Chapter 25
Lucas
~
That afternoon, I recognized new emotions without givin’ them much consideration. My mind rushed with excitement over my new friend, the dragonet. No one back home would believe I made friends with a real, flesh-and-blood dragon.
“It’s gonna be really cold out here tonight,” my grandma warned me that evenin’.
“Iza will sleep just as well without ya,” Grandpa said.
“I’m stayin’ with Iza. I’ll be fine,” I told them.
They glared down at me. Elders like to do that, with their chin tucked in, eyes tightened up like they might pass gas.
“It’ll be warm enough. He has a suitable sleepin’ fur. He’ll be fine,” Eina said. I might learn to love trolls. Have to admit those long arms are kinda neat.
I smiled at my grandparents. Easier to argue with me than a giant troll.
~
The next mornin’ the two of us lazed about in the barn with no interest in leavin’ our private space. I realized not only new emotions seeped into my mind, but thoughts—thoughts that were different, but I couldn’t put my finger on how. Like when I looked over at Iza lyin’ in a patch of sun that poured through the open loft doors, I thought how wonderful the rays felt on my flesh. But I lay in the shadows, snuggled against the dragon’s shoulder.
It occurred to me that thousands of thin’s flowed in and out of my mind, like the water of a brook passin’ under a footbridge—there for the briefest moment, before they were replaced by others.
Odd thought, itself. The analogy wasn’t mine. I looked over at the dragonet. Could it be her thought? I felt so incredibly connected to the amazin’ creature. She seemed interested in my stories. She shared her own tidbits of her life, with four soon-to-fledge bulls.
The uproar of the farm’s critters pushed my ponderin’ aside. I ran outside the broad doors of the barn and looked up to see the expanse of Mo’sale’s wings extendin’ and pushin’ at the air. Without landin’, he dropped a deer for Iza on the grass. The buck bounced, and grunted. The poor thin’ wasn’t dead yet. But it wasn’t goin’ anywhere. The dragon’s talons effectively stilled it, if not its heart, so it would be its freshest when delivered. Where did that awareness come from?
I looked down at the terrified black eyes of the deer, the twitchin’ legs. My parents aren’t farmers, don’t raise animals to butcher, but the family gets a significant portion of our meat from huntin’, so seein’ the death of an animal isn’t a new thin’ for me. But it affected me differently—this time.
The dragon bull rumbled deep in his chest as he flew away. Iza passed by me, boundin’ across the lawn, usin’ her wings too much in her eagerness to attack her meal. I felt the pain in her shoulder. As though it was my pain. Iza thundered with a piercin’ screech of excitement for the fresh meat. I felt my head tilt, mouth open, lungs empty in a rush, a deep raspy hiss.
The dragonet pounced upon the carcass and ripped into the throat. A spatterin’ of blood made its way upon the grass, across Iza’s chest. I heard, or sensed, the deer’s last, interrupted breath, the crushin’ of bone, and tearin’ of muscle.
Intense hunger washed over me. It wasn’t just hunger, a lustful, shootin’ agony that propelled me to act. I turned and ran toward the inn. I had to eat, anythin’, immediately.
“Behave!” my grandmother snapped at me in the dinin’ hall. “What’s taken over ya?”
I grabbed another slice of ham off the salver in the middle of the table and tore a huge chunk off with my teeth, chewin’ it only to compact it enough to make it down my throat. I reached for another slice and my grandmother slapped my hand.
“Boy!” My grandfather snarled. “We don’t act that way at the table.”
I heard the words, sensed the sting on my wrist, but my eyes concentrated on the new slice of ham. Two-handed, I pushed the meat toward my face, and ripped into it.
“Lucas!”
I gulped and dropped the two little bones that remained on the table, reachin’ for more. My grandfather grabbed my wrist. I pulled back but the man didn’t let go. I felt my head archin’, and heard the hiss, recognized it as my own. I reached out with my other hand, and my grandmother slapped me hard at the back of my head. I jolted forward—blinked my eyes.
Fear shrouded me. Had no memory of enterin’ the inn. I stared straight ahead.
A sob made me jolt in my chair. An ache burned deep in my gut as tears fell down my cheeks. A hand lay on my shoulder. I looked to my right to take in the concern on my grandmother’s face. The pressure on my wrist faded. My grandfather’s hand retreated.
How did I get here? Why is Grandpa holdin’ my arm?
“Do ya have yar wits about ya, son?” my grandfather asked.
I sniffed, before drawin’ my sleeve across my face to wipe away tears.
“Sorry I smacked ya so hard, sweet thin’,” Grandma said.
I shook my head. She struck me? I couldn’t remember the reprimand. Nor how I got here.
“Go wash yar hands,” Grandpa said.
I nodded and walked to the basins at the far side of the dinin’ hall. I vaguely began to remember. Iza. The deer. Blood. Intense hunger. I splashed water from a pitcher into one of the bowls and rubbed my hands together in the icy water, leavin’ a muddy swell behind. I grabbed one of the towels hangin’ from the sideboard and smudged off what hadn’t been left in the basin.
“Ya ready to sit and eat lunch like a gentleman?” Grandma asked me when I returned to the table.
I nodded and dug into the plate that had been served for me while I was washin’ my hands.
“Ya want to go fishin’ with me after lunch?” Grandpa asked.
I froze in my seat. My grandparents exchanged glances.
“I didn’t figger so,” Grandpa said. “What mortal man can compete with a dragon?
~
Outside, I sprinted to find my friend, which wasn’t very difficult, due to the fuss the local fowl made of the presence of the dragonet at the water’s edge. She walked out of the frigid shallows. Gone was any hint of the blood that had covered her. She folded and unfolded her wings, workin’ at the sharp ache.
“I missed ya.” Her eyes whirled. “Ya’re disturbed by somethin’?”
I took in the majesty of the creature. How much bigger would she get? I recalled how the queen, her mother, filled the space at the end of the broad pier. Iza would grow tenfold, prolly. I realized how eager I was to be in physical contact with the dragonet.
“And the human-boy is suddenly out of words,” she said.
I shared the deep grumble that was a dragon’s chuckle, the sound in my ears, the vibration in my chest. Iza waddled up the bank and nuzzled me as she passed. I followed, reachin’ out and takin’ hold of an edge of her wing. It was so cold.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m glad the sun’s out.”
We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other.
“Ya heard my thought?” I asked.
“Mo’sale told me dragonkind could only hear the gnomes,” Iza said.
I closed my mouth, left agape for a moment in my surprise. “Does that mean I don’t have to speak out loud to ya?” I asked.
“Ya use too many words anyway,” she said, trumpetin’ softly.
I laughed with her. “Like water under a bridge?” That had been her expression.
Her eyes whirled. She dropped down on the tall rye and spread her wings to sun.
~
I sat, lay, knelt, stood, wiggled about next to her, unable to be still. We played with the new ability to hear each other’s thoughts, but it mostly worked with thin’s that provoked strong emotion, we found. Besides, it took too much effort, and we returned to relyin’ on spoken words. For now.
As the sun neared the horizon, Iza rose and wobbled up the steep slope with me, back to the troll’s barn. I lay next to her in the hay, and she told me of the history of dragonkind, as Mo’sale had told it to her and her four clutch mates, on the ledge of their lair. I felt a connection to the tellin’ like none I’d ever experienced in school, rarely interruptin’. I didn’t have to. She sensed my questions most often and elaborated, or reminded me who this or that dragon was.
At full dark, a dwarf carryin’ a lantern escorted my grandmother into the barn. While the littleperson glared at the dragon, Grandma tried to convince me to come to the inn to sleep, but my mind was made up. My grandmother closed an eye and glared at me with the open one.
“I suppose no reason to insist. It’s summer, and ya’re on vacation. At home ya’d be sleepin’ out with yar friends as well.” She shrugged. “Why not here?”
“Exactly,” I agreed.
“The nights are a lot colder in the highlands than back home,” she pressed.
“I was fine last night.”
After a long look she gave me a kiss, and I unfurled the sleepin’ fur and blanket the troll left me the previous night. My grandmother left with the dwarf. They closed the barn doors and it turned black. I thought of it bein’ as black as a cave. Or was it my thought? I lay listenin’ to Iza’s heartbeat. I’d never been a good sleeper, was used to tossin’ and turnin’ as I tried to fall asleep. That evenin’ was different, as I shared the dragonet’s contentment. I closed my eyes, snuggled against her, rocked gently by the motion of her chest risin’ and fallin’.
I’d never been as comfortable in a bed as the hay and sleepin’ fur, with Iza’s wing draped over me like a tent.
~
“I don’t like that,” Iza complained the next mornin’ as I cleaned her scrapes. “But the ice-thin’ feels good after the burnin’ of the other.”
“I’ve scraped many a knee,” I said. “My mother’s treated me with such salves often enough, I don’t need the remindin’.”
“I thought ya only had two knees.” She trumpeted softly.
I smiled at her sarcasm.
“Ya share my discomfort anyway, do ya not?” Iza asked.
I grimaced. I didn’t want to burden her with that.
We did little but lay about that day and the next two, learnin’ everythin’ there was to learn about each other and our kind. The only excitement was the daily noontime visit by Mo’sale, and the frenzy as Iza tore into the flesh of the game her sire left, and the resultin’ fog it threw me into when the dragonet ate.
Expectin’ the conjured-like state helped me little at her subsequent feedin’s. My grandparents smartly prepared for it though after that first day. They would meet me at the veranda stairs, prepared to snap me out of the trance. I vaguely recalled hearin’ the term, bonded, from adults as we entered the dinin’ hall.
Hadn’t happened in longer than anyone ever remembered, a voice muttered. Human. Dragon.
~
The fourth mornin’, Iza’s mother, Ash’et, landed in the field midway between the barn and the lake, and waited impatiently for Iza to wobble down to her. I knew she refrained from usin’ her wings to bound down the hill to her. She was set to claim she wasn’t ready to fly yet.
The queen glared at me, standin’ beside Iza, as the dragonet waved her head back and forth in submission to the giant queen. Iza’s fear resonated, like a taste in my mouth.
“Ya look well enough to return to the lair,” Ash’et hissed.
“I think I need another two days of rest. My shoulder hurts mightily yet,” Iza told her.
The queen trumpeted, a harsh, angry sound, not the song of humor I heard from Iza.
Two more days, I thought, and I would be startin’ the long trip home with my grandparents. The thought wrenched at my chest. Iza winced, and dipped her head.
“What is wrong with ya?” Ash’et demanded.
“A jab of pain,” she said.
“When ya get back, there will be weeks of exercise on the ledge, before ya try flyin’ again. It’s embarrassin’, a fledgin’-queen careenin’ out of the air like a stupid ducklin’.”
Iza’s dread of bein’ captive with her four brothers struck me, as did her mother’s humiliatin’ words. It wasn’t merely empathy. The pain bore into me physically. Only two more days with her. I would gladly pay a much harsher anguish to be allowed more time with her. Two days isn’t enough.
“It is not, indeed,” I felt in my mind.
After inspectin’ Iza’s shoulder for a moment, Ash’et launched into the air with a loud hiss.
“Down!” Iza warned.
I dropped to the ground, missed the pummelin’ the queen intended for me. She didn’t target me with the claws that could have opened me up shoulder to hip, but by the rumble she made as she swooped away, it was evident she intended no love pat.
“She senses our bondin’” Iza said in my mind. As though it was somethin’ she couldn’t, shouldn’t say out loud.
~
I didn’t want to leave Iza’s side. But my grandmother forced me into the inn that last mornin’ to get a hearty meal before we struck out. The trip by wagon would be long and tirin’. The food stuck in my throat. I washed it down the best I could with my milk, but my stomach churned. The troll hen, Eina, exited the kitchen and lumbered to our table. She placed a huge hand on my shoulder—that odd thumb, which extended as far as her other fingers. She could prolly clench a thousand pound boulder in that hand.
“Sayin’ goodbye to a friend is a hard thin’,” she said. Her expression hinted at the pain she knew wrapped me in its own grip.
Near-agony wrenched at my gut, as though a taut rope around my waist had been tightened more.
“I’ll miss yar dragonet-friend too,” Eina said.
“Ya will?” I asked.
“The deer haven’t been in the garden since she showed up.” She grinned.
My grandparents laughed, but I couldn’t share the humor. I hurt too much, a shapeless ache that neither began nor ended anywhere in particular. I was glad when the troll finished her goodbye. I drank the last of my milk and pushed back my plate, eagerly lookin’ at my grandmother for permission to flee.
“Go,” she said.
I launched out of my chair, dodgin’ diners and servers in my rush to join Iza.
She sunned on the slopin’ lawn. Lookin’ up, her eyes whirled when she saw me. She rose as I ran to her, throwin’ my arms around her chest. She arched her long neck to reach down and snuggle against my shoulder, encirclin’ me in her wings.
“Ya won’t forget me will ya?” I asked between sobs.
In that strange mixin’ of our emotions, I sensed the combined agony of her passion. Her chest vibrated in sorrow.
“I wish I could follow ya,” she said.
“I know ya have several years more in yar lair,” I said.
“As do ya.”
I sobbed all over again, and pushed my hands along her soft hide. Tears flowed, and I struggled to catch my breath.
“Ya live so far away,” she cried. “It will be a long time before I can fly that distance.”
“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” I whimpered.
“I know ya will.”
We stood holdin’ each other until my grandmother fetched me to the wagon.
~
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