chapter Seven

Fred Moonscale

6 Months Later

It was my last night on Earthside for a while. Eventually, I gave in and went into the lab with Clarence. We tried to match up any of their existing maps of the sky to the one that now projected from my phone’s camera on demand. We found the closest match, but nothing on the Earthside map showed the planet the Starscale scrolls claimed they were on. So, everything about the mission was now pure speculation. Every Moonscale who heard about the mission had a different opinion. Clarence was banging his head against all the voices pouring out their theories over social media, but I shrugged it off. I was used to being at the center of a spectacle and for the love of Juda I couldn’t figure out how Clarence hadn’t managed to adjust to it by now.

The team consisted of six dragon shifters, including Teddy and myself. Teddy was going in place of his Duke’s cousin Travis that ran Starscale Search’s social media on Earthside. The requirements were simple: No underage kids counting on you, no true-mate or chosen mate left wondering what happened, and of course, you had to be a dragon. We could breathe for extended periods in space from all the research done. Teddy wanted to come along. At first, Clarence was against it. It seemed he and Teddy weren’t the real friends of the sky rugby team. Sunny, Clarence’s second born, also played on the team. Clarence didn’t want him to lose the friend he actually approved of his son having. Me and the hot head argued for a few days. In the end, not only Teddy was coming along, but also Sunny. The latter was the official Moonscale leading family diplomat. There was also a doctor, a co-piloting cousin, and of course the guy who built and could fly the damn ship. Part of me thought Clarence was jealous that he couldn’t jump on the ship himself to find out what was going on.

According to the calculations of the Starscale Search team it would take us somewhere between nine and twelve months to get there. I planned to sleep most of that. I wasn’t worried about the vast emptiness of space or the lack of some creature comforts. Boredom would be the biggest enemy aboard the Medwin 2. The first one never got off the ground and gained its name because Medwin Moonscale, Clarence’s Mate, funded most of the original process to experimentally build a spaceship that could house a draconic crew.

None of that mattered as I sat at the dinner table back home with all four of my kids. Daliah and Sequin tried to hide the looks that said they thought Teddy and I both lost our minds. Duke was more excited about the prospects of what life in space might mean. Most of the worlds we knew about weren’t in outer space as we knew it, but all connected through the Other World gateways. Only, no one had ever found a gateway to this particular world that didn’t seem to exist on any Earthside map. The elves of the Other World couldn’t seem to locate it and give it a gateway despite the scrolls being tossed through said gateways all over Earthside.

“And you actually think Mom is on this world? Reborn I mean,” Daliah shook her head.

This wasn’t the first time we had this discussion. I didn’t actually think Lotus was there. That was an impossibility. Lotus was dead. She was dead and gone and my heart ached every day and night for her. Even if she had reincarnated on this world no one could map, she wouldn’t be Lotus. That version of her was gone forever or at least only lived on in the memories of those who knew and loved her. Rediscovering her, wasn’t something I’d turn down, but I wasn’t holding my breath. It hadn’t been that long in the grand scheme of a soul and as much as she said she’d come back as quickly as she could, I prayed she took the time to get all the rest she needed.

“Let’s not do this tonight, Daliah,” I sighed. “Whether she’s there or not isn’t the point of the mission. For Clarence, it’s about the damn Starscales. I want to know how the hell these people on another planet knew my name and why in Frost’s Pit they want me to come visit.”

“It seems sketchy to me,” Sequin shook his head, agreeing with his sister. “Why you?”

“Why not me?” I scowled.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Dad,” Sequin sighed.

“Well, however you meant it, I mean to find out the answer. I invited you two along and you didn’t want to come.”

“I would, but I can’t leave Syre and the kids,” Duke chimed in. “You two better take really good photos.”

“That’s my job apparently,” Teddy laughed.

“Then be good at it, brother,” Duke grinned.

Teddy shot him a bird and refilled his wine glass. We toasted to us, to the family that somehow survived Lotus’s death and my almost four-decade long nap. We toasted to the trip and to Lotus wherever she was. If she wasn’t reincarnated on this invisible world, I imagined she beamed down at us toasting with her own wine glass. She always loved a good, dark red wine. Though, she never said no to brandy either, no matter how much her dad frowned at the selection.

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