[Yet they still sing.]

  The crystal winter marched on. Scale enjoyed a week with company in her crowded home before Alyssa found a new pce. The only unfortunate thing was—

  “Fuckin’ idiot! Stop turning off my show!”

  Alyssa left someone behind when she moved out. Scale felt a vein ready to burst bulging on her forehead. Her fingers cracked one by one like soda tabs. Her eyes formed vertical slits.

  “Ah.” She sighed. “Minion!” Scale ignored her father’s ongoing rant and yelled towards the kitchen. A moment ter a tall man wearing a pink apron with a cute bunny design on the front walked out.

  “You called?” said Anatoly. His dead eyes could give a graveyard depression. He looked wilted, like a pot of flowers that hadn’t been watered in weeks. He hunched his back and ducked under the doorframe to the living room.

  “I want you to put parental controls on the television for me,” said Scale. Mana pulsed under her skin, accentuating her words.

  “You!” Her dad snapped. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “I would dare!” Scale fired back. Her nose wrinkled and her eyes went wild. But her expression froze as a new thought passed through her head. She grinned from ear to ear, her mouth a canyon. A spark of viliny shined in her eyes. She spoke the four words of power that had tormented her for many years in the past, “My house. My rules.”

  Henry Altiman recoiled in shock. His knees wobbled and his hands cmmed up. His breath hitched. “Y-you!” He couldn’t speak. He felt a striking weight deep in his chest, like a buzzing reminder of something precious lost.

  Scale had won this battle. It was still unclear if she’d win the war.

  Christmas approached like an out of control freight train. Time lost all meaning in the run up to the holiday. Days blitzed by with all the fire and fury of dying stars. Red and green lights intermingled throughout the neighborhood. Cheerful songs filled the air.

  It was Christmas Eve. Scale stood outside Alyssa’s new pce and tried to cleanse herself of all resentment through deep breathing exercises.

  “Why are you dilly dallying! Move it, already!” Her father’s impatient voice only made Scale focus on her meditative state with more fervor.

  “Inner peace. Inner peace.” She repeated a mantra from a children’s movie in an attempt to center herself. The door opened in front of her. Scale looked up and tried to smile but faltered upon seeing the absolute shit-eating grin pstered on Alyssa’s face.

  “Well well well,” said Alyssa. “Look what the cat dragged in.” Her eyes briefly gnced past Scale. Her crooked smile became even more lopsided. “Come in, come in~” Alyssa wore a traditional cream-colored dress that fit her well. She looked elegant and slim.

  “Lyss.” Scale nodded at her sister but chose to hold her tongue. It wouldn’t be fair to get angry. Having her father dumped on her was annoying, for sure, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Scale could put up with it…

  “Move, dammit!” Henry pushed Scale forward.

  She could put up with it. Her eyes were shaking. Her fists clenched tight enough to shatter steel.

  Scale cooled her head by marveling at the opulence of Alyssa and Sarah’s new pce. Expensive rugs, famous paintings and prints, and all kinds of strange items that radiated strong mana littered the floor and walls. Gss tables with golden trim were lined with food.

  Scale had on a simple white top and jeans over her special awakener uniform. She didn’t enjoy dressing up and found the idea bothersome. Her father, likewise, was dressed quite casually. They didn’t fit in with the other party-goers, however. Several other high-ranking awakeners were scattered throughout the room, mingling in the throes of champaign. The men were dressed in well-tailored suits and the women had an array of outfits that seemed to be designer of some kind. Scale could only tell that they looked high css.

  “Sister-in-w!” A chipper voice brought a smile to Scale’s face. She turned to find Sarah—

  Scale winced at the absolute disaster that was Sarah’s outfit. Under the open-front christmas sweater her shirts were of many colors, patchwork quilts of nonsense held by string and twine. Beneath a mis-matched skirt her long socks were pulled up to her knees, each a dizzying array of hues that could have passed for the st gasp of a dying rainbow. Her shoes, reindeer shaped, had one bck and one red bulb above the toes.

  “Sarah~” Scale’s smile twitched. “You look… Nice.”

  “Aww, you’re sweet!” Sarah was a head shorter than anyone else in the room. A bright smile filled her mouse-like face. “You don’t have to pretend to like it.” She gestured towards her outfit. “My family didn’t have much growing up, you know, so mom always made my clothes by hand. I was so embarrassed as a kid to wear them, but now I wear the clothes she made for me with pride. It’s my Christmas tradition.”

  “Ah.” Scale immediately felt like shit. “I didn’t mean to… What I’m trying to say is…” She fumbled her words.

  “It’s okay.” Sarah’s reassuring tone calmed Scale’s heart. She reached up and pinched Scale’s cheek only to hiss and pull her hand back when the ‘damage’ was automatically reflected.

  “Ah. I’m sorry!” Scale grabbed Sarah’s hand and poured healing magic into it.

  “No, it’s my fault.” Sarah ughed. She looked around the room and then asked, “By the way, why didn’t you bring your pet?”

  Scale’s face went red. “Please, Sarah—”

  “Rex, I’m just teasing.” Scale didn’t think she looked like she was teasing. “Anyways,” Sarah continued, “I’m going to greet some more guests. Feel free to eat anything.” She paused and her eyes narrowed briefly. “Though maybe you shouldn’t drink too much.”

  “Ah.” Scale didn’t have time to offer a rebuttal. Sarah scampered off to greet the next group.

  Scale looked around the room and, for the first time since she returned to Earth, she realized a sad fact. She knew a lot of the people here but she struggled to call any of these people friends. Her shoulders shrank and she hunched slightly. Her feet dragged her towards the far edge of the apartment, out of sight. She felt too nervous to strike up a conversation. She grabbed a gss from a passing server and downed it in one gulp; it stung her throat.

  Scale closed her eyes for a moment. She realized that most of the people were avoiding her just like she was avoiding them. She could hear her father’s loud voice yelling about something but couldn’t see him. Alyssa’s ughter penetrated the party’s veil from time to time, and Sarah’s unique outfit would occasionally catch Scale’s eye…

  It was a nice party, but Scale didn’t feel like she belonged here. She wasn’t an overly social animal. While she met the eyes of her acquaintances from time to time, none of them seemed eager to approach her. The Association Chairman even almost dropped his gss with how fast he ran away.

  Scale moved to the balcony. She dusted snow from the balcony railing and rested her head on her elbows. The dark sky dusted Response City with a gentle snow. The lights from the city became their own consteltions. The sounds of the party faded away.

  She asked the winter wind, “How much longer do we have?” It didn’t answer. Magic flowed from a memory in her heart. A lulby, once sung for a baby dragon, softly hummed over the city.

  [They say the sirens sing in a dead tongue.]

  [No one knows the words anymore.]

  [Yet they still sing.]

  “Scale!” Alyssa opened the sliding door. “There you are!” She grabbed her sister with a smile. “It’s time for the gifts.”

  “Ah. Gifts? I wasn’t told to bring anything.”

  “It’s fine.” Alyssa reassured her. “Just come on.”

  Scale let herself be dragged back inside. The snow on her clothes left them a little damp as it melted. She followed Alyssa to a small room away from the other party goers. Inside there were four people waiting: Sarah, Mr and Mrs Tomtom, and, stly, the Association Chairman wearing a sheepish grin. There were four wrapped presents on the table.

  “What is this?” Scale asked.

  “Gifts.” Sarah ughed.

  “But I didn’t—”

  “For you. We all wanted to get you something.” Sarah pat Scale on the shoulder and handed her a decent sized box. “This is from me. It’s the newest console. Let’s py together sometime.”

  The Tomtoms approached next. They handed Scale a small box.

  “Thank you, Scale. For everything. Please consider this as being from Harper, too.” Betty ughed. Scale opened the box and found a nice bracelet inside. She slipped it on her wrist and it automatically tightened to the correct size.

  “It’s lovely…”

  “My turn,” said the Chairman. “This is thanks for what you did at the Mississippi.” He pulled a dino-grabber from his suit coat and used that to pick up a box.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The st time I saw her, I learned a valuable lesson,” said the Chairman. He’d never forget his brief ‘reeducation’ after Scale healed the Japanese boy. “I promised myself to not approach her with a 10 foot pole. This pole is only three feet so it’s allow—”

  Sarah smacked the Chairman who fell backwards into an opened portal. His scream was comically cut off as the portal closed.

  “Where did you send him?”

  “Antarctica.”

  “Brutal…”

  “I’ll pick him up in an hour. He’s pretty tough so I think it’s fine.”

  Alyssa picked up the final box and handed it to Scale. “This one’s from me, Big J.” It was a nickname Scale hadn’t heard in a long time. “Though I guess you’re more like Lil S now…”

  “Ah. You had to ruin it.”

  “I did.”

  The two sisters smiled and then ughed. Scale hugged Alyssa. She didn’t bother opening the box. She knew better.

  “Want to give it to dad instead?”

  “Tch.” Alyssa clicked her tongue. “He’d probably have a heart attack—”

  “...”

  “Actually, yeah. Let’s give it to him.”

  “What did you put in there, Lyss?”

  Sarah grabbed the box from Alyssa and tossed it into a portal. She pulled a different box out after. “This is the real one. She insisted on trying to prank you first.”

  “Sarah, you are really too good for her.”

  “Hey!”

  Inside the box was a very old, crudely decorated water gss. Scale ughed. She ughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes dry. Perhaps for the first time since her return, the background sense of wrongness that pgued her started to fade. She truly felt at home. Seeing that Alyssa still had that old water gss filled her heart.

  Scale remembered asking her dragon mother about the lulby once.

  “The song doesn’t answer the question. Why do the sirens insist on singing in a nguage no one can understand?”

  [Perhaps it’s a longing for something they can’t have. Or for somewhere they can never return.]

  Olimaw paused for a long time. She looked towards the north, towards where Scale had hatched. The weight of a thousand years spent waiting echoed in her eyes.

  [I believe it gives them Hope.]