Draka

When we reached the gate – or the Gate, as I’d started thinking of it, being the most important of them – I hung back to make sure that there was no immediate trouble. Everyone was tired, but it looked like the advance party hadn’t been idle. Ardek must have shown where we’d stashed our supplies, because he, Rib and Pot welcomed the refugees with a meal, which immediately improved the mood of the ragged group.

I was laying on the rocks looking down at the camp that was springing up around the fire, with Herald sitting beside me. “Go eat,” I told her, as I heard her stomach growl. I wasn’t sure, but it might have been over a day since she’d last eaten. And I hadn’t heard a single complaint out of her. “Then tell Mak that she is in charge, and come back here. And bring one of the lightstones! I will take a nap.”

She gave my head an affectionate rub, rocked onto her feet, and ran off without a word.

I woke to gentle snoring. I blinked and yawned as I cleared the sleep out of my head, and felt a pressure against my side. Herald was stretched out half alongside me, half laying on me, with my wing covering her from shoulder to mid-thigh. I must have covered her up unconsciously at some point.

“Hey, wake up,” I whispered and rustled my wing a bit. She groaned unhappily and snuggled in closer.

I snaked my neck around so that my mouth was right by her ear, and said, “It is time to go flying!”

The back of her head nearly caught me in the chin as Herald shoved herself up to look at me. “Really?” she asked, looking torn between excitement and anxiety, like she wasn’t sure if what I’d said was true but desperately wanted it to be.

“No time like the present,” I said, and went to rise. “Let me get up, then climb on my back.”

“Alright,” I said as she scrambled to get on before I changed my mind. “You are… a little taller than Rib, but this should be fine. Try to… right, lock your arms under mine. Good, now see if you can hook your legs over mine.”

With Herald laying atop me and holding on as best she could, I tested my wings and found that I would move them without too much trouble. Flapping jostled her a little, but not enough to be dangerous, and as long as I didn’t try anything too aerobatic there shouldn’t be any problems.

“We will be going to a thousand feet,” I told her as I approached the edge, “maybe twelve hundred. I am not completely sure, to be honest. It does not look so high from down here, with thousands of feet of mountain left to go above our destination, but I think that you will find it plenty high enough.”

“And if I do not? If I want to go higher?”

“Then there is always tomorrow, and the day after that, and thousands and thousands of days after that. Let us not get carried away. I am still not used to this.”

“I will consider that a promise,” she said giddily, and pressed her cheek against my neck. “Go on! Fly! I have waited long enough already!”

“How old are you, twelve?” I said, but I loved it. I was as excited as she was. This was something I had been wanting to do ever since I first began to consider Herald my friend, and only the fear of hurting her had been holding me back. Now that I’d had a successful test run – several, in fact – it was about damn time!

“Hold on!”

I leapt.

This time I was ready for the extra weight right from the start, and my wings beat powerfully, driving us up and over the camp below. Herald locked in, her arms and legs squeezing hard enough that even through my Fortitude and my natural resilience I had to fight the urge to tell her to ease up, because that was one thing I definitely did not want her to do. As I went higher and faster and began to turn she gave off a high-pitched, clenched-jaw “Iiiiiiih!” that went on and on, a noise of excitement, fear, and absolute, exhilarated joy.

I could feel how securely she was holding on. Barring something terrible and unforeseen she wasn’t going anywhere, and I binned any idea of holding back. I beat harder and faster, picking up speed even as I climbed and passing the point where I should have turned for the cave. Instead I kept going north and climbed another thousand feet before I levelled out and made a long, lazy turn. Herald laughed and whooped as I began a gliding descent that gradually got steeper until we were hurtling downward at well over a hundred miles per hour, the sound of my locked wings tearing through the night air loud enough to drown out Herald maniacal screaming. I only levelled out again as I hit the highest treetops, the forest a dark blur beneath us as we approached the mountain at a speed that to me was familiar by now, but without a doubt was several times higher than the fastest Herald had ever gone in her life.

My approach was near perfect. I had almost enough momentum to carry me to the ledge, but with Herald on my back I wasn’t quite as sleekly aerodynamic as I might have been. Instead I had to work for the last few hundred feet, setting us down in what would have been a textbook landing if anyone had ever written a book about dragonflight.

Herald didn’t so much climb as roll off me, and lay on the thin soil of the ledge kicking and hiccuping with laughter for over a minute before her brain switched back on completely and she sprang to her feet.

“Thank you!” she said, beside herself with the whirlwind emotions our short flight had stirred up. I could see tears in her eyes. It might have just been the wind, but that seemed unlikely. “Oh, gods and Mercies, Draka, thank you! That was…” She wiped at her face and gave a shuddering laugh. “Thank you.”

Then she fidgeted, like she didn’t know what to do with her hands, before grabbing my head and kissing me hard right between the horns. “Incredible doesn’t…” She pulled back to look at me, her normally careful diction gone. “I can’t… I just can’t. Thank you!”

As for myself, I was almost giddy with happiness. All I could do was to grin back at her. Our first flight had been everything I’d wanted it to be, and more. Nothing had gone wrong, she’d been mad with excitement the whole time, and now she was overflowing with love and gratitude. What else could I possibly hope for?

I stepped up and wrapped my neck around her, and just stayed like that until I’d calmed myself. “That was just the beginning,” I promised her once I could talk again. “Then there’s tomorrow, and the day after that, and thousands of tomorrows after that.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. But that was only half of what I wanted to show you!”

“Your lair?” she asked, just as excited as she had been for the flight.

“Lair, nest… my home. And my hoard! God, you’ve got to see my hoard!”

“Promise that you’ll let me leave?”

“Funny.” I said it as drily as I could manage while still grinning like a big, scaly idiot. “Come on. It’s this way.”

Herald was suitably impressed with my lair. She’d sat down on the mat of coins, idly picking up jewellery and knick-knacks that I’d found in the bandits’ loot or the Blossom’s stash. “I knew that you must have a pretty good stash of coin by now,” she said dreamily as she ran her fingers through them. “And I suppose that there was probably more than this in the chest we found. But seeing it all spread out like this… Oh!”

Her voice rose in delight as she picked up a nodule of stone and silver. I kept them all collected in a little pile where I could see them easily. “This must be from the mines where we first met!”

As for me, I was having trouble answering. There was a feeling of rightness the moment I’d led Herald into the bulge on the tunnel where I made my nest. She had joked about me not letting her leave once she was there, and it had all been in good fun. But right then, seeing her there surrounded by my other precious possessions, was stirring up all kinds of distinctly draconic feelings.

“Yeah,” I said. My throat felt dry and thick, like the humidity was too low. Which was ridiculous, of course, with water literally dripping off the walls. “They’re very important to me.”

“That is cute.” She turned and gave me a bright smile, warm and sweet in the golden light of the lightstone. “You are sentimental!”

“I suppose that I am,” I said, padding forward and lying down next to her, causing the scattered coins to rustle pleasantly. “They remind me of how I met my first and best friend in this world.”

She settled in, draping one arm over my back and snuggling in tight. In the silence I heard her sniffle a little, then she said, “I am so glad that I met you. And not only because we might have all died if you had not been there. Despite… what happened, I still would not wish for things to have gone any other way. I love you, Draka. You know that, right?”

“I know, Herald. I love you too.” Whatever influence I had over her, I had to believe that her love was real. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept me human. If I allowed myself to think that it was all just an illusion, some kind of magical manipulation messing with her mind and making her think that she cared for me, I might lose myself completely. And that idea was too sweet as it was. It would be so easy to abandon any thought of right or wrong that involved other people’s feelings or wellbeing. To just take and kill and dominate as I pleased. To just let myself be a dragon, fully and forever.

“Good night, Draka,” my dearest friend said as we lay in my nest, surrounded by my hoard.

I covered her with my wing and tucked my head in. “Sleep well, Herald,” I said. My precious, I added silently, then closed my eyes and let my worries drift away.

It really was a struggle to let her leave.

We slept well into the morning. Back to somewhat regular hours, I thought, but it couldn’t be helped, not with a whole hamlet of new people who needed looking after and guidance from my humans. I felt good, like I always did after resting in my nest, and Herald was spry and energetic from the moment she opened her eyes. Whether that was any effect of the hoard or if she just had a really good night’s sleep, I couldn’t tell.

The problem came when it was time to go. I planned to take her out the same way I had with Rib and Pot: through the Pit. I needed her to see it, so that she’d have a picture of where I’d come from, and she was curious and eager to go. It was just… I didn’t want her to. I had no problem leaving her, beyond the normal pang of regret that came every time we parted, but I didn’t want her to leave.

The connection was obvious enough that even I couldn’t close my eyes to it. She was the dearest thing I had. My most precious thing, as unpleasant as that thought was. It was an enormous relief, really, that I hadn’t received an advancement when she stepped over the very fuzzy line that defined the border of what was considered my hoard. If that had happened I didn’t know if I could have handled it.

As it was, Herald must have wondered what the hell was happening. We had been awake for several minutes, she knew that I had been awake all that time, and I hadn’t said a word.

“Draka?” she said in the dim light. Her voice was steady, but there was an undercurrent of tension in it. “This is very cosy, and I do not want to get up either, but I think that it is about time.”

The possessiveness, the urge to just keep her there was so bad for a moment that I considered not charging the lightstone, in a lame attempt to keep her from finding her way out on her own, as though the light of the glow slime wasn’t enough for her enhanced eyes. It didn’t occur to me to use actual, physical force to prevent her from leaving – this was Herald, after all – but if she stayed on her own accord…

“Draka?” I couldn’t look at her, but when she spoke my name I heard just the barest tremor.

It was like being plunged into freezing water. What the hell are you thinking, woman? I asked myself, and grabbed the stone. With barely a thought I pushed some magic into it, illuminating the space for her. “It is,” I agreed, getting to my feet. “Do you need anything? Food, water? I have firewood stashed at the entrance, and the steel and flint. I could get a goat…”

I was stalling. I knew it, and I still kept going. The whole situation, being there with Herald, being in my home with a friend at all, was just too familiar. Too comfortable. It reminded me so much of what I used to have, something I hadn’t thought of for weeks, maybe months at that point, and leaving it behind even temporarily was, frankly, scary. What if this was the last time, I wondered. What if I never got to bring Herald there again, and that was the last time I could feel, in some little way, normal?

“No, that is alright.” There was a relief in her voice that I never wanted to be the cause of again. “I can hold out for a few hours, if you still want to show me this pit and the tunnels. But if you would rather go for another flight…”

She trailed off, and it was clear what her first choice was. Curious as she had been about the Pit, she was as hooked on flying as I was.

“We will go through the Pit,” I told her. “We have the whole day in front of us. Do you have anything warm to wear? I could take you over the mountains, if you are brave enough.”

She gasped in mock horror and swatted me playfully on the head. “Do not impugn my courage!” she commanded, and I cringed before her wrath.

“Alright, alright!” I said placatingly, and we began the short walk to the crack in the wall and the Pit.

Herald was not a climber. Not the way that Rib and Pot were, at least. She took one look over the edge of the Pit and simply refused to go.

“If you want me down there,” she declared, “You’re taking me.” And so I did. I leapt in there with her on my back, not daring to hesitate with her watching.

When she’d clambered off me she was grinning.

“Was this just a ruse to ride me?” I asked her indignantly, and her grin grew wider.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Although I really am bad at climbing rocks. And I remember you telling me how you ended up here. I would rather not see if it works the other way.”

“That is for the best. I do not think my people would handle a dragon showing up very well. Here is what I wanted to show you,” I said, illuminating one of the stones ringing the Pit so that she could see the patterns carved on it. “Do you have any thoughts about it?”

“This is definitely an enchantment!” she said excitedly and took the light from me, moving it this way and that around the carved stone. “I am not familiar with most of the patterns, although…” She traced one of the lines with a finger. “This links the stone to the next one, I think. Very common for large enchantments. I have mostly read about enchantments on items, but I have a book about famous enchanted buildings that has some diagrams. I should bring it here so I can compare!”

“Any time you want,” I told her. “And above the tunnel entrance?”

She went over and looked as closely as she could at the keystone of the arch. “Some kind of sealing, perhaps?” she said uncertainly. “Also linked to the other stones. I have seen it used to keep heat in or out, but… that is unlikely to be what this one does.”

“Not much difference in temperature throughout these caves and tunnels, no,” I said. “But if you ever want to return here to study the carvings, just tell me. Anything you can tell me about them could help me understand what happened here.”

“If I were actually an enchanter I would have some intuitive understanding just from looking at the patterns,” she said, her voice heavy with longing. “But that is decades off.” She reached up and ran the tips of her fingers over the patterns. “If ever.”

“You will get it. I am sure that you will. Now… it is a long walk down the tunnel.”

We walked most of the distance in silence. It was rare for our silences to be uncomfortable and the walk started out fine, but the mood shifted subtly as we went until Herald spoke up.

“About what happened back there…” she said, clearly no more eager to talk about this than I was.

“In the Pit?” I answered, knowing full well that wasn’t what she meant. And she knew that I knew, so she just ignored my weak attempted deflection.

“Before. Was there… was I in any danger?” She kept her voice very neutral, but I could smell just the slightest trickle of fear coming off her. It hurt, and I immediately got defensive.

“Do you really need to ask that?” I said, not looking at her. It was the guilt talking, but on some level I had just assumed that she trusted me implicitly, no matter what. Or that dragon-magic fuckery made it impossible for her to think ill of me.

Actually, the fact that she could even ask that question was a small relief.

“I do,” she said. The fear was still there, but she responded to my tone with firm confidence. “I need to hear you say it.’

“No,” I said. “You were never in any danger. My mind was struggling to find a way to convince you to stay, but I would not have prevented you from leaving. I could not. Not you. Never you.”

I stopped, sitting down and looking at her. “I want to be very clear, Herald. If I ever do anything to hurt you, if I even defend myself against you… if that happens, I am gone. I am not me anymore, and you need to get as far away from whatever I have become as possible.”

She searched my eyes for long seconds. “You really mean that.” It was a declaration of faith, delivered with complete certainty.

“I do.”

“You could not hurt me even if you wanted to. If you had to.”

“No.”

“Why? What makes me different from Mak, or anyone else?”

“You are… you.” It was a lame answer, but how else could I explain it? I was as bound to her as she was to me. There was a very large and undeniable imbalance of power, true, but I couldn't imagine abusing it, so did it really matter? When she deferred to me because she trusted and loved me? How could I properly explain just how important she had been to me these past months?

“From day one you chose to trust me,” I tried instead. “When the others saw me as a threat and an opportunity, you saw me as a potential friend. When they were gone and you feared for their safety, you came to me for help. When I approached you all I appealed to your greed, and you, Herald, instead responded with genuine interest and curiosity and kindness. I barely dared to hope for anything and expected nothing, and you gave me everything.”

Herald had listened silently, but when I paused for breath a sob tore out of her even as she grinned at least as wide as she’d had after our flight, and she threw herself forward to wrap her arms around me.

“Draka!” was all she managed.

“What kind of monster could feel anything but love for you, Herald?” I asked softly, and my own tears began to fall.