A myriad of stars between us

Cal squeezed his wolf ticket, cleaving the air with his hand, and punched. He wanted to break something now.

For a while, he panted and fought with his unseen opponent, and then he doomed shoved the piece of paper behind his groove. Suddenly thunder broke the silence: Cal prepared for the attack, but instead heavy cold drops fell from the sky.

A steady wall of water washed away the soot and filled the ditches left by the bombs. Liam pulled his apprentice under a large sprawling tree. Shaking the remains of drips from their hair and clothes, they huddled against the trunk and watched in silence as the elements raged.

After a while, through a cloudy veil, they saw the return of the army. From the sky descended armor-clad monsters of many colors. Cal could hardly and strained to name the few species he knew.

There were other creatures besides the usual dragons: they frightened, delighted, or disgusted him. Liam stared indifferently at the arrivals and lightly snuggled up against the warm man beside him.

It was easy to see them from anywhere, so the Head could not do anything he wanted to do. Cal, however, squeezed his arm between the tree and his back to hug Liam gently and pull him to him.

"I think I can visit you here," Liam said thoughtfully, watching the soldiers disarm.

"If you can't, I'll desert," Cal said sullenly, "I didn't seek you out to be voluntarily separated.

"It's all temporary, don't think it's forever," Liam persuaded, "you'll just gain experience here, try something new.

"No! New things I'd like to try with you..." Cal burst out in a fit of indignation.

Despite the freezing rain, Liam's cheeks flushed, and he straightened his back with defiance. Meanwhile, the valley filled with people. The wounded were carried to the infirmary, and the healthy walked themselves or helped the sick.

The animals left the perimeter in an orderly fashion, scattering and sprawling across the valley to reappear at the first call. The exhausted men, talking wearily, lined up in front of the commander, who was counting casualties.

Despite the wall of rain, the soldiers stood patiently and without complaint in formation while the commander finished the roll call. Finally, the command was given to disperse, and the men turned to pour into the streams leading to the barracks in the form of hemispheres.

Cal watched the soldiers and didn't know what he was going to do here. He still hadn't seen the cadets he was supposed to join. And the general, intimidating in his arrogance, could appear at any moment, which Cal did not wish at all.

Affectionately stroking Liam's back and waist, he tried to talk about the unpleasant change, but he dared not. The head reached out his hand and embraced Cal, too, so that no one could see. On the threshold of separation, their feelings seemed many times sharper. The sky grew darker and no one was left in front of the barracks.

"Now you can," thought Cal, and turned and pulled Liam against him. The Head didn't resist and was the first to stand on tiptoe to reach his warm lips.

Touching that delicate flower that attracted him, Cal forgot his worries and sorrows. Giving himself over to his feeling, he took from life right now the best it had to offer: clutching the man he loved in his arms, soaking up his tenderness and passion, forgetting about all his problems.

Cal dipped his fingers into Liam's hair, frantically and reverently holding him close to her. In this icy weather, they clung to each other, giving and receiving the warmth that could warm their hearts.

Finally, as they broke away from each other, they realized that night had fallen. All that was left of the rain were puddles and the occasional heavy drops dripping from the tree. The men climbed out from under the tree, but they had to traverse a field of fresh mud to reach the platform.

Cal impulsively picked Liam up and, pushing off, flew straight over to the platform, expending an insane amount of his strength. The wind fluttered their clothes, attacking the defenseless figures.

Such weather seemed especially uncomfortable after the rain, and they wanted to take refuge in their warm home as soon as possible. As soon as Liam touched the platform, he immediately carried them to the Academy.

As they walked to the factory, which was still hard to call home, Cal and Liam sensed a great difference in the atmosphere. The warm evening air warmed and lulled them with the scents of a thousand herbs and flowers.

It was this that crashed into Cal's mind the most: there was no such simple thing as the grass on that planet. Only scorched earth. He asked Liam about it:

"Is it possible to rebuild that planet? It looked frighteningly dead..."

"Yes, if the troops cleared it of the remnants of evil, then the Creators could heal that sick planet."

"Heal it?"

"Mm," the Head replied as if nothing had happened.

"Why heal it?" The pompous meaning of the words irritated Cal.

"Well, because every planet has a balance of energy, just as humans do."

"..."

Liam saw a comfortable bench in the shade of tall lilac bushes and headed there. Following him, Cal didn't hesitate to break off a branch with a large cluster of flowers and crouched down and struck his boots with it.

The little flowers fell helplessly to the ground from this treatment. Liam, noticing this outrage, took the branch away and, continuing his story, looked for the place where Cal had broken it off.

"To make the earth support life on the surface, you must balance it," he finally found the damaged branch and applied his silvery-blue energy to the broken piece. "If you do not heal the earth, it will continue to kill everything, and the world will become uninhabitable."

The Head let go of the branch, and it rippled in the wind like new. Cal embarrassedly swept the remains of the flowers under the bench with his foot and walked over to Liam.

Cal wondered what he'd done: the branch that was still recently broken had no trace of it. Its fragrant part continued to bloom and enchant with its fragrance. The Head looked at him reproachfully.

"I won't do it again," Cal promised. But he still didn't understand how the Creators heal planets, and he picked at the ground with his toe in frustration.

"Tomorrow we're going somewhere else, so we'll go to bed early," Liam informed him, inhaling the scent that the lilacs were gratefully indulging their savior.

They passed through several streets on their way to the factory and finally reached the river. Beautiful lanterns hung under the bridge, illuminating the archway and creating bright spots on the water.

Liam was tired and wanted to rest, and seeing it, Cal didn't offer him any new feats in bed, and with a terse kiss, he retired to his room on the first floor. He pressed himself against Legion's warm side and stared dreamily out the wide-open window.

A myriad of stars brightly illuminated the night sky, and somewhere out there, beyond one of them, Cal and his dragon would have to dwell.

He was tormented by the thought that the future was not so bright-all his damn intuition.

Even while on earth, he realized that he was endowed with a strong sense of foreboding that pushed him into risky ventures in equal measure and restrained his enthusiasm if the outcome seemed bad.

After some time at the Academy, he had begun to experience growing anxiety and restlessness that made him unable to concentrate on the daily grind.

The main drawback of his so-called gift was that his emotions came first, causing him to worry or come into joyous excitement unreasonably.

A strong premonition visited him on the scorched planet. "Don't expect anything good," he told himself. Because of this, he became anxious and despondent. "How do you fight an enemy you can't see?" Cal got to his feet and walked to the window.

He sat on the wide windowsill and looked out over the night landscape. Chasing away anxious thoughts, he thought about Liam's logic. Not long ago he'd said he wanted them to live together, and already today he was pushing for him to be assigned to training camp.

"Why such a change...? Did I do something wrong?" Cal asked, feeling very alone. Jumping to the floor, he made his way quickly to the upstairs room.

Dropping his outer clothes, Cal nimbly climbed under the covers and hugged Liam.

"Mmm, I thought you weren't coming," the sleepy man said quietly and snuggled into his arms.

Breathing in his sweet scent, Cal melted from the warmth of his body and the softness of his skin. Trying not to disturb Liam's sleep, Cal gently kissed his hair, burying his face in it until he fell asleep.

Outside the window, some insolent bird screamed in a nasty voice. It barely dawned, and Liam got up to make breakfast. With a small burner set up on the terrace, he was able to boil water for tea and fried some eggs.

Supplementing his breakfast with vegetables, butter, and fresh bread, which he bought at the market as the sun rose, he woke Cal. As they ate their portion, Cal tried to find out where they were going, but Liam only said Legion could be taken with them.

The platform could barely accommodate the three of them. Legion didn't yet know how to move into his own space to then be summoned and had to be dragged along in his original size.

The next moment they were standing in front of a falling waterfall. The noise of the water drowned out any other sound, and they had to move a decent distance away from the platform to hear each other.

As they stepped across the soft carpet of young grass, Cal enjoyed the warm sunshine and the scents of fresh herbs. It reminded him of haying on the old man's farm.

The men and the dragon made their way through the scenic area, gazing admiringly at the riot of nature and feeling the peace that filled them.

Once they emerged from the small forest that framed the perimeter of the protected park with the waterfall, they found themselves on a road paved with brownstone. Before they had even taken a couple of hundred steps, they heard a noise: a large open carriage with six horses stopped abruptly in front of them.